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a variety of kind benefits and salutary restraints. In former times the attorney, anxious to outdo his predecessors in the magnitude of the crops, and forward thereby his own interests and reputation, too often acted as a stimulus, instead of a restraint, upon the impolitic and unfeeling zeal of his overseers, by perpetually sounding in their ears the quantum of produce and of work he expected, without perhaps ever taking the pains of proportioning either to the efficient strength of hands upon the properties, or weighing in his mind the impolicy and inhumanity of purchasing a few additional hogsheads of sugar at the expense of the health, spirits, and even lives of the devoted slaves.. It is, however, to be hoped, that such examples are now rare. An overseer, if his conduct be good, and he has able friends to assist him, may in time be entrusted, as an attorney, with the management of estates.

But before a young man, who follows the profession of a planter, arrives at the dignity of overseer, he has, as before observed, to pass through the probationary situation of a bookkeeper, a wretched misplaced appellation, as one who never perhaps saw a book in his life may yet be an expert book-keeper. As nine-tenths of the young men who come from Great Britain to Jamaica are placed in this line of life, it will be proper to enter more at large into the nature of this preliminary situation. Of all situations in

the country this perhaps is the least enviable. A book-keeper is a sort of voluntary slave, who condemns himself, for a term of years, on a paltry salary, seldom more than sufficient to support him decently in clothes, to a dull, despicable, and drudging life, in hopes he will one day become an overseer. This situation he attains in five, six, or seven years, just as he may have a friend or friends who will push him forward into it, sooner than his mere merit would have procured such advancement. He follows the negroes in a scorching sun by day, and at night, in crop time, is deprived of a material portion of his rest, by being obliged, in his turn (generally every other night), to sit up and watch in the boiling-house, scarcely daring to take snatches of repose, to soften his fatigue, and sooth his solitary labours, with broken and unquiet slumbers. Still he starts at the thought of the surly frown, the harsh censure, of his overseer; unless, perchance, he should have the good fortune to live under one of a more liberal and humane turn. Unless he has the advantage of being acquainted, with some genteel families in the neighbourhood, which is not often the case, he is totally preeluded from the society of that charming sex (those of his own description is meant) by whom man is soothed and consoled, and by whose loved idea he is animated through a thousand hardships and difficulties. Nay, strange as it

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may appear, the planter, whether overseer or not, is in a manner forced, against his inclinations, to a life of celibacy, unless, indeed, he is fortunate enough to realize an independency, and at the same time preserve himself from being entangled and infatuated by less reputable connections; for while still dependent, he would, by preferring the more honourable conjugal state, incur the hazard of bringing difficulty and want on himself and the beloved partner of his heart. In short, there are few who would employ him with such an incumbrance, and many would immediately dismiss him in consequence. wretched and illiberal policy is indeed truly unaccountable, particularly when it is considered that, by natural course, it inevitably leads, or contritutes to lead, to a new order of things in the colonies. It may, without exaggeration, be said, that the annual white births are not more than as one to fifteen of colour; the latter who are besides more strong and heal thy children, and less subject to infantile diseases. What must be the consequence of the amazing disproportion in the two populations, which must necessarily too be increasing? It is also to be considered, that the property of the Country is falling fast into the hands of this descrip tion of people, in spite of the legal restraints under which the white parent lies, in bequeathing his property to his children of colour; two thousand pounds currency being the ne plus ultra allowed as

a bequest to an individual of that class: this may be easily evaded by previous gifts, &c. The same attentions, the same education, is bestowed on children of colour, if the offspring of men of fortune, as if they were not an illegitimate race; so that the boundary between them and the whites must at one period give way, or be broken down; either the free browns will be admitted to an equal participation of the rights and privileges of the whites, or they will, at some future day, enforce that admission. And yet so many of the men of wealth and influence in the island persevere with a blind and fatal obstinacy, to throw obstacles in the way of increasing white population, by thus discouraging matrimony :-strange delusion! Perhaps this narrow and illiberal policy would be less countenanced were all the great proprietors to reside in the island; for were they men of families, they would, of course, be anxious for their posterity; they would then be bound by a double tie to provide against remote contingencies; they would look forward with solicitude to future probable events: theirs is a permanent interest; their agents have no other view, in general, than to make a speedy fortune, and return with it, if Europeans, to their native country.

But to return from this digression to the bookkeeper. The man who has received but little education, who has been accustomed from his earliest years to a rustic and drudging life, who,

in short, has directed the plough, or wielded the pitch-fork, in his native country, is not so much to be sympathised with; he, perhaps, feels little hardship in the exchange. But the young man, who has been liberally educated, genteelly bred brought up as it were in the lap of luxury and indulgence, flattered with fond hopes and sanguine expectations, by the affectionate anticipation of kind friends and anxious parents, must naturally, for a long time, find it a subject of sore and melancholy regret. Let this unhacknied youth be traced from his first departure from his native country. Previous to his crossing the Atlantic, he is terrified and alarmed by exagge, rated accounts of the insufferable heat of the climate, the unwholesomeness of the atmosphere, the fatal ravages of the yellow fever, the savage and treacherous disposition of the negroes, and the huge serpents and other venomous reptiles with which the country is infested. But he is at the same time instigated and encouraged by happier representations-of the riches with which it abounds, the facility with which these were to be acquired-in short, the prospect of realizing, in a few years, the fortune of a Nabob! These partial representations and delusive promises are fostered in his breast. Full of hope, animateɖ by expectation, he is eager to be freed from parental authority and academic thraldom, and to rush forward on the golden enterprize! But