In justice to the character of the country which I have learned to love, I must, although unwillingly, notice another and a most painful subject. I refer to the exceedingly harsh laws passed respecting the slaves, and the shocking executions of those concerned in the insurrection in 1736. In relation to the former point, it is sufficient to observe that such laws are almost inseparable from the institution of slavery itself, and that the stigma affected the mother country equally with her colonies, while it redounds to the honour of Antigua that she was the first to announce unbounded freedom to her slave population. With respect to the barbarous executions, they would not be tolerated in Antigua at the present day, even had she continued to be a slave-dealing colony; and they can only in justice be referred to a state of society when the practice of torture had hardly fallen into desuetude in the civil courts of Europe, when the Inquisition was in full glory, when, only a few years before, the politest capital in the world had looked unmoved on “Luke’s iron crown, and Damien’s bed of steel,” and criminals continued to be strung up by dozens in England (and for many long years after) for offences which, in the present advanced state of society, no civilized state would visit with the punishment of death. What wonder, then, that at such a period, and under such alarming circumstances, the Antiguans should have shewn themselves cruel and barbarous? Before I conclude, I must not omit to tender my acknowledgments to the numerous friends who have kindly afforded me assistance in the course of my work, among whom let me make grateful mention of Edward S. Byam, Esq., the Rev. and Hon. Burgh Byam, Col. Byam, Dr. Furgusson, Nathaniel Humphreys, Esq., Deputy Colonial Secretary in Antigua, (to which latter gentleman I was indebted for access to the Records of the island,) to John Furlong, Esq., (who obliged me with the will of Governor Parke,) Registrar of Antigua, to ——— Edmead, Esq., to Captain George B. Mathew, of the Guards, the Rev. D. F. Warner, and others. In conclusion, may the Great Giver of all good pour down His choicest blessings upon this beautiful and favoured little island; may her legislators be ably endowed in all true principles of jurisprudence; may her planters be blest with kindly showers, so that their golden canes may raise their “tall plumes” in luxuriance; may her merchants, the prop of every civilized state, be prosperous—her peasantry happy and good, as they are _free_; and, finally, may her ministers (of every denomination) be long spared to watch over and pray for her teeming inhabitants, that one choral song of praise may resound from every quarter and from every tongue. The Author. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I.