exceed a million, may open, by its results alone, an immense field to indigenous industry. If the trade in blacks ceases entirely, the slaves will pass by degress into the class of freemen, and society, recomposed of itself, without being exposed to the violent shocks of civil dissensions, will reënter the paths which nature has traced for all societies, which have become numerous and enlightened. The culture of the sugar-cane and the coffee-tree will not be abandoned, but it will remain no more the principal base of the national existence, than are the culture of cochineal for Mexico, that of indigo for Guatimala, that of cocoa for Venezuela. An agricultural, free, and intelligent population will succeed progressively a slave population, without foresight and industry." So may it be. Every judicious friend of humanity will rejoice at the prospect of such a consummation. So may emancipation take place, naturally and quietly. This must be the prayer of every philanthropist, whose precipitancy of temper does not outrun his reason and benevolence. But what if the people of one or two of the provinces of central Cuba, in which there is a large majority of freemen, should write, and talk, and hold meetings, and advise, and threaten the other provinces, on the crime of slave holding, and thus keep their neighbors in a state of continual fear and irritation? Is it most likely, that the day of freedom would be hastened or postponed by such a course? Is it most likely, that the condition of the slave would be meliorated or rendered worse?

In the mean time important influences are at work, and great effects are in a course of preparation in the two other principal islands of the West Indies, Jamaica on the south, and St. Domingo on the east; both of which are so near, that they may, on a clear day, be seen from some parts of Cuba, which has itself been called the "Metropolis of the Antilles. In Jamaica there is nominally no slavery now, apprenticeship having taken its place; and even apprenticeship will soon be extinct there, and all will be free. In St. Domingo, as the world knows, slavery was brought to a swift end, in horror and blood, near the close of the last century; and the world knows, too, that the catastrophe was precipitated by the whites on their own heads. If you would ascertain whether the grand experiment of emancipation, which the British government are carrying on in Jamaica, is likely to have a favorable or unfavorable issue, it is necessary that you should go

and make your own observations, and settle the question for yourself. You can hardly expect an unprejudiced answer from those persons in Cuba, whose interests are supposed to be in danger from the emancipation of the slaves in an island so near their own; nor can you be satisfied by those persons at home, who speak from hopes or theories rather than from facts. The former will tell you, as a matter of course, that the value of estates in Jamaica has greatly diminished, and that there is dangerous insubordination among the apprentices; but you need not render full credence to the statement. The latter will tell you, in general terms, that the experiment is going on gloriously. We inquired concerning this subject, of one gentleman in Cuba, however, a planter, a holder of slaves, an advocate of slavery, but withal a sensible, strongminded man, and he answered, that it was impossible, from the nature of the case, the novelty of the experiment, the multitude of interests and considerations involved, to speak with absolute certainty on the point, and that we must wait somewhat longer for time to show indications of the result. He allowed, moreover, that the Jamaica experiment was a most important one; and we could not forbear respecting him, situated as he was, for the candor and moderation of his opinion. To ourselves it has long seemed manifest, that the main obstacle to the full success of the emancipation which Great Britain is so happily enabled to effect in her West India colonies, would be the natural, but still impolitic, opposition of many of the planters themselves, blindly arrayed against their own best interests, as well as the will of the home government, and trying to make all the trouble in their power. That this opposition, however far it may have been carried, is on the wane, may be gathered from the following documents, copied from a Jamaica newspaper, which we accidentally met with in Cuba. They are an Address of the Parish of St. Andrew, to His Excellency, Sir Lionel Smith, Captain General and Governor in Chief of Jamaica and its dependent territories, and the answer of the Governor thereto. No dates are appended to these documents, but the paper which contains them was published in March last.

ADDRESS OF THE PARISH.

"We, the Custos, Magistrates, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of the parish of St. Andrew, take this opportunity of offer

ing to your excellency our congratulations on your recent appointment as Governor of this important colony. The talent and integrity which have distinguished your public life in near, as well as in distant climes, give us the cheering assurance of enjoying, under your excellency's rule, an able, upright, and impartial government, and lead us confidently under your guidance to hope for a happy issue to the eventful experiment now in progress in this colony.

"We also embrace this opportunity of expressing our earnest desire to cement the social compact by conciliating and encouraging our peasantry, and to advance them in a knowledge of the duties and comforts of civilized life, by giving them the advantages of religious and moral instruction.

"We trust that all classes will unite in supporting your Excellency's government, and we anxiously wish that you and your amiable family may long enjoy health and happiness. JOHN MAIS, Custos,

(Signed)

on behalf of the Meeting."

ANSWER OF THE GOVERNOR.

"Gentlemen, let me assure you that I receive this address with real pleasure, not because the kind congratulations of such a meeting of independent gentlemen might justly gratify my vanity, but it is acceptable as a sound demonstration in tone and principle, of those conciliating feelings which I early invoked, as the first object of my public policy, that I might endeavor to heal the previous unhappy dissensions of society.

"I cherish with heartfelt welcome your desire to improve the happiness of the peasantry through the means of moral and religious instruction.

66

"I hear with great pleasure from all quarters that there is a return of that confidence and good understanding so essential to the advantage of masters and apprentices, for this is the surest course to secure the future interests of both parties, and to realize the happy issue of the great experiment in progress.

"Receive, gentlemen, my thankful acknowledgments of your kind wishes towards my family, and my sincere assurance, that my best exertions will be faithfully devoted to the promotion of the welfare and happiness of all classes of his majesty's subjects under this government."

This is cheering. We like the sound of the word " peasantry." We have the best hopes of "a happy issue to the eventful experiment now in progress" in Jamaica and the other English Antilles.

VOL. XXIII.

3D s. VOL. V. NO. I.

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In St. Domingo the negroes have been free for many years. If you ask what is the operation of their freedom on their present condition, you may receive but a discouraging reply from a white West-Indian. He will tell you that the state of the island and its inhabitants is most wretched, for, that where millions of pounds of coffee were formerly raised, hardly thousands are now produced. The fact on which this opinion is based, may be quite true. Indeed we do not doubt it. But it may not justify the opinion. It certainly will not justify it to the minds of those who do not believe that happiness and prosperity are in a direct ratio to the quantity of sugar and coffee produced. The negro himself might perhaps say, that he raised coffee enough when he was obliged to raise it; that he was tired of raising coffee, and that now he would raise what he pleased. There is a passage in Humboldt's work, which appears to be a hint of the truth. "These blacks of Hayti," he says, "more devoted to the culture of the alimentary plants than to that of the colonial products, increase with a rapidity which is only surpassed by the increase of the population of the United States." Liberty is sweet; and though the external condition of the Haytian negro may be little or no better than it was before the revolution, still, in his own hut, and with his own bananas and yams about him, he may be much happier. He may want industry, knowledge, refinement, religion. Can we wonder at these wants, or is it unreasonable for us to hope that they may be gradually supplied?

What a fund of valuable information might be brought to us, by one, in whose good sense, impartiality, humanity, and independence we could trust, who would go to Cuba, where negro slavery exists in perhaps its most mitigated form, to Jamaica, where it is passing away, and to St. Domingo, where it has passed away, those three great islands lying in a group together, and within a day's sail of each other, and see, and hear, and judge.

For our own parts, and with regard to our own national relations with this subject, it becomes us best, we think, not to dogmatize or denounce, but to inquire, to hope, and to pray; and, when we are called on to help our southern brethren, to act, and help them. If they are too irritable on this point, it is not our part to be too severe or hasty. Influences are in operation, and have been, which may be only marred by our

meddling. While we love and honor freedom, and insist upon it for ourselves, and sincerely desire it for all who live, whether they are white or black, let us not push before time and occasion, and in our zeal for liberty, endanger liberty and life, and destroy union and peace.

F. W. P. G.

from Palmyra, Now first transNew York, C. S. 12mo. pp. 243

ART. VII. Letters of LUCIUS M. Piso, to his friend, Marcus Curtius, at Rome. lated and published. In 2 volumes. Francis. Boston, Joseph H. Francis. and 256.

THESE letters are a modern fiction; although from the classic calmness and purity of their style, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that they are not genuine monuments of antiquity. They remind us of the letters of Pliny. So absorbing is the interest of the tale they unfold, so complete its unity, so thoroughly consistent and harmonious in the fitting together of its parts, that evermore as we read we relapse into a dream, and are carried along, quite unconscious of ought but the scenes described, our whole being dissolved and permeated, as it were, with their classic spirit. A still air of reality pervades them. That hush of awe comes over us at times, which we feel with one of nature's sublime revelations of beauty spread before us, all whole, harmonious, one, wrapped in that tranquillity which always conceals the highest and most perfect vital action. No straining for effect, no forced adaptation of incongruous half-thoughts and crumbled images which will not be fused into a whole, no breaking through of the self-consciousness of the writer, from any want of the ars celare artem. Indeed, there seems to be no art to conceal, so like nature is it. It is rather the warm, living, unconscious, outpouring of a mind filled with what it describes, and yet lifted above it into a calmer atmosphere, whence it may comprehend it all in its just proportions and