Voyages up-country are of necessity slow, but the return journey is made with comparatively great rapidity, distances laboriously covered on the up-trip in three days being done easily in seven hours when coming back. From England British Guiana is reached in sixteen days by the steamers of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and in nineteen days by those of the direct line from London and Glasgow. There are also regular services from Canada, the United States, France and Holland. _History._--When taken over in 1803 the prospects of three British colonies were by no means promising, and during the next decade the situation became very critical. Owing to the increased output of sugar by conquered Dutch and French colonies the English market was glutted and the markets of the continent of Europe were not available, Bonaparte having closed the ports. The years 1811 and 1812 were peculiarly disastrous, especially to those engaged in the manufacture of sugar, and at a public meeting held in Georgetown early in the latter year it was stated that the produce of the colony ordinarily worth L1,860,000 had on account of deteriorated value decreased by fully one-third. At this meeting it was resolved to petition the imperial parliament to allow the interchange of produce with the United States; a resolution which was unfortunately rendered abortive by the outbreak of war between England and the States in 1812, the trade of British Guiana being instead actually harried by American privateers. In his address to the Combined Court on the 20th of October 1812 the governor (General Carmichael) stated that a vessel with government stores had been captured by an American privateer, and in February 1813 the imperial government sent H.M.S. "Peacock" to protect the coast. On the 23rd of that month in cruising along the east coast of Demerara the "Peacock" met the American privateer "Hornet," and though, after a gallant struggle, in which Captain Peake, R.N., was killed, the English ship was sunk with nearly all her crew, the colony did not suffer from any further depredations. In the following years news of the agitation in England in favour of emancipation gradually became known to the slaves and caused considerable unrest among them, culminating in 1823 in a serious outbreak on the estates on the east coast of Demerara. Negroes, demanding their freedom, attacked the houses of several managers, and although at most points these attacks were repulsed with but little loss on either side, the situation was so serious as to necessitate the calling out of the military. The ringleaders were arrested and promptly and vigorously dealt with, while a special court-martial was appointed to try the Rev. John Smith, of the London Missionary Society, who it was alleged had fostered the rising by his teachings to the slave congregation at his chapel in Le Ressouvenir. This trial was stigmatized