TO THE EDITOR OF THE TOURIST.

his condition by asserting his right to enfran

The parishes of Jamaica are equal in extent to the average size of the Scotch counties. Almost the whole of the churches are placed on the coast, and consequently the greater number of the plantations are at too great a distance to admit of attendance at church, even if the overseers encouraged an observance of the Sabbath; and how [could one or two churches accommodate from 16,000 to 20,000 people, the average population of each parish?so that the Christian ordinances are altogether unknown to the plantation slave. The planters make a great noise about the money which may be made by the negro by attending market on Sundays; but in crop-season he is not unfrequently employed in the boiling-house on the Sabbath, and, from what I have said, it is evident the market towns are at too great a distance for the majority of them to attend for any purpose, either spiritual or temporal. Nor is the slave recognized by law as the possessor of any property, nor has he any protection against the rapacity of his master.

Negroes which belong to whites and people of colour residing in the towns, are usually hired out in gangs to work on the plantations for wages. Their owners only allow them a trifle from these wages for their support, and retain the remainder for their own use. Many of these slaves are instructed in the mechanical arts, that their wages may produce a greater surplus, to which, by law, the master is entitled. People who thus hire out their negroes are denominated jobbers; they are generally tradesmen, who, having acquired money sufficient to purchase a few slaves, retire from business, and live on the hard-earned savings of these poor creatures.

against the prisoner, and the chief justice sentenced him to six months' imprisonment, with-chisement. SIR,-Having resided in Jamaica during the out bail or mainprise, and the slave was deyears 1818 and 1819, I beg to offer the follow-clared "free, and discharged from all manner ing remarks by way of postscript to Mr. C. of servitude." By this mode of stating the Johnston's "Disjoined Facts," relative to that case to the public, it would appear that markisland, in your fourth monthly number. There ing the initials of the names of the owner and are two classes of slaves in Jamaica-one be- estate on the skin of the negro was the more longing to the proprietors of plantations, and flagrant portion of the charge against the prithe other belonging to whites and free people soner. But let me inform them that marking, of colour residing in the towns. The planta- or, to speak more literally, branding the bodies tion slaves receive about seven salt herrings of the poor negroes, was an universal practice weekly from their masters. The grounds al- when I was in Jamaica. I now hold in my lotted them for the cultivation of vegetables hand the supplement to the Cornwall Gazette only supply a variety of indigestible roots, and of Jamaica for October 14th, of the year in the plantain fruit, which is usually roasted in which the above trial occurred. In this supan unripe state, not being a fit article of diet plement one hundred and fifty-four runaway when at maturity. Unless in. crop season, slaves are advertised as prisoners in various that is, during the manufacture of the sugar, workhouses, and almost every one of them has when the slaves have an opportunity of pro- been branded or burned with a hot metal curing syrup from the boiling-house, they are stamp on various parts of their bodies, &c. very generally afflicted with a cachexy, re- The first individual on the list is described as sulting from a want of sufficient nourishment, Frances, a Creole (i. e., colonial born) female, over exertion, oppressive treatment, and other who has been branded on both shoulders and debilitating causes. The juices of the stomach both breasts. These, prisoners who have all become vitiated, its functions impaired, and a fled from their tyrannical task-masters, if not morbid acidity is generated, which induces the claimed within a certain period, are sold to victim of this malady to eat chalk, earth, or defray expenses; and upwards of twenty are any absorbent substance, which nature may advertised accordingly in the above mentioned suggest as a remedy for his sufferings. The list, one of which number declares that a white disease, in the common language of the colony, man has deprived her of her ticket of freedom. is called "dirt-eating." Each plantation has The remaining column of the supplement is its hospital or hot-house, and against the wall occupied with a list of strayed horses and of one of the apartments is erected a bench, at cattle, also branded in like manner. In this an elevation of three or four feet from the cold respect, then, the temporal position of the clay floor; and projecting, perhaps, about six slave is nothing better than that of the beasts feet along the outer edge of this bench, is that perish. Nay, it is even worse; a mule fixed an iron bar, to which the poor cachectics or horse is not killed for kicking his master; are secured by iron anklets, their bloated bo- but if a slave raise his hand against any white dies reclining on the bare boards. This the man his punishment by law is death. I have planter pretends is done with the humane in- already stated that floggings are limited to The overseers are a class of men drawn from tention of preventing them from gratifying their thirty-nine stripes, but there is no security the lower and uneducated orders of their cravings. Many slaves die annually from this against the too frequent repetition of the chas- native country. Their society cannot afford disease, and many become victims of despond- tisement. The opinion of the medical attend-pleasure or comfort to individuals of a higher ency while under its influence, and put a ant of the estate is never consulted on the grade; they are too prone to cultivate depraved period to their miseries by suicide. subject, nor is any competent judge required and convivial association for the gratification to attend the infliction of punishment. We of their intemperate habits. These inebriates are told by the planters that the use of chains indulge in bacchanal potations of the coarsest has been abolished throughout the colonies; description-equal parts of lime juice and but have they not substituted the stocks ?— rum, &c. &c.—and one and all of them keep and would not the punishment be less severe a number of their female slaves about their if the prisoner could move about to the extent houses in a state of concubinage. Men accusof a chain, than when his legs are secured to tomed to encourage this corruption of their an immoveable bar of iron, or beam of timber, natures cannot be expected to cultivate hudenominated the stocks? They also tell us mane feelings towards their unfortunate bondthat the negro is by law allowed twenty-six servants. They are dead to all sense of virtue, days of the year to cultivate his provision and, "under the dominion of Satan and their grounds, exclusive of the Sabbath. I have lusts," running riot in their pride, prejudices, already noticed that the negro depends on the and passions. A few exceptions may certainly supplies of his master, as well as his own ex- be made; but through the whole of them there ertion, for his sustenance. If the proprietor is is a great family likeness. too avaricious to be willing, or too poor to be able, to import a sufficient supply of salt herrings to eke out the scanty produce of the slave-garden, what must be the situation of the hard-working negro, more especially if sickness has disabled him from cultivating his ground? Are the slaves educated, or provided with the means of attending to religious duties? A plantation slave neither receives school A CURIOUS catalogue might be made of the learning nor religious instruction; he is not shifts to which ingenious students in different taught a sense of good and evil, the necessity departments of art have resorted, when, like of obedience and gratitude to God, or the hope Davy, they have wanted the proper instruof eternal life. Some schools have been estab- ments for carrying on their inquiries or expelished by subscription for the education of free riments. His is not the first case in which people of colour, but the slave is wilfully kept the stores of an apothecary's shop are recorded in a state of total ignorance. The planters are to have fed the enthusiasm, and materially aware that knowledge would lead him to ap-assisted the labours, of the young cultivator of preciate liberty, to a due sense of his abject natural science. The German chemist, Scheele, and debased state, and a desire to ameliorate who has just been mentioned, and whose name

The master's power of inflicting punishment on the slave is now limited, by law, to thirty-nine stripes; but there is no protection against an inconsiderate repetition of the punishment either by him or his tyrannical subordinates. The slave who dares to complain to the attorney, on facts, of the cruelty of the overseer or manager of the estate, does it at the risk of an additional flogging; and how can the complaint reach the ear of an impartial magistrate through this channel, as they are all interested in supporting the diabolical system of oppression? The slave has never been acknowledged as a party in any civil suit or prosecution. It is only by indictment on the part of the crown that he is relieved from his civil incapacities. I never knew of redress for cruelty to a slave, unless in one instance, which occurred in January, 1818. Joseph Boyden was tried under the slave act for cruelly, maliciously, and wantonly maltreating, by flogging and marking in different parts of the body, a Sambo slave, named Amey, his property, jointly with others. The Jamaica Royal Gazette stated that Amey had committed some transgression, which induced her to apply to a neighbour to intercede with her master for forgiveness, which he agreed to grant, but she was afterwards marked in five places with the initials of his name, and that of the property he owned. In consequence of conduct so contrary to every principle of humanity, she left her home, &c. The jury, after due deliberation, returned a verdict of guilty

"Facies non omnibus una Nec diversa tainen." P. ROLLAND.

NECESSITY AND INVENTION.

MARSHAL BASSOMPIERRE AND
KING CHARLES 1.

hind him. I found the King on a stage raised two steps, the Queen and he in two chairs, who rose at the first bow I made them on coming in. The company was magnificent, and the order exquisite.

*

*

*

*

Thursday, the 15th, on which the Earl of Bridgewater came with the King's coaches to showed me into a gallery, where the King was fetch me to Hampton Court; then the Duke

ranks in his own department with the greatest of his time, was, as well as Davy, apprenticed in early life to an apothecary. While living in his master's house he used secretly to prosecute the study of his favourite science by employing often half the night in reading the works that treated of it, or making experiments with instruments fabricated, as Davy's were, by himself, and out of equally simple materials. Like the young British philosopher, too, Scheele is recorded to have sometimes alarmed the whole household by his detonations—an incident which always brought down upon him the severe anger of his master, and heavy menaces, intended to deter him from ever again applying himself to such dangerous studies, which, however, he did not long regard. It was at an apothecary's house, as has been noticed in a former page, that Boyle and his Oxford friends first held their scientific which obliged him (the King) to this, and he ran up suddenly and threw himself between

I

I

waiting for me, who gave me a long audience, and well disputed. He put himself into a great passion, and I, without losing my respect to him, replied to him in such wise that at last, yielding him something, he conceded a great deal to me. I witnessed there an instance of great boldness, not to say impudence, of the Duke of Buckingham, which

SUNDAY, the 11th of October, 1626.-The Earl of Carlisle came with the King's coaches to fetch me to Hampton Court, into a room where there was a handsome collation. The Duke of Buckingham came to introduce me to the audience, and told me that the King desired to know beforehand what I purposed saying to him, and that he (the King) would not have me speak to him about any business; that otherwise he would not give me audience. said to him that the King should know what had to say to him from my own mouth, and that it was not the custom to limit an Ambassador in what he had to represent to the Sovereign to whom he was sent, and that if he did not wish to see me I was ready to go back again. He swore to me that the only reason by the opportunity they would thus have of could not help putting himself into a passion meetings, induced, as we are expressly told, which made him insist upon it, was, that he obtaining drugs wherewith to make their ex-in treating the matters about which I had to periments. Newton lodged with an apothe-speak to him, which would not be decent in cary, while at school, in the town of Grant- the chair of state, in sight of the chief perham; and as, even at that early age, he is known to have been ardently devoted to sci- that the Queen, his wife, was close to him, sons of the kingdom, both men and womenentific contrivances and experiments, and to have been in the habit of converting all sorts who, incensed at the dismissal of her servants, he asked me why I would not put on my hat might commit some extravagance, and cry in of articles into auxiliaries in his favourite pur- sight of every body. In short, that he would while he was by, and that I did so, so freely,

suits, it is not probable that the various strange preparations which filled the shelves and boxes of his landlord's shop would escape his curious examination. Although Newton's glory chiefly depends upon his discoveries in abstract and mechanical science, some of his speculations, and especially some of his writings on the subjects of light and colour, show that the internal constitution of matter, and its chemical properties, had also much occupied his thoughts. Thus, too, in other departments, genius has found its sufficient materials and instruments in the humblest and most common articles, and the simplest contrivances. Fergusson observed the places of the stars by means of a thread with a few beads strung on it, and Tycho Brahe did the same thing with a pair of compasses. The self-taught American philosopher, Rittenhouse, being, when a young man, employed as an agricultural labourer, used to draw geometrical diagrams on his plough, and study them as he turned up the furrow. Pascal, when a mere boy, made himself master of many of the elementary propositions of geometry, without the assistance of any master, by tracing the figures on the floor of his room with a bit of coal. This, or a

stick burned at the end, has often been the young painter's first pencil, while the smoothest and whitest wall he could find supplied the place of a canvas. Such, for example, were the commencing essays of the early Tuscan artist, Andrea del Castagno, who employed his leisure in this manner when he was a little boy tending cattle, till his performances at last attracted the notice of one of the Medici family, who placed him under a proper master. The famous Salvator Rosa first displayed his genius for design in the same manner. To these instances may be added that of the late English musical composer, Mr. John Davy, who is said, when only six years old, to have begun the study and practice of his art by imitating the chimes of a neighbouring church with eight horse-shoes, which he suspended by strings from the ceiling of a room in such a manner as to form an octave.-The Pursuit of Knowledge.

was, that when he saw us the most warmed

took off my hat, and as long as he stood with the King and me, saying, "I am come to keep the peace between you two." Upon which I ing all the entreaties of the King and of himus I would not put it on again, notwithstandself to do so; but when he went I put it on done, and that the Duke could speak to me, without the King's desiring me. When I had

when he was gone. I answered that I had done it to do him honour, because he was not covered, and that I should have been, which I could not suffer, for which he was much

pleased with me, and often mentioned it in doing so, which was, that it was no longer an my praise. But I had also another reason for audience, but a private conversation, since he had interrupted us, by coming in, as a third,

pr After my last audience was over, the King brought me through several galleries to the Queen's apartments, where he left me, and I her, after a long conversation; and I was brought back to London by the same Earl of Bridgewater.

In the Ambassades we find some details of "I was treated," says this stormy interview. advice Bassompierre," with great rudeness, and found in the King very little desire to oblige my master."

away,

not commit himself in public, and that he was
sooner resolved to break up this audience, and
grant me one in private, than to treat with me
concerning any business before every body.
He (the Duke) swore vehemently to me that
he told me the truth, and that he had not
been enabled to induce the King to see me
otherwise, begging of me even to suggest some
expedient, and that I would oblige him. I
(who saw that I was going to receive this
affront, and that he asked me to assist him
with my advice, and to avoid the one, and to
insinuate myself more and more into his good
graces by the other) told him that I could not,
in any manner whatsoever, do any thing but
what was prescribed to me by my master; but
that, since, as my friend, he asked my
as to some expedient, I told him that it de-
pended upon the King to give or to take
to shorten or to lengthen the audience in what
manner he would, and that he might (after
having allowed me to make him my bow, and
received, with the King's letters, my first com-
pliments, when I should come to open to him
the occasion of my coming) interrupt me, and
"I am not a herald to declare war, but a mar-
shall of France, to make it when declared."-
say, "Sir, you are come from London, and
you have to return thither; it is late; this Marshall Bassompierre's Embassy to the Court
matter requires a longer time than I could of England in 1626. Translated by J. Croker.
now give you. I shall send for you one of
these days at an earlier hour, and we will
confer about it at our leisure in a private au-
dience. In the meanwhile, I shall satisfy
myself with having seen you, and heard of
the King, my brother-in-law, and the Queen,
my mother-in-law; and I will not delay the
impatience which the Queen, my wife, has to
hear of them also from you." Upon which I
shall take my leave of him, to go make my

bow to the Queen.

The King got at last so warm as to exclaim to the Ambassador, Why do you not execute your commission at once, and declare war?" Bassompierre's answer was firm and dignified:

EARLY REMINISCENCES.
LET fond remembrance oft restore
Each long-lost friend endear'd of yore,
And picture o'er the scenes where first
My life and loveliest hopes were nurs'd;
The heaths which once my fathers trod,
Amidst the wild to worship God;
The tales which fired my boyish eye
With patriot feelings, proud and high;
The sacred Sabbath's mild repose;
The social evening's saintly close,
When ancient Zion's solemn song
Arose the lonely banks among;
The music of the mountain rills,
The moonlight sleeping on the hills,
The STARRY SCRIPTURES of the sky,
By God's own finger graved on high
On Heaven's expanded scroll-whose speech
To every tribe doth knowledge teach-
When silent night unlocks the seals,
And to forgetful man reveals
The wonders of eternal might
In living lines of glorious light!

Pringle's Ephemerides.

of this, some still more animating thought is thrown out, such as, "We'll take our pay, go home, and buy a fine cloth." Thus they run on, six only bearing the palankeen at a time. At a signal given from some one whose shoulder is weary of its burden, they stop, and in a moment pass the pole to the other shoulder. When one set becomes weary, they are relieved by the other, who run by their side. Having run one and a half or two hours, they rest a few moments, and spend this time in adjusting their clothes, girding up their loins, eating tobacco, &c.; or, if much fatigued, by lying down. The torch-bearer runs by the side of the palankeen, and, when his torch becomes dim, he pours in oil from the vessel which he carries in the other hand. On arriving at the bungalow or rest house, perhaps fifteen miles from the place of setting out, the bearers lie down and sleep till they are roused at three or four in the morning; at seven or eight they arrive at the second bungalow. The resthouses on the road which I travelled, are very neat and commodious stone buildings, erected by government for the accommodation of travellers.

INDIAN MODE OF TRAVELLING.

THE palankeen is the general mode of conveyance in India; but few English readers have a very clear idea of its form, or of the manner in which it is used. We, therefore, give a representation of one of these vehicles, and a lively description of palankeen travelling, from the pen of Mr. Woodward, an American Missionary residing in Ceylon, who lately visited the peninsula.

A palankeen is quite unlike any thing which I ever saw in America. The top or body of a small neat stage coach is, perhaps, the nearest in resemblance. Instead of the oval form, it is a parallelogram, six feet long, and two and a half wide, with the top a little raised in the centre, so as to shed the rain. Instead of the swinging doors of the coach, there are, on either side, two small sliding doors. Like the coach, it has either venetians or two small windows in each end. From the centre of each end of the palankeen run out poles threeand-a-half feet long, which are supported by iron rods from each corner, meeting on the pole, six or eight inches from the body. Though a palankeen be thus large, it is generally made of light materials, so that, when empty, it may easily be raised by four men to the shoulders.

Early after noon, on the day appointed for commencing the journey, half a dozen or more coolies (baggage-bearers) call for their burdens. Each man has a cloth, answering for a pack, swinging over his shoulders, in which are his luncheon, knife, tobacco, &c. On his head is a small parcel of straw, in a circular form, adapted to his head, on which he carries his load. Each man, also, has a staff, for his support in rugged paths, or when fording rivers; to the head of this staff are attached a number of flat pieces of steel, which, by their jingling, frighten away serpents, and even wild beasts, at night. The burden for one cooly is generally about sixty pounds, and this he carries thirty miles a day. Being ac

customed to the business, they travel many
miles without stopping, and without even sup-
porting the burden with the hand; and their
daily wages are about 40 cents.*

A few hours after the baggage leaves, ano-
ther set of men, thirteen in number, present
themselves before the door; these are the
palankeen and torch-bearers. Their dress con-
sists of a large white cloth bound round the
head for a turban; and instead of the single
cloth round their waists, as is common to all
low castes, they wear a long white frock, so
that their bodies are completely covered. This
dress gives them a much better appearance
than many of the higher caste; and was pro-
bably adopted that their personal appearance
might be more acceptable to English gentle-
men and ladies. The torch-bearer has a long
roll of old cloths, closely bound together in a
cylindrical form, four feet long, and four or
five inches in diameter: this is a lamp. In
his other hand is a leather or brass vessel, con-
taining two quarts of oil (see Matt. xxv. 4).
Having girded up their loins, they place the
palankeen before the door. When the traveller
is seated, the three men at each pole raise their
clasped hands to their faces, in the attitude of
prayer; and then, bowing a little with their
faces towards the palankeen, they invoke the
protection and blessing of their gods. How
much instruction and reproof from the example
of the heathen!

While moving on at a slow gait, the first few minutes are occupied in getting the step," by which they move on with more ease to themselves and the person whom they carry; commencing, at the same time, their song, "Ha Hum, Ha Hum," by which the step is regulated. The monotony of this song is sometimes broken by some one more merry than the rest; who, with the apparent design of driving away melancholy or of pleasing their employer, raises his voice and sings, Good gentleman good pay will give." When tired

In English money, one shilling and nine pence.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE
OF THE CLASSICS.

No. I.

[In an age in which the higher branches of literature are made the subject of popular study, and in which they have, consequently, much increased the sphere of their influence, we think it advisable to bring before general notice some suggestions as

to their moral tendency; and for this purpose we shall introduce a series of articles upon this subject from the pen of John Foster.]

MYTHOLOGY.

I FEAR it is incontrovertible, that what 'is

denominated polite literature, the grand school in which taste acquires its laws and refined perceptions, and in which are formed, much more than under any higher austerer discipline, the moral sentiments, is, for the far greater part, hostile to the religion of Christ; partly, by introducing insensibly a certain order of opinions unconsonant, or at least not identical, with the principles of that religion; and still more, by training the feelings to a habit alien from its spirit. And in this assertion I do not refer to writers palpably irreligious, who have laboured and intended to seduce the passions into vice, or the judgment into the rejection of divine truth; but to the general community of those elegant and ingenious authors who are read and admired by the Christian world, held essential to a liberal education, and to the progressive accomplishment of the mind in subsequent life, and studied often without an apprehension, or even a thought, of their injuring the views and temper of spirits advancing, with the New Testament for their chief instructor and guide, into another world.

It is modern literature that I have more particularly in view; at the same time, it is obvious that the writings of heathen antiquity have continued to operate till now, in the very presence and sight of Christianity, with their own proper influence, a correctly heathenish influence, on the minds of many who have never thought of denying or doubting the truth of that religion. This is just as if an eloquent pagan priest had been allowed constantly to accompany our Lord in his ministry, and had divided with him the attention and

delight,

They would gaze on their babes with affection
and pride,

That thought would embitter, and wither, and
blight
Those pleasures to nature and feeling allied.

gay,

And thus when before them my Manitan played, And I joined in his gambols all thoughtlessly clouded those moments of pleasure, they said, To think that their children were captives as they.

It

But for me, gay and heedless of sorrows to come,
While with Manitan blessed, scarce for freedom

I sighed ;

interest of his disciples, counteracting, of on the greatest part of the theological dogmas | But still they were captives; and when, with course, as far as his efforts were successful, and fancies of even the very philosophers who the doctrine and spirit of the Teacher from would cite and applaud them. They rather heaven. direct our contemplation and affection toward a It is, however, no part of my object to re-religion divinely revealed, than obtain any demark on the influence, in modern times, of gree of favour for those notions of the Divinity the fabulous religion that infested the ancient which sprung and indefinitely multiplied from works of genius. That influence is, at the a melancholy combination of ignorance and present time, I should think, extremely small, depraved imagination. As to the apparent from the fables being so stale; all readers are analogy between certain particulars in the sufficiently tired of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, pagan religions, and some of the most specific and the rest. As long, however, as they could articles of Christianity, those notions are prebe of the smallest service, they were piously sented in such fantastic, and varying, and retained by the Christian poets of this and often monstrous, shapes, that they can be of other countries, who are now under the neces- no prejudice to the Christian faith, either by sity of seeking out for some other mythology, pre-occupying in our minds the place of the the northern or the eastern, to support the Christian doctrines, or by indisposing us to languishing spirit of poetry. Even the ugly admit them, or by perverting our conception pieces of wood, worshipped in the South Sea of them. Islands, will probably at last receive names that may more commodiously hitch into verse, and be invoked to adorn and sanctify the belles lettres of the next century. The Mexican abominations and infernalities have already received from us their epic tribute. The poet has no reason to fear that the supply of gods may fail; it is at the same time a pity, one thinks, that a creature so immense should have been placed in a world so small as this, where all nature, all history, all morals, all true religion, and the whole resources of innocent fiction, are too little to furnish materials enough for the wants and labours of his genius.

As to the ancient metaphysical speculation, whatever may be the tendency of metaphysical study in general, or of the particular systems of modern philosophers, as affecting the cordial and simple admission of Christian doctrines, the ancient metaphysics may certainly be pronounced inoperative and harmless.

THE NEGRO GIRL.

THOUGH my skin may be sable and coarse,
my hair

and

Want the grace of those ringlets that wave on
thy brow,

Yet think not my Manitan deems me less fair,
Or less lovely, bright maiden of Albion, than
thou.

and dim

Is their lustre, and shone with affection as true,

When their dark-beaming glances were shed upon

him,

As e'er shone in those eyes, though so melting
and blue.

And though nurtured in bondage, to slavery born,
The bursts of affection will not be restrained :
The hands and the feet may with fetters be worn,
But the feelings of nature can never be chained.

The few observations which the subject may require to be made on ancient literature, will be directed to the part of it most immediately descriptive of what may be called human reality, representing character, sentiment, and These eyes once were bright, though now faded action. For it will be allowed that the purely speculative part of that literature has, in a great measure, ceased to interfere with the intellectual discipline of modern times. It obtains too little attention, and too little deference, to contribute materially to the formation of the mental habits which are adverse to the Christian doctrines and spirit. Divers learned and fanatical devotees to antiquity and paganism have, indeed, made some effort to recall the long departed veneration for the dreams and subtleties of ancient philosophy. But they might, with as good a prospect of success, recommend the building of temples or a pantheon, and the revival of the institutions of idolatrous worship. The greater number of intelligent, and even learned men, would feel but little regret in consigning the largest proportion of that philosophy to oblivion; unless they may be supposed to like it as heathenism more than they admire it as wisdom; or unless their pride would wish to retain a reminiscence of it for contrast to their own more rational philosophizing.

The ancient speculations of the religious order include, indeed, some splendid ideas relating to a Supreme Being; but these ideas impart no attraction to that immensity of inane and fantastic follies, from the chaos of which they stand out, as of nobler essence and origin. For the most part, they probably were traditionary remains of divine communications to man in the earliest ages. A few of them were, possibly, the utmost efforts of human intellect, at some happy moments excelling itself. But, in whatever proportions they be referred to the one origin or the other, they stand so distinguished from the accumulated multifarious vanities of pagan speculation on the subject of Deity, that they throw contempt on those speculations. They throw contempt

In a glen of South Afric our fathers were born,
Together they roamed over mountains and
The same fate pursued them, for one fatal morn
plains ;

Saw them dragged to the slave-ship and loaded
with chains!

The horrors they witnessed, the sufferings they
bore,

Would harrow the soul if the half were but
told ;-

;

Let it pass they were borne to this pitiless
shore,

And, exposed to the mart, to one master were
sold.

Together we toiled, and at evening would roam Through the glens and savannahs with love for our guide.

But plead for the captive-sweet lady, oh, plead!
When thy footsteps again shall press England's

blest shore,

That the slave from captivity soon may be freed
And Britons may license oppression no more!

"They did constantly, at least whenever it was thought necessary.

"Will you describe the manner in which such floggings were inflicted?

"On the estates under my care I never allowed them to be flogged, so that I never saw one there. I never happened to be admitted to see it on any one. I have seen it in the St. Andrew's workhouse. I saw four or five women flogged; they were of all ages; one of sixteen, another of twenty-two, another of thirty-five, and an old woman of sixty, a grey-headed woman; that was the only female punishment I ever witnessed, and I never wish to witness it again. They were very dreadful. They were made fast by means of a block and tackle they had in the workhouse, which not only confined them, but stretched them-they were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails. I do not mean to say that the stretching was done to add to the torture, but it was unavoidable. I spoke to two negroes who were punished in that workhouse, and they told me it was the severest part of the punishments; their expression was, that they were

stretched till their backs cracked.

"Are children liable to be flogged

"All slaves are liable to be flogged-the lawing provides no limitation as to age or sex.

"Have any other such instances come within your knowledge, and in which no redress has been

"I have met with many instances of very cruel treatment, but on examining into them there was no law to meet them, and therefore it was impossible to do any thing. There was another case of a girl of nineteen; the only redress her friends had was to get her manumitted; an individual applied for her manumission; her owner, a cruel did not wish to get into altercation with this person, and she consented to sell her, and she is now free. She was severely flogged in the St. Andrew's workhouse, worked in the chain, and flogged after. There was no redress for it; I could only tell them that the mistress had a legal right to do so.

"That number is sufficient to be very severe ?
"It is. I can only state, that I have known
eighteen lashes cause a degree of suffering that
was dreadful, and called for notice; but the law
having allowed thirty-nine lashes, the parties who
sought redress were completely baffled. The case
was one of a young girl of eighteen who received
eighteen lashes; it was one on which every man
felt deeply, and the chief magistrate of the parish
took it up very warmly, the official people of the
parish took it up very warmly, but the overseer
set them all at defiance by simply pointing to the

"Have any other instances come within your own knowledge of harsh treatment and cruelty?

"Yes; if I referred to my notes, I could speak to some. There was one came under my notice just when I was coming away, the very last that came within my own knowledge. I remember a poor creature came to me to complain, thinking I could do something for him. He stated himself to have been most barbarously flogged; and on his being stripped, which I caused him to be, his body did present a most dreadful aspect. He was suffering at the time from disease; he was weak in body; he was perfectly unfit to be punished, however flagitious his conduct might have been. I told him what the law was; that he might go before the magistrate and exhibit his person, which of itself was abundant evidence, and call for a Council of Protection; but the man said there was no use in doing that; that it would end in his getting another lashing, and that he would rather pass unless I would go with him, which I let could not, for I was about to embark for England. Have you any means of knowing whether this poor creature obtained redress?

I am sure he got none, for he determined to go home. I should doubt whether he was alive, for he seemed in bad health; I think he must have died some months after.-(Vide pp. 570, 571.)

"Does not it often happen that a female slave