they are removed from one extreme or the other, they seem to be imbued in proportion with their particular qualities. The Sambo differs little or nothing in manners, habits, &c. from the negro; while the Mestee and his descendant approximate as near in these particulars to the white as it is possible for a mingled race to do; and when polished by a genteel education, that little distinction almost ceases to exist. It is remarked of the people of colour, that they are peculiarly hardy, and far less subject to disease than either the whites or the negroes, of course a considerable less proportion of them are swept off by the general mortality of the country. These people are lively, active, and sometimes industrious; they feel a kind of pride in being removed some degrees from the negro race; and affect as much as possible the manners, &c. of the whites. Few marriages take place between them. A female of colour thinks it more genteel and reputable to be the kept mistress of a white man, if he is in opulent circumstances, and can afford to indulge her taste for finery and parade, than to be united in wedlock with a respectable individual of her own class. One of these girls consented to be tied in the noose of matrimony to one of her own description; for three or four years she bore her fate without remorse or repining; after this, however, she became uneasy and discontented, and often, with a heavy sigh, lamented the luckless

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fate which drew her to the altar of Hymen! Her husband was a quiet, decent, and respectable man, who gained an honest livelihood by the trade he professed; he wished his wife to stay at home, and attend to her children and the affairs of her household; the lady was of a pleasurable turn, and had a taste, like most of her colour, for a life of voluptuous and varied delight: she had been accustomed, prior to wedlock, to balls, parties, and jaunts, and she could therefore but ill brook this life of restraint and drudgery. She looked, with envy and an aching heart, at the gay, showy, and dissipated life which many of the companions of her youth led; these were in keeping, and dashed about in style, superbly dressed, and in their curricles, attended by servants in livery; while she, poor woman! was obliged to toil from morning to night in dirty drudging occupations, without one faint ray of hope, that she would ever be emancipated from this sad state of thraldom, and enjoy again the dear delicious pleasures of freedom and variety! These are the sentiments of nine tenths of the females of colour in this island; and accordingly, perhaps, little short of that proportion are in keeping by the whites; while the males console themselves in the same way, either with one of their own colour, or with a sable charmer. Though some of these females of colour are possessed f considerable property, given them by their

white parents, or amassed by their own industry, they never aspire to a conjugal union with a white man; nor, if such a union were sanctioned by the custom of the country, is it probable they would desire to enter into it; but no instance of this ever occurs; a white man, according to the ideas of distinction of colour which here prevail, would be considered as degrading himself by a union with a woman of colour, however respectable by fortune, or accomplished by education. But the brown female gives herself little concern about this, while the most distinguished and opulent of the whites pay an illicit homage to her charms; and even the man of family shall forsake his wife and abandon his children to hold dalliance in her more alluring company!

The free people of colour are excluded from many of the privileges of the whites; and their white parents are restrained by law from bequeathing them more than two thousand pounds currency. These distinctions and restraints are thought necessary for political purposes. But it is in vain that such laws and provisions are thrown in the way of this people's acquiring an ascendancy in the country, while other productive causes are suffered to exist. A respectable clergyman in the island assured the author, that he usually had occasion to baptize about fifteen brown children for one white child! This disproportion of the increase of the two populations

may be considered as general throughout the island, and it must necessarily be rapidly gaining ground. As for the acquisition which the white population gains by European emigration, it is now trifling; besides, that as new hands arrive, others, who may have acquired fortunes, are returning to their native country, and a very considerable number die yearly in the country: few, upon the whole, remain in the island and live to any great age. But there is little occasion to go far for proofs of the non-increase of the white population of this island, as it appears that it has remained nearly stationary for these twenty years past; while perhaps the brown population is more than trebled in that period. The exact number of people of colour at present in the island cannot correctly be ascertained, as no census is ever taken of this branch of population; but it would not be going out of the way to say, that, including all descriptions of them, they already amount to double the number of the whites. It is in vain to enact laws and fix restraints, while the sources of an evil continue unremoved. These people must, in time, know and feel their own strength, when increased to an enormous disproportion to the whites, and spreading in vast masses over the country, the laws inimical to them can answer no other purpose than to sour and incense their minds, and rouse them to an exertion in their own behalf in claiming rights in common with

the whites: either therefore, as formerly observ ed, the whites will hereafter be obliged to allow them this participation, or they will wrest it from them by some horrible convulsion which one trembles to think of! This is no visionary speculation; it is what must inevitably, in the order of things, take place at some period, should the two populations thus continue in disproportion, and the manners and mode of life of the whites remain equally dissolute and immoral. Matrimony should be more encouraged, and held in greater veneration; religion should be more inculcated and respected, and a loose and profligate life be less countenanced and practised, than it is in this quarter of the globe:-such reformations as these, not feeble and partial laws and regulations, will ensure the respect, and perpetuate the submission of this people to the Europeans and their government. But as enough has before been said on this subject, it will be needless here to repeat the arguments in favour of such a change.

The children of colour, of the more opulent of the whites, are either educated in the island, or sent to Great Britain for this purpose. Such as have received liberal educations, are for the most part well behaved respectable people; but are, with a very few exceptions, excluded the society of the whites, and exposed to other mortifications, in consequence of the line of distinction