the nature of the individual plant. The common oak usually lasts from 6 to 900 years, and the stages of its existence are of about 2 or 300 years each. It has been observed to live longer in a dry than in a wet soil. The same may be said of the chestnut.

Every species in order that it may attain its due growth, requires a certain temperature to be found within limits of a greater or less extent.

The common oak, the fir, the birch, &c. thrive most towards the north; the ash, the olive tree, &c. in the warmest parts of Europe; the baobab, the ceiba, and the palm, flourish and become robust no where but between the tropics.

According to Sir Humphry Davy, the respective quantities of carbon furnished by different woods afford a tolerably exact scale wherewith to measure their longevities. Those in which carbonic and earthy substances abound, are the most lasting; and those in which the largest proportion of gaseous elements is found, are the least so. This rule may hold good in regard to our indigenous trees; but I doubt whether the baobab, the ceiba, and many other tropical trees, the wood of which is of a loose and soft texture, will afford from masses of equal size, the same proportion of carbon as our oaks, chestnuts, or elms, although they grow to a much greater age.

Sir Humphry Davy is also of an opinion that trees of the same species grow to a more advanced period in the north than in the south, as cold guards against fermentation and dissolution of parts; but every tree lives the longest when it is in that climate which is the best adapted to its nature. Sir Humphry's opinion would be unquestionable if the vegetable species in view were organized so as to be adapted to grow in all the climates of the globe, and it was then found that their duration was constantly greater towards the poles than towards the line. I do not doubt that more oaks of a great age, and more firs also, are found in the north than in the south of Europe; but it is on the other hand beyond a doubt that the ashes of Calabria and Sicily are longer lived than those of Prussia and Great Britain. These are phenomena which depend upon the particular nature of species, and of this subject we know nothing.

In proportion as the tree increases in size the vessels of its ligneous layers become obstructed, and the sap circulates with less freedom; hence absorption and secretion decrease after youth, in proportion as the bulk of the tree is enlarged. The liber is less vigorous; the buds and roots become fewer and feebler; the branches wither; the stem decays at the head; water settles in the injured parts; the wood moulders away. Ere long, the new liber, the aunual herbaceous part of woody vegetables, loses the power of completing its regeneration, new parts are no longer evolved, and the tree perishes.

The tree after death is overrun by puccinia, mucores, sphæria, and other cryptogamous plants; it attracts and imbibes moisture, no longer as formerly by the absorbing power of its organs, but by the hygrometrical property it derives from its porous conformation,

1

and the chymical action of the elements which compose it; the oxygen of the atmosphere consumes a part of its substance; some water is generated, carbonic acid gas is disengaged; and the rest is resolved into vegetable mould (humus), a fat brown powdery substance, eminently fertile, in which we find in different proportions the same elements as those of which vegetables are composed; and which have the faculty of decomposing air and combining with its origin.

It is thus the career of plants is terminated in the order of things. The earth they adorned in the period of vegetation, is fertilized by their remains; germs impregnated with new life have already been confided to its bosom, ready to supply the by-gone generations, and through the death of individuals an unfading youth is secured to the race.

ART. VII. Thoughts on the Amelioration of the Condition of the Slave Population of the West-Indies, together with the ultimate abolition of slavery and the means of civilizing Africa; from an unpublished Manuscript, by J. A. Mossel, Esq. late of the University of Edinburgh.

THE

ESSAY I.

HE arrival of a general peace had, among a variety of bene fits which are its usual concomitants, the good effect of awakening the attention of nations to the necessity of abolishing Christian slavery in those piratical states where it was found to exist. In this enlightened age, when the principles of general liberty are so widely diffused and appreciated, it was not to be tolerated that any power should assume to itself the right of detaining captives in a state of bondage, to labour solely for the individual interests of their oppressors. The long continuance of European warfare delayed the necessary work of retribution until the jarring views of conflicting parties should be harmonized, when, simultaneously as it were, the reproach of having for a time submitted to the indignity and injustice of christian slavery, was sought to be effaced by the several maritime powers. After due chastisement bestowed upon the perpetrators of so flagrant an enormity, the supreme head of the Barbary states was compelled to engage for himself, his heirs and successors for ever, to abolish that slavery in his dominions. But Africa, injured, desolated Africa, is unable to avenge the wrongs she sustains from European aggression. Debased by the policy of moral degradation too successfully exerted by crafty adversaries*-robbed by their intrigues of her unhappy victims she is impotent in exertion and ineffectual in complaint. To the tears and remonstrances of the unfriended African, country and friends are alike strangers; they are deaf to his

*This is evident from the constant intrigues among the petty princes and chiefs of tribes practised by the slave dealers, who thus succeed in promoting discord and contention between the natives whom they encourage to entrap and sell each other. Prisoners in war of both parties are frequently sold to the same dealer.

voice and inaccessible to her intreaties. Without the power of vindicating herself, Africa must look for relief to those friends to humanity who have associated themselves for the purpose of mitigating her sorrows, to "labour together for good" in comforting and civilizing a much injured people lost in the profoundest ignorance and barbarism.* To them the appeal most appropriately belongs, who, actuated by the true charity of the Gospel, have proclaimed aloud to the world the moral obligation on all mankind to suppress that odious and blood-stained practice permitted for a time to disgrace those who " call themselves christians."

A parity of reasoning to that which influenced civilized nations in reducing inadmissible pretensions to tyrannize over unoffending captives, appears to apply, with perfect analogy, to the case of the African slave trade, already denounced and abolished by the most enlightened powers. Forcibly to apply the labour of our fellowcreatures to our individual purposes without emolument or requital to the persons so labouring, is utterly irreconcilable with the primary dictates of humanity and natural justice-subversive of every moral principle, and calculated in its effect to loosen the attachment of man to man. The consequences of impairing or weakening that attachment, whether it spring from interested or from moral motives, or both, are more serious and extensive in their influence than persons accustomed to European politics alone are qualified to conceive. The slave population in some of the British West India islands is so considerable and preponderating over the number of whites, so abject in condition, and oppressed by wrongs, that it would not be matter of surprise if attempts at rebellion should be repeated, and tragical scenes of wide calamity and fixed root, as at Barbadoes, again occur. The sanguinary effects of that most deplorable event-the destruction of property and loss to individuals, are far exceeded as to their remote consequences, by the mischief resulting from the necessity of severe and numerous punishments, and no less probably by the secret workings of the deep though silent curses of every breast that mourns a comrade slain. How far the effect of these occurrences is likely to survive in the memory of the negro, and what turn of mind they may serve to produce, can best be conceived by those who understand his character by experience. May the day of vengeance be far distant, and the arm of irritated slavery, seeking to establish the sacred rights of liberty and independence, be stayed by the the adoption of a milder and a wiser policy!

To Britain, the possessor of a more ample share of colonies than has fallen to the lot of any other power, it is natural to look, after the decisive part she has taken in this great question, for the happy example of an improved policy, tending at once to remove the causes of discontent, and to bind the labourer to his employer. We are taught to believe that there is, on the part of the British

* We allude to the African Institution of London, founded in 1806, by the joint exertions of Wilberforce, Clarkson, Granville Sharp and other distinguished philanthropists.

cabinet, a disposition to place the colonies on the most favoured footing, and on behalf of that most useful and laborious class who constitute so considerable a proportion of the inhabitants, it is but equitable to claim some title to consideration and clemency. It is not too much to hope, indeed, that what Africa cannot of itself bring about, the government of England will voluntarily yield— that when it shall be seen, the preservation of the West India islands in their allegiance to the parent state depends entirely upon a more judicious line of conduct in the planters-that the civilization of Africa, together with a beneficial extended commerce with the interior of that vast continent is the happy result of such a combination of measures as seems to present itself with every feasibility—the British government will hesitate no longer to interpose, and, rendering to Africans natural justice, identify their interests with the cause of their employers and the cause of the government.

Influenced by a sincere desire to promote the welfare of mankind, to advance the interests of my country, and to efface that stigma on the national character, too long suffered to exist, I am induced to suggest the propriety as well as policy of legislating in favour of the slave population in the British West India islands. To establish the practicability of my plans, and to serve as some guide in the discussions to which a consideration of this weighty question must necessarily lead, I have been careful to collect all the information it was possible to obtain during a recent visit to the West Indies, and in the inferences drawn, my judgment, not borne away, as some may imagine, by a blind humanity, has been exercised in that sober induction which facts warrant and reasoning prescribes. Investigation, fairly and impartially conducted, will decide on the tenor of my propositions, which, it is believed, are secure in their tendency, and practicable in operation.

It is not confined to the student of moral philosophy to know, that where self-interest excites, industry will be proportioned to the ratio of the stimulus. Persons in the West Indies must frequently have observed the quantity of labor bestowed upon a soil to have been greatly accelerated by a promise to the slaves of money or of drink. Much of the land about Demarara and Berbice was cleared with astonishing rapidity by these successful appeals to human nature, and it is not doubted that cultivation might be extended, to the great advantage of capitalists, in some very fertile parts of South America adjacent to those provinces, were the introduction of hired labourers encouraged, according to the principles proposed to be unfolded in the following treatise.-It is unquestionable that the efforts of the slaves are much relaxed when they reflect, that they labour without emolument, and sow what they are not permitted to reap. This relaxation has been frequent

* The latter species of reward ought most decidedly to be discouraged. It is apt to engender numberless evils, and opposes, instead of advancing, that great moral principle which cannot be too carefully promoted, viz. the desire of man to better his condition.

ly ascribed to natural indolence, the heat of climate, and such slight predisposing causes, though rarely to the one most probable and important, because, this it is the policy of the planter to conceal, viz. the want of a sufficient inducement to exertion.

That "every man is worthy of his hire" is an axiom as equitable as it is natural. But, hitherto the devoted negro has been considered, most unjustly and indefensibly, an exception to this general rule. To hire, rather than purchase, would unquestionably have had the effect of propelling cultivation forward in a much greater degree than as estates are now administered, under the existing system. Few can afford to embark in the concern of an extensive plantation, when the price affixed to each slave in most instances exceeds 100%. sterling or 500 dollars per head, whereas by engaging labourers, who would, as hereafter shown, if fairly paid, always resort in considerable numbers to the West India islands, more estates might be cultivated, with scarcely any advance of capital, and the general prosperity of those islands would, of course, be materially advanced. It might be necessary in the first instance, to fix the price of labour,* which should be regulated according to local circumstances, on mature investigation; thus would the labourers, or, as they are termed in St. Domingo, cultivators, be enabled to procure for themselves a few trifling comforts, and it is scarcely necessary to remark how effectually the payment of wages in return for labour would connect the cultiva tor with his employer, by the strongest of all ties, self-interest.

After the expulsion of the French from St. Domingo, on the establishment of a regular government by the blacks, it was in contemplation to adopt this principle in fixing the price of labour. Not that it is to be received as a problem of any merit in political economy, to measure the rate of wages, permanently, by the will of the legislature. Attempts to interfere in such cases are usually productive of dissatisfaction, and do harm. Labour should at all times be left to find its own level and to answer the demand, except perhaps on the first occurrence of a great change in the order and constitution of society, when interests are unsettled, forms reversed, and clashing doubts in need of being composed. A bit per day would probably have been considered ample by the planters under the ancient Regime, but to reconcile opposition it was determined to make trial of an appropriation of one-fourth part of the gross produce to the cultivator, a system that has been found by experience calculated to give general satisfaction, in the circumstances of that country, and is now embodied into a fixed law. On a certain day, after crop time, the aggregate produceis weighed and portioned off, the buyers who go round the country,

* In the state of Delaware, with which only I profess any acquaintance, blacks and coloured men, who mostly perform all agricultural labour, receive from six to eight dollars per month, beside their board. Carpenters and mechanics have been known to make from twelve to twenty dollars per month.

A bit is an aliquot part of a Spanish Dollar. In St. Domingo eleven bits compose a dollar; in different islands the division and currency vary.