upon all around them, even their best friends, with the dark and gloomy eye of suspicion and mistrust.

Mr. Coleridge seems to have studied those people with some attention, and his remarks will I think give the reader a better idea of their characters than any further explanation of mine.

What is further intended," says he, “with regard to these Africans, I know not, but certainly much temper and deliberation are requisite to deal with them beneficially. They present, within a comparatively small compass, all the difficulties which would necessarily attend the immediate enfranchisement of the entire slave population in the colonies; and they who affect to hold those difficulties cheap, only discover their own consummate ignorance of a subject upon which they have nevertheless the assurance to set themselves up as oracles. If there were any present or future chance of converting these barbarians into useful citizens, by a lavish expenditure of money upon the actual system, the tax might be generously borne by the generous philanthropy of the British people; but in reality, this expense is incurred for the purpose of maintaining them in a situation in which they are so far from advancing in civilization, that they become more vicious and lazy every day that they live. Labor of every kind they dislike, agricultural labor they detest. As long as the crown continues to support them by a daily pension they will not, generally, work at all; if they were left to themselves they would probably labor or steal, as it might happen, to the extent of procuring subsist

ence, which would be about a month or so in the course of the year. To the moral stimulus of bettering their condition, of acquiring importance, and commanding comforts, they are utterly insensible; they care for none of those things, they have no sort of apprehension of them. Indeed they seem to be practical philosophers, although no great political economists, and I have no doubt if they reason at all, that they conclude the planters to be egregious fools for toiling so heavily instead of sitting down in the shade and drinking new rum all the day long."

So much, Reader, for Forts and Free Africans.

CHAPTER LII.

SOCIETY OF GRENADA-NOTES ON A BALL.

"All that was brightest and noblest in Britain burst in an assembled group upon her startled senses."

"And Gertrude gazed and smiled, and smiled and gazed; her daintiest imagining had pictured nothing half so radiant half so fair." A Dream of Fashionable Life.

"GENTLEMEN of Grenada, where are your wives?" says the author with whose remarks I have concluded my last chapter. It was this question, with the succeeding observations, that led me to suppose I should find no female society in the Island of Grenada. I was, therefore, agreeably surprised, after a forntight's residence in Georgetown, to find myself invited to a ball at the house of Mr. ***

Now the reader will easily suppose that there could be no ball without ladies, and on this occasion I think there were about eighteen present; at more public parties I have seen as many as twenty-six. This number, although certainly not so extensive as in many of the other islands, will nevertheless form a very pleasant little society for a small town.

In Barbados I have seen at one soirée as many as a hundred of the fair sex. In St. Vincent I have gazed at a brilliant assembly of more than fifty; and

yet I have often felt more pleasure in the social gaiety of a petite réunion in Grenada, than in the more formal and ceremonious parties of the other favored isles.

Not that I would accord the palm of beauty to the fair creoles of Georgetown, for in Barbados I have seen the rarest and the fairest beings; the young, the sad, the smiling, the tender, and the caressed; and in St. Vincent I have beheld the lively and lovely, the merry and the mournful, the innocent, the joyous, and the gay. But when we possess but few gems we set on them a greater value; and the bright star in the azure heaven seems brighter when it shines alone, than when it has to vie with the brilliancy of a thousand others.

The party of Mr. *** was only the first of a succeeding many which I have enjoyed and delighted in since my arrival in Grenada. There was less pomp, there was, perhaps, less etiquette, and certainly less ceremony, than I had been accustomed to in the other islands, but as the same circle was in the habit of meeting again and again, as there was no party spirit to cause a division of sets, and as the assembled of the little community were all known to each other, there existed between them a social and familiar intercourse which rendered their society pleasing, and caused it to be enjoyed.

The Government House, which I have before spoken of, was the scene of many delightful gaieties towards the close of the year 1828; and a description of the ball which was given by Sir James Campbell,

the Governor, on its last and most eventful evening, will give an idea of the little society of Grenada.

A gentleman of the party presented me with a poetical narrative of the occurrence, and although I doubt much whether it will greatly enhance his fame as a poet, yet it may amuse the reader more than my own common-place prose. I shall take the liberty of making notes on his verses as I proceed. He begins thus

1.

"The theme that I have chosen to indite
Of jovial import is—a splendid ball,
Which cast of late a cheerful ray of light
Upon the season, and which did befal

On the old year's last and most propitious night,
When all the world attended pleasure's call,
And large assemblages of rank and quality
Met to partake Sir James's hospitality.

2.

"And I do also promise to include

The supper, and to give a bill of fare

Of all the mixed varieties of food

And luscious wines that have been sported there;
And, finally, it will be monstrous rude

T'omit the name of any lady fair;

For certes I shall rouse my reader's passion,
If I leave out the beauty or the fashion."

In my opinion it would be much more rude to insert the name of " any lady fair," although the assemblage of "beauty and fashion," to which the author alludes, was brilliant yet select, and does not indeed merit to be passed over in silence.

The charms of a fair creole are rendered doubly powerful by the pleasing gaiety and lively animation