having been to England some years previously, with the children of his former owner. Mr. Hyslop, and several of the local magistrates, were on the bench. They were all struck, as I was, with the artless and ingenuous manner in which he described his voyage to England, and arrival in London. I called on him to describe the River: he said it was more than a day from the sea to London-that there were a great many ships-and where he landed, the ship was shut up in a square place filled with water; there was also the church of London not a great way from the place where he landed, and the king's palace opposite to it, with a great many big trees. The church and the palace confounded me a little; but my friends around saw nothing in the account but evident proofs of veracity. The church was no other than St. Paul's-the palace no other than Greenwich Hospital, which the poor boy had mistaken for the King's house. I asked him to describe the streets of London: he instantly gave me a most elaborate account of the big street that run through the town this my friends immediately discovered to be the Strand ;-and the little streets, that were smaller than the great one, with beautiful gardens, and great big trees growing in them— these, it was evident, could be nothing else than the squares, and the shrubs and plants therein. His accurate description of the gaol of London,

which must have been the Old Bailey, and was built of big stones, with great iron bars in the doors and windows, that looked very dark and terrible, left no doubt of his veracity; while the extraordinary intelligence displayed in all his answers gave us a very favourable impression of his character.

I now summoned his former owners, and all the persons whom he had spoken of as cognisant of his having been sent to England. They came; and the result of their examination was, the clearest evidence that the boy had never been to England in his life. During their examination he never changed a muscle. He even cross-examined one of the witnesses to support his statement; but he at length gave it up as a bad job: in fact, he had been telling a host of falsehoods, and with a plausibility so invincible, that if he did not eventually contradict his own statements, I should have almost doubted the evidence against his story. had the iron collar taken off, and ordered him a good switching, by way of giving his imaginative powers a better direction in future.

On most plantations there is a litigious negro, who regulates the quarrels of the other negroes with one another, and takes on himself the general direction of their discontent. He is generally shrewd, plausible fellow-has a good deal of Congo saw, or, in other negro parlance, sweet mouth

and likewise a certain portion of what the Members of the Assembly call slack-jaw-Hibernicè, the gift of the gab. When he wheedles buckra, he does it like an adept in adulation—he daubs his vanity all over. "Massa much too good to neger; what for neger wish him free? him want no nyam; salt plenty; plenty bittel; too much every thing. Him too much happy with him sweet Massanebber to want free. Him born slave-why for no, him not always slave? Him no fuss of Augus neger, him for true Massa's own neger-who care for Willyforce neger? Hi chu! who have the imperance to call him free neger?"

Buckra of course rewards with a smile, or, what is still better, with a maccaroni, the fidelity of blackie, and the due appreciation of the manifest disadvantages of liberty, and, consequently, the manifold advantages of slavery; and as buckra turns his back, the last "Marning, my sweet Massa! bye to you, my good Massa!" dies away in the drawling accents of a "negro lawyer's " fawning courtesy. But no sooner does he get among his own people, than the tune is altered; the obsequious slave becomes the consequential man, impatient of all temporary restrictions on his liberty, and morbidly alive to every wrong, real or imaginary, that seizes on his attention.

A man of this kind may do a great deal of mischief on a property where the negroes are discon

tented; but, fortunately, his influence is only among the discontented; and no body of people, either black or white, can be rendered thoroughly dissatisfied with their condition, whatever individuals may be, without a cause. Generally speaking, the negroes are easily contented. No people, that I ever met, are more susceptible of kindly feelings,--more sensible of good treatment,—and more disposed to be grateful for it.

One of these negro lawyers, whose chief business it is to plague the bushas as much as possible, was sent before me for putting the negroes in a state of insubordination, on a property where the special magistrate, Mr. Lloyd, had been only recently explaining the new law to the apprentices. On that occasion, the negro constable complained of one Mathews, who put a variety of quibbling questions to the magistrate, as to the nature of the crimes which were punishable under the new law. Mr. Lloyd gave him every information; but the man was not satisfied with being told, that disobedience of all legal commands, refusal to labour, insubordination, and disorderly conduct, were punishable. He wanted to know what legal construction was to be put on every word in Mr. Lloyd's replies-what were the boundaries and limits of insubordination.

One of the plantation negro constables interfered, and told him it was unnecessary to ask

such questions; whereupon (the magistrate having gone away) Mathews said to the negroes, the magistrate was not a just one, that he had not told the truth, and the negro constables had taken a false oath, and that, in consequence of their perjuries, their bellies would swell, and they would die. It was given in evidence, that he excited the negroes to a state of discontent only short of actual outrage; since which time they were in a state of insubordination, and the constables were looked upon as under the ban of obeah: such was the evidence of the negroes themselves, as well as the overseer.

Mathews, being called on, advanced with the air of a man who had much to say in his defence, and was primed and charged for the occasion even to the muzzle. It was frequently with difficulty I could keep him from exploding into a speech during the examination of the witnesses. But now, when he caught the signal to pull the trigger of his eloquence, off it went, and I send you the report, in order that you may judge of this discharge of negro oratory :

“Well, massa, since the day me born, me always live like a good neger, and a perfect Christian on Salisbury Plain. Me fader and moder (he was begged not to go back to the days of his youth) well, massa, leave fader and moder one side-when me was first Christened