-Birds, (he said,) which paired, laid eggs, sat upon their eggs, and hatched them, were certainly not fish; it could not be more allowable to eat them as meagre food, than on the same pretext to dine upon goose, duck, widgeon, teal, and other birds of this class, who were far more aquatic in their habits; for, though the devilits preyed upon fish, they lived in dry places, burrowing in the ground.' But (said Labat) they are more fishy in smell and flavour than the birds you mention, and, therefore, they ought to be classed among fish.' Nay, (replied the Huguenot) that proceeds entirely from their food, and they are not to be deemed fish because they resent of their diet. For, if we reason thus, look at the consequences. There are the Friar Minims, who feed upon fish and oil, never touching flesh; their skins are continually covered with a fishy and unctuous excretion; the older they grow, and the less care they take to keep themselves clean, the stronger do they smell of fish; yet I am sure you would argue vehemently against my conclusion, were I to insist that the friars are actually fish, and ought to be accounted so.' Labat was then driven to take the Solan goose for an argument; but his antagonist, though he also believed what was then the received notion of their vegetable origin, insists that the Barnacle was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but a certain sport of nature. And the merry Dominican, laughing at the weakness of his own cause, continued to eat devilets on fast days, and no doubt to take care that they were dressed according to rule the organ of cookery being magnificently developed upon his shaven and shorn head.

Labat, who observed everything, witnessed a fact relating to electricity, which is remarkable enough to be noticed here. There were about twenty pounds of gunpowder in his chamber, in several packets of paper, and in each of these packets, the powder, during a violent thunder-storm which broke over the convent, and did considerable damage to the building, was formed into a mass, such, he says, as might be made of pounded charcoal and gum-water. It was like a black stone, dry, hard, not easily broken, retaining very little smell of sulphur, and not kindling more readily than a lump of furnace-coal.

Even in the lifetime of Columbus, the evil which in our own days has been experienced in St. Domingo, was apprehended by the Spaniards, from the multiplication of the negroes. A like evil was feared from the multiplication of mulattos in Du Tertre's time; and the dreadful tragedies, of which St. Domingo has been the scene, may be traced for one of its causes to an edict which was issued by Louis XIV. in the vain intent of checking the growth of the mixed race. At first, by the law or custom of the French islands, mulattos became free at the age of twenty

four,

four, provided they had continued till that age to live with the owner of the mother; the service of the last eight years being deemed an adequate return for their support in infancy and childhood. The human principle of the civil law, that partus sequitur ventrem, was now perverted to an inhuman end; a fine of two thousand pounds of sugar was exacted from any person upon whom a mulatto child should be filiated; and if he were the proprietor of the negress, in addition to that fine, he forfeited both mother and child, who were thereby escheated to the hospital, and not to be redeemed from that slavery. Labat, who relates the tragic, as well as some comic, consequences of such an edict, was too sagacious a man not to perceive its gross impolicy; but he touches lightly on the subject, and that too in his character of missionary, as if he thought some apology was necessary for the freedom of his remarks. He had known but two instances of marriage between white men and negresses; the one appears to have been forced upon a scrupulous man by an injudicious priest, under most improper circumstances, and it ended accordingly; the other was the effect of choice, gratitude, and a sense of duty. Had Labat allowed himself to pursue the subject, he would have seen that in those regions the only proper course of policy was indicated by the course of nature; that in the mixed breed, the European mind is engrafted upon the African constitution; and that if the French government had understood its own interest, it should have encouraged the growth of that race, capable by nature, as they are, of labouring under a tropical sky, and educated, as they might, and ought to have been, in those artificial wants, which are the wholesome and needful incentives to industry, and in those moral and religious principles, which are the only safeguard of society. Upon this subject and others connected with it, the author of this Chronological History manifests a strong feeling.

In the annals of the last century, military and naval operations occupy a large space; they are melancholy details of lives sacrificed by thousands to a fatal climate, and of expeditions, producing nothing but evil in their course, and with no other consequence in their results than that of making conquests, which at the next general peace were to be restored. If France and England had agreed at Utrecht or at Nimeguen upon a neutrality for these unfortunate islands, the fate of future wars would not have been in the slightest degree influenced by it-neither power would at this day have been in a worse condition, and all the intermediate expense to both countries, and all the misery to the colonies of both, might have been spared. A veteran statesman, who was himself distinguished for his capacity, once sadly remarked by how little wisdom the political affairs of the world were directed. It would

be

be as mournful, as it is humiliating, to reflect by how little, even of that little, much of the evil that is under the sun, might have been averted, if there were not some consolation in the hope, that the days which speak will at length be heard, and the multitude of years bring wisdom.

New colonies are now rising in the remotest part of the world; and under whatever form of government they may settle when the foundations are firmly laid, the language, at least, of England will be retained there. Great Britain, which may truly be called the hive of nations, is sending, and must continue to send, forth its swarms. Do what we will at home; (our readers know that we entirely agree with Mr. Sadler-as in other momentous points-so also in the opinion, that there is much which may and ought to be done in providing employment for the able and industrious ;) let what may be done, new countries will always offer an inviting field for hope and enterprise; and it is desirable that hope and enterprise should take that direction. Reasonable apprehensions must be felt concerning the future character of society in these colonies if they are to be formed only with the worst materials,-the refuse of the parent state, its criminals, its runaways, and its paupers. Nor is the evil, which may be looked for from this cause, to be counteracted by the temporary abode of persons who go thither to pursue their commercial speculations, meaning to return to England with the fortune which they may accumulate. The best colonists are those who are influenced by the best motives; who go with the intent of taking up their final abode in a new country, because they can there secure a certain independence in all respectability and comfort for their children to the third and fourth generation. To such a course, the settlers in New England were led by a principle of religious zeal; and the contrast which New England at this day presents to the new States of the American Union, and to all colonies which have been founded either by conquerors or mere traders, may teach us that as the root is, so will the tree prove.

There are some things in which our Australian colonies have an advantage over all others in their beginning. The natives are so few that any danger arising from them is too trifling to be taken into the account of inconveniences; our right in the land is that of occupancy, not of conquest. It is an open country-man has only to break the ground, not to clear it. It is a good climate, perhaps the best that could be named, though not as sanguine men were at one time ready from our short experience to infer, exempted from all febrile diseases: within these two years, it has suffered from what may be called a pestilence: still, in no other country, have new settlers been so free from sickness. The curse

of

of slavery has not been carried thither, and at so great a distance from Europe, it may be hoped, that the evil of our wars will not be felt there. New England suffered severely from that cause. Founded upon better principles than any colonies, some of the American states alone excepted, and in a better age than those, it may be hoped that, after the expiration of three centuries, the annals of Australia may be more honourable to religion and human nature than those of the West Indies have proved during an equal course of time; that it may be the task of the annalist, instead of relating a melancholy series of crimes and sufferings, the desperate achievements of wicked men in guilty enterprises, or the unproductive exertions of honourable courage in lawful wars, to record the uninterrupted progress of improvement among a peaceful and happy people.

ART. IX.-1. Present State of the Law.-The Speech of Henry Brougham, Esq., M. P., in the House of Commons, on Thursday, February 7, 1828. (The only authentic edition.) Lon

2. A Letter to the Right Honourable Robert Peel on the Subject of some of the Legal Reforms proposed by Mr. Brougham. By Charles Edward Dodd, Esq., Barrister at Law. London.

1828.

3. Suggestions for some Alterations of the Law, on the Subject of Practice, Pleading, and Evidence. By Edward Lawes, Sergeant at Law. London. 1827.

4. The Mirror of Parliament. Esq. Part V. London. 'LAW,' says Roger North, must be kept as a garden, with frequent digging, weeding, turning, &c., for that which was in one age convenient and, perhaps, necessary, becomes in another prejudicial;' and how cordially we are disposed to lend our feeble aid to any judicious plans for the amendment of actual grievances and defects, whether caused by time or otherwise, is abundantly proved by observations in former Numbers of this Journal. But while reform of the law, to a certain extent, is advisable, every one who views the subject in all its bearings, and with that temperance which it demands, will admit that the utmost caution and judgment are requisite in selecting the points on which to apply it, in marking the limits to which it may wisely be carried, and fixing on the mode by which it may be most safely accomplished. Those who cannot appreciate those who are indifferent to the valuable properties belonging to the basis of our

Edited by John Henry Barrow, March 3, 1828.

laws,

laws, may feel careless as to the manner in which they set about their alterations. If their rude changes should shake or dilapi date the whole structure, to some it may be matter of apathyimpavidos ferient ruinæ ;' but by the judicious and considerate reformer, and, we are convinced, by the bulk of the nation, the preservation and stability of the building will be consulted in all attempts at its improvement :-The law of this country will never be regarded by the people as a tabula rasa, on which the experi ments of politicians may be tried. Above all, no judicious reformer will forget Lord Hale's recommendation (in that essay which Mr. Brougham cites with praise) :—

It is of great importance, upon any alteration of the laws, to be sure:-1. That the change be demonstrable for the better, and such as cannot introduce any considerable inconvenience in the other end of the wallet. 2. That the change, though most clearly for the better, be not in foundations or principles, but in such things as may consist with the general frame and basis of the government or law. 3. That the changes be gradual, and not too much at once, or, at least, more than the exigence of things requires.'*

If cautious and delicate management be necessary in all reforms of settled institutions, it must be admitted that it is doubly so in alterations of the laws. All that the people at large can ever know of the laws must arise from observation of their practical enforcement; how can they know rules which are subjected to perpetual change? The efficacy of laws mainly depends on the sanction of the public opinion; but nothing that has not a character of permanence can long retain popular respect. If an institution is to be changed to-day because a clever argument may be raised against it, a more subtle reasoner may show tomorrow that another alteration is desirable. In truth, it is not as master-pieces of abstract reason that laws or institutions ever did or ever can gain their hold on the public mind—it is by the force of custom-by the close connexion with other institutions,

and by the familiar sense of their practical utility felt during a long series of years. Ignorance of the law, distrust as to its regulations, uncertainty as to important rights and duties, a check and damp on all contracts and dealings of any kind, are the necessary evils attending a frequent change of the legal and judicial systems. Lord Bacon, who is perpetually quoted as a friend of reform, though in truth a not less strenuous respecter of existing systems, says, 'it is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation.'

* Considerations touching the Amendment of the Laws, cap. 1.