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INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO THE ISLAND OF MAURITIUS.

that in this island, every labourer has not a mere chance only, but an absolute certainty, of obtaining redress for any and every injury. I regret to say such is not the case in India. There the word chance may justly be used, and, I fear, to that I may add 'remote,' unless the complainant has time and money at his disposal. In one only point do I see the Indian labourer in any way worse off here than in India, and that is the quantity and nature of the work required of him. Labourers in India seldom work, as the sailors say, with a will, and they dawdle, lie down, and smoke over their work. Here, they are required to work with greater regularity and more steadily. I am, however, far from wishing to indicate that the task here required of the labourer is too heavy. If the mildness of the climate be compared with the great heat of India from April until October, and when the ample food given is considered, the work demanded of the labourer is not in itself heavy; in fact, the healthy appearance of the hands at once dissipates the idea.

Here ends the matter touched on in Mr. Brenan's letter; but I cannot avoid adding one observation. It does seem to me as if all the legislation in this island touching immigrants was one-sided; that it went on the presumption that all persons employing immigrants must be oppressors, while, on the other hand, the immigrants themselves could do no wrong. I, of course, cannot, from my short residence here, be a judge of the necessity for such a system of laws; but I do conceive, that supposing the existence of oppression in some persons, and that it was necessary to suppress its exercise, yet, surely, some effectual check should be put on misconduct on the other side. No one requires this more than the Indian, whose general character is to rise in his demands the more he is pampered and cared for. I never knew a man in India for whose relation I have provided, who did not consider that he had thereby acquired a species of right to have the rest of his family similarly provided for. You cannot satisfy an Indian, in general. I have said above, effectual check, because I am aware that checks exist; but they are ineffectual. A man absenting himself is sentenced to break stones for fifteen days-a nominal labour, as it is here enforced-while the estate loses the value of the culprit's services for so many days. The remedy for absentees is very obvious. Let the man who stays away be sentenced to fulfil, after the period of his engagement has expired, a number of days equal to those on which he has been absent, and an additional number equal thereto by way of penalty. The knowledge of the existence of this law would at once put a stop to absenteeism.

MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN ROYALIST.*

My father was born in Scotland in 1740. He was an eye-witness of the battle of Prestonpans, fought near the place of his nativity. After serving an apprenticeship to one of the oldest wine companies in Leith, he embarked for America, and settled in Savannah. There he married a lady from Bermuda, whose family became afterwards connected by marriage with the Earl of Dunmore. He became the father of a numerous family, and his upright character and straightforward conduct raised him to considerable influence. On the declaration of the War of Independence, many efforts were made to gain him over to the Republican party; but he steadily refused to take the oaths of allegiance to the new Government, and having been chosen a Member of the House of Assembly under the British Government, he became a well-known opponent of American principles, which he regarded as those of rebellion.

The Americans, on getting possession of Georgia, being much irritated at my father's uncompromising loyalty, and failing in every effort to seduce him, ordered him to leave Georgia, with his family, at a very short notice, allowing him to take only a few domestic slaves. He was thus constrained to quit the management of his extensive business, and the possession of large landed property which he had acquired.

He had, however, no alternative but to embark on board the only American vessel then in the harbour, bound for one of the West India Islands. They had not been at sea more than three days, when the vessel was captured by a British sloop-of-war from New York, the captain of which, on finding my father to be a British subject, treated him with the greatest attention, and on landing him at New York, furnished him with letters to the first people there. In that city we passed through the severest winter that had been known for many years; so that, in a room in which a large wood fire burned night and day, a quantity of London porter froze, and, bursting, the bottles retained their shape;-ink could only be kept from freezing by standing on the side of the grate; the beef and poultry with which the kitchen was stored required to be chopped and sawn for use. Not many weeks also after our arrival, a calamitous fire destroyed between three and four hundred houses: that in which we lodged was pulled down to prevent the spreading of the flames, and, along with a great many other families, we wandered about the whole night in search of shelter.

It was not until the next day that my father found a person who consented to receive him and his family. The rent demanded was enormous, and my father hesitated to give it; when one of his trusty slaves, who had been carrying one of his children all night, suddenly slapped him on the shoulder, and, with an esprit de corps worthy of a

• The circumstances here narrated are founded on fact.

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feudal country, and rarely to be met with among freemen, called out, Massa, give it; you and me soon get more." My father, overcome to tears by so beautiful a proof of attachment, immediately gave the sum demanded.

At the end of seven months, we had the happiness to hear that Georgia was again in the possession of the British. Thither we returned. My father recovered possession of his property, recommenced business as a wine-merchant in Savannah-was appointed one of the Commissariat to the British Army, and soon became again one of the wealthiest men in that part of America.

The siege of Savannah, which occurred unexpectedly a few years afterwards, was rendered memorable by the decided victory which the British troops then gained over a vastly superior force. The French commander Count d'Estaing having joined the Americans, suddenly appeared before the town, when it was little prepared against such an attack. Every exertion was made by the inhabitants, in conjunction with the garrison, for their defence, and the siege, which lasted six weeks, was commenced with the greatest vigour by the enemy, who had so little doubt of speedily carrying the place, that my father received more than one letter from officers in the enemy's service who had formerly known and esteemed him, tendering their protection to him and his family when the town should be entered. The attack commenced from a French frigate which had come up the river under cloud of night, and having anchored opposite our house, poured her broadside next day across a small intervening island into the town, which compliment she repeated every day at noon.

My father immediately despatched two slaves for my eldest brother and myself, then at school. The slaves carried us home in their arms, dodging from time to time to avoid the cannon-shot. On the same day, my father secured his family and domestic servants in his wine-cellars, saw his chests of valuables buried in the orchard, and his bags of money and plate deposited, by the honest hands of his faithful slaves, at the bottom of a deep well. He then joined the troops on the Lines, where he remained without seeing his family again till the conclusion of the siege.

The firing was incessant, except for two hours in the twenty-four; of which opportunity my mother availed herself daily to send two confidential slaves with inquiries after my father's welfare, with tidings of the family, and with the supplies which he needed. Next day our slaves completed a barricade of sand at the front and back of the house, so high as to defend the cellar from the shot; and two of them, on each side of the house, took it by turns to keep watch during the whole siege, and report to my mother the safety of the house after the discharge of every shot and shell. At the end of a fortnight, ours was the only family remaining in the town: but we persisted in doing so, in obedience to the advice of Colonel Maitland, brother of the then Earl of Lauderdale, who had arrived with reinforcements, and being distantly related to my father, was deeply interested in the welfare of his family.

A house in our neighbourhood was left with eight slaves. Breaking

into the cellar, they became intoxicated, and carried lights through every part of the house. The showing of lights had been strictly forbidden-so much so, that our kitchen could only be used during the two hours' cessation of firing, and the small lantern we burned in the cellar was concealed with the utmost care. As soon as the lights appeared in the neighbouring house, a carcase thrown from an American galley at the foot of the town hooked on the house and set it on fire. All the eight slaves were burned to death: ours became much alarmed for the safety of their master's house, and strongly urged my mother to take refuge in a small village called Yamacraw, about a mile below, until the fire should be extinguished.

She yielded to their solicitations. We all reached the place unhurt by the shots which whizzed around us; and our slaves, with the exception of those who took care of the children, laboured the whole night to bury in the sand the most valuable things in our house, lest the flames should seize upon them. Next day, on the extinction of the fire, we returned, through God's mercy, unhurt to our dark abode in the cellar. While most of the houses around us had been much shattered by the shot and shells of the enemy, ours escaped without damage until the last day of the siege. On that day, a shell penetrated through the roof and three stories of the house to that above the 'cellars, where it burst in a feather-bed. This event happened before daybreak. I had the night before obtained my mother's leave to sit up reading an amusing child's book, by the help of our glimmering light. During the night, I dropped asleep over my book, and was awakened by the crash. The furniture was broken and scattered in all directions, and the concussion put out the light in the cellar. Many of the contents of the shell came down into the cellar; although they providentially fell upon another feather-bed lying on a pipe of wine, and a younger sister, about four years old, then in bed, had her face burnt with the gunpowder, of which the marks were visible on her skin long after her marriage. The servants hastened to our aid. We were all carried into the house adjoining, then deserted by its inmates, and remained there until daybreak. But we had no sooner returned into the cellar, than a shot from an eighteen-pounder passed through the cellar and completed the devastation. At five o'clock that morning the general attack commenced, and, after an hour's close engagement with small arms, the French and Americans were repulsed and defeated.

Immediately after the action, my mother despatched two slaves to ascertain my father's safety. They found him wringing his hands in an agony of affliction, having heard from the slave of a friend that a shell had that morning burst in his house and killed his whole family. I need not add what were his feelings on being informed of our perfect safety, and finding himself in the midst of his family once more.

He had escaped unhurt; but a friend at his side, when yawning, received a ball in his mouth, which shattered his jaw in its exit. Although many of our acquaintances were killed even in their houses, not one of our family or slaves had received the slightest injury, save the trifling burn on my sister's face; and except the destruction of our

furniture, we had lost nothing but one of the carriage-horses, killed by a shot in the stable.

Our friend Colonel Maitland, whose succour so much contributed to the saving of the town, but who arrived in bad health, died three weeks afterwards. We continued to have occasional alarms from the enemy, and one Sunday in particular, during Divine Service, a party of the Americans attempting to get into the town, the drums beat to arms; every one rushed out of church, and my grandmother was so agitated and fatigued that she shortly afterwards died.

My loyalty kept pace with my father's, and was not a little fostered by an old Colonel of a Highland Regiment, who instructed me, when I should be asked what I was, always to answer, "I am a rank Tory." This old gentleman shortly afterwards returned to England, and being introduced to the King, declared, with a flood of tears, that "it was the happiest event of his life." My father remained in Savannah till its evacuation by the British, when he was attainted and all his property confiscated by the Americans, in revenge for his obnoxious loyalty.

On the evacuation, he hired a vessel for St. Augustine in East Florida. Thence he sailed for Charleston, being desirous, before its approaching evacuation, to make some arrangements there regarding some property of my mother's. On the second day of our voyage, we were captured, in the midst of a storm, by an American privateer, the captain of which manned our vessel, and directed us to be steered to Georgetown, then an American port. Just as we were entering the bar, two British galleys came in sight. The American crew immediately quitted the ship, and left my father, with his family and slaves, alone on board, with the sails all set, in spite of his offering them a large sum, and pledging himself for their safety if they would remain on board. Meantime the galleys bore down rapidly, and opened their fire upon us, threatening to sink us if we would not lower our sails.

My father, after sending us all to the hold for safety, answered through a speaking-trumpet, that there was no one on board but himself and family, and urged them to hasten to his aid; but they, regarding his words as a mere decoy, continued their fire until they came alongside of us, one on each side. Our vessel was immediately boarded by numbers of armed men, who could not conceal their disappointment at finding our story true. But the captain of one of the galleys turned out to have been first mate in a vessel which took my father to St. Augustine. Their mutual surprise at such a meeting was great. The captain immediately ordered his men back into the boats.

My father offered him one hundred and fifty guineas, and any stores he might require, if he would convey him in safety to Charleston. With this request the captain was not at liberty to comply; but he towed the vessel over the bar during the night, and furnished us with a crew sufficient to carry us into Charleston.

Next morning, however, the same American privateer which had first captured us again bore down upon us. We were once more in the hands of our enemies, and soon found ourselves brought back to Georgetown. Our luggage and slaves were immediately seized.

On