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sons of episcopal rank and authority in the Church, who would cause the customary observances of Christianity to be honoured, make regular visitations of the churches throughout the islands, and report to the Government at home on the inadequacy of the means of instruction. What possible amelioration of morals can be expected among bond or free in the West Indies, if the old system continues the same? What avails our abuse of the Planter? Will the Planter begin to instruct his Slaves in Christianity, because we make eloquent speeches in England on the duties of humanity? Both the Planter and the Slave need the paternal interference of the Imperial Parliament. And the first duty is to appoint to both a Spiritual Head, through whom Government may concert and execute measures, from time to time, for the general improvement of the people. The great family of Africans, in particular, want a GENERAL GUARDIAN in these islands, whom they should know to have been appointed by the nation to superintend their spiritual state, and through whom they might know that they were Subjects of the King. We have given a Bishop to Canada, where there are only eleven Clergymen of the Church of England. In the West Indies there are more than twenty islands, of which one, Jamaica, has twenty parishes; Barbadoes has eleven parishes; Grenada,

six; St. Vincents, five; Dominica, ten; St. Kitts, nine; Nevis, five; Antigua, six, &c.* But in what manner Christianity exists, or is honoured, in these islands, is altogether another question. It is an important question. But how is it to be answered, if there be no general superintendant of these scattered provinces, to whom the nation can refer?

* SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST INDIES SUBJECT TO GREAT BRITAIN.

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THE MULATTOS.

Or the general morals of the People of Colour some idea may be obtained from the following representation :

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"The accusation generally brought against the

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People of Colour (or Mulattos) is the incontinency of their women, of which such as are young are universally maintained by White men of all ranks and conditions. The fact is too notorious to be concealed. Not one in "fifty of them is taught to write or read. Pro"fitable instruction, therefore, by those who are

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capable of giving it, is withheld from them."Edwards. Vol. II. p. 26.

The degradation of the male Mulattos is, if possible, greater than that of the women. 'By

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an Act of Assembly, a Mulatto not born in "wedlock cannot inherit, by the testamentary "devise of a White man, more than 2000l. currency."

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"There is this mischief," adds the same author, "arising from the system of rigour osten

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sibly maintained by the laws against this unfortunate race of people, that it tends to de

grade them in their own eyes, and in the eyes of "the community to which they belong."

"That this system ought to be utterly abolish"ed, I most readily admit. But by whom is "such a reform to be begun and accomplished? "The enfranchisement of such as are enslaved, "Christian instruction to the whole, and encou

ragement to their industry, would, in time, "make them an USEFUL AND VALUABLE CLASS "of citizens, induce them to intermarry with each "other, and render their present relaxed and "vicious system of life as odious in appearance, " as it is baneful to society."-Edwards. Vol. II. p. 30.

The state of the Mulattos in the West Indies, and of the Half-casts in the East, is a subject which must, ere long, engage the attention of the British Parliament. The local governments, in either country, are utterly incompetent to provide a remedy for the evil. Nor will any remedy be ever found, but that which the above judicious writer has proposed; and which Parliament only can, by its enactments, provide; viz. "Instruction in the Christian religion," to raise them by education above the contempt of their species:

and, a system of "encouragement to their industry."

This unhappy race is of English descent; but it is a proscribed race in both hemispheres; a curse still following the immoral connection. So great is the degradation of this cast, that in the West Indies the Mulatto is, generally speaking, more despicable in the eyes of the English * than

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"The Negro works, and is therefore good for something but the Mulatto," says the Planter, "is good for *nothing." Otherwise it can hardly be said that the Mulatto is more despicable than the Negro. In fact, there is not perhaps an animal in the creation, which is more despicable in the eyes of the Planter, than the unhappy Negro. This is exemplified by his rites of sepulture. Among the Romans, slaves were decently interred, and their burial places religiously respected (see Grævius. Rom. Antiq. Vol. xii. p. 1256). Far different is the case in the West Indies, at least in the British islands. By an article of the Code Noir in the French islands, it was humanely directed, that the deceased Negro should have Christian burial, and be interred in consecrated ground. But we should search, in vain, in the laws or practices of any of the British Colonies, for equal humanity. There

"The sacred dust

"Of this heaven-laboured form, erect, divine,"

when no longer animated with that soul which groaned under a merciless oppression, and no longer fit for the purposes of avarice, is abandoned, with the most unfeeling contempt, to the care of kindred wretches, to be interred, like

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