habits. They are liable, on the contrary, to another excess opposed to it. On this account, they cannot bear the smallest restraint, and sometimes despise that of law and reason. Their natural impetuosity is only equalled by the "mobilité" of their sensations: the warmth of the climate, and the facility of indulging their pleasures, accounts for that state of excitement. Yet Creoles living in the cold countries of North America do not differ from Europeans.

To the sensibility of the organs of Creoles, living in warm climates, there are no limits, and their heated imaginations acknowledge no restraints. Though courageous, their courage is but momentary. The mobility of their fibres, and the extreme irritability of their nerves, are the causes of the sort of delirium with which, unmindful of the future, they abandon themselves to sensuality. They display a great deal of penetration and vivacity; but their natural inconsistency renders them unfit for deep and scientific studies, as well as for the strict discipline so necessary in time of war. Their passions are violent; their love void of that exquisite delicacy which is its most attractive charm. They are ignorant of those refined degrees of sentiment, by which the lover passes from hope with its fears, to possession with its raptures.

Their other propensities are not the less excessive and impetuous. Among them we may mention the abuse of strong liquors, the excesses of the table, gaming, ambition, revenge, and jealousy, to all of which they are subject, and which produce their greatest misfortunes. Such is the impetuosity of their feelings, that moderation cannot be found in their affections.

This great violence in their nervous system, is undoubtedly owing to their constitution being always in a state of exasperation caused by the warmth of the climate. The organs of the senses among Europeans are imbibed with humors, blood, and covered with a spongy and swollen cellular tissue, hardening the nerves, and preventing them from being easily affected by the contact of external bo

dies. On the contrary, in the southern regions, the liquids are evaporated by the warmth of the weather, the bodies. lose their embonpoint, the cellular tissue flattens,the nerves are more exposed to the external impressions, and more easily affected. It is not, therefore, surprising, that we should see passions and sensations more violent, as the body is more bony, the nerves less enveloped and moistened by the liquids. This extreme sensibility is the cause of a great mobility, or rather a perpetual inconstancy; for it may be easily understood, that too excessive sensations becoming intolerable by their violence, it becomes a matter of necessity that they should often change.

The best proof of what has been said above, is that men are more bony in hot climates than in the cold regions. All Europeans, settling in the Indies, or other southern colonies, are, according to their constitution, more or less affected by an inflammatory disease, before they are climatized. In fact, in Europe, a natural equilibrium exists between the liquids and the solids of the body; but in warm countries, the liquids are rarified by the heat of the weather; the solids, on the contrary, becoming more compact, the equilibrium no longer exists; the humors cannot be contained in the body; a general effervescence takes place, as well as a turgescence, which is particularly developed by an abuse of stimulating and ardent drink; a habit common in those countries. Hence results a bilious plethora. Copious bleeding and a spare diet diminishes the quantity of humors, and re-establishes the equilibrium necessary to health in those climates. This is the first cause of the paleness, or that kind of livid and sallowish complexion common to all the Creoles. It is not the sun alone which renders their skin of a yellowish hue, since the parts of their body that are always covered, are never of that freshness, lustre, and rounded embonpoint remarked in the Europeans. The latter cannot be climatized, unless they lose that superabundance of the liquids, the cause of their plethoric and robust constitution.

In like manner, Creoles visiting Europe become weak, and sensible to cold, until their bodies have been accustomed to the temperature of the climate of that part of the world. When afterwards they return to their own country, to be healthy, they must lose that superabundance of the humors, contrary to the nature of a warm country.

In Creole females, this diminution of the blood and other liquids, may be deduced from their constitutional peculiarities, shewing but little fluid secretion, except when counteracted by some spasmodic affection. This accounts for their being weak, indolent and timid; but as their nervous system is more sensibly affected than that of the men, on account of the great weakness of their fibres, it follows that their passions are exceedingly impetuous. Jealousy they carry to madness. Being unfit for any kind of serious mental occupations, they indulge their immoderate propensity to sensual gratifications. Love, with all its illusions, is a condition, and even a necessity of their existence. If their excessive indolence and inactivity, is the cause of their tyranny and despotism, on the other hand, their moral sensibilities and virtues are sublime.

Females Creoles arrive at puberty sooner than Europeans, from the warmth of the climate giving an additional activity to their organs. This very sensibility causes them frequent and dangerous hemorrhagies of the uterus, especially when they indulge in excessive sensual gratification, or of spiced aliments and strong drink. They are also subject to miscarriages. and have but little milk. Hence, their infants are always nursed by negresses, who never swaddle them. Thus enjoying from their birth the free use of their limbs, they are never deformed. It is said that female Creoles breed very often, and frequently have ten or twelve children; but this seems to be an exaggeration, for the inhabitants of warm countries are very seldom, if ever, as prolific as those of cold regions. In France, the number of large families is greater at the north than at the south: besides, manners are corrupted in proportion

as the warmth of the climate assists the passions, and nothing opposes the reproduction of the human race more than corrupted manners. However, in warm climates, the abundance of food, the violence of love, and the fertility of the soil, contribute to a greater developement of the principles of life, than in the temperate regions.

Undoubtedly, the nature of the air and soil have an influence upon the diseases and health of the inhabitants. American Creoles are almost exempt from the diseases resulting from the plethora of liquids, as well as from apoplexy, pleurisy, catarrhal affections, gout and gravel; but are subject to the affections, arising from the activity of the fibres, and mobility of the nerves. They grow old sooner than the Europeans, but are less infirm. Exhausted and worn out by the excessive pleasures of their youth, they sink in the decline of life, into the torpor of a tranquil dotage.

MULATTOES.

The word Mulatto, Mulattus, is derived from Mulus; it applies to individuals of the human species produced from the white or European, and the black stock. Nothing is more common in colonies than such a mixture of the two species.

The legislator should interpose the authority of the law to repress in colonies those abuses, so much the more great, as they are the source of more disorders,* viz. the overthrowing of fortunes, the destruction of men rendered effeminate by an early debauchery; for negresses display no common proficiency in the arts of exciting the passions, and gaining an unlimited power over individuals of a different sex. Their African blood† carries them into the greatest excess.

Those adulterous connexions are the cause of so many illegitimate children left destitute of fortune and educa tion; they are a burden to colonies, as they do not possess

* Half-breed children multiply beyond any calculation at Bengal, and according to Lord Valentia, they will be the ruin of the English Colonies.

+Also from the word Africa derive Afer, Afre, fervor, fervidus. &c. which mean in several languages, ardor, passion, &c., the лvo, fyr, feu.

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