soon the delusion vanishes-soon does he perceive the fallaciousness of his hopes; his disappointment is felt with the bitterest chagrin; with sorrow he recalls the blissful moments, when he emerged from the discipline of a school; his fond imagination cherished the pleasing prospect of a speedy period to his voluntary exile-when he should return, in the triumph of wealth, to his native country, and realize those schemes of happiness his fancy had pourtrayed! He wishes he could renew those happy days, when every pass→ ing moment yielded delight, when every pleasure was undashed with bitterness, and the heart spontaneously exulted with gay hope and unbidden joy! Placed as a book-keeper upon a Jamaica estate, and perhaps under a severe overseer, who rigidly exacts all the fatiguing duties of his situation, often does he seat himself under the soli. tary shade of the plantain, or beneath the welcome foliage of the friendly bread-nut, and give a vent to his full heart! His active and brooding memory brings a thousand tender things in review; the innocent and playful moments of youthful gaiety, the indulgent fondness of dear parents, whom he is doomed perhaps never more to behold and, above all, perchance, the image of some sweet amiable maid, who had stolen from him the first dawnings of affection, and in whose charming company he had passed many an envied hour! with whom he had often wan

dered along the meanders of some sweet stream,. by the blue verge of the ocean, or through the mazes of sylvan retreats, while, at every look, his heart drank deep at the fountain of love! But when he thinks on the melancholy moment, when, with nameless sorrow, he bade adieu to those dear friends, his heart sinks within him, and he only finds relief in a flood of tears! He now finds himself placed in a line of life, where, to his first conception, every thing wears the appearance of barbarity and slavish oppression; he sees the negroes assembled in gangs in the fields, and kept to their work with whips, by black drivers, who certainly are not always the most gentle of the human race; and he is apt, at times, to assimilate his own situation with that of his enslaved fellow-creatures. He contemplates the profession with a species of horror, and considers himself as doomed to a kind of banishment and bondage. This first impression is natural to a young mind, unaccustomed to such scenes of life, and before his minuter observation can contemplate the reverse of the medal, and discover, in the condition of the negro slave, many comforts and ameliorations which he could not for some time think compatible with such a situation. It is a novel scene to him, and the melan-` choly state of his own mind leads him to the most sombre conclusions, casting a dark shade on every thing around him, and converting every

He

thought into gloom, dislike, and suspicion. seems to himself a forlorn and destitute being, pitied, despised, and neglected by the ignorant and unfeeling, as a sort of menial dependent, while a vast ocean separates him from friends, relatives, and the companions of his youth. Happy, if in this despised situation (though, in truth, it ought to be respected) this young man should possess strength of mind, and consolations and resources within himself, to support him under his hardships and mortifications; happy, if bereft, as he in a great measure is, of the sweets of social intercourse, his mind should have imbibed a taste for literary amusement. By reading, his leisure and solitary hours might be cheered and consoled; but he has little time which he can devote even to this comfort; even Sunday, allotted by heaven as a day of rest to man, he cannot always call his own; and it would be sacrilege to allow books to interfere with the business of the estate! But too many, if they have the misfortune of being placed under harsh, vulgar, and unfeeling overseers-if they have no resource in friends, or other professions; if they want that strength of mind, and resource of consolation in literary taste above mentioned, are apt to sink into an involuntary torpor, and disesteem of themselves; they lose, by degrees, that pride and energy of character, which ought to accompany us through life, as a shield against meanness

and imposition; they contract low, profligate habits, and imbibe vulgar ideas and manners, while their hearts, thus isolated from all that is wont to inspire them with nobler feelings and generous resolutions, become callous and seared with apathy.

The following sketch may convey an idea of what a book-keeper had to suffer about fifteen or twenty years ago, upon many properties, in crop time. He had to sit up every other night in the boiling-house, in order to prevent the negroes from pilfering the produce; and by day his attention to this and other duties must be unremitting; when his night of repose came, some unavoidable delay or accident, in certain departments of the work, forbade his retiring to it; and, to aggravate his sufferings, the overseer had received orders from the humane attorney to cause a book-keeper to accompany the wains to the wharf, whenever rum was to be sent to it, under the pretence of guarding it from the pilferage of the negro cartmen; this duty was to be performed at all events, whether it interfered with his night of rest or not; and this it must unavoidably do, as the wains left the estate at one or two o'clock in the morning, when the journey was eight or ten miles; and, after all, when his night of spell returned, if the poor man yielded for a moment to the imperious calls of nature, if he sunk into a short and involuntary slumber,

if he lost the sense of his cares and his hardships in this transient oblivious balm, his liberal and considerate overseer thought it an unpardonable crime! Strange, that this man's experience of perhaps the same hardships, should not have softened his heart, and awakened him to a sense of his injustice. There were, however, many exceptions to this picture; and at the present time the situation of the poor book-keeper is much ameliorated, like that of the plantation slave, his fellow-labourer; for certainly the happiness of some of these poor people was as little to be envied as the condition of the latter: the negro, indeed, during crop, is suffered to enjoy, undisturbed, a regular and sufficient portion of rest. The treatment of both doubtless depends on the character of the overseer under whom they live: with a gentleman and man of humanity, their situation is comparatively easy, and comfortable; with the nian who has little of that character to boast of, and has no other ambition but to make great crops, they must enjoy comforts by stealth or necessity. To a few extraordinary casks of sugar, such an one will have little scruple to sacrifice a portion of the happiness of his fellowcreatures; he wishes to establish his fame as a great planter-to this every other consideration, either of justice or humanity, is to be made subservient. It is to be hoped there are now few such characters in the island.