buried in the bosom of the unfortunate commissary. I am sorry for the African character to have to add, that the murderer was a young negro of about eighteen years of age; but I am still more sorry to have reason to believe that he was employed by a white man, and that white man a Spaniard,

-one well to do in the world, and still tolerated in it. The white villain, however, escaped detection, and the execution of the black one was thought sufficient for the ends of justice.

Such was the providential escape of this great man, and such the means that had been frequently had recourse to, to get rid of him, but which God had not permitted to succeed.

There is a Golgotha near Kingston, on the narrow isthmus that terminates in Port-Royal, called the Palisades, where many a brave tar is laid up in ordinary, who triumphed over Frenchmen and Spaniards, and succumbed to the first broadside of yellow fever. There are, moreover, two awkward-looking frames at the extremity of what is called Gallows Point, where many a modern buccaneer,

"Who follow'd o'er the seas his watery journey,
And merely practised as a sea-attorney,"

has been suspended for little irregularities in his sea-practice, A few years ago there were a number of pirates executed here, an account of

which is given by Tom Cringle in the very highest alto-relievo style of Tom's mode of sticking out his most prominent representations. He describes the chief of the pirates as a young man of noble aspect, beautifully moulded: he "had never seen so fine a face, such perfection of features, and such a clear dark smooth skin; it was a finer face than Lord Byron's. It was the countenance, indeed, of a most beautiful youth, melancholy and evidently anxious for the large pearls that coursed each other down his forehead and cheeks; and the slight quivering of his under-lip, every now and then, evinced the struggle that was going on within." After taking a miniature from his neck, and glaring intensely on it as he pronounced the words, "Adios, Maria! Adios, Maria!" the signal was given. "The lumbering flap of the long drop was heard, and five-and-twenty human beings were wavering in the sea-breeze in the agonies of death; the other eighteen suffered on the same spot the week following; and, for long after, this fearful and bloody example struck terror into the Cuba fishermen."

Now first of all, for the forty-three executed, you must read nineteen. My informant is a gentleman who was the foreman of the jury. There were nine executed on one day, and eleven on another. The name of the youthful captain of the pirates was Gaetano Aragonitza, and the

vessel he commanded was called the Taragazani, afterwards in his Majesty's service under the name of the Renegade, commanded by Lieutenant Fiott.

The young Spaniard, Gaetano, was said to be of a most respectable family, and had come out to Cuba to join a relative in commerce, when, from some disappointments, he placed himself at the head of one of the most desperate gangs of the Cuba pirates.

It appeared on evidence, that he was not excelled by his comrades in his sanguinary cruelty, and that his atrocities even were greater than those of many amongst them. It was admitted by the English officer who had taken him, that he had fought his vessel with desperate gallantry, and, when overcome, had conducted himself in such a manner, that if he had been any other than a pirate, he would have shaken him by the hand. After conviction an offer was made to the

jailor of ten thousand dollars, by a stranger supposed to be a Spaniard, to allow him to escape. The same offer, it is said, was first made to bribe the judge; but the practice of South America was not in fashion in Jamaica. When sentence was passed, he thanked the court, the judge, and the jury for their impartiality, and for the advantage of legal defenders. His appearance was highly prepossessing; he was of good

VOL. II.

B

birth and education, and elegant manners: he called himself a Biscayan. It was proved on the trial, that for some very slight offence he had killed the cook in his own vessel, first having fired at him without effect, and then causing him to walk over the plank.

When they were retiring from the court, one of them, named Pierre, cried out for mercy. The young captain turned round, and in a solemn tone said, "Mercy, indeed! There is no mercy for us here we must look for it above." At the execution, the rope broke with one of them named Hernandez, who was said to be the most ferocious of the gang: he cried aloud several times for mercy, and did not cease imploring it till another rope was procured and the execution was finished. The head of this man is now in my possession: it was given to me by Dr. Chamberlayne. Phrenologically speaking, it is one of the worst heads I ever saw: the organs of destructiveness are extremely large; and all those others which increase at the expense of the intellectual ones are equally developed.

A little above Bull Bay, about seven or eight miles from Kingston, there is a very beautiful waterfall, which in Europe people would go a day's journey to visit; but here an hour's ride is too great an exertion for the finest scenery in the world. There are hundreds of persons in Kingston

who have never seen this beautiful fall; I have met with some who have never heard of it. The fall is 200 feet. There is a projecting rock about the centre, on which, in the rainy season, when the Mamee river is swelled to a considerable size, the great body of water is broken into a foaming torrent, the spray of which glitters in the sunbeams as it spreads abroad. This little cataract reminded me very much of the waterfall at the Dargle in the neighbourhood of Dublin; but, of the two, the Dargle excels in the beauty of the surrounding scenery.

Before I conclude, allow me to recall to your recollection the sites and names of those ancient towns and cities of the Spaniards, most of which have now passed away, and "left not a wreck behind," with the exception of a wilderness of bricks in Spanish Town, and some vestiges of ruins in the canefields of St. Anne's. The first capital of Jamaica was Sevilla Nueva, 1510-12, founded by Esquevel, on the site of an Indian village occupied by a plantation called Sevilla. Sloane saw the ruins in 1688. The celebrated Peter Martyr was the Abbot Sloane found a tabular stone over the

gate with his name on it; but he is wrong in supposing that Martyr ever was in Jamaica,-the city was abandoned long before the arrival of the

English. The ruins were "black with age,'

and overgrown with brushwood at the time of