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 bucanier, "Who follow'd o'er the seas his wat❜ry journey, has been suspended for little irregularities in his seapractice. A few years ago there was 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 Lieute. nant 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, for 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 jailer 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 at 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 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 two hundred 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 sce nery. 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 cane-fields of St. Anne's. The first capital of Jamaica was Sevilla Nueva, 151012, 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 Penn's conquest; for which changes a longer period than forty or fifty years cannot be assigned, for the city had then been abandoned a great number of years, and could not have subsisted above ninety years. Nothing certain is known of the reasons the Spaniards had for abandoning it. The following are the names and sites of the Spanish settlements and harbours often mentioned by the Spanish historians: Sevilla Nueva, Melilla, Oristan, St. Jago de la Vega, Caguaya, St. Gloria, Port Esquevel, S. E. of Mamee Bay. Old Harbour. I fear I have been giving you information of little importance; but the little that we do know of the early history of this island cannot be altogether devoid of interest. I am, my dear Madam, Your very obedient Servant, The late change which has taken place in the condition of the negro population of these islands, must necessarily lead to great alterations in the mode of managing plantations. It requires as little knowledge of human nature, as of political economy, to be assured that no man will labour without reward, who can avoid it. Hitherto, coercion was necessarily employed to obtain labour; but the new law, in making coercion the legal penalty of its infraction, instead of an arbitrary punishment, summarily inflicted, has deprived it of the character which chiefly constituted its terrors; for nothing, I apprehend, can be more productive of terror than the power of inflicting punishment in the heat of passion. That stimulus to labour is therefore in the hands of the special justice, not what it was in those of the overseer. In some cases in four years, in others in six years, it will not exist at all. In the intermediate time, conciliation, to a great extent, must be looked to, to effect what coercion formerly did. Is it to the persons who are only acquainted with the influence of the latter? is it to those whose feelings have been galled by the deprivation of that instrument of authority? is it to those who have not been intrusted with the temporary power of inflicting even the lessened punishment the law allows, and, consequently, whose objections to the remedial spirit of that law are not likely to be diminished, that the absent proprietors are to look for the introduction of conciliatory measures in the management of their estates, which will be a substitute for those whose influence is no longer to be exerted on the negro's fears? Previously to the introduction of the new system, I fully expected to see many of the absentees arrive, to enter on the new management of their estates; for previously to August, I was fully persuaded, as I now am, that a change of management is absolutely requisite to ensure a continuance of labour. There were many arrangements to be entered into by the masters with the negroes on their properties; and the first of August was an auspicious time for such accommodation of matters between master and labourer, as might be productive of present satisfaction and future advantage. But very few proprietors have come out; amongst those, however, who have lately arrived, is the nephew of M. G. Lewis, whose family holds two valuable properties here. The late well known M. G. Lewis occasionally sojourned here, but he resided chiefly on his estate, named |