welfare of their country; to those whose humanity seek to make it beneficial to the individuals that are to become the actors in it; and to those who are to embark, perhaps their property, and certainly the hopes of their lives, in the adventure, an intimate acquaintance, if procurable, with the circumstances, physical and moral, of the countries that are the seats of the Colonies, of the prospects of success which are presented, and of the limitations, many or few, (but always of importance,) with which those prospects are to be understood, must always be desirable. That species of knowledge it is one of the ends of the Colonial Journal to collect; the present volume, in par ticular, has some pages which afford valuable contributions to it; and those which shall succeed will always be compiled with an earnest anxiety for its increase. The prospects of new settlers in British North America, the description of settlers who may promise themselves success, the particulars of climate, soil, and agriculture, &c. are, under this head, among the subjects entitled to peculiar attention, and are rendered so, in a particu lar manner, by the circumstances of the moment.

The value of the Colonial Journal, as a medium of communication between the Colonies and the Mother Country, and between the Mother Country and the Colonies, reciprocally, was dwelt upon at its outset. The importance of this communication is obvious, even under the single view of assisting emigration,→→ an act which, when judiciously conducted, is subservient to the welfare, both of the Colonies, and of those who repair to them; but, when otherwise, is often as injurious to the former, as it is fatal to the

latter. But this is no more than a solitary example. A special vehicle of communication between the Colonies and the Mother Country, and vice versa, by means of which their mutual acquaintance may be promoted and increased, is always of importance. It is eminently so to the British Colonies in the West Indies, the peculiarity of whose situation, and the existence of particular circumstances, render an increased intercourse with the public at home most earnestly to be sought for. Their prominence in the view of the Mother Country, and their own close observation of what is passing here, are particularly demanded, at a time when a public and powerful association in England, (the AFRICAN INSTITUTION,) is distinctly avowed to have, for one of its "leading objects," the purpose of a control over their communities; when that association, in its zeal to degrade, and then subjugate and oppress, the West India Colonies, has had the audacity, or the infatuation, to set before the British public, that which, in the estimation of one of its own Directors, is " preposterous scandal," "impossible to be credited by any rational mind‡;" when six thousand copies of that "preposterous scandal"-that libel, so pronounced by a court and jury-have been distributed by that association, in all directions, in all parts of the kingdom§; when a conviction and punishment

* In those cases, in which the industry of the Emigrant is not available for the benefit of himself, he becomes a burden to the Colony, where, in many instances, a numerous poor already require relief.

↑ See the printed Speech of Mr. Stephen, at the annual meeting of the African Institution, 20th March, 1817; page 6.

Mr. Stephen's Speech, p. 49, note.

§ See Report of the Trial of the King v. Hatchard, page 465 of the present volume.

of the agent of that association, and the most solemn reproof, by an English judge, of the immediate conduct of that association*, have been no more than the signals for a new outraget; and when a conviction for a libel, upon the island of Antigua, is followed by a fresh libel, uttered against the island of Barbados. Such are the incitements, in this view, to the continuation of a periodical and permanent Journal of the Colonies, in which, among other things, some efforts, however feeble, may, from time to time, be made, and those efforts be placed upon record, against the ceaseless attacks, either of unblushing falsehood, or of insidious misrepresentation.

See Mr. Justice Bayley's address, on pronouncing the judgment of the Court, at page 511 of this volume.

+ The reader will make his own comment on the following passage, extracted from Mr. Stephen's Speech, above referred to:-"Strangely ignorant must that man be, of the manners of the West Indies, and of the evidence of incontestible abuses already before the public, to suppose either of those gentlemen (Mr. Wilberforce or Mr. Stephen) could, with a view to injure the character of the Colonies, think such a story worth inventing; for, to what, in that respect, did it amount, but that some master had whipped his slave with inhumanity, and that a grand jury, in the West Indies, had thrown out a bill preferred against him for that offence!" This is the story of which Mr. S. has just before said, "It may seem, to be sure, impossible, that such preposterous scandal could be credited by any rational mind." Mr. Stephen's Speech, page 49. Note. Idem, p. 11.

THE

COLONIAL JOURNAL.

MARCH, 1817.

COLONIAL SCENERY.

PLATE V.

A View of Petersfield Sugar Plantation, Jamaica.

PETERSFIELD Sugar Plantation, situate in the parish of St. Thomas in the East, toward the west end of Blue Mountain Valley, in the island of Jamaica, is the property of Mr. Grosett, in whose family it has descended from the original settler. The bold and majestic scenery, which here presents itself, cannot fail to impress the mind with an idea of the noble and imposing aspect which nature, in this country, assumes. The mountains form the eastern branch of that chain which extends nearly the whole length of the island.

The Blue Mountain Peak is seven thousand four hundred and thirty-one feet above the level of the sea, and the thermometer has been found to range from forty-seven degrees at sun-rise, to fiftyeight at noon, even in the month of August. The comparative height of Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, is three thousand five hundred and thirty-seven feet above the level of the sea.

Ring-tailed pigeons frequent these mountains in great num. bers they are seen constantly on the wing, and generally darting along the fogs, in which it is imagined they involve themselves the better to conceal their flight. There are also found a small species of martin, having the upper part of the plumage of

a glossy golden green, the inferior parts white; swifts, with the upper plumage black, except a ring of white encircling the neck, and the parts below entirely white; blue-finches; dark brown thrushes; wood-peckers of various species; black-birds of the maerops species; blue sparrows; long and short-tailed hummingbirds; blue and red-throat bull-finches; black and orange coloured bull-finches, and brown petrels†: the latter are said to be very numerous on the higher parts of the Blue Mountains, where they breed in holes made in the earth. In the rivulets are found a squalous yellow sucking-fish, and the large, common, and hog-nosed mullets. Of the quadruped reptile class, are the common grey lizard, a small tree-frog, a small galli wasp, and rats in abundance. Of the insect tribe are a species of cricket, which chirps, like birds, on the approach of the evening dusk; a great variety of butterflies and moths, some of the latter green and gold, others grey; a large black and yellow striped humble bee; a fly of the cantharides kind; red and stinging ants; wasps; a beautiful long forktailed butterfly, of a copperish and green hue. Of plants, are observed a prodigious variety of ferns, and a still greater of mosses; and, among trees, the cedar is a conspicuous species.

In the parish of St. Thomas in the Vale are two springs possessing considerable medicinal virtues. The hot spring, near the small town of Bath, issues by several different rills from fissures in the side of a rocky cliff, the Fort on which is washed by the Sulphur river; and the face of the rock over which it flows, is covered with an ochrous precipitation, impregnated with sulphur. The water is in such a state of ebullition, when received immediately from the rock in a glass, and applied to the lips, that it can only be gently sipped. It sparkles in the glass, and, at first drinking, diffuses a thrilling glow over the whole body; and the continued use enlivens the spirits. It is remarkably beneficial in all capillary obstructions, restores the appetite, and invigorates the circulation. Externally used, by way of fomentation, it has been known to heal the most obstinate ulcers, and has often been found successful

• Of this elegant species, of which a figure will be given in a future number of the Colonial Journal, no mention is made in the elaborate treatise of Forster, On the Brumal Retreat of the Swallow.-E.

+ Stormy Petrel. See below, page 55.—E.