armed men," the applause which followed, and the glow of enthusiasm which he kindled in every mind, far exceed my powers of description. ' p. 140, 141.

His account of Flood is not very discriminating

He came into Parliament,' he says, and spoke during the administration of the Earl of Halifax. Hamilton's success, as a speaker, drew him instantly forward; and his first parliamentary essay was brilliant and imposing. Hutchinson, who was at that time with the Court, replied to him, but with many compliments; and, as has been already observed, he was almost generally applauded, except by Primate Stone. He was a consummate member of Parliament. Active, ardent, and persevering, his industry was without limits. In advancing, and, according to the parliamentary phrase, driving a question, he was unrivalled; as, for instance, his dissertations, for such they were, on the law of Poynings and similar topics. He was in himself an Opposition, and possessed the talent (in political warfare a most formidable one) of tormenting a minister, and every day adding to his disquietude. When attacked, he was always most successful and, to form an accurate idea of his excellence, it was necessary to be present when he was engaged in such contests; for his introductory, or formal speeches, were often heavy and laboured, yet still replete with just argument; and through the whole were diffused a certain pathos, and apparent public care, with which a popular assembly is almost always in unison. His taste was not the most correct; and his studied manner was slow, harsh, and austere ; the very reverse of Hamilton, whose trophies first pointed the way to Flood's genius, and whom he avowedly attempted to emulate. But in skirmishing, in returning with rapidity to the charge, though at first shaken, and nearly discomfited, his quickness, his address, his powers of retort and of insinuation, were never exceeded in Parliament. p. 143, 144.

Of Gerard Hamilton, Mr Hardy gives us the following characteristic anecdotes.

• The uncommon splendour of his eloquence, which was succeeded by such inflexible taciturnity in St Stephen's Chapel, became the subject, as might be supposed, of much, and idle speculation. The truth is, that all his speeches, whether delivered in London or Dublin, were not only prepared, but studied, with a minuteness and exactitude, of which those who are only used to the carelessness of modern debating, can scarcely form any idea. Lord Charlemont, who had been long and intimately acquainted with him,- previous to his coming to Ireland, often mentioned that he was the only speaker, among the many he had heard, of whom he could say, with certainty, that all his speeches, however long, were written and got by heart. A gentleman, well known to his Lordship and Hamilton, assured him, that he heard Hamilton repeat, no less than three times, an oration, which he afterwards spoke in the House of Commons, and lasted almost three hours. As a debater, therefore, he

became

became as useless to his political patrons as Addison was to Lord Sunderland; and, if possible, he was more scrupulous in composition than even that eminent man. Addison would stop the press to correct the most trivial error in a large publication; and Hamilton, as I can assert, on indubitable authority, would recal the footman, if, on recollection, any word, in his opinion, was misplaced or improper, in the slightest note to a familiar acquaintance. p. 60, 61.

No name is mentioned in these pages with higher or more uniform applause, than that of Henry Grattan. But that distinguished person still lives; and Mr Hardy's delicacy has prevented him from attempting any delineation, either of his character or his eloquence. We respect his forbearance, and shall follow his example:-Yet we cannot deny ourselves the gratification of extracting one sentence from a letter of Lord Charlemont, in relation to that parliamentary grant, by which an honour was conferred on an individual patriot, without place or official situation of any kind, and merely for his personal merits and exertions, which has in other cases been held to be the peculiar and appropriate reward of triumphant generals and commanders. When the mild and equable temperament of Lord Charlemont's mind is recollected, as well as the caution with which all his opinions were expressed, we do not know that a wise ambition would wish for a prouder or more honourable testimony than is contained in the following short sen

tences.

Respecting the grant, I know with certainty that Grattan, though he felt himself flattered by the intention, looked upon the act with the deepest concern, and did all in his power to deprecate it. As it was found impossible to defeat the design, all his friends, and I among others, were employed to lessen the sum. It was accordingly decreased by one half, and that principally by his positive declaration, through us, that, if the whole were insisted on, he would refuse all but a few hundreds, which he would retain as an honourable

mark of the goodness of his country. By some, who look only into themselves for information concerning human nature, this conduct will probably be construed into hypocrisy. To such, the excellence and preeminency of virtue, and the character of Grattan, are as invisible and incomprehensible, as the brightness of the sun to a man born blind. ' p. 237.

ART.

ART. V. The West Indians defended against the Accusations of their Calumniators; or, Facts versus Prejudices. By a Gentleman. pp. 40. Bath. London. Mawman. 1811. The present Ruinous Situation of the West India Islands, submitted to the People of the British Empire; with a few Brief Remarks upon the Imposition and Oppressions under which the Merchants and Planters of those Islands have long suffered. By a Native of Jamaica. 8vo. pp. 42. London. Sherwood.

1811.

The Trial of Arthur Hodge esq. (late one of the Members of his Majesty's Council for the Virgin Islands) at the Island of Tortola, on the 25th of April 1811, and adjourned to the 29th of the same Month, for the Murder of his Negro Man Slave, named Prosper. Stereographically taken by A. M. Belisario esq., one of the Grand Jury who found the Bill of Indictment; and certified to be impartial and correct, by Richard Hetherington esq., President of the Virgin Islands, and President of the Court on the Trial. pp. 190. London. Harding.

1811.

WE E do not intend, upon the present occasion, to detain our readers very long in the too painful field of West Indian politics; because we shall probably have occasion, at no distant period, to resume the subject more fully. But there are several topics and facts, without which the discussions in some of our last Numbers would be extremely imperfect, and especially those arising out of the remarkable trial mentioned in the title to this article. Before entering upon them, however, we must say a word or two upon the first singular publication in de. fence of the West Indians.

This tract is in the form of a letter to a friend; and, what is rather odd, considering the careful concealment of the author's name in the title-page under the designation of A Gentleman,' we find it signed by the real name at full length, which turns out to be Edward White. Now, utterly ignorant as we are of this Gentleman,' we will venture to say, a bolder one is not to be found in all controversy. For the reader must not suppose, that Mr White only supports the cause of the planters against those who attack the sugar system, and particularly the treatment of the slaves, or that he merely maintains the cause of the colonists as it at present stands in debate with rival interests or principles in this country. But, will it be

VOL. XIX. No. 37.

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credited,

credited, that, at this time of day, we should have a regular defence of the slave trade, published in England?—a defence, too, of that traffic, upon the highest and most untenable grounds ever occupied by its advocates in the earliest stages of the question, in 1788, while, as yet, no one durst hope to see it put down by law. This, we believe, is a piece of heroism altogether unexpected. That abominable commerce had been abandoned to the mercy of its enemies by all its supporters, a few traders only excepted. It was declared-solemnly declared-illegal by the government of this country. Every one who had defended it now gave up the cause; and, some from principle, others from shame, joined in the invectives universally bestowed upon it.-Then the Legislature treated it, in resolutions and addresses, as a crime;-and at length the law, made it a felony :-Whereupon A Gentleman' comes forth in its defence; and, regretting those good old times, in which a man might steal a few hundreds of his fellow-creatures and, after killing a part of them, torture the rest into muscovado sugar, without being transported to Botany Bay himself, revives all the hundred times refuted tales of the traffic being necessary for the wellbeing of the Africans, the improvement of Africa, and the fulfilment of the divine precepts delivered in the Gospel. Nor is there any symptom of derange ment in Mr White's book: it is written very coherently-rather dully indeed and with small pretensions to reason; but not like the production of one wholly irrational-if we except the strangeness of the attempt to make that pass for an act of virtue and religion, which the law has, without one dissentient voice, in or out of Parliament, pronounced to be felonious.

It may seem a very idle waste of our own and our readers' time, to enter at all into this publication; yet we cannot dismiss it without giving a few specimens of its contents. It is fit that we should let the world see what sort of topics the West Indians now resort to in their defence; and if this Gentleman' and his coadjutor really speak their sentiments in reviving the defence of the slavefelony, we feel it necessary to expose such attempts to the indignation of the community. Experience may teach us not to be too hasty in despising efforts of this description. Many an error has been introduced among mankind, from a culpable neglect in the friends of truth; and the interested advocates of the slave system, however despicable in some respects, are far from contemptible as adversaries, whether we regard their great activity, or their little scrupulousness in the choice of means.

The Gentleman' is very candid in explaining the origin

of

of his publication. It seems, that the case of Mr Hodge, and the various reports and papers circulated in consequence of it, have produced an impression unfavourable to the West Indians; and therefore, the author thinks an antidote thereto a very desireable thing at the present moment. We believe, every one will agree with him hereupon ;-for, by an antidote, we should understand, an authentic statement, proving the falsehood of the Parliamentary and other documents relative to this subject,-proving that the West Indian planters, always tender of the lives and comforts of the unhappy beings entrusted to their care, had redoubled their anxiety in this respect, since the Abolition made it their interest, as well as their duty';proving that they were sensible how beneficial to them, as well as just and humane towards the Africans, this great measure had been;-and that they, of all men, were the last to throw obstacles in the way of its full execution,

It turns out, however, that this is very wide of our author's use of the word. The antidote which he furnishes, is disclosed in the first sentence of his tract;it is the antient, established, regular, tropical proposition, that the condition of the negroes in the West Indies is preferable to their state in their own country; '-followed of course by its usual corollaries-that no sort of blame can attach to those who work them like cattle, since, in truth, such labour is luxury and rest, compared with what they would have been enduring at home;-and that they who carry them over to the West Indies, somewhat against their will, by a kind of douce violence--or beguile them of their liberty by the soft arts of love, as it were;-far from meriting blame for such conduct, must be regarded as the protectors and benefactors of the African race. Our author forgets to grapple with the question, whether the West Indian treatment is cruel or not; he forgets, that even if, in a moment of mental alienation, one were to admit the condition of the negroes in Africa to be worse than their lot in the New World, this could be no earthly excuse for those who treat them with any degree of unnecessary cruelty. His whole tract is made up of scraps from writers long since discredited, to paint the wretchedness of the negroes in their own country. After attempting to show that the whole inhabitants of Africa are certainly employed in murdering one another, and renewing the thousand times refuted story, of the bulk of them being slaves, (a term applicable to them in one sense, indeed, but not in its West Indian acceptation)-the Gentleman' proceeds to offer a few remarks on the happy state of what he gently calls an emigrated African;' meaning,

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