slaves, in nominally freeing them, but leaving them, without protection, to the care of their former masters. The English Government has made but little inquiry into the affairs of the island-has refused to receive petitions from the negroes, or referred the petitioners for justice to the very persons of whose injustice they complained.

The Established Church, with large funds at its disposal, and eighty ministers, has accomplished but little in the christianizing of the people. Some of its ministers are at the same time planters, and against them the fury and hatred of the mob were especially directed. The native Baptist Church furnished the leaders and inciters of the insurrection.

Jamaica, the Queen of the Antilles, is about 140 miles long by 40 broad. For richness of soil, for beauty of scenery, for the agreeable temperature of its climate, and the healthfulness of most parts of the island, it is unsurpassed. It produces readily almost every product of the torrid and temperate zones, it yields two crops a year of most of our annual plants, and many of its trees bear at the same time the bud, blossom, and ripe fruit. Manure is never used, and some of the sugar and coffee plantations have for over a hundred years annually yielded their crops without any return to the soil.

Yet, with all these advantages, Jamaica abounds with "ruinate estates" and abandoned "great houses." Her exports have decreased four-fifths, her white population is diminishing, theft and other crimes increasing, attendance on church and school falling off, the superstitious and idolatrous practices of Africa spreading, and "poor Jamaica" seems given up by her discouraged inhabitants to utter ruin. A ray of hope comes to them now in the change of government, which has just been instituted. The Assembly, the originator of the unjust laws, which were injurious alike to white and black, soon after the insurrection, by an act of political suicide, surrendered their powers and charter to the British Government. This surrender was accepted by Parliament, and Jamaica is now a Crown Colony, with a Governor and Council appointed by the Queen, who have almost despotic power, subject only to appeal to the Colonial Secretary and Parliament. The new Governor, Sir J. Grant, who has just arrived in the Island, and

taken the reins of government, has a difficult task to perform, but if he is successful, Jamaica will again become the seat of wealth and power.

It is now about thirty years since the British Government abolished slavery throughout its dominions. Of the 700,000 slaves then enfranchised, more than one-half were owned in Jamaica. The most of those who were in bondage have passed away, and a new generation has grown up. Sufficient time has therefore elapsed to enable us to form a just estimate of the effects of emancipation on the various classes of inhabitants, and on the industry and commerce of the island.

Many honest observers have given their views on the subject, who differ as widely as their points of observation and the characteristics of their minds. Captain Hunt, a prominent member of the Anthropological Society of London, sees in the freedman of Jamaica a proof of the impossibility of educating and elevating the race. Mr. Sewell of New York, who visited the island in 1859, though not taking the extreme view of Captain Hunt, reports the negro as hopelessly lazy, and that licentiousness, theft, lying, and drunkenness everywhere prevail.

On the other hand, Dr. Underhill, of the Baptist Missionary Society, who visited the island two years later, regards the present condition of the negro as satisfactory evidence of his capacity to rise morally, mentally, and physically. Mr. Morgan, the "Friends," and the writers in the Anti-Slavery Society Reporter of London, strongly corroborate his views. This testimony, which at first sight seems so conflicting, may perhaps on examination be reconciled. Captain Hunt and Mr. Sewell look only at the present condition of the negro, forgetting his antecedents and the state of extreme degradation from which he has risen. Dr. Underhill not only recalls his past history, his sufferings in bondage, but shows that, without aid or help from the white man, and in spite of oppression and injustice, the freedmen have struggled to a point which is low enough indeed, but one which is far above the condition of the slave. "Poor Jamaica!" Her island princes are ruined, her "great houses" are deserted, her immense estates are broken up, her exports are greatly diminished, her warehouses are vacant. The descendants of those who rode through her streets, their

horses shod with silver, walk through the land in poverty. Many of her largest "sugar works" are abandoned, and the busy slave is superseded by the idle vagabond!

But there is another side to the picture. The immense estates are broken up, but little farms are cultivated by freemen; the great houses are abandoned, but the slave barracks, where men and women herded together, have given place to thatched cottages, which husband and wife and children call home. The exports of sugar and coffee grown by rich planters are diminished, but many a little mill worked by hand turns out its hogshead of sugar;-and many a barrel of coffee, with baskets of oranges and bananas, and bags of cocoa gathered by wife and children, find their way to market. The imports for home consumption too are increased. Where once large cargoes of corn meal, the principal food of the slave, were imported, ship loads of salt fish, butter, lard, gay cottons and woollens, and "yankee notions," are eagerly purchased by negro customers. Where, in times of slavery, the Sabbath was the legal market day, and all religious teaching forbidden, now are gathered large congregations, attentive, interested, and well dressed.

We do not deny the laziness and profligacy of the negro, but we believe that other influences may stimulate him to industry and virtue besides the lash and branding iron. We do not deny his propensity to lie and steal, but consider these rather as faults common to our fallen humanity, unchecked by religious teaching, and encouraged by fear and cruelty. Slavery and not emancipation is responsible for the present degraded condition of the negro; while to the negro himself, and the faithful efforts of the missionary, belong the credit of his improvement and his efforts for further advancement.

The ruin of Jamaica has been caused not by the freeing of the slave, but by the efforts on the part of the planter to retain the freedmen in ignorance and servitude, to withhold the rights and privileges of freedom, and the neglect on the part of the government to protect and support the freedmen in their rights. The history of Jamaica plainly teaches that the slaveholder is not a safe custodian of the rights of freedmen.

ARTICLE IV.-UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.

History of the United States Sanitary Commission; being the General Report of its work during the war of the Rebellion. By CHARLES J. STILLE. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1866. 8vo. pp. 553.

In the early period of the war for our national life, before the struggle had reached the crisis of sacrifice and of determination, and we may add before we had been called to the deepest discouragement and the darkest gloom, a timely pamphlet was issued by the author of this volume, entitled "How a free people conduct a long war." It was not only one of the most timely, but also one of the most useful of the mul titude of tracts and essays, discourses, reports, and speeches which the war occasioned. It was instructive, inasmuch as it brought to mind from the researches of a student of history a series of facts not over old indeed, but still not freshly remeinbered, which occurred during the campaigns of England in Spain under Wellington. These facts were altogether fitted to encourage our people under the many reverses which they had not then learned patiently to endure, and to school their patience for those more trying and disastrous calamities which were still in reserve for them. The source from which it came gave it some importance, as it signified that a cultivated scholar, a man also of elegant pursuits and retired leisure, was not indifferent to the stern struggle to which the loyal men of the nation had been compelled to arouse themselves, and that the circles with which he was connected, and others like them, many of which, till then, had seemed to stand aloof from any hearty commitment to the good cause, were beginning to be stirred by the mighty movement which was destined to convulse the whole nation in agony for its life. The elegance and simplicity of the diction, the fullness of the knowledge, the aptness of the illustrations, the coolness and

candor of the reasoning, and the steady courage with which the writer dared to forebode additional reverses, disasters, and disgrace before victories, triumphs, and final glory, elevated this brief essay quite above the rank and place of ordinary political or popular pamphlets. It soon attracted attention, and the modest author was surprised to find himself famous, and to learn that an essay, prepared for a private circle of literary friends, and given to the public at their importunate solicitation, was read with avidity by thoughtful men everywhere, and was stimulating the courage as well as animating the hopes of loyal hearts all over the country. The first pamphlet of Mr. Stillé deserves to be remembered in the history of the war, as well for the excellent and timely service it rendered, as for the example which it furnished for other scholarly men to serve their country with their pens. Among all these writers we may say that, in one sense at least, Mr. Stillé was facile princeps.

Now that the war is finished it has been both his duty and his pleasure to write in another way and at greater length, how a free people can conduct a long war, not merely by the use of the ordinary appliances of struggle and endurance, but by extraordinary measures and arrangements such as were befitting the extraordinary conflict in which they were called to engage. It was befitting that the writer who so early in the conflict employed his pen to inspire the courage and to strengthen the patience of the American people for the struggle to which they were called, should celebrate the triumphs of its close by writing an account of the practical working of the most successful method of mitigating the horrors of war known in history." For this service he was fitted, not alone, nor chiefly for the reasons already suggested, but also by his earnest and active interest in every enterprise that was required for the aid of the government, and most of all by his connection with the Sanitary Commission itself. He was elected a member January 15, 1864, the latest but one of all who belonged to it. The Commission was constituted June 9th, 1861. All that was characteristic in the principles of its organization, and important in the methods of its working, had been devised and tested before he was connected with the association. The days