"Thus spurn'd, degraded, trampled, and oppress'd,
The negro-exile languish'd in the west,
With nothing left of life but hated breath,
And not a hope except the hope in death,
To fly for ever from the Creole-strand,

And dwell a freeman in his father's land."

The character of a Slave-captain is such as human nature would disown, if it were possible ;-the proofs, alas! are too flagrant.

"Lives there a savage ruder than the slave?
-Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulph that yawns below,
Is he, who toils upon the wafting flood,
A Christian broker in the trade of blood;
Boist'rous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells, he steals, he kills, for gold.
At noon, when sky and ocean, calm and clear,
Bend round his bark, one blue unbroken sphere;
When dancing dolphins sparkle thro' the brine,
And sun-beam circles o'er the waters shine;
He sees no beauty in the heaven serene,
No soul-enchanting sweetness in the scene,
But darkly scowling at the glorious day,
Curses the winds that loiter on their way.
When swoln with hurricanes the billows rise
To meet the light'ning midway from the skies;
When from the unburthen'd hold his shrieking slaves
Are cast, at midnight, to the hungry waves;
Not for his victims strangled in the deeps,
Not for his crimes, the harden'd pirate weeps,
But grimly smiling, when the storm is o'er,

Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more."

This is followed by the yet more disgusting picture of a Creole planter. The poet next apostrophizes Africa, and points out the dispensations of retributive justice as exemplified in the piratical ravages of the Corsairs, and the slavery of the Europeans in Barbary ;-the wars in Hayti and St. Vincent; the earthquakes and hurricanes which have so frequently desolated the finest of the West Indian Islands ;-and concludes with this description of that terrible scourge of the western world-the yellow fever.

198

The West Indies: a Poem.

"Nor in the majesty of storms alone,
The Eternal makes his fierce displeasure known;
At his command the pestilence abhorr'd

Spares the poor slave, and smites the haughty lord;
While to the tomb he sees his friend consign'd,
Foreboding melancholy sinks his mind,
Soon at his heart he feels the monster's fangs,
They tear his vitals with convulsive pangs;
The light is anguish to his eye, the air
Sepulchral vapours, laden with despair;
Now frenzy-horrors rack his whirling brain,
Tremendous pulses throb thro' every vein;
The firm earth shrinks beneath his torture-bed,
The sky in ruins rushes o'er his head;
He rolls, he rages, with consuming fires,
Till nature spent with agony expires."

The fourth part of this very interesting Poem, begins with an account of the Moravians, and their missions to Greenland, to the Indian tribes of North America, and to the negro-slaves.* The history of the Abolition is introduced with a highly poetical picture of Africa beholding the slavery of her children, followed by a tribute to the more distinguished advocates of the righteous cause.

"She, miserable mother, from the shore,
Age after age, beheld the barks that bore
Her tribes to bondage;-with distraction wrung,
Wild as the lioness that seeks her young,

She flash'd unheeded light'nings from her eyes,
Her inmost deserts echoing to her cries;
Till agony the sense of suffering stole,

And stern unconscious grief benumb'd her soul.
So Niobe, when all her race were slain,
In ecstasy of woe forgot her pain;

Cold in her eye serenest horror shone,

While pitying nature sooth'd her into stone.

"Thus Africa, entranc'd with sorrow, stood,

Her fix'd eye gleaming on the restless flood:
-When Sharpe, on proud Britannia's charter'd shore,
From Lybian limbs the unsanction'd fetters tore,

* The successful labours of this benevolent society in Labrador, and in Pennsylvania, have been hinted at in pp. 20-27 of this work; and those at the Cape, more largely, pp. 22-26. Some account of their exertions and progress in the civilization of other savage tribes will be given in a future number.

And taught the world, that while she rules the waves,
Her soil is freedom to the feet of slaves

-When Clarkson his victorious course began,
Unyielding in the cause of God and man,
Wise, patient, persevering to the end,

No guile could thwart, no power his purpose bend,
He rose o'er Afric like the sun in smiles,
He rests in glory on the western isles :
-When Wilberforce, the minister of grace,
The new Las Casas of a ruin'd race,

With angel-might oppos'd the rage of hell,
And fought like Michal, till the dragon fell:
-When Pitt, supreme amid the senate, rose
The Negro's friend, among the Negro's foes;
Yet while his tones like Heaven's own thunder broke,
No fire descended to consume the yoke :
-When Fox, all eloquent for freedom stood,
With speech resistless as the voice of blood,
The voice that cries thro' all the Patriot's veins,
When at his feet, his country groans in chains;
The voice that whispers in his mother's breast,
When smiles her infant in his rosy rest;
Of power to bid the storm of passion roll,
Or touch with sweetest tenderness the soul.
He spake in vain ;-till with his latest breath,
He broke the spell of Africa in death."

The result of their labours is thus told;

"Quick at the call of virtue, freedom, truth, Weak withering age and strong aspiring youth, Alike the expanding power of pity felt; The coldest, hardest hearts began to melt; From breast to breast the flame of justice glow'd; Wide o'er its banks the Nile of mercy flow'd; Thro' all the isle the gradual waters swell'd; Mammon in vain the encircling flood repell'd, O'erthrown at length, like Pharaoh and his host, His shipwreck'd hopes lay scatter'd round the coast. 66 High on her rock, in solitary state, Sublimely musing, pale Britannia sate; Her awful forehead on her spear reclin'd, Her robe and tresses streaming with the wind; Chill thro' her frame foreboding tremors crept; The mother thought upon her sons, and wept :

"She started from her trance!-and round the shore,
Beheld her supplicating sons once more
Pleading the suit so long, so vainly tried,
Renew'd, resisted, promis'd, pledg'd, denied,
The Negro's claim to all his Maker gave,
And all the tyrant ravish'd from the slave.
Her yielding heart confess'd the righteous claim,
Sorrow had soften'd it, and love o'ercame;
Shame flush'd her noble cheek, her bosom burn'd,
To helpless, hopeless Africa she turn'd;
She saw her sister in the mourner's face,
And rush'd with tears into her dark embrace :
All hail!' exclaim'd the empress of the sea,
Thy chains are broken, Africa be free!'

All hail!' repli'd the mourner, she who broke
'My bonds shall never wear a stranger's yoke.""

With this extract is concluded the subject of the Slave Trade, and its Abolition; the remainder of the Poem contains, what is styled in the Argument, "The future state of the West Indies-of Africa-of the whole world-the Millenium."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Communication from Lisbon signed H, is of a nature so gratifying to our feelings, that it is with regret we feel ourselves obliged to defer the publication of it; but we think, that a little reflection will convince our Correspondent, that we could not print the names of persons stated to be concerned in a certain transaction, without the sanction of the writer's name.

We should be glad if the writer of the Essay, marked C, would point out some channel through which we might correspond with him, as we do no. feel ourselves justified in making any material alteration in a manuscript, without the Concurrence of the Author.

THE PHILANTHROPIST.

No. III.

Manners and Customs of the People of Cuyor, Sin, and Sallum.

In a paper beginning at page 17 in the second number of the Philanthropist, where I treated of the Progress of the Civilization of Africa as connected with the Abolition of the Slave Trade, I said, that "opposite to the island of Goree, lay a very interesting portion of the continent of Africa, which, though it was not like Goree, absolutely under British dominion, was yet considerably under British influence. This portion was bounded on the north by the great river Senegal, on the south by the great river Gambia, and on the west, for nearly two hundred miles, by the ocean. It contained no less than three kingdoms, under the names of Cayor, Sin and Sallum." When I said that this portion was interesting, I meant that it was so on several accounts, but particularly because Fort St. Louis and Goree being in our possession, which were the only depots for receiving, and the only ports for shipping off such of the inhabitants as were made slaves, it was in our power, by shutting these two gates as it were to the slave trade, to stop it in this portion. It was in our power then to see, either by being passive, what would be the pure and genuine effects of the Abolition upon the natives, or, by becoming active, to give a turn as well as a tone to these, to the mutual benefit of ourselves and of those concerned.

As this then is the case; as the natives in question are now in a situation to be moulded as it were by us, or cast in a new die, as to their future usefulness and character, it cannot but be desirable to know something of their history as men; of their government, their religion, their laws, their manners, their state of society, and other particulars belonging to the same subject. And here I cannot but consider myself more