308 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



pVlARCK, 



.During the progress of these pages through the 

 press, it ha? pleased Providence to inflict upon 

 me the severest calamity that domestic life can 

 sustain. In the private sorrows of the hamblo 

 candidate for literary fame, I am aware that the 

 world will feel no interest, yet humanity will for- 

 give the weakness that struggles under such a 

 bereavement, and will pardon the tear that falls 

 upon such a tomb. If, indeed, the Being who !s 

 lost to her family and society were endowed only 

 with those gifts and graces, which are shared by 

 thousands of her sex, I should hare been silent at 

 this moment. To those who knew her, and to 

 know her was to esteem and love, this tribute 

 will be superfluous; but to those who knew her 

 not, I would say, that, superadded to every natu- 

 ral advantage, to the charms of every polite ac- 

 complishment, and to a cheerful and sincere 

 piety, she was deeply imbued with the love of 

 literature and.of science. In these, her Lectures 

 on the Physiology of the External Senses, exhibit 

 a splendid proof of her acquirements in their 

 highest walks, aud are an imperishable memorial 

 of her patient and laborious research. They who 

 were present at the delivery of these Lectures 

 will not soon forget the effect of her impressive 

 elocution, chastened as it was by as unaffected 

 modesty as ever adorned and dignified a woman. 

 I speak of that which she performed that which 

 her capacious mind had meditated I forbear to 

 mention. For the advancement of her sex in pur- 

 suits that are intellectual she made many sacri- 

 fices, both of her feelings and her time ; yet, in all 

 she did, and in all she contemplated, usefulness 

 was her end and aim but I must not proceed ; 

 less than this I could not say more than this 

 might be deemed ostentatious. 



Sketches and Recollections of the West 

 Indies, by a Resident ; 1828 It has been 

 by some thought remarkable that, let who 

 will go to the West Indies, and write about 

 the state of its slave population, all take the 

 s me tone; and the fact that this tone is 

 the same is confidently insisted upon by the 

 interested, and sometimes acceded to by the 

 disinterested portion of the country, as irre- 

 fragable proof of its correctness of its cor- 

 respondence with the facts. AH speak of 

 the comfortable condition of the slaves 

 (though that condition is evidently not the 

 ancient condition, but the improved one 

 the result of loud and indignant expostu- 

 lation at home) all speak of the humanity 

 of the planters implying or asserting that 

 no real ground of complaint exists that 

 slavery, as it shews in the West Indies, is 

 but a name, for the actual condition of the 

 slave is superior to that of half the labourers 

 of England. The natural conclusion, of 

 course, is, that emancipation is a thing not 

 worth contending for that it is uncalled 

 for by the circumstances of the case that 

 what is well is not likely to be mended 

 that of course it is wisest to leave well alone 

 emancipation would rather deteriorate 

 matters than improve them. 



But though all confessedly do take the 

 name tone, who are these all ? Generally, 

 persons directly interested. The persons 

 who put forth these statements of the West 



Indies are, with few exceptions, the very 

 persons who are most interested, or rather, 

 believe themselves to be thus interested, in 

 supporting the existing state of things. They 

 are planters, or the agents, or the depen- 

 dants, or the correspondents of planters. 

 And who are the exceptions ? The bishops, 

 the bishops* chaplains and friends, and the 

 royal commissioners. And what do these 

 people know of the actual condition of the 

 slaves? What opportunities have they? 

 They are attended and feted by the planters 

 what is unfavourable is kept out of sight, 

 and the contrary carefully obtruded upon 

 them ; and for the most part these distin- 

 guished persons are no more at liberty to 

 see what the planters choose they shall not 

 see than any other prisoners. No body 

 visits the islands through curiosity, or in 

 search of amusement or instruction, as other 

 countries are visited no body roams about 

 there at pleasure and at liberty; and thus 

 it is, obviously, the easiest thing in the 

 world to account for the universal tone of 

 our books though this tone be in truth 

 very far from echoing the true state of 

 things. 



But this tone, such as it is, has mani- 

 festly changed of late changed with re- 

 spect to the talk of emancipation in politic 

 compliance with the predominant sentiments 

 of the country. It is no longer acceptable 

 in any independent quarter to hear the prin- 

 ciple of slavery defended. Therefore, the 

 very planters and their advocates, when 

 they talk of emancipation, no longer speak 

 of its impracticability, of its injustice, or its 

 impolicy, but only demand time, time for 

 the gradual introduction of changes to qua- 

 lify the slave for the proper enjoyment of 

 his liberty and compensation for the final 

 surrender of their property indirectly in- 

 sisting only on such matters as appear to 

 them calculated to insinuate into the minds 

 of men, that this emancipation, which they 

 no longer oppose, will not answer the ex- 

 pectations of its patrons, and will indeed do 

 more harm than good. 



This is an insidious procedure, and must 

 be guarded against. The main argument 

 with the planter is, that the slave does not 

 understand freedom that by freedom he 

 understands exemption from labour while 

 the abolitionists profess, and undoubtedly 

 mean, constant labour regular industry, 

 though not at the terror of the lash. This 

 no doubt is the fact ; but whose fault is 

 this ? Not the abolitionists* but the planters', 

 who have encouraged this misconstruction 

 to throw odium upon them. The aim of 

 the abolitionist is to improve the condition 

 of the slave before he emancipates, but to 

 lose no time in setting to to do in fact 

 what the very planter professes to wish for 

 time to enable him to accomplish. Were 

 the planter as sincere in his professions as 

 the abolitionist in his demands, they might 

 now concur and that concurrence would 

 materially accelenite the object, 



