SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 109 



blacks ; they usually make you put a question twice, in order 

 to gain time for framing an answer such as they wish to give ; 

 they hold it no obligation to answer truly. Still their testi- 

 mony should be heard, and compared with circumstances 

 and with other evidence, until it is duly sifted, and appre- 

 ciated at its probable worth. I am convinced that it would 

 be a useful reform in the jurisprudence of the colonies, to 

 confer on all the shades of complexion an equality of criminal 

 rights. In the islands, the right of inheritance enjoyed by 

 mulattoes is limited to two thousand pounds currency, so that 

 a father cannot provide liberally for his offspring by a negro 

 concubine; no such unjust limitation, as far as I have heard, 

 is included in the Dutch code. 



Nor is it alone in the West Indies that negroes require a further 

 degree of legal protection. A friend of mine brought over to 

 this country a negro servant: he landed at Portsmouth, and left 

 Quamin on board the ship to come round to London, to meet 

 him there. We had had a tedious voyage of eleven weeks from 

 Tortola, the last place we touched at, and the general rendezvous 

 for the homeward-bound fleets from the West Indies. Poor 

 Quamin was heartily tired of this long, disagreeable, and dan- 

 gerous passage, and was anxiously wishing to get on shore, to 

 see a country, to use his own language, ** where every body 

 been free, and nobody hab massa." Contrary winds detained 

 the ship longer at Spithead than was wished for. In the mean 



