than the unseasoned Europeans. A young medical gentleman, a nephew of thecelebrated Dr. Jenner, informed me, during his attendance at a plantation in the district of Naparima, that out of 270 field negroes, 80 died the last year. This is surely a great mortality, and a great loss to the planter, which is neither the fault of bad food nor bad care, as this planter has studied, in a great degree, the comforts of his slaves. The most regnant malady among them is, what the French call mal d' estomac. No method has been found out to prevent their indulging a depravity of taste; it prompts them to devour, with the most sensual avidity, almost every thing that falls in their way, particularly lumps of clay,it begins with an ennui, and ends in a marasmus, that baffles the knowledge of the sons of Esculapius*.

*MAL D'ESTOMAC, CACHEXIA AFRICANA, or the stomach disease of the negroes.

It is astonishing how little medical men are informed respecting this disease, and how slovenly it is passed over by medical authors. Dr. Hunter passed it over with a dash. The authors of the Medical and Physical Journal, vol. ii, 172, merely stated the symptoms, and a sort of cure loosely; and Mr. Edwards, in his History of the West Indies, treats it in the like manner, adding, "the best and only remedy is kind usage and wholesome animal food-Perhaps a steel drink may be of some service!!" Lastly, Dr. Winterbottom :-he ought to be excused, for in Africa he had no opportunity of observ ing the disease, but among the children, which might be seen in England among even our grown up misses. The reader, if a medical one, I hope will pardon me, should I presume to hazard an opinion on the origin of it in the male negroes, when I say, that it is owing to the constant, cruel castigation they experience in the field and else where, from the inhuman task-master, causing an ennui, or marasmus of the Nostalgia kind, which creates this preternatural taste for dirteating. On recurring to the MS. of my travels through the United States of America, I find I have noticed this disease under the head of Maladie Ecossois, which proceeds from an ardent desire in the Highlanders of Scotland to re-visit their native hills. I have seen

There are a great many things that contribute to shorten the life of the unfortunate negro, in which may be noticed, the change of climate, bad habit of body, aided in many instances by unwholsome regimen ;-the mass of his blood is frequently so corrupt, that the slightest scratch degenerates into a dangerous wound. I have carefully examined the different countenances of these unhappy beings during their landing, and in the penn before they were sold. One half, with downcast looks, portrayed a broken heart. Pray when does the legislature mean to abolish this traffic? I wish some of your advocates in the House had only a peep at the 500 naked beings now selling before my eyes. Oh! my God! how

Farewell.

many of them in several parts of America labouring under the afflic tion of this disorder, occasioned by disappointed hopes, and the barbarous usage of the slave-master, to whom they were originally sold for the payment of their passage, and from whose infernal gripe they were never able to extricate either themselves or their children. The thoughts of being thus held in hard and hopeless bondage, together with the brutality of their tyrants, brings on a gradual ennui, which tempts them to end their miserable existence by suicide, when dirt eating, and a constant libation of rankie-rum, does not speedily effect their liberation from their ill-fated captivity. It is the same with the negroes, but far more violent from the nature of their bondage. I could really wish to pursue this important inquiry further, and elucidate the subject properly, but, I am precluded, from the nature of the situation in which this note appears.

LETTER VI.

The situation of the Scotch Highlander, and the West India Negro, collated-Remarks on the State of the Highland Redemptioners in the United States of America-A Hint to future Emigrants-Trinidad recommended-Its further Advantages explained-Necessaries of Life-Culinary Vegetables, &c.—Description of the Coco Tree, its Medicinal Virtues-The Method of extracting Suri, and distilling Arac-Capivi Tree Paraguay, or South-Sea Tea; its Virtues-Mangrove Tree-Mangrove Oysters-History of the Flamingo.

DEAR SIR,

Head-Quarters, PUERTO DE ESPANA, March 1803.

As I am now going to collate the situation of the European labourer, with the negro in this place, you will permit me to recall to view some of the observations I made on my tour from London to the Highlands of Scotland in 1798, which excited in your bosom such sympathy and concern for a sober, harmless, and much injured people. And now that I have ocular demonstration of the situation of the negro, I am convinced of the justness of the comparison I drew at that period. The condition of the negroes is much to be envied, when compared to the predial slaves or scallags in

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the Highlands and Isles of Scotland. The Highlander is more deplorably circumvented with extreme poverty, and a petty tyranny, arising from immemorial usages, established in times of feudal oppression; with feelings more acute than the negro, he is more sensible of the pangs of misery, because secluded insulaire from the be- . nign influence of the British laws and government. It is a melancholy picture, and no less a melancholy fact, that Highlanders will not be thought of until it is too late; for how many hundreds, nay, thousands of them are in bondage in the United States of America, preferring, in a state of desperation, slavery abroad rather than at home. In America, the boasted land of freedom, they sell their persons to pay their passages.-Yes! -present themselves as indented vagabonds before upstart, and of course, insolent, magistrates, to submit to fetters, and transferred to oppressive masters, by whom they are treated worse than our beasts of burden. Yes,I have seen, with an aching heart, families and individuals who, twenty years ago, sold their liberty for six years, continue still in slavery, and what is worse, will be so during life. The fraudulent slave-master, taking an early advantage of their simple, easy credulity, keep them in debt, so that they have no power to extricate themselves,

I have heard of others, who to put an end to their torments, commit the most horrible suicide, extinguishing at once their families. If they run away, and are taken, I have seen them flogged, and worked in chains during day, shut in their manacles during night, as criminals. This, Sir, is the prospect of those who emigrate to the fag end of the world as redemptioners. To return to my position in the Highlands; the Scallag, so called, whether male or female, is a poor being, who, for mere subsist

ence, becomes a predial slave to either the landholder, tenant, or sub-tenant. The Scallag builds his own hut with sods and boughs of trees, when he can get them. If he is sent, which is frequently the case, from one part of the country to another, he moves off his sticks to enable him to form a new hut. Five days in the week he must work for his master, the sixth is allowed for himself, for the cultivation of some miserable scrap of land, on the verge of some moss or heath, on which he raises a little colewort, barley, and potatoes. These boiled up together in one mash, often without salt, are his only food, except in the season, and on those days when he can catch fish, which I have known him obliged to eat frequently without either bread or salt;-when he has bread, it is made of the flour of either oats or barley. He is allowed coarse shoes, with tartan hose, and a coarse coat, with a blanket or two for cloathing. In reading the foregoing, it will naturally occur to you, that the Scallag works only five days in the week for his master out of the seven, and that he has two to provide for himself; but you will please to recollect, that throughout the whole of Scotland, and all its appendages, Sunday, or as they call it, Sabbath, is celebrated by a total cessation from all labour and all amusements.

The comforts of the negro are far superior, because his wants are fewer and easier obtained; the labourer is better clad, as it is an object of necessity; the negro has no need of cloths, the habit with him is merely an article of luxury. The cottage of the labourer is larger and better furnished, which being repaired in summer, and warmed in winter, together with his furniture, &c. absorb no inconsiderable part of his scanty earnings. He must provide food, fuel, remnant, discharge his rent, and other contingencies, perhaps encumbered with a numerous