chap, i.] WEST INDIES. 223 
husband (for so he is called) with faith plighted, 
with sentiment, and with affection. 
That this system ought to be utterly abolished I 
most readily admit. Justice towards the many 
beautiful and virtuous young ladies resident in 
these islands, cries aloud for a thorough reforma¬ 
tion of manners: But by whom is such a reform to 
be begun and accomplished? It can hardly be ex¬ 
pected, I think, from the objects of our present 
inquiries, who are conscious of no vices which 
their Christian instructors have not taught them; 
and whose good qualities (few and limited as they 
are) flow chiefly from their own native original cha¬ 
racter and disposition. 
Of those qualities, the most striking is tender¬ 
ness of heart; a softness or sympathy of mind to¬ 
wards affliction and distress, which I conceive is 
seldom displayed in either extreme of prosperity 
or wretchedness. Those who have never experi¬ 
enced any of the vicissitudes and calamities of life, 
turn averse from the contemplation of them; and 
those again who are wretched themselves, have no 
leisure to attend to the sufferings of others: but 
the benevolence of the poor people of whom I 
treat, is not merely solitary and contemplative; it 
is an active principle, in which they may be said 
particularly to excel; and I have the authority of a 
great writer before quoted (Don Anthonio De 
TJlloa) to support me in this representation. Speak- 
