the fruit of all his policy was nothing but mifery. He would have been richer, greater, more beloved, and more respected, with lefs pains, fewer talents, and lefs genius, had he only been poffeffed of thofe mild and peaceable virtues which conftitute good kings and fathers of their country."

Characters of the American French, the Caribbees, and the negroes in the French islands. Tranflated from the French.

THE failings of these people (the American French) are counterbalanced by many excellent good qualities; and their failings very often arife from the fame principles from whence their virtues take their fource. They are brave, intrepid, generous, and firmly attached to their fovereign.

The views of nature and found policy, which require that no man hould be ufelefs to the ftate, are accomplished in these islands. Every American has a profeffion.

In thefe countries they ftill warmly practise that kind and generous hofpitality towards all ftrangers in general, of which history only furnishes fome ancient traditions in the first ages of mankind: yet their benevolence and goodness of heart does not, in general, extend to their negroes. They are, for the most part, too fevere and unfeeling with regard to them.

The Americans are accufed of being too hafty, impatient, obftinate, and wilful. But the influence which the heat of the climate has over them, the habit of commanding flaves from their infancy, and of being obeyed, the fondnefs VOL. IX.

which their parents in general exprefs towards them, the licence which the manners of the country tolerate; all thefe caufes, combin ed with a vigorous flow of spirits in the heat of youth, may account for the impatience, impetuofity, and obftinacy of their difpofitions.

The fuppleness of their bodies renders them fit for any kind of exercife, as the vivacity of their imagination qualifies them for the attainment of any kind of knowledge. But the fame cause from whence they derive thefe advantages, checks them in their progrefs towards perfection. The ima gination, that faculty of the foul which bears no reftraint, which always increases the ardor of the paffions, renders the Americans fickle and inconftant in their taste. It hurries them away to the pur fuit of pleasure, and that pursuit ingroffes them totally.

Thofe who have been fent to receive their education in France, have given the moft promifing hopes of their future progrefs. But they are no fooner advanced to the dawn of manhood, when the paffions begin to rage, than they give up the fciences, and renounce the belles lettres, for which nature has afforded them fuch fhining talents.

The American women blend an uncommon degree of vivacity and impatience, with an extreme indolence. They are haughty, refolute, and, like the men, obitinately bent on their own will. They are, likewife, equally jealous of the point of honour, with refpect to perfonal valour. A woman would think herfelf dif graced, if her husband's courage was called in question. D

It

It is difficult to reconcile the generofity and fenfibility of their characters, with the extraordinary feverity they use towards their flaves; a feverity in which they exceed the men.

Their hearts are formed for love, and readily enter into attachments; they are very tender in their affections, and never employ any of the arts of feduction: I believe they think that the trouble of practising them would be too great a tax on their indolence, or that they confider the refinements of coquetry as rather adapted to alienate than embellifh love.

They are inflexibly conftant to their attachments: but when their husband is no more, his lofs prefently makes way for the happinefs of another. There is hardly a woman, who, notwithstanding her affection for her children, does not quickly engage in a fecond marriage, and efface the name and memory of the man with whom the feemed defperately enamoured.

The Caribbees not being fufceptible of any pleafures beyond those of the brute creation, appear likewife to have no fenfe of any other pains than fuch as brutes experience. Living in a state of fimplicity, they have not, like us, multiplied the objects of defire, and confequently increased the difficulty of attaining them. Their views are confined to the neceffaries of life, and they are ftrangers to its fuperfluities. Among them, one is not debafed to exalt another. They are unacquainted with the diftinctions of the great and the common people. They all confider themfelves as children of the fame parent: they all claim equal

merit from their country, as they all equally concur in defence of the common cause.

The ftupidity of their eye prefents a mirrour, which reflects the true difpofition of their fouls. Their indolence is incredible; and they never give themselves a moment's uneafinefs about the future hour.

They pafs their lives, one while fitting with fupine inertnefs, and at another, ftretched out in a hammock, where they fleep and fmoke. Hunger fometimes obliges them to go in fearch of food, either by hunting or fishing. They carry their provifion home, and their wives dress it.

Among them the women bear all the drudgery: they never eat with their hufbands, who would think it a difhonour to them. But the manners of the Europeans have rendered them lefs fcrupulous on this head.

Love, among them, is an appetite which does not differ from hunger or thirst. They never fhew the leaft attention, or exprefs the leaft marks of tenderness or friendfhip for the fair fex, who are so much courted by polished nations, and fo much flighted among thofe who live in a state of nature.

Yet they have no reason to complain of the infidelity of their wives. Coquetry, or vanity, do not prefent them with any flattering hopes of pleafure in inconftancy: they find that they are born to obey, and they submit to their lot. Where-ever they might transfer their affection, they would only get a new mafter by changing their lover. Add to this, that their inconftancy and infidelity

would

would be punished with speedy death.

The negroes are, or appear to be, naturally timid and daftardly; but, when fupported by the prefence of their mafters, they brave every kind of danger, and will fight till they expire by their fides.

All the negroes, from whatever part of Guinea they come, are extremely addicted to fuperftition, and believe in magic and forcery. They imagine that fuch fupernatural power can deprive them of their miftreffes affection. This appre. henfion is, to them, of all others, most tormenting, and alarms them as much as the confideration of their own perfonal fecurity.

Love, that child of nature, whom no chains or impediments can restrain, who breaks through every obstacle, gives life to every action and fentiment of a negro. -Love alone alleviates the weight of their flavery.

They are neither daunted by perils, nor deterred by chastisement. A negro will leave his master in the night, traverse an extenfive wood, expofed to the attacks of noxious animals, and, without any fear of being apprehended as a fugitive, will vifit his mistress: his abode is, often, so distant from her's, that the journey alone

confumes the whole time which fhould be destined to fleep and refreshment.

they are proof against the addresses of a white man.

The tafte of the Europeans for women of this colour may seem aftonishing. It is, nevertheless, very general; and it is difficult to fay, whether they have been led to it by opportunity and eafinefs of accefs, by idlenefs, by the influence of the climate, by habit, by example, by indolence, by the haughtiness of the white women, and the little pains they take to make themfelves agreeable; or, perhaps, in the infant state of our colonies, by a motive of curiofity, and a fcarcity of women.

Nevertheless, depraved as this inclination may appear, it is certain that our colonies derive fome advantages from this corruption of manners. The negro-women who cohabit with the white men, are, generally, more than ordinary attentive to their duty; and they contract a peculiarity of fentiment which diftinguishes them from the reft.

They preferve their masters and their lovers from the confpiracies of the flaves; and the government owes to them the detection of a general confpiracy formed by the negroes of Martinico."

paid a tax of a crown a head to the pope. There was a time when the priests, who meddle with every thing, had rendered this people fo exceedingly fuperftitious as to make them believe, not only that the health of their fouls, but of their bodies alfo, depended on a regular attendance on public worship. We read in Jurieu, and others, that one of their kings, on viewing the carcafe of a ftag which he had juft killed, cried out, " By heavens he was in good health, though he never heard mafs nor vefpers."

The English are much changed fince that time; but the change coft them many a bloody war. The generality of them being naturally exceffive in every thing, they paffed in a fhort time from flavery to licentiousness; from extreme devotion to the moft determined impiety. Every individual having divefted himself of his troublefome prejudices, gave himself up to his own humour and opinions. Royalty was overturned in the perfon of the unfortunate Charles I. who fuffered death without caufe, and without pity. This prince faying to thofe who conducted him to prifon, "That he thought himfelf accountable for his actions to God alone;" their captain had the infolence to answer, "Very true, and therefore we intend fhortly to fend you to God for that purpose."

During the reign of Charles II. their manners underwent great revolutions. A tafte for literature and gallantry fucceeded to fanaticifm and piety; but they ftill continued to preferve that bafis of ferocity which is productive of

ftrong reasoning in one, and in another brutality. Perhaps we ourfelves are deceived in this matter, by our refined politenefs, which, according to the English, renders us unnatural. In general, fays M. de Muralt, they perform a good action boldly, and they dare follow their reafon in oppofition to cuftom; but their good fenfe is mixed with whims and extravagance. Their refolutions are generally fudden. It is common in England for a girl to vow that fhe will marry the firft man fhe meets ; and accordingly they are married. Wine hath fometimes, among this people, been productive of great cruelty. Some of them have made a vow to murder the first perfon they meet after leaving the tavern ; and they have kept their word. Their nobleffe often box or play at bowls with the lowest among the people.

Some of our nation confider the English ftage, which affords that people fo much delight, as a proof of their barbarity. Their tragedies, it is true, though interefting and replete with beauties, are nevertheless dramatic monfters, half butchery and half farce. Grotefque character, and extravagant pleafantry, conftitute the chief part of their comedies: in one of these the devil enters fneezing, and fomebody fays to the devil, God bless you. They are not however all of this ftamp: they have even fome in a very good tafte; but there are hardly any which give us an advantageous idea of the English nation; though it is from the theatre that a ftranger forms his opinion of the manners of a people. The English comic

poets