poets, and historians; whose hapless fate has caused such lively sensations in the tender minds of Europe's philanthropic sons? No apology, it is presumed, will be thought necessary for this minute and authentic account of the celebrated Belle Sauvage, whose wrongs have been amplified and recorded by the ablest pens; and whose imaginary sorrows have drawn the tear of sympathy from the brighest eyes." P. 45.

The principal agricultural information which we find in this volume, is contained in a note, recommending attention to the situation and preservation of the peasantry of the island. It is dictated by good sense, and breathes a genuine philanthropy.

"Every man, even of common observation, must be convinced that the decline of the Barbadoes militia is owing to the disastrous emigration of the lower classes of people. This growing evil requires some legislative remedy. In a country possessed of a population so extensive as this is, and circumscribed within such narrow boundaries, every possible encouragement should be held out to the poor and laborious, to exert their industry and ingenuity in such useful employments as are suited to their humble condition. These men are not only the real effective strength of their country; they would add to its opulence were they placed in a situation to earn a subsistence for their families. But, unfortunately, a different policy prevails among us. Few plantations have a sufficient number of labourers to cultivate their fields, yet many slaves are employed as tradesmen, who would be equally as profitably engaged in agricultural occupations, while the industrious. mechanic is destitute of employment. No wonder that, under such discouragements, he is compelled to forego his fond attachment to his native soil, and emigrate to the neighbouring colonies, where his skill and diligence are better rewarded. Thus the physical strength of the country is daily diminished; and the common stock deprived of a due proportion of labour and industry. The decay of population,' according to an eminent political phi❤ losopher, is the greatest evil that a state can suffer; and the improvement of it, the object which ought, in all countries, to be aimed at in preference to every other political purpose whatever.' "To check this alarming decrease of population two things are obviously necessary; first to provide homes for the poor, and employment for the industrious. Among the ancient Romans we find frequent mention of Agrarian laws for the relief of the poor. That wise and politic people thought that it signified but little, if, while the senate and patricians lived in affluence, the veteran soldier pined in want and obscurity. It is not intended to interrupt our modern patricians in the quiet possession of their estates, by recommending this example to their imitation; but it must be allowed, that there are very few plantations which cannot, without injury to the owner, spare a few acres of indifferent land at their extremities for the accommodation of the tenantry. This unfortunate, but useful class of people, ought to be assisted;

they deserve encouragement. On the scanty glebes which may be assigned to them, they would find rest when their labours were done, and shelter from the pitiless pelting of the storm. Here they would toil, and, enjoying the fruits of their industry, become useful members of the community. Sweet, to the mind of the most humble, is the little native cot, under whose lowly roof peace and security dwell. Another important object is, to find employment for the industrious. To effect this grand desideratum, one thing only is necessary, to confine our slaves, by an act of the legislature, to the labours of the field. This will furnish the inferior orders of people with an opportunity of gaining an honest livelihood in the various mechanical professions which luxury and necessity have introduced for the convenience or ornament of society. Were this done, Barbadoes would furnish employ and subsistence for her numerous sons at home; the security of the country would be strengthened by the aggregation of faithful loyal subjects; the community would enjoy the advantages of a general circulation of the wages of industry; and our planters would no longer require fresh importations of Africans for the cultivation of the land. Perfectly aware of the objections to the execution of this plan, I can only lament the invincible obstacles which deep-rooted prejudices and mistaken avarice have raised to oppose its accomplishment; for I feel the strongest conviction that the day is not far distant, when the proposed regulations, had they been early adopted, would have proved [i. e. if adopted would prove] the salvation of the country." P. 60.

"To provide a remedy suitable to the magnitude of this evil, the best policy which could be adopted in a country where slavery prevails, is to hold out every possible encouragement to that hardy and useful, though humble, class of people, known by the colonial appe ilation of the tenantry. The only legitimate aim of human politics is the extension of human felicity; and this cannot be effected except by the encrease of numbers, provided with the comfortable means of subsistence. To acquire and maintain an extent of population essential to the security and prosperity of the country, the rich, whose individual interest is inseparably connected with the public welfare, should be made to yield, in some points, to the support and accommodation of the poor. The proprietors of plantations may be compelled, by the militia law, instead of billetted men, to furnish tenants, in proportion to their quantity of land, who should be legally confirmed in the unmolested enjoyment of their little tenements*. It was the wish of

"The present militia law has made some provisions for tenants; but it seems to have been ineffectual. They are either eluded with facility, or violated with impunity. On some plantations, without regard to justice, policy, or humanity, the tenants have been wantonly and cruelly driven from their homes, and sham leases given to the white servants for the vacant tenements. In others, the poor tenant, besides his personal services, is compelled to provide himself with uniform, arms, and ammunition, at

Henry IV. of France, surnamed the Father of his People, that he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every peasant in his kingdom. Let it be the aim of every Barbadian, emulous of the same glorious appellation, to erect a cottage over the head of every peasant in Barbadoes, and gratitude will invigorate the arm under which the lordly possessor will find his best security in the hour of danger. The trifling property thus bestowed on the humble husbandman, the lowly roof endeared to him by the society of a wife and children, the partners of his toils and the solace of his days, would bind him, by the most invincible ties, to his native soil; and impel him, when led on by his generous landlord, to risque his life with ardour, in defence of a country to which le is attached by the most indissoluble connexions." P. 129.

To this plan we know only one objection: if the peasantry are virtuous, it should be adopted; but if vicious and intemperate, it would be ruinous. The necessity of this distinction is sufficiently obvious, without our referring to any illustrative facts. We fear, however, that the public stock of virtue is not very great in Barbadoes, especially as we find that there are numerous tribunals, or courts of justice, "regulated by laws" which are "in many instances partial, absurd, unjust, and oppressive." want of judges*, who are men of learning to expound the laws, is also feelingly and we think candidly deplored. A reform in the constitution of the courts of law, and a reduction of their number, are deemed indispensable; and it is frankly avowed that the salaries of the law-officers

The

his own cost, which is more, in many instances, than the rent of the barren heath which he occupies is worth. Some men have a strange propension to evade the legal institutes of their country, merely to show their superior cunning and dexterity. But what minds must these men possess, who can find satisfaction in such pitiful evasions; who, while they waste thousands in riot and debauchery, deny bread to the labourer, and refuse rest and shelter to the houseless wanderer?

*Few of these gentlemen" (says the author) "have laid up any stores of knowledge to qualify them for the arduous undertaking; they have never drunk at the fountain of science; but trusting to natural intuition, they assume an awful office, and grasp the avenging sword of justice. Every ordinary justice of the peace, whose vanity prompts him to sit in judgment on the lives and liberties of his fellow-creatures, is eligible to a seat on the bench. A court of criminal judicature is thus formed of men unacquainted with the laws which they are bound, by the most solemn obligations, to administer faithfully. In a court so absurdly constituted, prejudice and partiality may safely exert their deleterious influence, secure within the dark immunities of a crowd."

P. 206.

should be augmented, so as to make them worthy of the attention of men of talents and learning from this country. These are obvious and practicable reforms: but as they would perhaps, in the first place, occasion some additional expense to the parsimonious Barbadians, we fear that they will not be speedily adopted. Mr. Poyer says that his countrymen are influenced by the doctrines which prevail in this country; yet they have not attempted to imitate the British courts of justice. He affects to speak contemptuously of "Titus Oates," and the "other miscreants of the pretended plot" (if these words be not, as we suspect, interpolations); yet afterwards fully proves the guilt of the papists. As to the remark on the "universal and unjust odium" attached to the Jews, it only proves that our author professes the religion of a merchant, to whom all opinions are indifferent. The greatest error in which Mr. Poyer has fallen, is that of drawing from particular cases general maxims; and his accusations, although strictly just in their particular applications such as "the contemptible sycophants" who flattered Charles II. in pompous addresseswhen rendered general positions, become offensive and unfounded. We would not, however, be understood to extend this censure to the author's reflexion on the gross misapplication of the public money, by the Assembly's voting one hundred pounds to the captain of the frigate who brought the rapacious governor Sir R. Dutton to Barbadoes

in 1685.

"A circumstance" (it is justly observed) "which, considering the character of the man, is scarcely credible, if, besides positive evidence, the fact were not corroborated by many later instances, of the respect and adulation with which the worst rulers are treated by men whose rank and station, in the community, ought to place them above every sinister consideration of hope or fear, and render them the faithful, as they are the delegated, guardians of their country's rights." P. 121.

"The extraordinary generosity of the Barbadians procured them no favour nor indulgence. Indeed, any expectation of conciliating the friendship of government, by such means, will ever terminate in disappointment. The readiness with, which the colonial assemblies dispose of the money belonging to their constituents, is generally considered as an evidence of their wealth, rather than of the liberality of their minds; and the demands on their generosity will always be proportioned to the facility with which they are granted."

P. 165.

Admitting the justness of the above remarks, we must deprecate such idle declamation as the following; espe

cially when the author himself has repeatedly proved, in this work, that it is totally false and calumnious.

"Those who hold the strings of the public purse, seldom reflect on the condition of the lower classes of people. Clad with authority, and indulging in the pleasures of affluence, they are strangers to the misery of those from whom they exact the last shilling, to pamper their own luxurious appetites, or to promote their schemes of ambition. They can well afford to gratify the liberality of their tempers, whose extravagance is supported by a whole community; and to purchase the patronage of a venal chief, when the price is paid out of the public treasury. A few leading members of the legislature enjoy all the merit, and receive the exclusive reward of their munificence, while the poor labourer, and the humble householder, from whose starving mouth the scanty morsel is snatched, and from whose shivering limbs the tattered weed is torn, are insulted and despised by the proud, unfeeling great, whom they contribute to support." P. 164.

On the criminal laws of Barbadoes the author dwells with no little complaisance; and he contends, that there are fewer murders in that island than in any county of England. In thirty-four years not more than sixteen negroes were murdered; or, as he terms it, "killed by white men;" and of these only six were of that nature which an English court of justice would punish with death. We cannot agree with the author in thinking that the murder of one black every two years, in a population of "seventyfive thousand blacks and fifteen thousand whites," is less than what takes place in any county in England; although we are far from supposing that the white people of Barbadoes have more cruel or more murderous hearts than the people of Great Britain. The following character of the West-India negroes, we have reason to believe, is unhappily too true, however the "professors of philanthropy" in this country may be disposed to deny it.

"To the efficiency of the code of Barbadoes for the protection of slaves, it is objected, that it allows not the evidence of coloured people in any cause of complaint against the white inhabitants. Even the advocates for the admission of such testimony seem startled at the extravagance of their own proposition, and suggest, by way of modification, that the testimony of two or more negroes should be made equivalent to that of one white person; and that such as profess Christianity might be sworn on the evangelists. God forbid that such a direful calamity should befall this happy land! The avenging sword of the conqueror; the famine that spreads desolation in its progress; or the pestilence that precipitates thousands to eternity, is scarcely more terrible to the imagination than the idea of admitting seventy or eighty thousand