My grandfather was a man of a kindly and compassionate heart; and though I used to play him many a sly trick and sometimes grieve his spirit, yet he was always lenient to my failings; and now that he lies in yonder village churchyard, this often causes me a pang of unfeigned contrition for the past. It was my chief delight to hear him tell of the roaring of the guns when ships met in deadly strife, or the howling of the winds when the bitter tempest and the raging sea threatened destruction to the mariner; and he would so mingle his stories with the generous sympathies of his nature, that many a night has sleep dried the tears from my eyes as I lay on my pillow after retiring to bed. I had taken my favourite seat on the evening I have mentioned, just as a poor negro with scarcely any covering appeared at the window and supplicated charity. His dark skin was deeply contrasted with the unblemished purity of the falling snow, whilst his trembling limbs seemed hardly able to support his shivering frame; and there he stood, the child of an injured race, perishing in the land of boasted hospitality and freedom! With all the active benevolence which my grandfather possessed, he still retained the usual characteristics of the hardy seaman. He discouraged every thing that bore the smallest resemblance to indolence. The idle vagrant dared not approach his residence; but he prized the man of industrious habits, however lowly his station, and his influence was ever extended to aid the destitute and to right the injured. On his first going to sea, he had been cabin boy on board a Liverpool ship, which was engaged in that horrible traffic--the Slave-trade; and towards the poor anathematized descendants of Ham he had already imbibed erroneous prejudices, which after-years could not wholly eradicate though they were chiefly manifested in the unmeaning jokes so common among British sailors. He had also held an official appointment for several years in the island of Trinidad, where the negroes were more rigorously treated than in any other part of the West Indies, and where their debased condition rendered them more depraved in their habits and more treacherous in their actions. In England, however, the very colour of the skin is a passport to commiseration, and my grandfather no sooner saw the dark countenance of the perishing creature than he hastily rang the bell, and a footman entering, “Robert,” said he, “go and bring yon pale-face here directly.” “Pale face, did you say, sir?” inquired the man. “Yes, yes,” replied my grandfather, “yon black fellow; fetch him hither to me.”