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364 FORM OF GOVERNMENT-ANTIGUA SCHOOLS, &c.

contiguous, as a naval yard department, and ten acres as a naval hospital, very near the latter. In Montserrat there are two acres, under a few small batteries on the sea-coast.

The

FORM OF GOVERNMENT. Antigua is legislated for by a Governor, Legislative Council and House of Assembly, the latter consisting of a Speaker and twenty-five members, representing the capital town (St. John's) and twelve divisions, or six parishes, into which the island is divided. Governor of Antigua is also Governor and Commander-inChief over Montserrat, Barbuda,* St. Christopher, Nevis, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands and Dominica; he, however, generally remains stationary at Antigua. The Governor is chancellor of each island by virtue of his office, but commonly holds the court in Antigua. In hearing causes from the other islands he acts alone-but in cases which arise in Antigua he is assisted by a council, and by an act of the Assembly of this island, the president and a certain number of the council may determine chancery causes during the absence of the Governor. The other courts of this island are a Court of King's Bench, a Court of Common Pleas and a Court of Exchequer.

The militia consists of a brigade of artillery, a squadron of light dragoons and a windward and leeward regiment of infantry.

There are nineteen public or free schools in the island, providing for 1,216 scholars; the number of places of worship are twenty-two, capable of containing 3,618 persons-and the expense of maintaining the church establishment is £5,560 per annum. A gentleman totally unconnected with the church

* BARBUDA.—This island the property of the Codrington family, is situated thirty-six miles N. of Antigua, about twenty miles broad, with 1,500 inhabitants; the interior is level, the soil fertile, and the air of great purity. It was first settled by a party of Colonists from St. Kitt's under Sir Thomas Warner, whom the Caribs at first compelled to retreat, but the English finally returned and quickly began cultivation. The chief trade of the colonists consist in raising cattle, swine, poultry, horses, and mules, for sale in the neighbouring islands. There is a good roadstead but the coast is dangerous.

CLERGY-BILL FOR TOTAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 365

has recently described the state of religious instruction in Antigua, which may be taken as a specimen of most of the other islands.

There is a very general countenance of religious instructors and instruction in most of the islands; and in Antigua particularly.

SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.-There are Sunday and infant day schools, carried on by the Church of England, the Moravians, and the Methodists. The majority of the clergy are intent on the great duties of their calling of the missionaries too much can scarcely be said. A too rigid adherence to high church principles has done much injury to the establishment, and exhibited the inadequacy of the episcopal system to the religious requirements of the slave population. The abandonment of the West Indies by the Church Missionary Society has been of essential disservice; still there is much doing by exemplary and devoted men in the establishment, by going about on the estates, and preaching in the negro houses in a truly missionary spirit. The appointment of assistants or helpers (called by the negroes "Godfathers,") to exercise a certain surveillance over their flocks on the plantation has tended very much to give effect to their ministrations. By these and other means the character of the negroes has been much improved, and their outward attention of religion greatly increased; add to this, the refusal of all the ministers and missionaries to bury any whose names are not inserted as members in their books, produces an anxiety, on this if on no other account, to be enrolled among the professors of religion.

FEES TO THE CLERGY.-The vestry assembles, when the acting churchwarden lays before them an estimate of the ways and means for the year. The number of acres and of slaves in the parish show the amount of the tax on each. This amount, with all items, is settled by the majority; the churchwarden delivers the accounts and collects the money. One of the principal disbursements is the minister's salary; about £200 sterling, is provided by an act of the island, and it is customary for the vestry to make a voluntary addition to it, generally from £60 to £100 per ann. This, with a parsonage house, and sometimes a horse, is sufficient to make a clergyman comfortable; and the minister is under the necessity of avoiding conduct which would be offensive to his parishioners, while a portion of his income depends on the good will of his flock. The salary of the clerk is also on a liberal scale, being from £75 to 120 per ann.; he acts as vestry clerk in keeping the accounts and collecting the taxes. The surplice fees are liberal; three guineas is a common fee to a clergyman, and not unfrequently one guinea and a half, to the clerk, as a wedding fee. This, with £3. 13s. 6d. to the governor for a licence ( few white people being married by banns), makes matrimony an expensive business.'

I cannot pass to the next British island (in a geographical position) without noticing an act that reflects much honour on the colonists of Antigua, who have ever been distinguished for their desire to mitigate the horrors of slavery* and to inculcate morality and religion among their dependents. An

The legislature of Antigua was the first which prescribed the example of an amelioration of the criminal law with regard to negro slaves, by affording the accused party the benefit of trial by jury, and allowing, in the case of capital convictions, four days to elapse between the time of sentence and the execution. This Colonial Assembly has, in other instances, displayed a proper sense of its own dignity. The W. I. islands, belonging to Great Britain, have no coin of their own; what is in circu

366

FOUR AND A HALF PER CENT, DUTIES.

act passed the Island Assembly 13th February, 1834, and was ratified by the council two days after, decreeing the emancipation of every slave in the island on the 1st of August, 1834, unqualified from all the provisions of the act of the British Parliament with reference to apprenticeship. The bill provides for locating, in their present domiciles, all the slaves residing upon sugar plantations for the space of one year, and also for settlement in the parishes in which their present residences are situated, for the same period. In case of insubordination or improper conduct, two magistrates to have the power of removing them. Food and clothing, as now provided by existing laws, to be supplied to the old, infirm and young for one year, at the proprietor's expense, and reasonable wages allowed to all the able and competent labourers. The laws of the island relative to the slaves to be abrogated, and the statute law of England to take their place.

In the words of this most righteous Act-' From and after the 1st of August, 1834, slavery shall be and is hereby utterly and for ever abolished and declared unlawful within this colony and its dependencies!'

I trust this prompt measure of the Antiguans will be met in a corresponding spirit at home, and that the destructive four and a half per cent. duties levied on all their produce exported (and which his present Majesty has so nobly resigned,) will be immediately abolished-the local act for its abrogation being very properly combined by the colonial legislature in the slavery emancipation act.

lation being all foreign. In the beginning of the last century the mother country thought it necessary to settle the value of it, but as the arrangement she made was considered to be contrary to the interests of the colonists, they fixed it at a higher value. But notwithstanding this the lawyers agreed, that if the event should take place, they would never grant their assistance to any one who should refuse to accept the coin at the price fixed by the Assembly.

CHAPTER XII.

ST. CHRISTOPHER'S OR ST. KITT'S, NEVIS, ANGUILLA,

TORTOLA, &c.

LOCALITY-PHYSICAL ASPECT― MOUNTAINS

RIVERS -GEOLOGY

CLIMATE-POPULATION.

LOCALITY. In 17.18 N. lat., 62.40 W. long., seventy-two miles in circumference, and containing sixty-eight square miles, is situate St. Kitts or St. Christopher,* called by the Caribs Licmuiga, or the fertile isle-and in shape somewhat like Italy-as an outstretched leg.

HISTORY. This singular-looking but beautiful spot was discovered by Columbus in 1493, and, as stated by some, received its name from the great navigator himself, by reason of his being so pleased with its fertile appearance; others say its name is derived from a part of Mount Misery bearing a resemblance to the statues common at that period on church porches of St. Christopher carrying our Saviour on his shoulders. The island was then densely peopled by Caribs, who remained for some time after its discovery in possession of their native home, subject to the occasional visits of the Spaniards for water, with whom they are stated to have been on terms of friendship†-a very doubtful fact, unless the Spaniards did not require the land or persons of the Caribs.

In 1623 Warner (afterwards Sir Thomas) settled on the island, with his son and fourteen Londoners, and found three Frenchmen residing in tranquillity with the natives. Warner

* This island is not only honoured by being named after Columbus, but it is said to have given birth to Christophe, first a slave, afterwards a waiter in a hotel, and on board a privateer, and finally Emperor of Haiti. According, however, to one account, this remarkable man was born in the island of Grenada in 1769, and was a slave at St. Domingo so late as 1791.

So stated by the intelligent and eloquent author of the West India Sketch book.

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EARLY HISTORY OF ST. CHRISTOPHER'S.

returned to England for more recruits, and on his return in 1625, landed the same day with M. D'Enambuc, who had arrived from France with a party of colonists. The Caribs took alarm-made war on the European invaders-were discomfited with the loss of 2,000 in killed and wounded, leaving 100 foes dead from their poisoned arrows. The English and French agreed to divide the island between them, and articles of partition were signed 13th of May, 1627. The island was divided into upper and lower portions—the former and most extensive called Capisterre, belonging to the French, and the lower called Basseterre, alone inhabited by the English.

Don Frederick de Toledo, a Spaniard, proceeding to Havannah with fifteen frigates and twenty-four ships of burthen, attacked the colonists in 1629, burned and plundered in every direction, and carried off 600 Englishmen as prisoners; but the flow of emigration was so great to the West Indies at this period, that in the following year the number of English settlers amounted to 6,000. Jealousies, bickerings, and at length hostilities began between the English and French settlers, which were stopped by the latter compelling the former to return within their line of demarcation; but although it was agreed that if France and England went to war, the colonists of St. Christopher should remain neutral, the resolution was broken on the commencement of hostilities in Europe, and a terrible battle, which lasted several days, ended in favour of the French colonists, who assumed the mastery of the whole island, and gallantly defended their acquisition in the following year against a large English force, (sent to recover possession) in the contest for which Lord Belamont and Colonel Lauvreu were slain, all their officers wounded, eight colours lost, 700 British troops killed and drowned, and many taken prisoners. At the peace of Breda the English colonists were restored to their portion of the island-and for twenty years the French and English lived in peace; but in 1689 the former entered the territory of the latter, put to death all who opposed, and by the aid of

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