woman, a groom, and a little stable boy are the persons of whom the said ministry is composed: a nice assemblage, by the manes of my aunt Josephine, of whigs, tories, and liberals! Perchance, too, an old woman may have crept into this august assembly; and, reader, why not? See you, I pray, any just cause or impediment why old women should be excluded? Well, all these, and it is quite natural, have their relations to serve. The butler is the man in power, and has the key of the cellar, so he gives a bottle of wine to his first cousin, and a bottle of porter to his maiden aunt; the housemaid presents her sister with a pair of decanters, the washerwoman gives a shirt to her son, the cook dispenses soup, meat, and vegetables to his poor relatives, and the groom, and the little stable boy take care to let their friends and acquaintance have a nice ride on their master's horses. All these make their market penny, and so the master, who represents the people, is robbed, cheated, imposed upon; and in the meanwhile, poor man, some of his friends endeavour to persuade him that he is no worse than others, and the more miserable he gets the more happy they would make him fancy himself.

But, joking apart, it is a well known fact that the house servant will really do nothing but wait at table, and a few duties equally light; the washerwoman will do nothing but wash; and in fact, there is no one servant who will do the slightest portion of work beyond what they consider a sine qua non.

They do also cheat, rob, and pilfer; and though

they only take a little at a time, and would be really afraid to take much, yet as

they manage between them to make away with a good deal in a short time, and they do it so cunningly that, although you know very well who it is that takes this, that, and the other, yet you can never catch them in the act, and very seldom trace out the hiding place where the stolen goods are deposited.

I have before said that the domestic slaves have negro houses, which are commonly attached to the dwellings of their masters. In these they ought to sleep, and sometimes do, but they are oftener absent; one night in the house of a friend, another at one of those pic-nic evening parties which I noticed in the former pages of this volume.

The females gain by prostitution and robbery what the males procure by robbery alone; and, for this reason, we seldom find either sex deficient in articles of dress, for there is no class of people in the world more vain of their external appearance, or more anxious to adorn their persons.

Household servants, however, are not the only class of slaves who gain their subsistence in town. There are a number of boys and women whom their owners either employ themselves to carry about various articles for sale, in wooden trays, or hire them to the hucksters for the same purpose.

There are also a number of slaves who have learnt some business, and gain no inconsiderable wages in

the practice of it. Among these we may rank coopers, carpenters, turners, bricklayers, taylors, and shoemakers, all of whom thrive well in the colonies.

I think I am not unjust when I say that these negroes are generally more civilized, and more respectable, than others.

From their several trades they derive considerably more cash than they are obliged to pay over to their masters. This enables them to maintain a good and comfortable appearance; which, as it is the fruit of honest industry more than of dishonest roguery, looks well.

From being put in a train to acquire creditably what they earn, they have less temptation to seek it fraudulently; and from being generally employed in doing good, they have not so many opportunities for doing mischief. Moreover, from the circumstance of having served their apprenticeship at an early age, and from having dwelt from that early age in the towns, and among white men, they have become somewhat more enlightened; and if for morality and religion they are not far before their brethren, yet, upon the whole, I should say that they were better prepared for emancipation.

Let this sentence lead no one astray. I do not say that they are prepared, but that they are better prepared than the rest.

So much for the domestic and town negroes.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

EXCEPTIONS TO THE GENERAL RULE FOOD AND

CLOTHING.

They are not so badly off for food as many people in this country imagine."

Bickell.

"Negroes are generally fond of dress, and, in the towns, many of them are respectably clad."

Ibid.

THE Condition of slaves on estates, and of town and domestic negroes having been delineated, it remains for me to bring forward the exceptions which I promised to notice; detailing the situation of those slaves who, from various causes, are less happy than their brethren.

Of this class there are many of a naturally morose and unhappy disposition-a sort of tribe of misanthropes-whom no situation could please, and who would be, from habit, just as discontented with their freedom as they are now with their slavery; but there are also a few slaves who are unhappy from other causes, some from belonging to impoverished and others to tyrannical owners.

That all men are not gifted with the same portion of humanity is true, however much it may be lamented; there are some who are by nature cruel, some whose minds are sufficiently depraved to feel a sort of pleasurable delight in inflicting tortures on their fellow

creatures, and if the power of actually maiming, mutilating, or overwhipping those beneath them be denied, they will, nevertheless, contrive a thousand ways and means, beyond the reach of the law, for tormenting and rendering them unhappy, for making their lives miserable and their existence a burthen.

Perhaps there is no man so likely to possess this feeling as the uneducated, unenlightened, but emancipated being who, from having been a slave, has become elevated, by an unlooked for train of incidents, to the situation of master.

One would perhaps think that a being who had himself known the sufferings of a suffering state, would, if he had it in his power, be instigated by a desire to mitigate those sufferings in the condition of others. A feeling exactly the reverse of this is, however, commonly predominant; and it is too proverbial, that there is no tyrant so tyrannical as the tyrant who has once been a slave.

I regret to say that, among the towns in the West Indies, there are too many such tyrants, too many who have found the means to elevate themselves from the degraded situation of slaves to the important condition of masters, who, because they have received no education sufficient to fit them for their new rank, consequently treat the slaves in their possession with more harshness and cruelty than is either necessary, or, among other owners, customary.

I will state, however, my conviction that female owners, of this class, are more cruel than the male; their revenge is more durable and their methods of

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