the Spanish judiciary arrangements fulfils, at the same time, the duties of notary, recorder and constable. The royal ordinance of the 25th July, 1643, and 23d March, 1654, declare men of colour incapable of serving in the royal troops. They employ them, however, in defence of the country. They are formed into particular corps of militia, in which merit may raise a man of colour to the rank of captain. All superior officers must be taken from amongst the whites.

The Law subjects them to an Impost which they do not pay.

All negroes and mulattoes of both sexes, like the Indians, have been subjected to a personal tax; but the ordinance which imposes it is not executed in the extent of the captain-generalship of Caraccas. The law is, however, so much the more express, as it ordains, in order to facilitate the collection of that impost, that the residence of the negroes should be only at the houses of persons of some notoriety.

Sumptuary Laws with respect to Freed-men.

Another ordinance debars women of colour from wearing gold, silk, mantles or pearls. But this restriction is not enforced. At present they are permitted to regulate their costume according to their pecuniary means, which are more or less abundantly supplied, according to their age and personal attractions. It may be affirmed as a truth, that of all the women of colour in Terra-Firma, nineteen out of twenty have no other

shift to depend upon, and it must be confessed at the same time, that they have generally the talent to make the most of it. The white women, who are too frequently mortified by the rivalship of women of colour, not to entertain considerable prejudice against them, have always asserted the exclusive privilege of using in church carpets which are carried there by their servants. She who has one drop of African blood flowing in her veins, must not pretend to this piece of convenience. The petticoats of those women whose complexions are tinged by the slightest shade of black, are condemned to be soiled by the dusty floor of the church, whilst their delicate knees must bend upon the hard flags.

Free persons of colour, however rich they may be,

are not allowed to have Indians in their service.

Case in which a Freed-man returns to Slavery.

The freed-man or his descendant, who absconds for four months is again reduced to slavery, and becomes the property of the person who takes him, unless his captor prefers the sum of fifty milled dollars, to be paid by the police, to whom the prisoner is in that case to be surrendered, and to become their property.

The King gives Dispensations with respect to People of Colour.

The rigour which the law is observed to exercise towards people of colour is not unfrequently mitiga

ted by the interposition of patronage. It is not un common for the law to grant dispensations to men of colour, either to qualify them for entering into holy orders, or for becoming candidates for civil employments. The real or supposed merit of the party is of considerable importance in supporting his pretensions, but he must at least be a mulatto, to entitle him to the right of making any solicitation. Were the negro a nonpareil of science, and a pattern of virtue, he must not aspire at any such favours.

When money can create a powerful interest, and give animation to the zeal of patrons, entire families are, according to a royal ordinance, transferred from the class of freemen of colour to that of whites. It is unlawful to reproach them with the viciousness of their origin; and they are declared competent for exercising any public function.

During my stay at Caraccas, a whole family of colour obtained from the king all the privileges attached to the whites. All the real advantage which they derived from this advancement seemed to me to devolve upon the women, who thereby acquired the right of kneeling upon carpets at church. Vain of this newly acquired privilege, they displayed, in the exercise of it, such ostentation and extravagance as could afford no gratification but to vulgar pride. I was informed, by respectable authority, that this royal favour, at whatever price it might have been procured, would effect very little change in the public opinion favourable to the family in question, and that none of its members would ever be called to the exercise of public functions, so far

as their complexion would betray their origin. This evinces how far prejudices are paramount to laws. They are formed and destroyed by time, or by the aid of those political commotions, which, by deranging the heads, derange likewise the opinions of men.

Marriages between Whites and People of Colour.

Marriages between freemen of colour and whites, although not prohibited by the laws, till a very late period, are not viewed in a more favourable light here than elsewhere. The first families are particularly careful to avoid such a mixture. Upon this article, they are even more scrupulous than French noblemen, who have frequently gone to the colonies for the express purpose of repairing, by a matrimonial connexion, a fortune wrecked by losses or misconduct. In these cases they despised prejudice. They cared nothing about colour, provided it was not absolutely black. Riches were the Riches were the great desideratum, and made up for every thing else. They returned to France with their tawny consorts, where their Creole birth detracted nothing from their consequence in polite society.

It is true, there are no inducements for such alliances, in the Spanish settlements, where people of colour are generally so indigent, hat those who enjoy the easiest circumstances live from hand to mouth. Nothing, therefore, but the beauty and attractions of a girl of colour, could tempt a noble Spaniard to contract a legal union with an object, who would refuse, VOL. I. D d

vours.

on any other consideration, to admit him to her faBut in a country, where there are so many means of gratifying passion, such a sacrifice is hardly to be expected. Besides the virtue of girls of this class is too frail to resist seduction, and their circumstances no ways adequate to support their notions of luxury, to be able to prefer modesty under every privation, to intrigue, which knows none.

Hence it is, that alliances between families of colour and distinguished Spanish families have very rarely occurred. Such connexions have been pretty common among the lower classes of the whites, till in the year 1785, a royal ordinance expressly required, for the validity of marriages, that the consent of parents should be obtained, or at least requested, according to the forms prescribed by the laws, and that the difference of colour should constitute a reason sufficient to prevent marriages, conformably to the pragmatic sanction of 1776, which prohibits all marriages between whites and persons of colour. After this arrangement, prejudice resumed all the ascendancy which time had destroyed.

Until that period, the Creoles of the Canary Isles were least averse to such marriages. From that time they are as delicate on this point as other whites, and it may be affirmed with truth, that marriages of this kind are far from being frequent at the present day.

Some are yet to be seen between people of colour and whites.

Those still to be seen are between white girls and men of colour. This particularity demands an explanation, which I give with reluctance.