316 Notes on Haiti. [SEPT. 



trees that bear sweet and pleasant fruits, such as the mango, the Java 

 plum, the bread-fruit, the soursop, the sapadillo, the pomegranate, and 

 other grateful and delicious fruit. Each hut had its fowls, pigs, and 

 goats. The sick house was a cool, capacious, and convenient building, 

 well adapted to the purpose for which it was used so was the nursery : 

 but we must refer to Mr. Bayley's book for minute details. He devotes 

 a chapter or two to an account of Codrington College, which we would 

 recommend to the perusal of the Reverend Daniel Wilson, for the 

 instruction of his auditors at the next anti-slavery meeting! 



After visiting St. Lucia, Mr. Bayley passed to the picturesque Island 

 of St. Vincent. Missionaries are more tolerated here than at Barbadoes. 

 " In their principal chapel, when a very forcible and energetic expres- 

 sion burst from the lips of the minister, he was encouraged by his 

 brethren with cries of ' hear, hear !' " a novel mode of evincing appro- 

 bation in a place sacred to humility of mind and contrite feelings. 



The substitution of the tread-mill as a mode o^ punishing culprits, in 

 place of working them in disgusting chain-gangs, is a step towards 

 improvement in the police of Kingstown, and a proof of right feeling 

 on the part of the inhabitants. 



Of the Charaib war, in 1795, he gives an interesting account. These 

 people, to the number of 4,633 men, women, and children, with 725 

 brigands, being forced to surrender, were first sent to Baliseau, one of 

 the Grenadines, but subsequently to the island of Ruatan in the Bay of 

 Honduras. They were provided with some arms, utensils, agricultural 

 implements, and provisions ; but from indolence and despondency they 

 allowed the vessel, which was left in their charge, to sink at her anchors. 

 They subsequently passed over to the mainland, and having obtained a 

 footing, they are now scattered along the coast from Truxillo towards 

 the Mosquito country.* 



A few of this original race still exist in St. Vincent. They have 

 become quiet, idle, and inoffensive ; and their king considers rum et very 

 g9od tuff." 



The government of St. Vincent has done much for the amelioration 

 of their slaves ; their grants to the people of colour have not, however, 

 been so liberal as those of the Assembly of Grenada : " but then, it is 

 to be remembered, that there is a great difference between that class of 

 people in the two islands" Yet our lawgivers at home deride or under- 

 value this kind of local knowledge, and would force the same legislative 

 measures upon each of the colonies, whatever dissimilarity there may 

 happen to be in the progress of society ! " Perhaps," says Mr. Bayley, 

 " order and regularity are no where so well maintained with little seve- 

 rity and such lenient kindness as on the estate of a West India colonist. 

 I regret to say that too many works have been published * * * whose 

 authors have been misleading the ideas of their countrymen, by describ- 

 ing, in forcible and energetic language, tending to awaken feelings of 

 indignation, what the state of slavery unhappily was, but what it has 

 long since ceased to be." And on the subject of emancipation, Mr. 

 Bayley, like every sensible man who has seen the colonies, and studied 

 the actual habits and ideas of the negroes, says cc to give it them to-day 

 will be adding fuel to despoiling fire will be pouring down destruction 

 upon fair and fertile lands." He bears ample testimony to their present 



* Roberts' Central America. 



