1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign* 



107 



after an absence of many years. In the 

 course of conversation, the baronet, hearing 

 his brother talk of engagements, exclaims, 

 " But you must have some time to kill." 



' Kill ! kill time ! Oh, dear ! no," replied 

 Archibald ; " you know nothing about the matter. 

 Time travels too fast by half to please me ; I 

 should like to clip the old scoundrel's pinions. 

 The complaints which I have heard, occasionally, 

 of time passing away so slowly, ennui, and what 

 not, are to me miraculous. Time seems to travel 

 at such a deuce of a rate, that there's no keeping 

 pace with him. The days are too short by half, so 

 are the nights ; so are the weeks, the months, and 

 the years. I can scarcely get to bed before it's time 

 to get up ; and I haven't been up but a little time, 

 apparently, before it's time to go to bed. I can but 

 barely peep at the Gazette, or any matter of similar 

 interest in the papers, and swallow an anchovy- 

 sandwich, and a couple of cups of coffee, when its 

 time to be at the 'counting-house. By the time I 

 have read the letters and given a few directions, it's 

 time to be in a hundred places; before I can reach 

 the last of them, it's time to be on 'Change; I don't 

 speak to half the ; people there, to whom I have 

 something to say, before it's time to reply to corre- 

 spondents ; and my letters are scarcely written before 

 it's post and dinner time. Farewell business ! but 

 then there's no time for enjoyment : dinner, wine, 

 coffee, supper, and punch, follow in such rapid 

 succession, actually treading on each other's heels, 

 that there's no time to be comfortable at either 

 of them. It's the same in bed ; a man must sleep 

 fast, or time will get the start of him, and business 

 be behindhand an hour or two, and every thing in 

 disorder next morning. If I accept a bill for a couple 

 of months,it's due before I can well whistle : my ware- 

 house rents are enormous ; and, upon my conscience, 

 Lady-day and her three sisters introduce themselves 

 to my notice, at intervals so barely perceptible, that 

 the skirt of one of the old harridans' garments has 

 scarcely disappeared, before in flounces another. 

 It's just as bad with the fire-insurances, and a thou- 

 sand other things, little matters as well as great : 

 a man can scarcely pick his teeth before he's hungry 

 again. The seasons are drawn by race-horses ; my 

 family has barely settled at home after a trip to 

 Buxton, Brussels, or elsewhere, before summer 

 comes round, and Mrs. H. pines for fresh air and 

 an excursion'checque again. I can scarcely recover 

 the drain made on my current capital, by portioning 

 one daughter, before another shoots up from a 

 child to a woman; and .lack This or Tom T'other's 

 father wants to know if I mean to give her the 

 same as her sister. It's wonderful how a man gets 

 through so much in the short space of life ; he must 

 be prepared for everything, when, egad ! there's no 

 time for anything." 



Humane Policy ; or Justice to the Ab- 

 origines of New Settlements, fyc. By J. 

 Bannister, late Attorney- General in New 

 South Wales. Though applicable in prin- 

 ciple to all our settlements, the immediate 

 object of the author's remarks is the Cape 

 and its neighbourhood. No British settle- 

 ments are at this time in so much jeopardy, 

 from the resentments of the natives, as those 

 of Southern Africa. The causes are obvi- 

 ous enough. More injustice and cruelty have 

 been committed in those regions, and less 

 pains been taken to cover and colour usurpa- 

 tions, than elsewhere. ' Nothing of the kind 



will, of course, be acknowledged. The 

 fault all lies at the door of the miserable 

 natives the Hottentots are stupid, the 

 Caffres ferocious, the Bushmen implacable- 

 they can none of them distinguish friends 

 from foes. The colonists, though meaning 

 nothing but good, have all their kind views 

 counteracted by the insensibilities or the 

 atrocities of the savage ; and as to govern- 

 ments, they have, of course, but one cure 

 for all sores the sword. New lights break 

 in, however, by degrees. A little common 

 sense at home infuses gradually a belief that 

 every thing in the human form has passions 

 and feelings in common ; and that if supe- 

 rior intelligence does not work its natural 

 influence, the fault is probably in the un- 

 skilfulness with which it is employed. We 

 must not expect gentleness for violence, or, 

 when we encroach upon others' rights, hope 

 that the owners will turn round and thank 

 us, and not rather seek opportunity for ven- 

 geance. That the African of the Cape is 

 not the unimpressible being he has been 

 represented is proved from the intercourse of 

 the missionaries, and still more satisfactorily 

 from the experience of the few colonists who 

 have tried gentle methods, and treated them 

 on the footing of human beings with human 

 feelings. 



From the first conquest of the Cape we 

 find governors affecting to recognize the 

 principles of common equity ; but their 

 measures, down to the very last year, prove 

 the recognition is one of words only. The 

 project of seizing Gaika, the Caffre chief, 

 in 1822, and the Griegans, in Beaufort 

 Town, in 1820 the killing of the Ficani 

 in 1828, and the seizing of the neutral 

 ground, and Macomo's land, in 1829, would 

 surely have never been devised, if those 

 principles had really operated ; or if, as Mr. 

 Bannister justly observes, such measures 

 were liable to be submitted to public opinion. 

 A free press at the Cape, apparently, could 

 do no harm, and might check the abuse of 

 power. 



No doubt the habits of the people inter- 

 pose numerous obstacles to any project of 

 civilizing them ; but civilizing them is not, 

 and cannot, be the first object of colonizing, 

 if it be even the secondary it is rather, 

 perhaps, not one at all directly and by 

 special effort, but only one that is likely to 

 follow from the neighbourhood of good ex- 

 ample, and one that is desirable. If any 

 thing can be done, it must be more by for- 

 bearance than by any thing else. In tracts 

 of country either unoccupied, or but thinly 

 peopled, difficulties have rarely been found 

 in prevailing upon the natives to cede consi- 

 derable portions upon terms. These con- 

 tracts, it may be, the natives occasionally 

 break ; but the melancholy truth is, Europe- 

 ans always break them, and no faith has 

 been kept at all with the people of the Cape. 



The object of Mr. Bannister's book is to 

 show the means that are in our hands to 

 secure at once the well-being of the colonists, 



N2 



