The

pro- '

fate. Whole parishes almost died; and yet the corn and meal were sent every day to England from almost all the ports in the island, and, at last, ships came loaded back with potatoes and oats, while others were still taking them away. But they came too late; a putrid fever had got among the poor, and carried them off by dozens, aye, scores. people in England, good souls, sent the visions: the Irish were too poor to give much, for their produce sold so cheap, they could not pay their rents or debts."-"Do you think," asked the Doctor, "that any of those, who, at last, sent you some provisions, gave up a meal for your benefit? Did they, think you, eat a dinner less, a mouthful less, to save you and your countrymen from death by hunger? What would the gentry and clergy of England have said of us in Jamaica, Mr. Nunnez, had such a catastrophe occurred beneath our eyes? Had our negroes been prepared for death by whole families, if not en masse, whilst we shipped off our corn, and sugar, and yams, to other countries, as remittances to absentees? Would our government, the Privy Council-the House of Assembly, have contemplated any thing so brutal and in

human, as to permit such an export under such circumstances? Or if they had, would our Viceroy, our Duke of Manchester, have looked on, and sent the negroes five pounds among them? Sneezer and Dollar, and you other negroes, look at this man. You have heard his story. What do you think of those Buckras on the other side the water? Would you like to be free Britons, free-born Englishmen-to be kept aboard a ship for seven years, and made to fight for them, or to be shot or flogged for being afraid? And when they had no more occasion for your services, or you were worn out, to be flung ashore to starve? What did your friend Mr. Wilberforce ever do for these poor sailor Buckras? or those poor Irishmen who died of hunger and nakedness? Did he ever tell the government they were cruel and indifferent, or beg them not to flog the sailors and soldiers? Did Master Stephen, or Mr. Macauley, or Mr. Buxton, go among the people that were dying, and give them something to eat? or did they send missionaries among them to tell them that the laws which tied their hands from seizing the food, for want of which they were

dying, were not the laws of nature? Did they commission them to say that the Irish had a right to eat, and be free? or did they ever send people to preach to the sailors in their ships, that they were fools to allow themselves to be kept there against their will, and flogged, and made to fight against their reason, and in utter defiance of the sublime truths of Christianity, and in contempt of it's charitable doctrines?—No, no; they sat at home and drank their wine, and planned speeches and books, which set the poor negroes mad, and get some of you hanged-But Mr. Currie has not done."

"Yes," replied the Hibernian, "I have nearly done. I was fortunate enough to be received on board an American ship in the harbour of Galway, and have since remained in the service of the same owner, with whom I have been well content. We have lost his schooner, that is, she foundered; and my messmates are on board that rascally thief of a pirate."

The little Doctor instantly made provision for sending Currie to Kingston on his own mule, with a negro boy to shew him the way and bring back the beast. He cannot

fail of finding a passage to America, in some ship of that country, and he will have the best means of gaining information of the pirate and his messmates. Our junta supplied him with a sufficiency of cash, and the Jew gave him a letter to some member of his own family, who will furnish him food and lodging as long as he is in want of them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

I COULD never account for the impediments thrown in the way of manumitting slaves, when one would think that freedom was but a just reward for long and faithful services. In Barbadoes, I am told, a fine of two or three hundred pounds must be paid for the manumission of a negro; and, in Jamaica, an annuity of ten pounds at least must be settled and secured on every slave so emancipated.

And reasoning from what I had seen of the rich and poor in England and other parts of Europe, I used to think that the West India slaves had but little chance of obtaining redress for ill treatment by a master; I now entertain a very different opinion. The negroes generally seem to know their rights well, and to be actuated by a most lively esprit de corps whenever any one is illegally punished