MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 335 



upon as one of the most successful efforts in modern novel- writing. They 

 will be perused with deep interest by all classes of readers, as they come 

 home to the sympathies and feelings which are deeply implanted in all 

 of us. 



There are many excellent observations on men and manners scattered 

 through these volumes, and a capital description of one of those nonentities 

 'yclepd modern dandies, with all his follies and absurdities, drawn to 

 the life. 



We sincerely hope that ' ' Chances and Changes" may become as popular 

 as its merits deserve to make it. 



EMANCIPATION UNMASKED, IN A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. 

 THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, BY THE AUTHOR OP "THE AN- 

 NALS OP JAMAICA," &c. &c. EDWARD CHURTON, LONDON. 



This letter, both as regards subject-matter and execution, is most ap- 

 propriately addressed to Lord Aberdeen, and will doubtless be well re- 

 ceived by that nobleman; for it is a senseless tirade against a measure 

 of the late liberal administration granted to the prayers of the united British 

 people an act of grace and mercy no longer to be delayed. The letter 

 is characterized by a want of temper, a petulance quite unworthy of a 

 writer who pretends from his experience to dogmatize upon measures 

 which can hardly be said yet to have come fairly into operation. He is 

 like a spoilt booby, who, because he cannot win every trick, must forsooth 

 throw up the cards. He asserts, that such is the constitutional indolence 

 of the negro, that nothing but force can induce him to work, and that 

 consequently our colonies and twenty millions are irrevocably lost to 

 this country. We must have better authority than " The Annals of 

 Jamaica," so plentifully quoted to convert us to that opinion ; and from 

 Lord Brougham's work, on colonial policy, so triumphantly brought 

 forward to aid the arguments of the writer, we shall prefer abiding by 

 the following passage to illustrate the justice of the views of the abo- 

 litionist, rather than others, so partially quoted by the writer of the 

 letter: 



"That those who continue in a state of slavery should exhibit the ap- 

 pearance of an indolence which nothing but the terror of the lash can 

 overcome, is perhaps more the consequence of their degraded condition than 

 of their uncivilized state." 



Now, we have nothing whatever to prove that the negro is indolent, ex- 

 cepting in a state of slavery, and that he should be industrious under such 

 circumstances is too much to expect. In his native country, the negro is 

 active and accumulative. He is either agriculturalist, merchant, or 

 hunter, for the purposes of trade. We find various traits recorded of 

 him peculiar to uncivilized life, but indolence is by no means prominent. 

 The fact is, that the slave-owners have been so long accustomed to despotic 

 control though we by no means infer that they have used it otherwise 

 than humanely that the prospect of freedom to their dependents is gall to 

 them. The new regulations are likewise troublesome, and the planters, 

 however energetically they encourage industry in others, are not remarkable 

 for that virtue themselves. They will therefore clog the operation lof the 

 humane measures of enfranchisement as much as they are able, for the 

 praise-worthy purpose of proving to the people of England the advantage 

 of bondage. But, men whose ideas are so primitive that, according to the 

 writer of the letter, they can see no system of agriculture equal to that of 

 the hoe and basket, are not precisely the sort of men whose opinion we 

 should take in matters of amelioration and improvement. Seeing the 

 likelihood therefore of some trouble in remodelling the slave system, the 



