some time, and the planter begins to turn his attention to the rearing of his slaves, he brings them wives. "A negro, in the enjoyment of social happiness, having his wife and children, a garden, his goats, pigs, and feathered stock to attend to, feels a degree of interest in the estate, which would scarcely be expected from an emigrated African. By being transported to a new soil, and a more civilized country, these people become more humanized, more enlightened their minds undergo a new formation, and they are enabled to distinguish the good treatment they receive here, from the arbitrary and unrelenting mandates of the petty kings and princes in their own country, where they are subject to be butchered like a parcel f swine. Better, sure, are the Africans under the West India planters, protected as they are by the colonial laws, transplanted into a settlement, where their industry and talents will make them useful members of the community, than abandoned to the cruel and rude tyranny of an uncivilized master in their own country. The severe methods of coercion, formerly used by the West India planters, are traditional among the Africans, and resulted from employing negro task-masters. In proportion as white overseers have become numerous, has the treatment improved. During my residence in Demerary, I made it a regular question of enquiry among plantation-negroes, whom I was constantly in the habit of seeing and conversing with at remote places, as my chief occupation consisted in travelling, whether they preferred their own country to this; and I hereby make a solemn asseveration, which will remain upon record, that of several hundreds of negroes, to whom I have put the question at different periods, they have all given the preference to their present situations. I will venture to assert, that, in case of asking all the negroes round in the colonies, there will be found ninety contents out of every hundred to whom the question should be put." The cruel punishments which used to be inflicted on the negroes by the Dutch, law, are almost disused, and soon will be compleatly eradicated. Our author states with confidence that there is more flog. ging in a man of war than in a plantation, containing an equal number of men. The planters have found that the efficacy of a punishment is not exactly proportioned to its cruelty, and that instead of a severe flogging it is much better to deter the offender from future crimes by depriving him of his usual supply of tobacco and rum, or setting him in the stocks whilst his companions The slaves are allowed an hour for are dancing within sight of him.breakfast, an hour and a quarter for dinner; after sun-set they are free Beside food, to do what they like. they have allowed, per week, a quart of rum, and two pounds of to. bacco. The negroes work for themselves as well as for their masters :they keep pigs and fowls, grow garden-stuff, or employ themselves in learned: the produce of this labour any trade which they may have they spend either in purchasing their liberty, or which is more common, in decorating their persons. It is a curious fact, that those who have visited the West Indies, and had opportunities of observing the state of the negroes believe, with few exceptions, that the slave trade produces effects much less shocking to humanity, and much more islands than is commonly supposed. necessary to the cultivation of the It is difficult to say, whether this arises from the influence which interest exerts upon opinion, or from these men being in possession of certain matters of fact, which are unknown or imperfectly known by the speculative politicians of Eu Africa consist in two classes; those who before were free, and those who before were slaves-the latter class is benefitted by this transportation. The former of course is injured, but this injury might be prevented by compelling every slave to be accounted for at the English factories in Africa; the free men who are kidnapped should be re. fused, and by this means the slave trade would be converted into a means of putting servants under good masters, who at present have bad ones; of removing them from a situation, where it is impossible for them to rise in society, to a situation where hope stimulates to exertion, and freedom rewards success. 2d. It has been pretended, that under the West Indian system of slavery, the number of labourers is in the decrease; and it is inferred, that the ill usage of the slaves is the cause of this decrease. Our author disbelieves the fact of decrease. From the fully settled islands, such as Barbadoes and Antigua, free people of colour come in considerable numbers to settle at Stabroek. From several islands which have decreased in fertility, numbers of slaves have been transferred to the continent to cultivate new estates. The colony craft, which is innumerable, and which is employed in transporting goods from one Island to another, is manned from the population of the West India slaves. The decrease of the negroes does not prove the decrease of the population: many negroe girls cohabit with white men and produce mulattoes; some negroe men marry mulattoe women: thus the negroes may be producing progeny, although not negro progeny. In 1787, the population of the British Islands in the West Indies was 50,000 whites, 10,000 free people of colour, and 465,000 slaves. In 1805, it was 55,000 whites, 18,000 free people of colour, and 510,000 slaves; the increase of population also is sufficiently proved by the vast increase of demand and supply of every consumeable article. Besides, many of the imported slaves are exported again, those only being retained which wanted, and the number retaind is constantly diminishing. Such are the author's reasons for believing that the negro progeny more than supplies the place of the dying progenitors. are 3d. Negro labourers are absolutely necessary for intertropical cultivation; the regimental returns from 1796 to 1802, shew that the number of deaths among the whites is to that among the negroes in the same situation, above four to one : our author concludes by declaring that the arguments of the Abolitionists, apply to the trade in kidnapped free men, not to that in slaves; that is, they apply only to one part of the trade which he wishes should be abolished as much as they do. We shall not here argue a question which we have argued so fully and repeatedly in former parts of our work. It is sufficient to put our readers in possession of whatever new arguments our author may have brought into circulation relating to so interesting and important a question. As a specimen of the Dutch mode of living in these colonies, and of our author's faculty for description we give the following. "Coffee plantations have usually a pleasing garden-like and picturesque appearance: none more conspicuously so than that on which I had to stop. It belonged to a Dutchman; every thing appeared in the greatest order; the dwelling-house, an elegant brick mansion, stood in the midst of a garden, which the occupier took the greatest delight in ; brick foundations, neatly boarded and even the negro cottages were built on covered in with shingles. Many grey headed negroes worn with age and labor, were inmates of these comfortable business which introduced me to such a abodes; they had retired from the busy character in a Dutchman." scenes of life to take care of their poultry, while their sons and daughters wielded the shovel and the hoe. Before these huts were several groupes, consisting of between forty and fifty negro children, who with sportive playfulness, were passing the time away until the dinner bell should bring their parents from the fields. "Well pleased with this scene, I could not resit the worthy proprietor's invitation of dining with him, though we had never seen each other before; our segars and sangaree previous to dinner, give to conversation, the appearance of a long standing friendship: we interchanged our ideas respecting the slave trade and the treatment of negroes, though he was of the old school, he agreed with me. I complimented him on the order and arrangement of his negro houses, and the number of children on the estate, as a certain proof of his humanity; I observed that the aged and grey-headed negroes I had seen in the cottages, proved that he had treated them well in their young days, and now that they were past labor, he provided for them with the careful hand of a kind protector, it gave the most indelible test of his being a worthy man. He said he had been in the colony upwards of forty years, all of which time had been bestowed upon negroes; he had been a proprietor thirty years, he was not affluent, but he underwent personal deprivations to render his negroes com> fortable, whose claims he considered preferable to his own; thinking and acting as he did, he was a gainer, his negroes were happy and contented, their work was done with ease and his estate improved, the produce of that begot a second and a third, "should I not then be a villain to discard or ill treat my negroes now they are old and past labor. No! no! my friend, I have learnt that humanity is the best policy, and in the end will produce riches." Our sentiments being so congenial it was late ere I parted from this worthy Dutchman. Having walked from New Amsterdam, my kind host insisted on my taking his tent boat, which was accordingly manned for the purpose, and I arrived in town at nine o'clock at night, highly gratified with my trip, and pleased with the tribes of South American Indians The manners and habits of the which our author had several opportunities of seeing, are detailed concisely but fully. The religious faith and ceremonies of these people, show how early in the progress of society the belief in supernatural agents springs up, and how much this belief is modified by the stage of civilization. Dr. Johnson beings is a proof of their existence, says, the belief in supernatural for if some had not been real, none would have been imagined; this is not very satisfactory. It is not difficult to explain how the belief in spirits might arise without supposing the reality of these beings; they who have observed children attentively, must have seen that a considerable period of time passes before a child learns to distinguish between the waking and dreaming state, and to correct his disposition to believe that every thing which takes place during his dreams, is as real, and goes on as much externat to him, as what he meets with when awake, Something similar takes place among those tribes of men who have hardly esbelieve the supposed evidence of caped from a state of nature. They their senses when asleep, as confidently as when awake; and consider their dreams either as a continuation of their waking state, or a transportation of themselves into the land of spirits. When we consider that in those dreams which are strong and connected, we believe that we see and bear, act and suffer as if we were awake, it will be easily understood be so simple as not to have the how men in the savage state should smallest doubt in the reality of these fictions of sleep; things take place in dreams which cannot be explained by the laws of nature as we learn them by our waking experience. In the former, events occur in a moment, which in the latter, would require days, months, or years to be effected; in a moment we find ourselves transported from Vienna to Petersburgh, from Paris to London; in a moment are changed the scene, and the action; we were in a wil derness or a dark cave, and at once we find ourselves in a glittering palace or enchanted spot. Even as rapidly are changed the persons in whose presence we were, and we find ourselves suddenly among unknown people, or those whom we know appear to us under strange forms and in strange situations. We ourselves are totally different men to what we were formerly, and do without the least surprise what would be impossible if we were awake. We step with the lightness of a feather, and yet can fall more swiftly than a mill stone from the top of a steeple, and rise up as rapidly again. We fly away over the earth, walk on water without sinking, and press through flames without being singed; such things as these which people in a savage state have not learnt to distinguish from realities, naturally lead to the belief in supernatural things. But among all the wonderful appearances which rise up to us in dreams, that which must make the strongest impression on uncultivated men is to be brought again into the presence of dead persons: to those who suppose that the dreaming is only another kind of waking state, what can be more astonishing, than to see persons of whose death they had perfect assurance, come back again to life, and appear like other living men. The first thing that The first thing that they would conclude would be, that they in spite of the corruption of their bodies still continued to live, took an interest in their former friends, and loved to contemplate the occupations and pleasures and scenes of their former life. SO Within the limits of a Review, it is impossible to do justice to the volume which lies before us; the greater number of books of travel although so bulky, contain little, that it becomes the duty, and is in the power of a Reviewer, to pick out and comprise within a narrow compass, every thing which requires to be told or remembered; but this is not the case with the book which we are examining, every chapter which we open, if not every leaf which we turn over contains something to amuse, or something to instruct. Our author possessed no common opportunities. for observation (six years residence in the place he has attempted to describe,) nor has he possessed these opportunities in vain. He is not a mere narrator of facts, but an acute and ingenious reasoner on those facts, and reasons with as much clearness and precision, as he describes with simplicity and picturesqueness. The chief fault of the book is, that it contains some materials which seem to be drawn from other books, and not from observation. We allude to that part especially which relates to the natural history of plants and animals: these are described agreeably to the best authorities we possess, but at the same time they are described unlike an eye-witness, and without that power of calling up visual images to the mind of the reader, which our author has displayed so much to his credit and our amusement in innumerable parts of his book. Mr. Bolingbroke had enough to tell which was worth telling from his own experience, and we should readily have excused his being silent on the subject of natural history: if we had wanted such information, we could have drawn it from the extant writers on the subject, instead of receiving it at second hand from our author. In spite of this fault however, the book is valuable, and obviously comes from the ART. VII. Characteristical Views of the past and present State of the People of Spain and Italy. By JOHN ANDREWS, 8vo. pp. 317. upon their literatare he has given proofs of profound ignorance, and all the knowledge which he displays upon other topics might be collected from the commonest sources. THIS book promises much and performs nothing. Nothing can be conceived more barren of entertainment and of information; it is without beginning, middle, or end, and yet the want of arrangement cannot be complained of, because it contains nothing to be arranged. Whether Dr. Andrews may have seen the countries concerning which he has chosen to write, we cannot say, but this we can say, that ART. VIII. Tour through Spain, and Purt of Portugal; with commercial, statis tical, and geographical Details. 2 vols. 12mo. THE third volume of Sir Richard Phillips' Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels contains a tour through the principal provinces of Spain and Portugal, performed in the year 1803, with cursory observations on the manners of the inhabitants. This tour is comprized in seventy three pages; it is a plain, unaffected, faithful journal, which appeared in its proper place, and was worth the two shillings which are its proportion of the price of the yolume. There was nothing to object to in it, except that the title promised a great deal more than the book performed, a page and half being all that was allotted to Portugal. ex Two years elapsed after its publication, Spain rose against its oppressor, and by an effort more traordinary and more glorious than any which history had yet recorded, threw off the yoke. Englishmen had never before felt so deep an interest in the fate of another country. Now then was the time for an account of Spain to make its appearance, and Portugal from whence Much might be written upon the title page of this book, showing how such a text should be handled, but we have already wasted some hours in its perusal, and it is not worth a farther sacrifice of time. 6 hourly news was expected, was not to be omitted. Sir Richard accordingly publishes Travels through Spain and part of Portugal, with commercial, statistical, and geographical details; in two vo-. lumes, price 10s. 6d.' But how was the old two shillings-worth to be sold for half-aguinea, and seventy three pages wire-drawn into two volumes-In the first place a narrow page, and an open type will do wonders. A preface of three and twenty pages is made up is made up for the leading ideas in which the editor is indebted to the Voyage Pittoresque d' Espayne." A history of the Prince of Peace is taken from the Monthly Maga zine Fischer is pillaged for lively description, and fourscore pages are inserted containing "a variety of authentic particulars relative to the present state of this monarchy" which "during my short residence at Madrid I have made it my business to collect.” " and I have freely availed myself of the details of Bourgoing, &c."-very freely indeed !-Then come in nine pages upon the literature of Spain and Portu |