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here, a thorough reformation cannot take place. While the sabbath day continues to be the same as any other, and not devoted to religious duty and exercise, much respect for this pillar of society, and of the moral duties; cannot be expected. And yet this, and other evils, cannot well be redressed without a fundamental alteration in some essential matters. Sunday is

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the day on which the negro collects and brings to market (in the towns) his provisions, and other articles which he wishes to dispose of; and on this day, chiefly, is the inhabitant of the town supplied with his weekly quantum of such necessaries. The negro, on the other hand, wishes to supply himself and family with various necessasaries, which he can only procure in the towns. On this account, Sunday is a day on which traffic of this kind goes on to a greater extent than on all the other days of the week together. The stores, or shops, are all open; and the centre of the town, where the markets are held, is a scene of the utmost tumult and bustle, thousands of negroes being assembled to dispose of their merchandize, and various descriptions of buyers necessarily 'augmenting the crowd. The magistrates of some of the parishes ordered, for decency sake, that the stores should be shut up during divine service; but this was little better than a farce, for though the door of a shop was shut, in order to comply with the form of the

thing, it was still understood by the customer, that he might enter at any time for the purposes of traffic.

Intemperance in drinking will, perhaps, not entirely cease, particularly among those in the planting line, while a facility of acquiring the means continues to be a temptation to the thoughtless, the giddy, and the dissolute. And that promiscuous sexual intercourse, which reigns so openly, so universally, and unblushingly here, and is so disgraceful to a civilized and Christian society, must ever continue, while matrimony is discouraged to the degree that it is, while a taste only for low vulgar pleasures prevails among all 亅 classes, and while the men of power and wealth, instead of discountenancing this depravity, so frequently hold out the most striking examples of it. But let innocent, elegant, and rational pleasures be a little more encouraged here; let a polite taste for literature be diffused, at least among the independent; let the means of education be more fully and liberally established; let the great and leading men (married as well as single) exhibit, in their moral conduct, correct examples of virtue, propriety, decency; let them foster and encourage this disposition in their dependants, by their countenance, favour, and assistance; and, above all, let the duties and ordinances of religion be more fully understood, and better respected, and the good consequences would

soon appear. Virtue and reason would then, in some measure,' re-assume their rights; self-love would be enlisted on the side of duty; men would be impelled, by still stronger motives than those of shame, to avoid the open and gross violation of the social duties; one passion would be engaged to counteract another; the voice of interest would check and intimidate the licentious sallies of passion; instead of that indecent dis regard of religious and moral duty; instead of that general debasement of illicit sexual inter course, so much complained of by the wise and thinking part of the West Indians themselves; instead of that universal laxity of manners, which will ultimately prove the ruin of the country; men would at least strive to be virtuous and de>> cent; they would at least endeavour to avoid the semblance of a licentious and dissolute people..

The females of this country (the white females are of course meant) may truly be said to be the most decorous, amiable, and virtuous of all the inhabitants of the West Indies; and if they are not so attentive to religious duties as they should be, it is because their fathers, husbands, and brothers are so little solicitous about setting before them an example of this pious regard.

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The pride of wealth, not of virtue, as before observed, is in this country the great desideratum. It is this which exalts and ennobles, covers all de-i fects, excuses all faults, and procures a general ›

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and unqualified exterior respect. It is a passport into the first circles and the best company; without it, merit of any kind is little thought of, except for its utility. This pride of wealth is too often observable both in the natives and Europeans, who have pretensions to opulence and influence. It is a little, short-sighted; and illiberal passion, particularly when isolated from other more estimable qualities, which might render it less revolting and unamiable. It is apt to betray its possessor into a thousand absurdities and ridiculous affectations, which are obvious to thinking observers, and are concealed from him self by an impervious veil of self-love. It is for this reason that in parts distant from the mother country (as the East or West Indies), onelsol frequently meets with such contradictions to all reason and nature as your self-exalted nabobs, að species of the human race who have already been described. Vain empty mortals, who, by various ways, have ascended to the very pinnacle of fortune,valsituation which they know not how to ebjoy with dignity and tastes who lavish it in ostentatious display, without public munificence or private charity. Many of these mighty mortals have an infinite deal more of hauteur and inaccessible pride than the first peers of the British realm, or even the monarch himself, who, by the bye, worthy man possesses as little of either ass any of his subjects, considering he is

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under a state-necessity of keeping up suitable appearances of dignity. But one of the most ludicrous affectations of the pride of wealth in the nabob is, the associating with it the pride of birth and family, a pride in which the whole o his family (particularly the female part of it) most naturally and cordially participate. The rationality of this species of pride, which takes to itself merit from the illustrious actions of a long line of ancestors, has indeed been often called in question such an assumption is, however, natural and excusable; but what are we to say of those, whose immediate, or at least not far distant, progenitors had the honour of wielding an awl, brandishing a goose, or adjusting a towel under the chin of a customer? What are we to say to such, when they speak of the dignity of their family, and foolishly deck themselves in borrowed plumes? Not that it would be either just or generous to reproach any one with the meanness of their origin, or their former poverty and obscurity, when they "bear their honours meekly;" on the contrary, their having risen to wealth and distinction, by their own efforts, is generally an argument in favour of their merit but when they get giddy on the pinnacle of prosperity, and look down with an affected contempt on, all below, however equal or superior to themselves in every thing but wealth, one cannot but smile at the petty workings of human conceit. In this

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