The Sun.
London, England, 1826-04-19 00:00:00

ISLAND OF ANGUILLA.

we have, read, with particular interest, some papers
which have been printed by order of the House of
Commons, relative to the present state of this Island,
and it may not.be uninteresting to our readers to give
them a sketch 'of their contents.

Anguilla, a dependency of St. Kitt's, one of the
Caribee Islands, is about 20 miles in length, by three
or four, its greatest breadth. The surface of the Island
is flat, and there is neither mountain nor river to be seen.

It has no timber, andis principally covered with under-
wood and furze, old affords shelter and pasturage for
cattle, sheep, and goats, of which the natives rear a
considerable quantity ;—These, together with ground
provisions, form the chief subsistence of a population
of upwards of 3000 souls, of which
365 are White,
827 Free Blacks,
2,388 Slaves.
The produce of the Island is about 50,000 lbs. of
sugar, ana 300,000 bushels of salt, per annum.
There is no town in the Island, the whole having
been destroyed by a French armament in 1796 ; and
the inhabitants reside in their little settlements that are
scattered through• the interior.
There were formerly -two churches, but these also
Were demolished by the French; while at present theri
is no established Clergyman, and' the only vestige of
a religious establishment to be found in Anguilla, is
a branch of the Wesleyan Methodist Society, at the
head of which, as minister; is a man of colour, a na:
tive of the island, whose eongregation amounts to
300 or 400.

The Government consists of .a Deputy Lieutenant-
Governor and a Council, but it has no Assembly or
other Legislative Body. There is a Court-of Comnion
Pleas, but it is seldom or never resorted to. There is.
no Police, consequently burglaries and assaults, and
even crimes of a higher nature, are but- two ' frequent,
without the means of bringing offenders to justice.
There is not a Lawyer in the place, and but one
Notary Public. The disorganized state of the Colony
appears to have attracted the attention of Earl BATH..
VEST so long'ago as January, 1822, and his Lordship,
with that paternal solicitude which marks his administra-
tion of the Colonial Department, by an able dispatch,
dated May 6, 1824, directed the Governor of St. Kitt's to
carry into effect a proposal which his Lordship had-
made in ,the year 1822, viz. the recommendation to
the Legislature of St. Kitt's to pass an Act for aug-
menting the number of the House of Assembly, by the
addition of a representative for the Island of Anguilla—
which measure was. to be followed up by a Code of
Laws for the Government of the Island—with an ex-
pectation also that the port would be licensed as a
free port for salt. Governor MAXWELL lost no time
in appointing. his Honour the Chief Justice PICK-
WOOD and the -Hon. W. W. RAWLII4IB, Speaker of
the House of Assembly, as Members of a Commission
to investigate into the actual state and condition of
the community of Anguilla, and Mr.. JAMES HAY
as their Secretary ; and these Gentlemen appear to
have executed the important duty entrusted to them
with zeal and ability. Their Report is drawn up with
perspicuity, and their observations on the present
order of things in the Island, as well as their suggestions
for its improvement, are extremely judicious. The
resources of the Island seem scarcely sufficient for the
establishment of Courts of Justice; but in deference to
the wishes of the inhabitants, rather than from any

conviction of benefit therefrom, the Committee pro

pose that a Court of Common Pleas should be ap-
pointed to hold sittings in Anguilla, with the right of
appeal allowed .to the Courts in St. Kitts...
The Committee express a decided opinion, in con-
formity with that entertained by Earl BATHURST, that
the means of the Colony are not sufficient to establish a
Legislature, and recommend the adoption of his Lord-
ship s proposal, that a Representative for the Island
should be admitted into the House of Assembly of St.
Kitt's : and after stating the present condition of the
slaves, and the evils to which they are necessarily sub-
jected in the absence of all due authority and protec-
tion, and suggesting under the difficulty of obtaining a
bill of indemnity for the, occasional violation of the abo-
lition Acts that the Officer of Custints should be in-
structed to disregard such infractions of those laws as
have taken place under inevitable ignorance, and unat-
tended with any atrocious or aggravating circumstances,
the Committee close their Report by the following ge-
neral observations :

" The general result of our observations upon
the colony of Anguilla is, that it has been too
long neglected.; and our surprise is, that men so asso-
ciated and so deprived of the influence of law and
religion have not merged into a complete state of
barbarism.
" We were gratified to witness a truly British feeling
pervading almost every breast ; proud of their origin,
the inhabitants Of Anguilla are jealous also of the
boast that their country has never been conquered
since their ancestors first planted the British flag there ;
and whenever they have been in conflict with the
enemies of their Sovereb , they have shown them-
selves to be no unWo sueeessors of the parent
stock.
" We think, by the gradual introduction of British
institutions, suited to the wants and capabilities of the
island ; by the establishment of an efficient but cheap
government, to which their resources are alone equal ;
and that by the pure and unexpensive administration
of justice, Anguilla may be rescued from her present state
of degradation, and that by cultivating and encouraging
the general good disposition of the inhabitants (of which
we had the most satisfactory evidence), she may, un-
der such influence, become respectable and happy."
We have only to express our conviction that the so-
licitude of his Majesty s Government for the happiness
of the inhabitants of all our Colonies, will be speedily
manifested by the benefits which will result from the
measures to be adopted for the better government of
this hitherto neglected Island, while the blessing of pure
religion will he extended to its inhabitants through the
exertions of the Bishop of BA an ADO ES, under whose
spiritual jurisdiction it has now been placed.

ACCIDENT BY FIRE-ARMS.--A deplorable event
lately occurred at Hattonehatel, in France. A per a
-
son, with a gun in his hand, went into the shop of
friend, named Joan Baptist Hugo, who was with his
four small children in
the shop ; Hugo invited, his
friend to pass into an inner room, which he did,
incautiously leaving his gun against the counter.—
The children soon began to play with it, and disputed
to&ether for its possession, when the youngest, a little
girl, about seven years of age, placed the muzzle in
her mouth, her brother suddenly seized it, and by
some unfoitunate touch of the trigger, it went oft; and
the child's head was literally blown to atoms, and her
brains scattered over her brother.

COURSE OF ItXCIIANGE., April lb-
Amateidam.

Ditto, at Sight it ti
Rotterdam 14.10

Antwerp l.l 10
Hlllllllllrgh
Altotta
:17 11 24 Us,
St 6
* 760 0
Ditto
Paris,3 Day's sight
flaurdcattz, ditto
Derlin
Frankfort the Main Money
Pete, sburgla ..
10 2tS
Vienna
10 i 6
Triiste
Rtalii,t, . • ...• • • 354 Effective
Cadiz
(Whoa
Barcelona
Setilir
Gibtah 21
Leghorn
48 --V Get .41
Nialta -Naples 3Bi
Palermo ......
Lisbon
;it
ft 0 Janeiro .
................................. ..47
Buelius Ayres
Itnl.tin.• • • ...... pet Cri.t.
BULLION.

Port at:al ("4.1,1,irt
Fu! iti Bats__
Nct-,. Dual)'caws
Nr w Out larA
s4ver Standard In Bars

1.0 0 Opel ()s
3 17 1
.... 3 14 6
0 4 RI
0 4 11t