Political condition of the state.

It is evident from what I have before stated that the only hope the white population can reasonably entertain of retaining their present position must be in the most perfect union and concord amongst themselves, and that, when a unity of design and action ceases to exist between the different provinces, their fate is sealed.  Yet this circumstance never appears to enter into their calculations; and at this instant each state is plotting its separation from the Empire.  The inhabitants here openly state their intention of revolting and declaring their independence, and Sunday next is even mentioned as the day for the commencement of the rising.*

(Footnote.  The revolt broke out on the 7th November 1837 but was suppressed the following month.  Great alarm existed lest the Negro slaves should be induced to take their part likewise in the conflict between the contending factions.  Annual Register for 1837.)

It is really strange to one who stands by, a calm unconcerned spectator, to observe men hurried on by the violence of faction to their own certain destruction, and to behold them so entirely blinded by party spirit as not to see that danger which stares them so openly in the face, that a child could scarcely fail to detect it.

The Slave Trade, though nominally abolished, is actively pursued here, eighty-three slaves having been landed just before my arrival, and another cargo during my stay.

The slaves are not only a very superior race of men in point of physical powers, but, as far as my experience of their habits went, I found them very moral and honest.  Their notions of religion were however curious.  Several were Christians nominally, but their Christianity consisted in wearing a string of beads round the neck; and they seriously assured me that those who wore beads went up to heaven after death, and that those who did not went down under the waters.

I talked to many of them about their own land.  None had forgotten it, but they all expressed the most ardent desire to see it again.  They call themselves captives, not slaves, and are very punctilious upon this point.  They labour very hard here, generally in the town, paying their masters eighteen-pence a day, and keeping the rest of their earnings for themselves.  The rate of labour must therefore be high; but they wear scarcely any clothes, and their subsistence, which is jerked beef and beans, costs but little.  The slaves in the country are however all obliged to work on their owners’ plantations.

All the principal people in the town are concerned in the slave trade, and their chief wealth consists in the number of slaves they possess; therefore there is little chance of the trade being, for many years, totally abolished.

With regard to the execution of the laws this country is much in the same state as certain parts of Ireland.  Homicide, and attempts at homicide, by shooting, are frequent; but it is difficult, if not impossible, to convict the offenders, for he who renders himself conspicuous in prosecuting parties concerned in a murder assuredly gets shot at in his turn.