Negro is as much, improved by a change of circumstances as the .white. The state of flavery is in none of its modifications favourable to improvement; yet, compare the Creole negro with the imported flave, and you will find that even the most debafing, the most brutifying form of fervitude, the pitilefs drudgery of the field and whip, though it muft neceffarily eradicate moft of the moral qualities of the African, has not prevented him from profiting in his intellectual faculties by the intercourse of more civilized men. The events of the war in St Domingo read us a leffon on this point, which it would be happy if we could be permitted to forget ;-negroes organizing immenfe armies; laying plans of campaigns and fieges, which, if not fcientific, have at leaft been to a certain degree fuccessful against the finest European troops; arranging forms of government, and even proceeding fome length in executing the most difficult of human enter prizes; entering into commercial relations with foreigners, and conceiving the idea of contracting alliances; acquiring fomething like a maritime force, and, at any rate, navigating veffels in the tropical feas, with as much skill and forefight as that complicated operation requires. (See our Review of M'Kinnon's Tour, No. VIII.)

This is certainly a fpectacle which ought to teach us the effects of circumftances in developing the human faculties, and prefcribe bounds to that presumptuous arrogance, which would confine to one race, the characteristic privilege of the fpecies. We have, indeed, the proof in our loffes. We have torn those men from their country on the vain and wicked pretence, that their nature is radically inferior to our own. We have treated them so as to stunt the natural growth of their virtues and their reafon. Our crimes have been partly fuccessful; for the Weft Indian, like all other flaves, has copied fome of the tyrant's vices. But their ingenuity has flourished apace, even under all disadvantages; and the negro fpecies is already fo much improved, that while we madly continue to defpife them, and, from our contempt, to justify a repetition of the crimes which have tranfplanted them, the real question in many a thinking man's mind is, how long they will fuffer us to exift in the New world. All the arguments in the brains of a thousand metaphysicians, will never explain away these facts. They may tell us, that brute force and adaptation to the climate, are the only faculties which the negroes of the West Indies poffefs. Something more than this must concur to form and subsist armies, and to distribute civil powers in a state. And the negroes, who in Africa cannot count ten, and bequeath the fame portion of arithmetic to their children, must have improved, both individually and as a fpecies,

before

before they can ufe the mariner's compafs, and rig fquare failed veffels, and cultivate whole diftricts of cotton for their own profit in the Carribee islands. The very ordinary circumftance of the improvement vifible in the negroes brought over to Europe as domeftics, and their ftriking fuperiority to fuch of their countrymen as ftill remain, either in Africa or the Welt Indies, may perhaps illuftrate the doctrine now maintained, even to those whom the more general views of the fact have failed of convincing. It is certainly not affuming too much, to suppose that there is a wider difference between one of thofe black fervants and a native of the Slave Coaft, than between a London chairman and a fubject of the Irish kings who flourished a few centuries ago. Nor is there any doubt that the fidelity, courage, and other good qualities, generally remarkable in freed negroes, diftinguish them as much from the flaves, of whose cowardice and treachery fuch pictures have been drawn, as the various feats of valour recorded in the hiftory of the Welch, place them above those wretched Britons who refifted their Saxon enemies only with groans.

We may be affured, then, that there is nothing in the phyfical or moral conftitution of the Negro, which renders him an exception to the general character of the fpecies, and prevents him from improving in all the eftimable qualities of our nature, when placed in circumftances tolerably favourable to his advancement. Nay, under all poffible difadvantages, we find evident proofs of the progrefs he is capable of making, whether infulated by the defarts of Africa from all communication with other nations, or furrounded by the flave factories of the Europeans, or groaning under the cruelties of the Weft India fyftem. That this progrefs will be accelerated in proportion as thofe grand impediments are removed; that while Africa is civilized by the establishment of a legitimate commerce between its fertile and populous regions, and the more polifhed nations of the world, the negroes already in the Weft Indies will rapidly improve in all the best faculties of the mind, as foon as the effects of the abolition fhall begin to appear in the ameliorated treatment they experience from their mafters, is a propofition which follows obviously from the remarks now premifed. To trace all the probable steps by which this great measure must ultimately change the fituation of the Weft Indian labourers, would carry us beyond the bounds of this article. It may be fufficient to fuggeft a few of the most remarkable gradations which will probably conduce to this neceffary reform in the colonial fyftem. And here we fhall find direct arguments, from analogy, fufficient to guide us, if our readers are difpofed to admit the le

gitimacy

gitimacy of reafoning from the hiftory of other races of mankind, to the probable hiftory of the Africans.

In the first place, it will not be long before a milder fyftem of treatment increases the productive powers of the Negro's labour. That the first two or three feafons may be lefs profperous for the planter, in confequence of the change, has been fometimes admitted by the advocates of the abolition. Indeed, changes of every kind have a tendency at the beginning to produce flight derangements in all political fyftems; and it is one of the miferable confequences of human impolicy, that the correction of the greatest evils in fociety generally increases, for the moment, the bad effects of the original error. But the connexion is fo conftant and fo clear between induftry and freedom, and confequently between increafed exertions of voluntary labour, and the milder treatment which approaches the flave to the condition of liberty, that we may reafonably expect to fee the temporary derangement laft for a very trifling period. The hiftory of all Europe demonftrates the immenfe effects which the milder treatment of the labouring orders naturally produ ces upon the value of their induftry. To take only a very late example-It is well known that the proprietors of Hungary, almost immediately after the reform of Maria Terefa, began to feel the falutary confequences of the limitations of the corvées due from their peafants. When, inftead of poffeffing full power to appropriate the whole of the ferf's labour, the lord could only take two days in each week, he found thofe two days worth much more than all the feven had been before; although, at the very fame time, he loft the right of retaining the peafant on his ground against his will. If fuch mitigations have been favourable to the master, ftill more advantageous muit they be to the flave. And can any improvement bear more directly upon the condition of the lower orders, particularly upon their civilization, than an augmentation of their wealth and of their importance to the fuperior claffes? Such will probably be the first great effect of the abolition, long before time thall have been given for any pofitive and definite change in the fyftem. It is not unlikely that the number of holidays will next be increased, or the hours of work in the day diminished; that the Negro will by degrees be left more and more to his own care, and will begin to feel himself more dependent on the produce of his industry. The lefs that laws interfere in this delicate matter, fo much the better for the master, and ftill more for the flave. The mutual interefts of the parties will be the best of laws; the moft just in its enactments, the moft unerring in its operation, and indeed the only one capable of being

accurately

accurately executed. When fomething like induftry has taken oot in the plantations, it may be time to introduce, in the fame Silent, gradual, and voluntary manner, the grand improvement of tafk-work. This has already been attempted with the happiest effect in feveral of the colonies; in Brazil; in fome parts of the Spanish main, in the Bahamas, and elsewhere. (See our Review of M'Kinnon's Tour, No. VIII.) It has been introduced alfo in Surinam; though, from the peculiar circumstances of the Dutch planters, and perhaps from its premature adoption, it has not there produced fuch falutary changes as in the other fettlements. Indeed, while the bad effects of the old fyftem flourish in full vigour, preventing the general improvement of the flaves in their habits of voluntary exertion, it is only in certain kinds of work that tasks can be distributed. It is referved for the new mode of treatment to render the univerfal introduction of tafk work, not only an easy, but a neceffary improvement, by approximating the flaves to the condition of free labourers. And when these changes fhall have been effected flowly, and with the confent of all proprietors, not taken by vote, but freely given by each individual; will not the lower orders in the Weft Indies be exactly in the ftate of the afcripti glebe, under the milder feodal governments of the Old world? It is but one ftep to make them coloni partiarii, or ferf tenants paying a proportion of their crops to the lord of the land, as in fact they are already in fome parts of Spanish and Portuguefe America, where the richeft ores and pearls are obtained, by means of this very contract between the mafter and his flave. Nor does it much fignify in what form the laft change

Among the very few meafures of detail which it may be hereafter found neceffary to adopt, in order to prevent thofe occafional exceptions to the general good conduct of the mafters formerly pointed out, (Review of the Crifis,' No. 1.), there is one that deferves our particular attention. It will be abfolutely incumbent on the legislature of the mother country, to prohibit all carrying of flaves, againft their will, from one colony to another, and from any of our own, to any of the foreign fettlements. The certain increase of the Negro population, after the abolition, would otherwife give rife to a Wet Indian flavetrade, fcarcely lefs abominable than the African traffic. The ftate of the flaves in Virginia may convince us, in general, how greatly their numbers muft augment, in the more favourable circumftances of the iflands. But the cafe of Curaffoa is still more in point. It is a fact, unknown in this country, but perfectly well proved in Holland, that without a fingle importation, that ifland has for many years exported, annually, above 1500 negroes, the natural growth of its plautations. This circumftance deferves great attention, alfo, for its own fake.

change of all fhall then be effected by the total emancipation of the Negro. He will, by this natural gradation, have become civilized to a certain extent, and fully capable of enjoying the station of a free man, for which all are fitted by nature. In the courfe of time, we may hope to fee the fame relaxation of prejudice against him on the part of the whites, which has made the European baron cease to look down upon his ferf as an inferior animal. The mixture even of the races, is a thing by no means impoffible, and will remove the only pretext that can remain for fuppofing the Weft Indian fociety, as new-modelled by the abolition, to be in the fmallest degree different from the fociety in Europe, after the fucceffors of the Romans ceafed to procure flaves in commerce.

Thefe obfervations we now leave to the confideration of fuch readers as may take the trouble of comparing them both with the facts formerly ftated upon the general queftion of the African traffic, and with the well known hiftory of the civilized communities to which they have themselves the happiness of belonging. We are fully perfuaded that such a comparison need be followed but for a few iteps, in order to demonftrate that the foregoing deductions are matters of fact, rather than of fpeculative theory; and that the only poftulate required, to render the feeble sketch here exhibited, a correct portrait, is that leading measure which the enlightened legiflature of Great Britain ftands pledged in a manner to adopt,-the total and immediate abolition of the flave trade.

ART. IX. The New Practice of Cookery, Paftry, Baking and Preferving, being the Country Housewife's beft Friend. By Mrs Hudfon and Mrs Donat, prefent and late Housekeepers and Cooks to Mrs Buchan Hepburn of Smeaton, and published by her permiflion. 1804. pp. 242. 8vo.

Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ; or, Receipts in Modern Cookery, with a Medical Commentary written by Ignotus, and revifed by A. Hunter, M. D. F. R. S. L. & E. The Second Edition. York. 1805. pp. 268. 8vo.

IT T feems to have been a complaint familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, and which we have too often feen cause to re-echo in the prefent day, That God fends good meat, but the devil fends cooks. The irritability, the obftinacy, and the perfidy. of the prefent culinary race, indeed, obviously demonstrate their afcent from regions even hotter than thofe which they occupy upon

earth;