The West Indies, before and since slave emancipation, comprising the Windward and Leeward islands' military command; founded on notes and observations collected during a three years' residence

Dedication

To

The Members of the General Agricultural Society, and, of the several District- Agricultural Societies of Barbados,

Gentlemen,

Chapter I.— Introductory

Extent of the Windward and Leeward Islands' military command.— Division into civil governments. — Historical sketch. — Colonial vicissitudes. — Slave emancipation. — Its consequences. — Equalization of sugar duties. — Its effects. — Eorms of civil government. — Scenery. — Climate. — Soils and productions. — Sugar Cultivation ; its rise and progress 1

Chapter Ii.— Barbados

Its relative importance. — Sketch of its geological structure. — Features of its scenery. — Notice of its soils, minerals and springs, its climate and seasons. — Meteorological observations and incidents - - 33

Chapter III

Population of Barbados. — How composed. — Its amount. — Whites. — Inferior and superior class. — Colored or mixed , class. — Negro class. — Character and occupations of each. — Social advantages. — Social peculiarities -------64

Chapter Iv.— Barbados

West India Colonies essentially agricultural. — Sketch of the agriculture of Barbados. — Plantations and dwellings of the planters. — System of agriculture and manufacture followed in cane-cultivation and making sugar. — Minor culture. — "Ground provisions." — Eorage. — Apportioning of each kind of culture before and since slave emancipation. — Estate expenses.— Labourers and labour. — Cattle, condition and treatment.— Risks attending cultivation. — Cost of production. — Question of profit. — Changes from necessity, the consequences of distress. — Instances in illustration marking improvement. — Small farms. — Opinions respecting them. — Miscellaneous notices of places and objects deserving the attention of the passing traveller 108

VI CONTENTS.

Chapter V.— St. Vincent

Peculiarities of the Island. — Sketch, of its recent history. — Geological structure. — Mineral springs. — Soils. — Climate. — Population. — Classes and condition. — Agricultural details and peculiarities. — Objects most deserving the attention of the passing traveller ------- -163

Chapter Vi.— The Gren4 Dines

Theh situation. — Character. — Geology. — Climate. — Population. — Agriculture. — Occupation and condition of the inhabitants 197

Chapter Vii.— Grenada

Brief notice of its history. — Geological observations. — Mineral springs. — Soils. — Climate. — Population. — Landed proprietors.— Their distressed state. — Its causes. — Examples illustrative. — Conjectures respecting the future. — Notice of excursions --------------- 205

Chapter Viii.— Tobago

Important relative position. — Character of the Country. — Its geology, soils, and climate. — Hurricanes. — Poptdation. — Social condition. — Agriculture. — The parts of the island best worth seeing ----- ..- 237

Chapter Ix.— St. Lucia

Importance of its position, general character and aspect. — Geological structure. — Soufriere. — Mineral and hot springs. — Snakes. — Climate. — Population, circumstances unfavorable to its advancement. — State of education. — Cultivation and agriculture.— Its past state and future prospects. — Condition of the labourers and of the small proprietors. — Taxation and expenditure. — Objects worthy of notice to the passing traveller ------- - - - . 266

Chapter X.— Trinidad

Its importance as to position and extent. — Geological structure and scenery. — Pitch lake. — Expectations of mineral wealth. — Quality of soils, and fitness for varied culture. — Rivers. — Mineral waters. — Population. — State of society. — Its different classes. — Agriculture ; its present state and prospects. — Social improvements in progress. — Notice of excursions - 293

CONTENTS. Vll

Chapter Xi.— British Guiana

Approach to the colony. — Its coast and peculiarities. — Boundaries and territorial division. — Geographical sketch. — Soils. — Springs. — Climate. — Population. — Agricultural details, past and present. — Fallen fortunes of planters exemplified. — Labourers, their kinds and Characters. — Schools and education.— Circumstances favorable to a hopeful future. — Objects and subjects of enquiry likely to interest the passing traveller. - - 338

Chapter XII. — Antigua

Relative situation of the island. — Peculiarities of surface. — Geological features. — Qualities of climate. — Population. — Negroes before and after emancipation. — Character and social state of upper class. — Agriculture. — Circumstances favoring it. — Its present state. — Drawbacks in the little advance of manufacturing processes. — Neglect of live stock and pastures. — Peculiar way of managing poultry. — Promising future. — Spots worthy of notice of the passing traveller. - - - - 379

CHAPTER XIIL— MONTSERRAT.

Situation and scenery. — Geological structure. — Soils. — Climate. — Petrifying spring. — Population. — How first settled. — "Whites, bow reduced in numbers. — Character of the labouring, the colored class. — Depressed state of agriculture. — Circumstances conducing to it. — Illustrative instances. — Aggravating causes.— Signs of some improvements. — Defective form of government. — Excursions. --_-______ 409

Chapter Xiv.— St. Christopher's

Form and extent of the island. — Its geological structure. — Climate. — Historical notice. — Population. — "White and colored Creoles contrasted. — State of society. — 'Labouring class, their circumstances and improving state. — Land in cultivation.— System of agriculture. — English immigrants. — Remarks on manure. — Steam engines and sugar making. — Diminished production and profits. — Grounds of hope for the future. — Excursions, which may be made by the passing traveller. ------ ---------- 432

Chapter Xv.— Nevis

Its form and extent. — Geological structure. — Warm springs and mineral waters. — Climate. — Brief historical notice. — Population.— Character of the people of color, the labouring class. '

Vlll CONTENTS.

— Soils and agriculture. — Metairie system. — Produce. — Revenue.— Government. — Circumstances recommending it to invalids. — Roads and excursions. -------- 475

Chapter Xvi— Dominica

General character. — Geological structure. — Conjectures respecting metalliferous rocks. — Soils. — Climate. — Brief historical notice. — Population. — Condition of the peasantry. — State of education. — Ladies aiding in the cause. — Condition of the scanty white inhabitants — Produce. — Cultivation. — Fruits and cotton. — Remarks on these. — Suggestions to the passing traveller, &c. ------ 492

CHAPTER XYIL— WEST INDIAN TOWNS.

Their sites, how commonly objectionable. — Some of their defects and peculiarities. — Character of adjoining country. — Population. — Its character. — Occupations in town and country. — Public buildings. — Churches and burying grounds. — Prisons. — Hospitals. — Codrington College. — Town Habits. — Modes of conducting business. — Brief notice of military stations. ---------------- 510

Chapter XVIII. — Concluding

Temperate discussion relative to colonial affairs a desideratum. — Advantages, disadvantages and defects adverted to. — The latter as regards, 1st., Labour and labourers. — 2nd., Education.— 3rd., Sanitary measures. — 4th., The management and cultivation of the larger estates. — 5th., The restricted agriculture of these colonies. — 6th., The existing system of emigration. — 7th., The mode of colonial defence. — 8th, Colonial connexion and international communication. — Lastly, the relations of the colonies and the mother country. - - - - 527

E R E A T A.

Page i (Dedication), line G, for a read an honorary.

v, do. ,, 4, for lalourers reniHabourers.

3, line 14, for implement read implements. 8, ,, 8, for westward population read population westward. 27, ,, 4, for effects read affects. 30, „ 8, for agritulture read agriculture.

N.B. — The foot-notes above the Table should have been below it. 68 (Note), line 2, for desribes read describes. 231-2. N.B. — The quotation in these two pages should have been inserted as a foot-note,

following the one given. 265, line 22, for then read than. 283 (Note), line 2, for Jereme read Jeremie. 313 do. line 3, for increased read decreased. 370, line 6, for to it by read by it to. 385 (Note), for that island read Rat-island. 402, line 21, for teaches read taiches.

511, ,, 25, for formed read favored.

512, „ 19, after privileges, add, with the exception of Demerara, which has a Mayor and Town Council.

517, „ 27, for effects read effect.

465, ,, 16, for . Accidents read , accidents.

Chapter I. Introductory

Extent of the Military Command, designated as that of the Windward and Leeward Islands. — Division into Civil Governments. — Historical Sketch. — Colonial Vicissitudes. — Slave-Emancipation. — Its consequences. — Equalization of Sugar-duties. — Its effects. — Forms of Civil Government. — Scenery. — Climate. —Soils and Productions. — Sugar Cultivation ; its Rise and Progress.

The Windward and Leeward Islands' military command, as the designation implies, is one of great extent ; situated in the Caribbean Sea, it stretches through at least thirteen degrees of latitude, or about 780 miles measuring merely from shore to shore, exclusive of the widely-spread interior of British Guiana. Extending from about 5° to nearly 13° North, and from 59° to 63° West, it includes four civil governments; viz., that of the Windward Islands, formed of Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Granada and the Granadines, and Tobago; that of the island of Trinidad adjoining the continent of America, separated from it only by the Gulf of Paria and within sight of its mountains ; that of British Guiana (part of that continent) a country of vast extent, a considerable portion of it even now a terra incognita, and its boundaries hardly yet settled; and lastly that of the Leeward Islands, consisting of Dominica, Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis and St. Christopher's; — each government (Trinidad excepted) a Bishop's See.

B

Z HISTORICAL SKETCH.

Lying in the way of western navigation, the outskirts of the great continent, the islands enumerated were well called The Antilles, (Anti-illas) and the Lesser, to distinguish them from the Greater, Jamaica, Cuba, Porto Eico, and Hispaniola or St. Domingo.

Whether viewed in relation to their civil or natural history, their inhabitants or productions, their past or present state, they abound in matter of interest, and surely of instruction, and afford ample scope for further and useful inquiry, especially political and economical, keeping in mind the great changes that have taken place in their condition since they first became known to us, and that most memorable one pertaining to slave emancipation — unexampled in the world's history — of which they have been the scene.

A rapid sketch of the more important of these changes may not be without its use as an introduction to what is to follow ; their past is essential to the comprehending their present, and to the forming an opinion of their future.

When first discovered, little more than three centuries ago, they were found either desert, covered with dense forests, or thinly inhabited by a rude and warlike race of Indians, truly savage, the Caribs ; a people little acquainted with the useful arts, little addicted to agriculture, leading a nomadic, predatory life; by means of their canoes, passing from shore to shore, not unlike the northern sea kings; finding a precarious subsistence by fishing and hunting, and in the wild fruits and roots of the forest ; seeking their prey everywhere more like beasts of prey than men, and occasionally nnder the impulse of hunger or revenge, or of a taste acquired by the indulgence, feeding on their fellow men.

Short as is the historical period that has elapsed, the race of these aborigines has now almost died out ; the only remnant of them in our islands being a few families in the wilder parts of St. Yincent and Trinidad, and these almost in their original savage state, but without its former energy, and from passive indolence threatened soon with utter extinction. In the other islands they are almost forgotten, and are only occasionally brought to recollection by some primitive wedgeshaped implement, — remains of them, now and then turned up, made either of hard stone or of softer conch shell*

In even a briefer period — the colonization of these parts not having been earnestly entered upon till the commencement of the 17th century — a new population has sprung up in them, and with a few exceptions has rapidly increased ; a population of a very mixed kind, daily becoming more and more miscellaneous, and presenting strange contrasts with the habits of those they have supplanted.

* Those of shell are often found in the lands now under cultivation in Barhados, close to its shore. They were probably attached to a handle and used as a hoe, in the cultivation of the little maize that was grown by the Caribs in their occasional visits to the Island. Those of hard stone were probably used as hatchets and axes, for felling trees and cutting wood, and as weapons in war. They bear, both in their form and material, a close resemblance to the implements of the Celts and of the old Scandinavian people.

The first settlers in Barbados were chiefly English, in the time of the great civil war and of the commonwealth,— exiles and banished men, free and bondsmen, roundheads and cavaliers, — the latter, distinctions, which with their party fends, they fonnd it there inconvenient to continue, and which they soon ceased to use by mutual assent.*

Nevis and St. Christopher's were settled about the same time under like circumstances ; the latter in part by English and in part by Erench, remaining divided for a period of nearly a hundred years — a period of almost uninterrupted hostilities. About the same time also were settled Antigua and Montserrat ; the former by English, the latter chiefly by Irish emigrants. Of the colonies which came under British dominion later, either conquered or ceded, the scanty white population of Tobago and Grenada is, or rather was, chiefly of Scottish origin, with an admixture of French in the latter ; that of St. Vincent of mixed Scotch and English, as is also that of St. Lucia with an admixture of French; and likewise of British Guiana and Trinidad, in the former with a portion of Dutch, in the latter of Spanish and French.

To their first settlement by Europeans, various causes conduced, — a disturbed state at home, religious and political persecution, the love of adven-

* Ligon, who was in Barbados between 1647 and 1650, states in bis account of the island, that, " among the better sort of planters, a law was made inflicting a fine on any one calling another Roundhead or Cavalier."

ture, the thirst of gain. These new regions were a land of promise, offering wealth, security and enjoyment, not only to the enterprising and imaginative, but even to the prudent and calculating citizen. In consequence, the most favored of them, as Barbados, St. Christopher's, Nevis, were rapidly peopled, and as rapidly brought into cultivation and made productive.

Comparing the numbers of their white inhabitants, the great majority of them free, within fifty years from the period of their being first taken possession of, with the numbers of the same now, the difference is strongly marked. Then they were three or four times as great as at present. We are surprised now, at the large white force that was then available, how Barbados could contribute above three-thousand volunteers ; and Nevis, with St. Christopher's, one-thousand, to join the expedition in the time of Cromwell, which effected the conquest of Jamaica. *

Their early prosperity is not less worthy of notice, especially associated with its causes, — a virgin soil of great fertility, rich productions amply remunerating the cultivator, all of them luxuries fetching high prices in the market of Europe ; first tobacco, cotton, and indigo,

* Long, in his History of Jamaica, written about 1774, says "that Barbados, in 1676, was reported to maintain 70,000 whites and 80,000 blacks, in all 150,000. The peopling of the island," he adds, " had been encouraged by grants of ten acres of land to poor settlers and white servants who had fulfilled the term of their indentures.'' From their land they procured the necessaries of life ; many of them, moreover, gained money by making cotton hammocks, which they sold in the island or exported to the French and English colonies. These small properties, he states, were gradually bought up, their owners seeking their fortunes in the adjoining countries.

6 HISTOEICAL SKETCH.

with the minor articles of profit; afterwards sugar, with greater profit ; free trade, free navigation, few or no fiscal duties; little competition; self government and self defence ;* with mental qualities fitted to make the most of advantages — those qualities which belong to enterprising settlers, especially of the same race, — zeal, industry, perseverance, frugality, which we still witness, carrying the American westward population without stop or check.

"Wealth and the enervating effect of a tropical climate ere long became antagonistic in these favored regions, tending to introduce causes of an opposite land, the effects of which soon became apparent and are now too manifest.

The high atmospheric temperature rendered field labour irksome, and more than that' — other circumstances disposing — destructive of health. The African was found fitted for this labour : slavery in consequence was permitted by the home government, after the example of the Spanish. Slaves in large numbers were imported, and soon the cultivation was almost entirely carried on by them, with little skill, no implement but the hoe, and with a great cost of life.

"With the introduction of slaves a change took place, and that of an unfavorable kind in the description of agri-

* Till so late as 1780 no permanent military force was sent from home. In that year the 89th regiment was stationed in Barbados, the House of Assembly protesting, as contrary to usage. Barracks (colonial) were then constructed by a vote of the House, no doubt to escape the billetting system before in use when military aid, on occasions, was supplied by the mother country.

culture. The number of small proprietors diminished ; the same variety of productions ceased to be cultivated ; more capital was invested, plantations were enlarged ; one or two articles, sugar or cotton, chiefly the former, engrossed almost entirely the attention. The larger proprietors now began to become absentees, taking up their residence in England, trusting the management of their estates to attornies, with increased expense and often diminishing profit. Coeval with which, were restrictions on trade, increased duties, augmented colonial expenditure from increase of salaried offices, many of them not needed but for ministerial patronage, and to meet it, an augmentation of colonial rates and taxes, and duties both on imports and exports, and last and not least an augmenting competition with the foreign growers, especially the French, of "West India produce. For many years the condition of the colonies was in a fluctuating state, oftener to the proprietors a matter of complaint than of gratulation, the latter especially towards the end of the reign of William and Mary. The cultivation of the sugar cane more and more engaged in, was almost as speculative an undertaking as mining. "With favorable seasons and under favorable circumstances, whilst our islands chiefly supplied Europe with sugar, as was the case till near the peace of Eyswick in 1697, the crops were good and the profits large. Such in elated hope seem to have been calculated on for the future as regular and unexceptionable. The mode of living was in accordance, luxurious and profuse. With droughts and bad seasons, disasters from floods, hurricanes and earthquakes, not of rare occurrence, with war and disturbed trade, and interrupted supplies, reverses ensued, difficulties arose, debts became contracted, estates mortgaged, cultivation checked, altogether productive of general distress.

All the details in the history of these colonies bear out this statement. The early period of success, a period of limited production and high prices, hardly reached the end of the reign of Charles II. — certainly not of his successor, when additional duties were imposed* —

* In 1625, on Muscovado sugars, 2s. 4cl. ; on refined, 7s. per cwt. The imposition of these duties -was attributed to the influence of the sugar bakers, an interest that has always more or less interfered with the colonial. Previously, the duty, the custom, had been five per cent., — the ordinary duty on all imports, an ad valorem duty, exclusive of the four and half duty in the plantations. " In the book of rates made anno 1660, all commodities were generally rated at five per cent., as near as could be to their value ; accordingly white sugar from our plantations being then worth £5 per cwt. paid a subsidy of 5s. per cwt, and brown muscovado sugar Is. 6d."

" Some considerations about the intended subsidy, humbly offered with respect to sugar." — No date, Lib. B. M.

In " The Groans of the Plantations," 4to. Lond. 1689, the principal causes of the early prosperity, and its decline, are strongly described. They are well deserving of attention even now.

" In former times we accounted ourselves a part of England, and the trade and intercourse was open accordingly, so that commodities came hither as freely from the sugar plantations as from the Isles of Wight and Anglesey. But upon the king's restoration we were in effect made foreigners and aliens ; a custom being laid upon our sugars amongst other foreign commodities." —

" Heretofore we could ship off our goods at any port, or bay, or creek ; and at any time, either by day or night. But now, since the king's restoration, we must do it at those times and places only at which collectors of the customs please to attend."

" Heretofore we might send our commodities to any part of the world, but now we must send them to England, and to no place else."

" Heretofore the things we wanted were brought to us from the places

The more or less disastrous and fluctuating period followed close after, and may be said with little interruption to have continued to the present time. A vastly increased production outstripping the demand so reduced the price of produce as to render it almost profitless. This appears to have been the main cause, others, — such as those above alluded to, conducing in conwhere they might best be had. But now we must have them from England, and from no other place."

" Heretofore we might send to Guinea for negroes, when we wanted them5 and they stood us in about ten pound a head. But now we are shut out from this trade, and a company is put upon us, from whom we must have our negroes, and no other way," doubling (he states) their cost. —

The occasion of these " groans" was the imposing of additional duties on sugar, on the coming of King James to the throne ; viz , seven groats (4s. Ad.) on muscovado per cwt., and 7s. on sugars fit for use ; Is. 8d. and 5s. were the previous duties. "The act passed," (says the writer,) "and " the plantations are ruined." — " The duties fall so terribly upon our improved sugars, that it doth quite discourage and confound us ; our ingenuity is baffled, and our industry is cut up by the roots."

Bryan Edwards' graphic account of modern, not the earliest colonization, is the following ; it should never be forgotten ; — we are too apt to forget when criticising the measures of foreign states, those of our own government ; — the parable of the mote and the beam. He thus writes. " The leading principle of colonization in all the maritime states of Europe (Great Britain among the rest) was commercial monopoly. The word monopoly in this case admitted a very extensive interpretation. It comprehended the monopoly of supply, the monopoly of colonial produce, and the monopoly of manufacture. By the first, the Colonists were prohibited from resorting to foreign markets for the supply of their wants ; by the second they were compelled to bring their chief staple commodities to the mother countiy, and by the third to bring them to her in a raw or unmanufactured state, that her own manufacturers might secure to themselves all the advantages arising from their further improvement. — This latter principle was carried so far in the colonial system of Great Britain, as to induce the late Lord Chatham to declare in parliament that the British Colonists in America had no right to manufacture even a nail or horse shoe." — History of the West Indies, vol. ii. p. 565.

C junction with civil clissentions and bad management. It is lamentable to consider the condition of Barbados, taking it as an example, as recorded in 1732 — 36, when perhaps at its lowest ebb of fortune, when sales of sugar in that island were said to be made at eleven and twelve shillings the hundred.* This was after two destructive hurricanes, after droughts and short crops, and when the fiscal impediments and burdens were greater than they had ever been before. A desertion even of the island was threatened. We are assured that many insolvent planters to escape their creditors fled to the northern islands ; most grievous are the stories of distress related, t

Though there was some little relaxation of restrictions in the way of help, trade with the north American colonies having been allowed, and France excluded from the Irish sugar trade ; and from an increased demand from increasing consumption, some improvement

* The low price seems to have been partly owing to the necessities of the seller, and partly to the increase of sugar having outstripped the demand. — In the time of Charles II., the quantity of sugar used in England according to Dr. Campbell was about 1000 hogsheads yearly, and about the same quantity exported. — Long's History of Jamaica. In 1734, it was asserted that "all the people upon the earth are not sufficient to consume the sugar that is already made." — Carribeana. We must keep in mind, that tea and coffee were at that time little used, the price of the former in London up to 1707, being about sixty shillings a pound, and coffee having been introduced not earlier than 1652.

f The state of Barbados in 1732 — 6, as described, reminds one of what it was during the panic of 1846.— See "Carribeana," 2 vols. 4to. London, 1741 ; and "A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil and the West Indies, by John Atkins," 8vo. London, 1735. In the former miscellany a great variety of curious information is to be found by native writers, relative to the then state of Barbados and of the West Indies.

in the price of the staple products, yet no very favorable and well-marked change occurred till after the American war, and the French Eevolution and the ruin of the sugar plantations in St. Domingo, the effect of the internecine struggles about that time commenced. Immediately before the Eevolution this island was in its most prosperous state in regard to cane cultivation, the forcing of which by an immense outlay of capital, had in no small degree impoverished the mother country, and in that way in turn conduced to the Eevolution that followed. It at that time exported a larger amount of sugar than all the British colonies combined, and had an amount of slaves equal to that in all of them.* After the exterminating war — exterminating to the whites, waged by France with the negroes — following the peace of Amiens, and the success and complete domination of the blacks, the sugar estates became neglected, and sugar finally ceased to be exported or even produced. This circumstance, by diminishing the supply of the article, whilst the demand for it was rapidly increasing, greatly inhanced its price in the general market, and promoted the extension of the culture of the cane in our possessions ;— an extension that was effected in a very enterprising manner, and

* In 1790, St. Domingo exported to France 150,685,000 lbs. of sugar, 45,274,000 lbs. of coffee, 3,845,000 lbs. of cotton, 1,948,000 lbs. of indigo, 600,000 lbs. of cocoa; and its slave population was then estimated at about 500,000 ; in that year it is stated that 30,000 slaves were brought from the coast of Africa. From 1726 to 1742, the sugar produced there is estimated to have increased from 33,000 hhds. of 12 cwt. to 70,666 hhds. —Mem. of the Sugar Trade of the Brit. Col., Lond. 1793.

at an immense cost both in the purchase of slaves and in the erection of machinery and of boiling houses for the manufacture, to the exclusion of other kinds of cultivation, especially that of cotton. * The reviving prosperity that followed was very unequally sustained, varying greatly in our different colonies during the protracted war — the las't war with France — checked as it was by the foreign sugar trade carried on clandestinely in neutral bottoms, and by the high price of freight and insurance, and further by a rapid increase of cane cultivation in the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Porto Eico.

This more auspicious time, as it certainly was to our planters on the whole, was not of long duration. And it is worthy of note, that whilst it lasted, few improvements of any importance are recorded to have been made or attempted, either in the cultivation of the cane or in the manufacture of sugar, or in agriculture in general. With high prices and a presumed exclusive market, with favorable seasons, the crops were in many instances largely remunerative, especially in the newly conquered colonies. Labour — slave labour — tasking neither skill nor science — that was in greatest demand, procurable almost without limit, with unlimited ca-

* This again was not without its consequences ; viz., First the rapid extension of cotton cultivation in South Carolina, where it had not been attempted till 1783, the year of independence of the United States; and Secondly, as this cultivation was carried on entirely by slaves, adding a new and powerful motive for the maintenance of slavery ; a motive that was even strengthened afterwards by — as a boon to our cotton manufacturers — the free admission of cotton, without distinction as to the country from whence exported, or the kind of labour by which it was raised.

pital and extended credit ; * the slave trade in all its inhumanities was extended, and the condition of the slave was unmitigated. "We are assured that in St. Domingo, since the negroes, the offspring of slaves have become dominant, the black population has doubled in twenty -five years. In our colonies the same race in slavery was, till the slave trade was abolished, constantly diminishing in numbers, the deaths exceeding the births, — the strongest proof perhaps that can be given of their wretched lot.