14 TUINIDAD. 



no payment asked for either medical attendance, medicines, coffin, 

 grave, or funeral." 



Slavery, with its degrading influence, I readily concede, must 

 have contributed largely to the implanting of the above-men- 

 tioned defects in the negro character. During slavery marriage 

 was not exactly discouraged ; but, as it was generally allowed 

 only between individuals belonging to the same estate, the con- 

 sequence was that marriages were the rare exceptions and concu- 

 binage the general rule. In addition to that, the slave possessing 

 no civil right had no interest, as he had no benefit, in any civil 

 contract; and it is well known that habits contracted during 

 ages cannot be uprooted in a few years. Again, the slave had 

 very little authority over his children, the care of them being 

 left to him only in their infant state ; these children, on the 

 other hand, being bound to obey and serve the master, were 

 actually led to cast aside the respect and attention due to the 

 parents. Slavery had, in this as in other cases, a fatal tendency 

 to relax the natural as well as the civil ties, and it is not sur- 

 prising that its effects are still felt even after forty years of 

 freedom. 



I think it therefore due to the negro to say that those vicious 

 features of his character which I have portrayed are more the 

 offspring of ignorance and the consequence of a protracted state 

 of debasing bondage than the effects of a wicked and perverse 

 nature; for, however prominent their faults and, at times, 

 heinous their offences, it is notorious that they do not approach 

 to that degree of moral turpitude which characterises those of 

 the same class in Europe. The crimes committed by the negroes 

 generally spring from sudden impulse and ungovernable passions, 

 and are not the result of base and selfish calculations. Seldom 

 have we heard of life violated for the acquisition of money in 

 Trinidad. They are, besides, charitably disposed, and ever 

 ready to assist the destitute. But if their vices do not assume 

 as dark a shade of moral perversity as those of some Europeans, 

 doubtless their qualities, in regard to all the degrees of social 

 obligations, are far inferior to theirs. Such is my conscientious 

 appreciation of the merits and demerits of the negroes as they are 

 exhibited in these islands. He is and must be responsible to a 

 great extent for his faults, but more responsible still should be 

 those institutions which necessarily tend to debase the human 

 mind. A healthy and highly encouraging change has already 

 taken place since he has been admitted to the enjoyment of those 

 rights which for so many years were the exclusive advantage of 

 a few. 



In 1858, when I first published this book, I could say indeed 

 that the West Indian planters had been in general most unmer- 



