The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-12-10 00:00:00

African was incapable to receive or comprehend religious
truths. " This is a position which can never 1.); admitted.
The christian religion was undoubtedly intended by its
Divine Author for an universal one—it was tot m ant to be
confined to any certain climate, to any part cula • degr,te of
understanding, conformation of features, or : had 3 of com-
plexion. We are expressly commanded to preach the Gospel
to every creature, and therefore every human creature must
necessarily be capable of-receiving it. It may be true,
perhaps, that the generality 'of the negro slaves are dull of
apprehension, and slow of understanding ; but it may be
doubted whether they arc more so than sonic of the lowest
classes of our own people." The ardour with which they
have sought religions instructicn is so unlike the colder -dis-
positions of our latitudes, that we might perhaps be allowed
to question whether such persons will settle down into :a
reasonably devout temperament : but we cannot doubt their
readiness to receive the impressions, or their capacity of
doing so. The only difficulty in the way of education in the
colonies is that stumbling-block of all modern policy—secta-
rianism. This is a grievous impediment at home, but it is
of far greater moment in the instruction of a semi-heathen
population. The jealousy of rival- reheionists can find no
compromise but that of leaving religion: altogether out' of
education ; but it must be part and parcel of all colonial in-

struction, if the eivilisatio'n of the Creole race is to be ex-

pected from it. Much to the credit of the Mico Trustees,
they have resisted this modern infection, and have made
Bible-knowledge a part of their system, although they hive
excluded from it all catechism and dogmas of faith. I should
certainly myself prefer that all on whom the language, laws,
and habits of England were conferred, should be brought up
as English churchmen ; but I apprehend that if all sects are
to share equal favour, this plan of education will be satisfac-
tory ; and I am glad to find that the 'Mice) schools at Trinidad
and Grenada were well attended by Roman Catholic Creoles,

under the .sanction of Bishop M`Donnel and his clergy.
They do well to permit their flocks to attend these schools ;
for so great is the desire among the negroes to be taught,
that I think neither Protestant nor Romanists throughout
our colonies could at this moment be withheld from attending
schools of some kind or other. I cannot resist adding an
instance of the readiness with which the people adopt im-
provement, although the example is a very trifling one.- The
old custom in Guyana was an exceedingly lax one in regard
to the clothing of the women ; and although, since it has
come under the British sceptre, a manifest improvement in
this respect has baen introduced to the disgusting exposure
that still prevails in the colonies under the Dutch rule ; yet
the general habit was to expose the bosom without any
covering, especially when employed in the field, or in the
household duties of their homes ' • from whence, in the ex-
citement of their nature, they would rush without the slightest
ceremony, naked to the waist as they were, if they saw any
one pass, to whom they had some grievance or favour to
mention. I merely named, on one occasion, that Lady Cust
would be greatly shocked if they came out to speak to her
in such guise, and I never had occasion to mention the
circumstance a second time. Whenever they afterwards
came to speak to either of us, they were careful to throw a
neckhandkerchief over their persons before they approached.
Such an anecdote is trifling, but, as evincing a ready quick-
ness to receive improvement, it is inserted in this place in
opposition to the opinion of the inaptitude of the negro
people to be improved and civilised. • ,
TREATMENT OF THE WEST INDIA PLANTERS.
Yet it is not the black population of the British colonies
which should alone engross the sympathes of the mother
country. The whites require sonic share of it, now that the
ve,vata questio is terminated. For years they have been ex-
posed to an agitation under which their property has been
deteriorated, their characters calumniated, and their influence
derided and disregarded ; they have a claim to repose at
least, if not to protection. No subjects of the British crown
have been so unworthily treated as the landowners in the
British colonies. Such has been the description of govern-
ment exercised towards the white population of the British
colonies, that their grievances have been derided, and their
complaints disregarded ; the Colonial Office assuming to
itself, in effect, the dictatorship of this portion of the empire.
Laws made in the secret chambers of Downing-street have
been provided for a society 4,000 miles distant ; in some
cases they have superseded the legislation of the colonial
assemblies, or, in one form or another, have been forced
down the throats of the unhappy people who are ornamented
with the appellation of colonial legislators. The sin of the
present system is distrust of the Colonists and over-govern-
went from home. Every packet brings out a new law, and
the desire of the Governors to evince their activity and
usefulness introduces a fever of rule, which would not be
submitted to in the mother country for twenty-four hours.
Yet, with all that has been done in infringement of a just
amount of colonial liberty, it is impossible not to admit that
a considerable reform is still imperatively culled for in the
legislative constitution of our colonies.
• CLIMATE OF THE WEST INDIES.
I think it desiralie to insert in this place a few words with
regard to health and climate.
It would be too bold to assert, from the short experience
I had of them, that the West Indies are not so unhealthy as
public estimation holds them to be ; yet I am bound to say,
that during the five or six months we passed in the tropics,
neither Lady Cust, nor our little girl and myself, nor our
two European servants, suffered a single day's sickness that
was attributable to the climate. Undoubtedly we all took
the best precautions in our power, without carrying about
with us at every moment the apprehension of evil, which of
itself is very injurious to many. I believe that some people
who go to the West Indies frighten themselves into dangerous
illness with too much care and nursing, whilst others, on
the other hand, are victims of carelessness and indifference
to any mode of life that would conduce to health. We took
a middle course, abstaining very much from medicine, and
not unnecessarily exposing ourselves to the heat, but living
that kind of regular life that would be considered best in any
country, and at the same time keeping, as free as colonial
hospitalities would permit us, from the great excitements of
society. Ido not believe that the negroes, although originally
from a different and distant climate, are otherwise than a
healthy race, and even other European nations do not suffer
from ill health to the same degree as the British ; indeed.
our people in the naval and military circles are greater suf-
ferers than those employed in civil duties. It is very
singular, considering how much our nation travels about the
world, ut yet it is undoubtedly true, that no other people
are so wedded to home habits as we are. We keep to our
English hours of business and meals—we ride, drive, sport,
and dine, wherever we go, as if we were always under an
English sky. The old Neapolitan proverb which tills the
streets of Italy at noonday with dogs and Englishmen, ob-
tains an equal truth in the V est Indies, (excepting that,
perhaps, the dogs may he there somewhat the wiser of the
two,) and it is not surprising if the consequence is, that our
constitutions deoop under it : the Spaniards and French are
undoubtedly better accustomed to a sunny land at home, and
their habits are better formed for it ; but 1 do not think that
even this is sufficient to account for the difference of health
which prevails in their islands and our Colonies ; nor could
it at all account for the comparison that results to the pre-
judice of our naval and military service in this respect..
hel Spaniards are certainly more attentive to the question
of military clothing than I think our officers are, although
it must be admitted, that Sir Sanford Whittingham, the
Commander-in-Chief, with his experience of many hot
climates, was exceedingly considerate in this respect. The
troops in the Spanish colonies•are entirely clad in linen, and
only put on their cloth uniforms on very special occasions.
I was told that their officers and men were as free from sick-
ness as the other inhabitants of their colonies. Our officers
are very great sufferers •, which cannot be attributed, at the
present day, to habits of intemperance, and least of all to the
causes assigned for the pi eyalence of sickness among the
lower ranks—salt meat and new rum. I cannot help think-
ing, therefore, in searching for a new cause for this, that it
may be in a degree attributable to a military mess, which is
not the custom of other nations. It is, lam disposed to ad-
mit, an advantage that we. possess over them in our military
life for general service •, but I question whether it !may not
operate injuriously under a trophied sun. It is not merely
the temptation to drink sangaree and smoke cigars ; it is the
internal and perpetual excitement of living en evidence, as it
were, all day long, without any opportunity of occasionally
retreating to a quiet feral:), circle, that, I think must be so
injurious. This is the marked feature of our colonial life,
where unbounded hospitality exists, but without female in-
fluence to regulate it ; accordingly. young naval arid military
-men have nothing but the charms of " single lifa" to enliven
and occupy their colonial existence. I would also take the
liberty, in this place, of calling on our members of parlia-
ment, in either house, to be more careful "how they scatter
firebrands in sport" in talking of West Indian climat( s. Lord
BroughaM, for instance, talks of " that charnel-house. De-
merara." I take the liberty of referring his lordship on this
subject to an extract from Mr. Montgomery Martin s His-
tory of the British Colonies,* The effect of such unneces-
sary as well as unjust aspersions is, what Lord Brougham
would regret as much as any man, to keep population from
the colonies, which must be a very great injury to the sue.
cessful results of the free-labour exaerimeat. .
IMMIGRATION INTO THE WEST INDIES.

From every consideration I am enabled to give, I am
forced to the conviction, that even if it were desirable, for the
sake of the newly emancipated labourers in the West Indies,
to place the prosperity of those Cobnies at their feet,-,-if it
could ever become a matter of utter indifference to the peb-
ple of Great Britain,--whether the British capital expended
upon their culture be utterly swamped or not,—it would still
be a question that they cannot but sympathise in, that the
revenue of the country should be maintained without the ne-
cessity of resorting to the produce of those nations who have.
continued the trade in spite of us ; and that the only way of
meeting the evils which threaten all these inevitable conse-
quences of the present state of colonial labour, is to take up
temperately, but seriously, the consideration of the means
of supplying the deficiency to be apprehended, by a sound
and well-organised system of COLONIAL IMMIGRATION.
This question, which I found to be engrossing the minds
of everybody throughout our Colonies, is one of admitted
difficulty under its most ordinary bearings; but it is aggra-
vated by the excitement which has existed in the minds of
men on account of all the cruelties of the days of slavery, and
by the statements in regard to the imported Coolies and
Maltese, which have occupied Parliament, and now crowd
the newspapers, as extracted from papers pUblished by its
authority.