religious observances; and never to hear Mass or confess their sins. It is likewise said that they never marry out of their own nation. There are now several British merchants established at Recife, and a consul likewise resides at that place; but at the time of my coming away, there was no protestant chapel, no clergyman, nor even a burial ground for our countrymen. An Act of Parliament has, I believe, provided for the establishment of these things, but no steps have been taken towards the accomplishment of the directions of the legislature. Without any outward appearance of religion, how are we to expect that the people of Brazil are to regard us as any thing better than what we were represented to them as being in former times?—as pagans, animals, and horses—_pagoens_, _bichos_, and _cavallos_, this is literally true; and although they are now aware that at any rate we have the forms of human beings, that we have the power of speech, and that we have our share of intellect in all the common transactions of the world, still how are we to look for respect from them towards a set of men, who have no appearance at least, of possessing any religious feelings? It should be recollected that we are living among a people who are deeply rivetted to their own forms and ceremonies of worship, whose devotedness to their church establishment surpasses every other feeling. It is not thus that the British nation is to become respectable; we may have relations of trade with these people, but we must be content to be merely regarded according to our utility; there can be no respect for our general character as a body of men, none of that regard which would make us listened to in any great question, which would make our opinions and our assertions depended upon as coming from men of steadiness,—of religious habits. Nor can we be accounted as more than residents for a time, we cannot be considered as an established community, who are thus without any common bond of union, who have not any general place of meeting, who have not any one point to which all are directed; we have no appearance of belonging to one nation, as if we were brethren meeting in a foreign land. To these political reasons for the establishment of a place of worship are to be added those which are of far greater importance, those to which no Christian ought to be indifferent. I well know that it is not with the merchants that the evil arises;—but enough, I will go no farther, although I could tarry long upon this subject. I wish however that I could have avoided the mention of it altogether. I might have done so, if I had not felt that I was passing by unnoticed a subject upon which I have often spoken whilst I was upon the spot; and there my sentiments are well known to most of those persons with whom I associated. CHAPTER XIX. SLAVERY.