displayed here against the negro character;—a spirit which animates the press, which pervades all colonial politics, and actuates the conduct of those who will have it that the black man is not influenced by the feelings, interests, or affections that sway the white man-that he is insensible to kindness, and therefore is not to be excited to industry, except by terror-that he is incapable of understanding that which is to his own advantage, and therefore will feed on mangoes, and sleep under the wild fig-tree-renounce all the good things of negro life, the shads and herrings, and the relishing pickle that gave a flavour to all his messes--abjure the pepper-pot for mawkish vegetables, and wander in woods rather than work for wages-that his wife and children are so little dear to him, that he will not labour to give them foodthat his little ones may say to him, "Father, we are hungry," and he will not give them to eat-that his wife may stretch forth her hands to him for food and raiment, and he will tell her, "The earth hath roots," and the beasts of the forests feel not the want of clothing: but the sense of the reply of that miserable woman would be, if the madness of her indignation allowed her utterance, "We cannot live on grass, on berries, water, as beasts, and birds, and fishes." I would tell these revilers of the negro, that the scorned race, on whose character they void their rheum, degraded as it has been by slavery, is not yet so abject, so sick of the civilised world, "that it will love nought but even the mere necessities upon it." The negro likes his comforts fully as much as the white man; the negro woman loves her luxuries quite as much as the buckra lady. Human nature is pretty much the same in all countries; and, as far as my experience goes, in the various parts of the globe, complexion has as little to do with its yearnings, its failings, or its finest traits, as clime or creed. The refutation of the general opinion, that the negro will not work without the cartwhip, has led me from my subject. The third cultivation-that of cocoa, or cacoa, (from which chocolate is derived, and which latter term will hardly be recognised in the Mexican name tlalcacahuatl, its Tolteck origin,) which was at one period the chief article of export of this island, has ceased to be cultivated by the planters; not that the soil proved unfavourable for it, or the culture expensive, or the growth precarious, but that the duty levied on it amounted to a prohibition-four hundred and eighty per cent. on its marketable value, says Edwards, the excise on cocoa in cakes having been raised £12 12s. per cent. exclusive of 11s. 113d. exacted at the Custom House! In 1831, we are informed by Mr. Martin, Trinidad and Grenada cocoa averaged in bond in the London market from 24s. to 65s. per cent., while the tax was 56s.; and no less than 230 per cent. on those cocoas which were consumed by the poor. Here is an article nutritious and agreeable, infinitely preferable either to tea or coffee for the poor-which grows in our own colonies, is easily cultivated, and is a cheap commodity; and the withering finger of taxation is laid upon it, it sinks under the pressure, and in a little time it dies. An effort has been recently made to revive it: the duty has been reduced that ought to have been abolished, and the consumption has greatly increased. In 1831, in round numbers, the importation of cocoa in Great Britain was three million and a half of pounds weight; the quantity of that from the colonies about one half the whole amount. Mr. Pitt seems to have laboured under the impression of Girolamo Belzoni, that chocolate was a beverage "puitosto da porci, che da uomine," for he took effectual means that the drink that is fitter for pigs than men should be kept out of the reach of his poor countrymen. Lord Castlereagh must have considered father Acosta was in the right of regarding cocoa as "a Mexican superstition (una supersticion), which a British people could not be made to pay too dear for. The cocoa is much subject to injury from insects, but it may be considered a hardy plant One labourer is suffi- in comparison with indigo. cient for a thousand trees. to 1814, estimates the sugar produce of Cuba at 200,000 casks, value eight millions of piastres, and the number of slaves employed in fieldcultivation alone 143,000; while the Carfaccas produce cocoa to the value of five millions of piastres, and have only 60,000 slaves, both in the towns and in the fields. I had intended to have given you some account of the medical plants of this island, especially of those whose medical properties are known to the negroes; but I find it would be impossible to enumerate them even in any reasonable limits. I am, however, so thoroughly persuaded that a variety of very valuable plants are known to the negroes, whose medical uses we are unacquainted with, that I think any person who would undertake an account of the popular medicine of the negroes, would bring to light much information serviceable to medical science. In many parts of the mountain-roads of Port Royal, the hedges abound with roses. The lemongrass is also found in abundance, and many other fragrant plants, which literally perfume the air, as one passes along the narrow mountain-paths. Most of the vegetables used in Europe are raised in the mountains, and to these are added the native ones, which are hardly inferior to the former, such as callalu, ochro, chuchu, and that most excellent substitute for potatoes—the Indian and white yam. The bread-fruit was brought to Jamaica by Captain Bligh, from Otaheite; the shaddock, from the East Indies; the lime-orange, pomegranate, and melon, from Spain; the cinnamon and mango, from L'Isle de Bourbon; the logwood-tree, from the Spanish Main. The cedar abounds near St. Catherine's Peak, but it is not the same species as that of Lebanon. The cedar of Syria is much larger than any I have seen in Jamaica. The cabbage-tree was introduced into the island by Admiral Knowles-the acca-tree from Africa, the bichy-tree from the coast of Guinea. It is impossible to form any idea of the size and beauty of the foliage of the trees of this island from any description of them. The ceiba, or wild cotton-tree, is the monarch of the forest of Jamaica. Some from root to branches present the appearance of one straight stupendous shaft, of seventy or eighty feet. One of these immense trees, on the Spanish Town road, extends its huge branches completely over one of the broadest roads in the islands. The mountain-cabbage, one of the most beautiful of the palms, varies in height from 100 to 130 feet. Edwards is inclined to believe he saw one 150 feet; and Brown mentions that Mr. Ray |