This character may be considered as the most respectable, in the island. But it cannot be dissembled, that there are too many, even of this respectable class, who are debased by ignorance, licentiousness, and low, frivolous, and groveling pursuits. If of the former character, he has a great latitude for doing good,-by setting a commendable example in his own person of that decorous respect for religious and moral duty, which is so little attended to in this country, by humanity and attention to his slaves, by an encouragement of merit in those in his employ, and by countenancing and promoting whatever may contribute to the real interests and substantial good of the country in which he has so much at stake.

The attorney is either a substantial merchant, or experienced overseer, to whom the non-resident proprietor commits the care and management of his estates. Sometimes both these are joined in the care of the same properties; and either or both has often the management of several estates belonging to different people. The merchantattorney manages the mercantile affairs of the estate, such as shipping the produce, &c. &c. and the planter the planting part. An attorney, who has ten, fifteen, or more estates under his care (which is by no means unusual), is in the way of realizing a rapid fortune; his profits are considerable, having a commission of six per

cent on all sales and purchases; though a few are employed at a certain salary. Besides this, they have the privilege, if they chuse, of residing on one of the properties, and have the use of servants, &c. belonging to the property besides various imprescriptive rights, and privileges, which it were useless, and invidious, perhaps, to particularize. Thus an attorney, if what is called a money-making man, and not burthened with an over-scrupulous conscience, soon rises to wealth, and becomes a proprietor himself, perhaps by purchase (or rather by buying and selling) from his lazy and inactive constituent; who, fascinated by a continual round of gaiety and pleasure in the British metropolis, will not take upon himself the trouble of managing his own property, because he cannot doom himself to a removal from the country of which he is so enamoured. Hence, too often, heavy debts and mortgages to mercantile houses in England, and even perhaps to his own faithful agent,-Not that the author would insinuate that integrity and faithful management are not often to be found in Jamaica agents, his experience evinces the contrary; but practices which prove that these are not always the guides of the conduct of many of these gentlemen, are certainly too common and notorious. If the attorney be also a merchant, this is a very convenient union of two occupations, which, if rightly managed, must be

productive of peculiar advantages to the holder, by enabling him to supply the estates under his care with a variety of necessaries, which he could not perhaps have so expeditiously disposed of, on the most reasonable terms. Princely fortunes have been made by men who have had a great number of attorneyships for several years. These attorneyships have sometimes lain in three or four different parishes, and at a distance of thirty or forty miles from each other. Quærewhether one man was competent to pay proper attention to fifteen or twenty estates, so isolated and detached?

The overseer is one who, serving a certain number of years as a book-keeper, is, at length, entrusted with the management of an estate, at an advanced salary. His duty consists in superintending the planting concerns of the estate, ordering the proper work to be done, and seeing that it is executed as it should. Under his controul and direction, but qualified by the authority and occasional intervention of the attorney or proprietor, are the book-keepers and tradesmen on the estate. The negroes, stock, fields, buildings, and utensils, are committed to his attention and care; his situation is, therefore, an arduous and important one. It is the indispensable duty of the proprietor or attorney to watch attentively over the conduct of his overseer for some time, till he becomes convinced, by experience, that he

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is one on whose humanity, good sense, propriety of conduct, and attention to the interests of the estate under his care, he may rely; and, above all, to be assured that he is likely to act the part of a lenient manager, rather than an inhuman task-master, over his slaves. He will soon discover, if a man of humanity himself, whether the chastisements they may occasionally receive be such as are no more than commensurate to the offence, and necessary as examples for the support of order and discipline, or wantonly and unnecessarily inflicted. An overseer, according to his education, temper, and habits, is either an unfeeling tyrant, or a mild, considerate, and equitable governor; if the former, it is undoubtedly the duty of the employer instantly to dismiss him, from a thorough self-conviction that he is so, not from the perverted and exaggerated statements of the negroes themselves, who are peculiarly artful and dextrous at misrepresentations of this nature; for did he implicitly believe every complaint that was made to him, and act accordingly without examination, no overseer he could employ would be respected or obeyed by his negroes; they would grow obdurate and licentious, and his property would soon go to ruin. This disposition to low cunning and unabashed falsehood, observable in many of the negroes, is rather perhaps (to speak philosophically) a superadded nature, nurtured in slavery, than one originally

implanted in them; perhaps the European would be equally abased by this condition. Why then, it may be asked, does slavery exist at all? Why is it not exterminated from the face of the earth? Why is there a trace of it remaining at this late and enlightened period? This is a solemn and important question. Are the slaves of the West Indies capable of becoming happier in consequence of the gift of liberty? Are they capable of appreciating and enjoying its blessings or would they even exchange their present condition for the turbulence, the dangers, the insecurity of a savage state of independence? The period, however distant, will doubtless arrive when the dominion of the Europeans throughout the American Archipelago, shall no longer exist; but to precipitate that period would be to renew the horrors and desolation of one of its most beautiful and flourishing colonies.

An overseer has it in his power to impart much good in his situation, if he be a man of education and feeling (and surely there are some such in the profession), and if his feelings have not been rendered callous by habits not certainly calculated to soften the heart or improve the manners. He may hear and redress the complaints of the slaves, he may settle their disputes, compose their quarrels, and repress their violence and injustice towards each other; in short, he may diffuse much comfort, and be the author of