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utmost importance to the peace and welfare of the colony. Indeed the procrastination of this great work gave birth to discontent and suspicion on the part of these poor people, (as having been deceived in Nova Scotia on this very ground,) the effects of which have not been obliterated to this very day. By making so many masters, it gave birth again to a consequential mode of behaviour in some, which had no other tendency than to irritate the settlers, and to alienate their affections. Having been formerly slaves, and raised to the rank of free men, they were more than commonly jealous of every harsh or contemptuous look or expression. A supercilious or domineering deportment was therefore very mischievous to the well-being of the colony in the respect just mentioned, as it served to increase both their suspicion and their discontent. These were some of the difficulties arising out of the constitution, with which the Governor had to contend; and they were by far the more formidable, as they made their appearance at the very outset of the government. In process of time, however, when the constitution was altered, and he had a proper share of power in his own hands, he began to alter the face of things, though he was never able to repair the mischief which had been done. His progress was indeed slow, but it was gradual; and when he left the colony he had every reason to be thankful (considering all the drawbacks that had occurred from the foregoing and other causes) that things were then as they really were. At this time he mustered about 1025 black settlers, including the children which had been born. He had distributed forty lots of land, and seventy others were preparing, and expected soon to be ready. The people were then well clothed: the colony was in fine health; not one person was then dangerously ill, and there seemed to be no difficulties left to encounter. With respect to the moral character of the colony, it may be seen in the following extract from an account which was drawn up on that subject previously to the Governor's departure from it, and which was taken by him to England, and delivered to the Directors after his arrival there.

Mr. Dawes says, in his account, "The discontents, which at present prevail, are confined principally to a dozen, or perhaps a score of riotous ill-disposed persons, who are all known and pretty well guarded against."

Mr. Dubois says, "Good spirits and pleasantry are not wanting either among the officers or settlers. Nay, every one seems to wear the countenance of content; unless it be a few lazy, vicious people, and is it surprising that some of this description should have crept in among us? However, I am happy to say they

are few in number; and as I have made it my study to discrimínate the good from the bad, I can with truth say, there are not above twelve men in the place, whom I look upon as disorderly, dangerous people. There are a few doubtful characters. I now give you a list of the names of those of each sort."

The Governor confirmed the above statement, but made an addition in the following words: "The Nova Scotians," says he, "were many of them taken from the most abject and depressed state. They are, notwithstanding, not vicious; but coming suddenly from the borders of slavery to a free condition, some of them have found the change too much for them to bear."

"Of the trials that have taken place at Sierra Leone, almost all have been upon seamen. The great trial of any consequence on a black person was that of Cambridge for selling a slave; but he was not a Nova Scotian, but one of the old settlers in Granville Bay."

There have been but two punishments by whipping; one of these on a woman for adultery, the other on a man for drunkenness and afterwards fighting. Drunkennes was not known among them at first, but appeared afterwards: it decreased, however, and is certainly not a vice of the colony.

Swearing crept in among them soon after their arrival, but is 'much abated.

Little petty faults, such as abuse of tongue, striking one another, &c. have prevailed at times.

Upon the whole, they are a good set of people; it would be difficult to find better subjects for colonists; they are industrious and tractable. They have also some virtues among them; they are in general good husbands, fathers, and family men. There is among them a practice worthy of imitation, which ought not to be forgotten in this account; which is, that when death makes children orphans, their godfathers and godmothers take them into their houses and educate them as their own.

The settlers, in general, have prayers in their own houses, both night and morning. They are great singers of hymns, and are heard throughout the whole colony often till late in the evening.

There is

No work is on any account allowed on a Sunday. one church of the establishment, and four or five meeting-houses, of which Moses Wilkinson, David George, Brown, and Jordan (all black settlers) are the ministers. They repair to their respective places of worship in a neat and orderly manner. Leonard and his two daughters, who educate many children in the colony, are seen bringing with them to church a long train of well dressed

and healthy children. Service is performed at one place of worship or another almost every hour in the day, as in London; and there are parties in private houses, who meet to hold conversation on religious subjects, both on Sundays and other days.

There are schools also for the improvement of the settlers. Chilton, a young man of great industry and merit, educates as many of the children of the settlers as he can well manage. These he teaches in the church (Sundays excepted) to read and write. Some, however, of the grown up settlers, principally the mechanics, go to Chilton's school between their hours of work, viz. from eleven to two, with a view of making themselves capable of keeping their own accounts. While instruction is thus going on in the church, a black settler of the name of Leonard, and his two daughters, keep a school in their own house; from fifty to sixty young persons attend them; these are taught principally to read, and not to write.

Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de S. Domingue: Mémoire historique et politique, où l'on trouvera: Imo. Un Exposé impartial des Causes et un Précis historique des Guerres civiles qui ont rendu cette dernière Colonie indépendante: 2do. Des Considérations sur les Moyens de la rattacher à la Métropole, d'y ramener un Paix durable, d'en rétablir et accroître la Prospérité. Par le Colonel MALENFANT, Sousinspecteur aux Revues, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Propriétaire à S. Domingue, Ex-délégué du Gouvernement François à Surinam, A Paris, 1814.

De l'Intérêt de la France à l'égard de la Traite des Nègres. Par J. C. L. SIMONDE DE SISMONDI. A Londres, 1814.

Ir is a matter of great importance, at the present moment, to know in what manner the public mind is directed in France, upon a subject in which the friends of humanity feel so deep an interest as the African slave-trade. Whatever attempts, through the powerful medium of the press, are made to operate upon that mind, in regard to the business of the West India colonies, necessarily excites the most particular attention. It is a ground of no small satisfaction, in the first place, to find that the subject in France has excited discussion; and that it has called into the field such men as the authors of the two works before us.

Discussion will clear away prejudices; will lay open to view the private interests by which the removal of evil is so uniformly resisted; will create an interest in the fate of the human beings whose happiness and misery are at stake; in fact, will increase and disseminate knowledge, and give that knowledge its due and proper efficacy upon the minds of men ;-that efficacy which it seldom fails to possess when the artifices of interested and powerful men are not employed to disturb its beneficent operation.

The nature, too, of the productions which we her present to the notice of our readers; the object at which they aim, and the views with which that object is recommended and supported, are well calculated to increase the strength of our sanguine hopes. We cannot easily conceive any efforts better timed, any representation better calculated to operate a favourable impression upon the minds of the French government and the French people, than what we have had the pleasure to meet with in the works before us. All that, in regard to them, we have to wish for is, that they may be extensively circulated and diligently read. We mean extensively circulated and diligently read in France, of course, in the primary and peculiar sense; but we mean also extensively circulated and diligently read in our own country, both for the sake of its own information, and the information of France. There is much in both the performances which may be read with great profit in this country; for we have many prejudices as yet to clear away, many new ideas to acquire, much coldness at our hearts which needs to be warmed, and much both of legislative and practical business which yet remains to be performed. But we earnestly desire that the books may be extensively circulated and read in this country, on account of the influence which the reading in this country produces upon the reading in France. There is now an action and re-action between the intellects of the two countries-an action and reaction which are growing stronger and stronger every day. It is not a matter of indifference to the people in France, what are the mental pursuits of the people of England; but completely the reverse. They have the highest curiosity to know them, and ambition to imitate them; and those sentiments are the strongest in the classes who have received the best education, and the state of whose mind is the most highly improved. They know that, during the last twenty years, England has enjoyed advantages of which in the turbulent state of France she has been deprived. They are eager, therefore, to observe the modes of thinking in England, and well disposed to take lessons. Among the people of little instruction and great passion, this wholesome

tendency is resisted by the feelings of hostility towards each other, which the governments of the two countries have for twenty years been so industrious and so successful in planting in the bosoms of the French and English people. A temporary alienation from English ideas cannot be a source of wonder in men of that description. But every year, nay every month, will diminish something from that cause of evil. Hostile feelings will die away with the circumstances which gave them nourishment. The ideas which are reigning with powerful efficacy in England, will cross the channel with every visitant, whether English or

A large proportion of the ideas of each nation will become common to both. The mode of thinking in the one will have a powerful influence upon the mode of thinking in the other. And it will not be easy, even at this early moment, for a French book to become highly popular in England, without exciting a great degree of curiosity in France. We could for this reason wish that the works before us were so universally read in this country, that the people of France should hear them celebrated, if it were possible, by every Englishman who visits their country; and that every Frenchman who visits ours should hear their praises proclaimed, and their ideas repeated in every company into which he enters. We say not this as meaning to state that there is an excellence of any miraculous sort in either work. But they contain sound views for the guidance at once of the statesman, the planter, the merchant, and the philanthropist; and he must be a well instructed man in any of the four classes, who has nothing to learn from them. They are, moreover, admirably calculated to convey right impressions and feelings to the great mass of the people, in respect both to the black population whose happiness is most deeply involved, and in regard to the sort of interests affecting ourselves, mistaken notions of which have been the copious source of so many miseries and so many crimes.

That performance the title of which we have copied the last, is, in point of size, a pamphlet, consisting of little more than fifty octavo pages. In point of importance it is worth many volumes. Its author is one of the most celebrated writers at present in existence. It is to him the world is indebted for almost the only excellent work which has issued from the continental press during the iron reign of Bonaparte; a voluminous, elaborate, and philosophical history of the Italian republics of the middle ages. This itself we regard as a circumstance of no trivial importance. The celebrity of the author will call attention

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