rejection of the proposition shews, that they not only do not themselves regard the Negroes as entitled to the consideration and treatment due to a _human being_, considered as such, but that they cannot even persuade themselves that he will be regarded as entitled to them by the world in general. Supposing, therefore, that Lord Seaforth’s law has passed, and even supposing (what it is far too much to suppose, considering the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility of obtaining legal proof, if a murderer would be tolerably cautious) that it does prevent absolute murders; yet how wide a range is still left for the exercise of the worst of passions? To this case surely we may justly apply the maxim, and the important lesson which it inculcates may well excuse a trite quotation, “_Quid leges sine moribus?_” Will such a law, passed contrary to the real wishes, feelings, and judgment, deliberately entertained and repeatedly avowed for many years, change the real estimation of a Black man in the Barbadian scale of being? Or will not rather the contrariety between the law and the feelings of men, be likely to stir up a spirit of indignation and hatred towards the Blacks, which must be productive of innumerable injuries and insults towards the Negro race; while, Black evidence not being admissible, they may be almost always injured and insulted with impunity? This _esprit de corps_ naturally results from the relative circumstances of Blacks and Whites in a West Indian community; and it is the more operative and pernicious, because with pride, itself a passion sufficiently regardless of the claims and comforts of others, another principle still more pernicious associates itself but too naturally; a principle of fear, arising out of the consciousness of the immense disproportion in number between the Blacks and the Whites. This fear again but too surely gives rise to hatred; and what may not be expected from the effects of an _esprit de corps_ made up of such powerful ingredients? It is not that they who are actuated by it are conscious of these several feelings; but they are not on that account less real or less efficient. This _esprit de corps_ which has long prevailed, was many years ago nearly proving fatal to the life of a most honourable, upright, and resolute Judge, who, in the discharge of his public function, dared to act as duty and conscience prescribed to him. But among the inferior orders of Whites especially, this spirit has been naturally called forth of late years into more lively exercise, by the very efforts which have been made to ameliorate the condition of the Negro race.