1830.] Affairs in General 331 



This gentleman, from the conversations he had with Mr. Smith, collector 

 of the Customs at Savannah La Mar, was induced to suspect him as the 

 author of the letter in question, which Mr. S. subsequently acknowledged. 

 The result was, the appointment of a Committee to inquire into Mr. 

 Smith's statements. The Committee proceeded to procure the evidence 

 and depositions of everyperson who could in any manner give information 

 on the subject, among whom were the Rector of the parish, the Baptist 

 and Methodist Missionaries, the whole contradicting in the most un- 

 qualified manner the entire of Mr. Smith's statements. But this was 

 not all : the Committee examined Mr. Smith himself, to give him an 

 opportunity to prove his charges ; and how did he so ? By acknow- 

 ledging that he had not seen a single circumstance described that he 

 had manufactured his letter partly from what he had heard from others, 

 whose names (very prudently, no doubt) he declined giving, and partly 

 from prejudices he had formerly imbibed in a great measure from the 

 work of Mr. Stephen ! 



The indignation of the West Indians was natural, and the result has 

 been a direct denial of Smith's calumnies. 



The following is an extract from the Report of the Committee of 

 investigation : " Your Committee, on reviewing generally the evidence 

 before them, conclude that Mr. Smith has not proved himself to 

 have been an ( eye-witness' to a single charge of cruelty, as by him 

 stated. Mr. Smith has, moreover, admitted before us that f he had 

 procured his unfounded slanders partly from the calumnious produc- 

 tion of Mr. Stephen on Slavery,' and partly from prejudiced persons 

 in this country, but whose names he refused to give up." 



As to Master Stephen, we charge him with no cardinal sins. But he 

 is a confoundedly cunning fellow, and has contrived to feather his own 

 nest and that of his family in a most comfortable style of public 

 plucking. One of the papers lately gave a list of places to the amount 

 of no less than 17,000/. a year, held by this pious and unworldly per- 

 sonage and his family ! Where is the reforming Duke in all this ? 



As for Zachary Macauley, no one can doubt his being the pattern of 

 a saint, and a gloriously thriving one besides. He first pushed himself 

 into the Sierra Leone trade, by which we hope that he has lost nothing ! 

 Then he pushed his boy into a Commissionership of Bankrupts ; then he 

 pushed him into Parliament for the Devonshire borough. In all this, 

 he is of course, not thinking of our very wicked world ! 



How long are the public to be bored by the fuss made about the 

 merits of actresses ? The stage is at this time in the deepest degradation, 

 in every sense of the word. Its authorship, in any true sense of the 

 name is utterly gone. No man now takes the trouble of writing any 

 thing original for the stage. There are some ingenious writers con- 

 nected with the principal theatres, but their efforts are limited to trans- 

 lation. But our present and more repulsive topic is the state of 

 female character on the boards. One of the papers, which, to do it 

 justice, is among the most measured in its language, tells us 



There are reasons for every thing. A gentleman of some taste and judg- 

 ment lately expressed surprise at seeing Miss C brought so much before 



the public, while other singers of talent were kept in the shade. " Ah ! 

 said a person who is in the secret, every young lady has not a lord for a 

 friend. Her patrpn sends ten pounds worth of tickets into the house every 



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