nected as they are to us in civil polity, and in alliance, whatever relates to their laws, their manners, their customs, their institutions, may prove illustrative of our own, and whilst seen on a smaller scale, and abstracted from prejudice or party feelings, might come home to our domestic business.

The colonies have indeed been formed at the most interesting periods of our history. -Not driven out by the order of Nature, which decrees that men shall seek other countries when their own is incapable of supporting them, nor exiled by the force of arms, which has propelled the inhabitants of one hemisphere to devastate another, Englishmen have sought asylums on foreign shores, from the hand of power and oppression. They have cherished the flame of liberty in wilds and in deserts, and they have given to man another and a freer world.

The work before us contains a history of one of the most antient of our West-Indian Colonies. The island of Barbadoes was the first of note in the great Indian Archipelago that displayed the British flag-And it has been one of the most patriotic in defending it. Settled by the adherents to the first Charles, it resolutely opposed the arms of the usurper of his crown, and continued the steady friend of the successor to its king, when the rest of the world had forsaken him.

The importance however of a colony to its parent state, consists in something more than its loyalty.

We were much surprised that the author before us has taken notice of little more than the cold languid uninteresting domestic concerns of Barbadoes. With a deep spirit of philosophical inquiry, he has indeed penetrated into most of its laws, with a masterly hand he has touched on one of the chords of its prosperity, the freedom of its constitution, but of its population he has said little, of its commerce nothing. These appear to us to be the only parts of colonial history interesting to English readers. The contention of governors with their assemblies, the pliancy of councils, the economy of presidents, and the public spirit of juries, may indeed frnish matter for West-Indian encomiums or blame, but all readers are not West-Indians.

Nothing can be more flat or insipid, than for us gravely to be told, in a serious history, that ladies, in order to save the expence of an illegal tax on licenses, were out-asked in church, or that a new-married pair were thrown, by the violence of a hurricane, into a pimploe hedge.

Nor is it of importance to say, that the author has not done much, because he promised little. It is chimerical to judge of authors by the excuses of ordinary men, as their only object should be, to instruct and improve mankind.

He who has little to tell, need not write, nor is the world in such want of books as to stand in need of trite or commonplace information. It expects from every man who sets up to instruct it, that he shall be more than ordinarily acquainted with the object of his labour, and to readers it is of little importance whether the defects of a work proceed from ignorance or from want of inquiry in its author. To apologize, indeed, is easy, but apologies can never atone for the want of industry. He who sets out on careless or erroneous principles, and hopes to compensate for the defects of his judgment, or the ill consequences of his laziness, by awkward submissions, will find himself rewarded with the contempt of mankind,

Passing over then the grand economical reforms of a president, who put out the lamps at Pilgrim for the purpose of saving their oil; and the magnanimous motion of the assembly for suppressing the morning gun at Bridge Town, in or der that his majesty's stores might not be wasted; and all that appears to us, useless and uninteresting; we shall confine ourselves to the laws and the state of the slaves in Barbadoes, interspersing such information as might illustrate the condition of the colony.

We are the more severe on this occasion, as the writer before us is a man of real genius, and although by his transatlantic

situation, his writing chiefly for the information of WestIndians, and the Keeper of the Public Records, singulari suû humanitate! through his remarkable zeal for letters, with "more than Spanish jealousy," refusing him access to the journal of the assembly, he laboured under much embarrassment in the conduct of his work, we still think, that he might have rendered it more full, more complete, and more interesting to the general reader.

The constitution of Barbadoes, like that of our other West Indian settlements, is made up of a Governor, Council, and Assembly,

It might at first sight appear, that the representative of the crown in a distant country, from the strength of the royal prerogative, from the variety and extent of his offices, and from the short period of his appointment, which rarely exceeds six years, might frequently be disposed to act arbitrarily and tyrannically. The Assembly, however, are the masters of the Barbadian revenue, and possess the power, and do not want the inclination to curtail the income of the governor, whenever his administration is displeasing to the people. This effectually keeps him subservient to them. The fear of this exercise of power has indeed, in several instances, induced the governor to resign some of those branches of the prerogative that constitute the chief strength of the crown: and the appointment to several offices of trust and honour, and, as it would seem, the regulation of the money of the country, are in the hands of the representatives of the people. This, though unconstitutional, is, we believe, useful to the colony; as in an assembly consisting only of twenty-two members, it would be easy, had the governor the appointment to all places of emolument, to introduce much venality and corruption. The council is always greatly under the power of the governor.

As a branch of the legislature, indeed, the council, from their very appointment and constitution, are necessarily defective. Recommended to office by the executive, and debating in his presence, it is impossible that they can escape the reality or the suspicion of influence: and in an estate of government, either is equally injurious to the commonwealth. Founded, as is government, on public opinion, public opinion cannot be too much consulted in its formation and in its objects: nor is it material whether the functions of administration be weakened by the servility of its members, or by the contempt of the people.

As a branch of the judicial capacity of the crown, the council is equally censurable. Scarce can a petition be received, or a decision be appealed against, in which its members, from their local connections, are not interested; whilst the division of duty, amongst many, weakens the responsibility of all. Add to this, that experience in the mysteries of law, cannot be expected from those who have been educated for other, and perhaps higher objects, than the lucre of a profession.

The chief advantage of the council seems to consist in their participation of measures with the executive, and, in times of popular discontent, in their consequent participation of odium. They are the shield of the Commander-in-Chief, against which the darts of the people are thrown and spent.

The assembly is the popular branch of colonial government, and, of course, the favourite of the people. Its members are chosen annually; a measure which often occasions many serviceable motions and advantageous bills to be suspended in their passage through this house and lost, whilst the dependance which it creates of the members, on their constituents, renders them factious and turbulent.

The temper of the Barbadoes House of Assembly, indeed, appears peculiarly hot and inflammable. Not a session passes, but they are at war with the governor, the council, or themselyes: and the whole meeting appears to be an opposition. Their measures, however, are often salutary, their councils wise, and their speeches eloquent. They appear to be a body

desirous of promoting the public good, and only failing through an anxiety of obtaining the applause of their constituents, and the popularity of the ignorant multitude. Their conduct to one of their governors, who laid on the people an illegal impost, was firm and manly. And although we know not how to approve the patriotism which might ruin a constitution, by refusing the supplies necessary for its existence, at least we may be allowed to applaud it.

There are upwards of thirty judges in the little island of Barbadoes, not four of whom, according to our author's estimate of their legal learning, ever explored the mysteries of Burn's Justice. We presume, there is something in the air of this flourishing colony, that inspires the legal erudition, or something in the soil that expands the consciences of this tribe of judges. Climate, according to some philosophers, is of wonderful effect in quickening the talents of men.

The whole criminal law business of the island, in spite of the swarm of judges, is thrown on the shoulders of his Majesty's Attorney-General, who performs the duty of a prosecutor, a judge, and, we may add, of a jury, in one and the same breath. The orations of this pleader, if collected, would certainly give birth to a new species of eloquence, as they obviously are neither demonstrative, deliberative, nor judicial.

The chief point to which we would draw the attention of our readers, is the state of slavery in Barbadoes. And here again we cannot help regretting, that our author has treated so great a subject with such negligence. It would have been a beautiful and an interesting picture, to have delineated the shades of discrimination between the African, fresh from the wildness of his desarts, and domesticated in the slave-yards of the West Indies, to have shewn how the native fierceness of the freeman is lost in the degradation of the slave, or how the warmer vices of his soul are clouded by the hypocrisy, or rendered violent by the impulses, of a more enlightened