Would that in this respect, as in some others, the white subject of the British crown were as well off as the black one.  Would that during the last fifty years we had followed the wise policy of the Romans, and by settling our soldiers on our colonial frontiers, established there communities of loyal, able, and valiant citizens.  Is it too late to begin now?  Is there no colony left as yet not delivered over to a self-government which actually means, more and more—­according to the statements of those who visit the colonies—­ government by an Irish faction; and which will offer a field for settling our soldiers when they have served their appointed time; so strengthening ourselves, while we reward a class of men who are far more respectable, and far more deserving, than most of those on whom we lavish our philanthropy?

Surely such men would prove as good subjects as old Isaac and his comrades.  For fifty-three years, I was told, he had lived and worked in Trinidad, always independent; so independent, indeed, that the very last year, when all but starving, like many of the coloured people, from the long drought which lasted nearly eighteen months, he refused all charity, and came down to this very estate to work for three months in the stifling cane-fields, earning—­or fancying that he earned—­his own livelihood.  A simple, kindly, brave Christian man he seemed, and all who knew him spoke of him as such.  The most curious fact, however, which I gleaned from him was his recollection of his own ‘conversion.’  His Mary, of whom all spoke as a woman of a higher intellect than he, had ‘been in the Gospel’ several years before him, and used to read and talk to him; but, he said, without effect.  At last he had a severe fever; and when he fancied himself dying, had a vision.  He saw a grating in the floor, close by his bed, and through it the torments of the lost.  Two souls he remembered specially; one ‘like a singed hog,’ the other ‘all over black like a charcoal spade.’  He looked in fear, and heard a voice cry, ‘Behold your sins.’  He prayed; promised, if he recovered, to try and do better:  and felt himself forgiven at once.

This was his story, which I have set down word for word; and of which I can only say, that its imagery is no more gross, its confusion between the objective and subjective no more unphilosophical, than the speech on similar matters of many whom we are taught to call divines, theologians, and saints.

At all events, this crisis in his life produced, according to his own statement, not merely a religious, but a moral change.  He became a better man henceforth.  He had the reputation, among those who knew him well, of being altogether a good man.  If so, it matters little what cause he assigned for the improvement.  Wisdom is justified of all her children; and, I doubt not, of old black Isaac among the rest.