at Koniah, than of the brutal intolerance of lefs fanatical Mahometans from Conftantinople to Aleppo.

Having refided for fome time at Aleppo, Dr Griffiths was determined by a friend, an Englishman, to accompany him to Buf. forah. A journey acrofs the Defert at mid-fummer was, indeed, an arduous undertaking. Our traveller and his friend were not to be difmayed; but it does feem extraordinary that they fhould have taken with them the daughter of the latter, a child of feven years of age. Of the dangers, the difficulties, and the fufferings of thefe travellers, we have not room to give much account. Mr H., the companion of Dr Griffiths, died on the journey. The following description of this event is affecting, and would have been more so, if our author had been lefs ambitious of writing in a pretty ftyle.

At two o'clock P. M. the Simooleh blew ftronger than usual from the S. E.; and on joining the Mohaffah, I foon obferved an afflicting change had taken place in the countenance of my friend. It was now that, in aggravation of all my fufferings, I forefaw the impoffibility of his long refitting the violently burning blafts which, with little intermiffion, continued to affail us. The thermometer hanging round my neck was up to 116; and the little remaining water, which was in a leathern bottle, fufpended at the corner of the Mohaffah, had become fo thick, refembling the refiduum of an ink-ftand, that, parched and thirty as I felt, I could not relieve my diftrefs by any attempt to swallow it.

At length I perceived evident marks of our approaching the longlooked for wells, where fome relief was to be expected. The hafty march of the leading camels and fragglers, all verging towards one point, convinced me we were not far from the place of our deftination. Wil ling to communicate the glad tidings to my friend, I rode to him, and expreffed my hope that he would be foon refreshed by a fupply of water. He replied, Thank God! but I am almost dead. I endeavoured to cheer his fpirits ; and then urging my horfe, advanced to the spot where I obferved the camels were collecting together. In about half an hour I found myself amongst a circle of animals greedily contending for a draught of muddy water, confined in a fmall fuperficial well about five feet in diameter. Preffing to the edge, I laid myfelf upon my belly, and by means of my hand fupplied myfelf with a fluid, which, however filthy in itself, and contaminated by the difgufting mouths of as many camels and men as could reach it, was a fource of indefcribable gratification. It is wholly out of the power of language to convey any idea of the blissful enjoyment of obtaining water after an almost total want of it during eight-and-forty hours, in the fcorching regions of an Arabian defert in the month of July!

But this moment of gratification was foon fucceeded by one of peculiar horror and anxiety. Scarcely had I quenched my thirft before the Mohaffah arrived. I flew with a bowl full of water to my friend, who drank but little of it, and in great hafte. Alas! it was his laft draught!

His lovely child, too, eagerly moiftened her mouth of rofes, bliftered by the noxious blaft!

With difficulty Joannes and myself supported my feeble friend to where the tent had been thrown down from the camel's back. He ftammered out a question refpecting the time of the day; to which I anfwered it was near four: and requefting the Arabs to hold over him part of the tent (to pitch it required too much time), I unpacked as fpeedily as poffible our liquor-cheft, and haftened to offer him fome Vifnee (a kind of cherry-brandy): but nature was too much exhausted ! I fat down, and receiving him in my arms, repeated my endeavours to engage him to fwallow a small portion of the liqueur. All human efforts were vain! Guft after gult of peftilential air dried up the springs of life, and he breathed his laft upon my bofom.' P. 376-8.

Dr Griffiths concludes the volume, by informing his readers of his fafe arrival at Bombay from Bafforah, though he does not favour us with the particulars of his voyage. We fhould be unwilling to pass a fevere fentence on his innocent quarto. When a man has travelled half the world over,' it would be hard to difcourage him from telling the ftory of his adventures, especially if he fhould be fo polite as to attack no prejudices within a thousand miles of thofe to whom he addreffes himfelf. This precaution taken, why should not a traveller tell how he dined on the plain of Troy; how he ate piloh at Durgoot, kebaubs at Ereklee, and a comfortable fupper at a Turkish village, where he expected nothing but jaourt and pekmez? All this is certainly very interefting; and yet, as there may be too much of a good thing, we shall eafily excufe Dr Griffiths, if in his next volume he should not be quite fo exact in informing us of the contents of his bills of fare. He might, we think, leave his readers to fuppofe that a traveller must eat and drink; and, after having heard fo much about it, they will not doubt that Dr Griffiths always ate and drank as well as he could. With refpect to the apparent plagiarisms of our author we shall fay nothing, but leave the queftion to be fettled between him and Meffrs Eton and D'Ohgfon. Upon the whole, we are inclined to part with our traveller in good humour. His volume, we think, will be found more edifying than most novels; not fo dull as moft romances; and better worth buying than many books that are more loudly praifed by more indulgent reviewers.

ART. III. An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti; comprehending a View of the Principal Tranfactions in the Revolution of Saint Domingo, with its Ancient and Modern State. By Marcus Rainsford, Eiq. late Captain Third West India Regiment, &c. &c. 4to. pp. 501. London, Cundle & Chapple. 1805.

SINCE

INCE the commencement of our Journal, we have made it a rule to pay especial attention to thofe difcuffions of colonial fubjects, which intereft England more than any other country, and which are daily acquiring new importance from the unhappy changes that have taken place in the balance of power, on both fides of the Atlantic. Among thefe queftions, the topics connected with the flave trade, and, in general, with the condition of the race which forms the bulk of our colonial population, have naturally claimed the principal fhare of our notice; and we trust that our exertions have not been without fome little effect in putting that momentous argument upon its right grounds; removed, on the one hand, from the perilous doctrines of negro liberty, which have defolated the colonies of France; and, on the other, from the lamentable error of the maxims ftill clung to by the legislature of our own country, with the fame obvious and fatal tendency. It may be useful here to connect these scattered difcuffions, by a general reference to the articles under which they are to be found. In examining the able tract called the Crifis of the Sugar Colonies,' we took occafion to state those general views of the confequences of the colonial revolution, which had been suggested by the preceding events, and were countenanced by the exifting circumftances of the Weft Indian community. Unhappily, the commencement of hoftilities between the two great colonial powers, prevented the fulfilment of the expectations then entertained, and gave rife among many other evils in both hemifpheres, to the undisputed eftablishment of that formidable neighbour, whose present afpect we are now enabled more nearly to contemplate. The publication of Mr Dallas's Hiftory of the Maroons, afforded an opportunity of difcuffing fome fubordinate queftions connected with Weft Indian affairs, particularly the conduct of our government, and of the colonial legislatures, in the prosecution of the Maroon war. In the Voyage à la Louifiane' of Baudry de Lozieres, we met with fome ftriking illuftrations of the state of opinions in France, relative to colonial fubjects. Mr Barrow's fecond volume upon the Cape, furnished fome important additions to the mass of well-authenticated facts by which the advocates of abolition have established the fundamental position, that the barbarism

barifm of Africa is infeparably connected with the flave trade; and' M'Kinnon's Tour added feveral powerful documents to the evidence obtained from the enemies of the abolition, regarding various topics in the Weft Indian branch of the argument. When the difcuffion of the fubject in Parliament gave rife to the Concife Statement of the Question,' we entered with fome fulness into the various branches of the argument, and more efpecially into the topics which have been added to the cause by the revolution of late years. A Defence of the Slave Trade' having, upon the fame occafion, been published by its friends, as a declaration of their grounds of proceeding, it appeared to merit attention, and we accordingly examined it at great length, and prefented our readers with a detailed expofition of the whole queftion. The French treatife, entitled, Examen de l'Efclavage, gave us an opportunity of demonftrating the total change which opinions in France had undergone upon this great fubject, and of adducing much new evidence from the confeffions of our adverfaries, against the fyftem. And in noticing the tract lately published upon the Barbadoes correfpondence, under the name of Horrors of Negro Slavery,' we briefly explained the mighty confirmations deducible from those authentic documents to all the main doctrines of the abolitionists. By referring to thefe different articles, our readers will find the whole statement of this important fubject, as it at prefent ftands; and we purpose, for the future, only to take up fuch points in the controverfy as may be prefented in new lights, or to notice the additional information which fhall from time to time be brought to view by the labours of fucceeding authors. The work now before us contains fomewhat deferving of this name, and relating to the branch of the fubject in our eyes the moft interefting of all, viz. the relation between the question of abolition, and the actual state of foreign affairs in the West Indies.

Mr Rainsford has compiled this volume, by putting together large extracts, and ill-made abridgements of the most popular and acceffible works upon the Weft Indies. This coalition he has effected without any great skill or ingenuity; and if we except the varieties of a ftyle, which has no pretenfions to either elegance or perfpicuity, and but few claims to the praise of grammar, there is in nine tenths of the work no more of the nominal author, than of Bryan Edwards or the Abbé Raynal. The fmall portion which remains, confifts of the information collected by Mr Rainsford during a short refidence on the island; and we only marvel how a perfon of ordinary capacity, with merely eyes and memory, fhould have had fuch opportunities as he poffefled, and made fo little of them. This little is certainly interesting,

D.3

terefting, and muft form the fubject of the prefent article, after we have stopped to sketch very generally the materials of the other chapters.

The work begins with a long hiftory of Columbus's tranfacactions in St Domingo and elfwhere, fubfequent to his difcovery of that ifland. All this is taken from Dr Robertson and the Abbé Raynal: taken without any felection, and patched together with no fort of fkill. An attempt to bring down the history of the colony to the period of the revolution, is then made; and here, Raynal is reinforced by Bryan Edwards, whose Historical Sketch of St Domingo' furnithes the whole view given by our author, of the fituation of the island in 1789, unless in fo far as he has added a few of the contradictory statements of M. de Charmilly, publifhed in his Lettre à M. Bryan Edwards." From the fame fources he draws the whole of his narrative of the revolution, and of the war carried on in the colony, inferting in his text, not only the text of Mr Edwards, but feveral of the original papers given in his appendix, omitting fome of that author's most interesting statements, correcting none of the miftakes and wilful errors into which he has been convicted of falling, and obfcuring the whole by an arrangement and style, in comparison of which, the clumfy method and tawdry compofition of Edwards, may be fairly faid to rife towards perfection. In this manner are manufactured the first 212 pages of Mr Rainsford's book; and here Bryan Edwards leaves him to himfelf; fo that the remainder of the narrative (with the exception of the materials furnished by his own refidence on the island) is taken from the English newfpapers during the laft war which the French government carried on against the Blacks. Many of his documents, that is, of the letters and other official papers published in the journals of the day, are inferted in the text: the reft, together with the letter of Gregoire, the confeflion of Ogé, and other papers in Edwards's notes; an extract from a pamphlet by the author, in which he quotes a great part of the Marfeilloife Hymn; a communication by a learned friend' who propounds. the fcheme of draughting off the overgrown population of London to cultivate the West Indies; a fac-fimile of Touffaint's handwriting; and a bit of a fentimental journey by a chaplain in the navy, form altogether an appendix of fome hundred and odd pages. And this is the Hiftory of St Domingo,' by Captain Rainsford; and this is the true way to expand a narra tive of thirty or forty pages, into feveral pounds weight of letter-prefs.

It is neceffary that we preface the abftract which we intend to exhibit of the original information contained in Mr Rainsford's

narrative,