THE Reader is prefented in this work with a collection of facts, fuch as he may conceive to be fupplied by the various experience and the free converfation of an artist, a foldier, a moralift, and a traveller. We may add to thefe characfers that of a lover, for Capt. Stedman has contrived to weave into his Narrative the ftory of his tender affections: nor does the faithful and fair Joanna, if a mulatto complexion will permit us to apply that epithet to a very charming female in other refpects, degrade the dignity, while the confiderably heightens the intereft, of his adventures. As a Morali, we find our author wandering among the plantations of Surinam; obferving the behaviour of the planters towards their flaves and each other; and deducing ufeful reflections from the oecurrences that prefent themselves. As a Soldier, we follow him with difficulty along the tracklefs forefts of the inte rior country, purfuing the revolted negroes with perfevering bravery and ultimate fuccefs, in fpite of the difficulties of cold and hunger, a favage foe, and a peftilential climate.

As an Artift, Capt. Stedman employs every leifure hour of his travels, and every vacant page of his book, in a defeription and delineation of fome curious animal or plant; of fome American fcene, either of perfons or of country, recommended by its beauty of its fingularity.

Mr. Stedman, as a Naturalift, is fometimes deficient in verbal accuracy, which may be readily excused in a writer whose occupations could hardly have afforded him opportunity for scientific precision; but his reprefentations on paper are, for the most part, exact, and uncommonly animated and characteristic.

On the subject of the condition of the negroes who cultivate the plantations of Surinam, one might fuppofe our author, from fome part of his work, to be a candid and inpartial witnefs. If fo, the horrible inttances of cruelty, which he narrates with dreadful minutenefs, would difpofe every real friend to mankind to reprobate, in the most decided manner, both the Slave-trade and its votaries. Some of the examples of favage feverity which he records, he beheld himself; and of thefe the refpect we are difpofed to entertain for his veracity will not permit us to doubt; but feveral cafes he relates from the report of others; and, perhaps, a fecret prejudice against the character of the planters and their agents might incline him to fufpect their guilt, where the proof of its exiflence was incomplete.

We have formed this judgment from obferving the apparent complacency with which Capt. Stedman dilates on every atrocious circumftance employed to aggravate and enhance the fufferings of the miferable negroes. If he has fuppofed that, by thele means, he should augment

the

the intereft of his work, we fear he has made, in this inftance, a wrong conclution. Moft of his readers will probably be at length wearied and difgulted with a picture, too frequently exhibited, of fhocking, inconceivable, and gratuitous barbarity. Why this fyftem of accumulated horrors fhould continue to be in fifted on a wretched race, when, by the acknowledgment of the planters themelves, it is wholly ineffectual as to all the rational purposes of punishment, being derided by the ftoical contempt of the intrepid fufferer, and exciting little folicitude in the minds of his thoughtlefs akciates, it is utelefs to enquire; and what no reasonable perfon would do, or permit, the mind does not willingly beleve can very often take place. The love of the marvellous, too, and the tremendous, is fo prevalent in the human breaft, that we now and then find it encouraging the fentiment, when there is not an adequate object to excite it.

For thefe reafons the reader will perufe the narrative of the fufferings and punithments of the negro flaves at Surinam with fome grains of allowance for pardonable partiality, and a fondness for the wonderful and the uncommon. Juftice, however, calls upon us to declare, that Capt. Stedman fpeaks on the great quef

tion of the Slave-trade with candour and philofophical moderation; and, thinking it wrong and reprehenfible on the whole, is fully aware of the mischiefs that would probably entue from its premature and fudden abolition. On this topic our author is very eloquent and argumentative, though his reafonings do not entirely correfpond with what he delivers in other parts of his book on the fame fubject.

The first Chapters of this work are employed in defcribing our author's voyage to South America, and in relating the hiftory of the colony at Surinam, from the time of its earlieft difcovery by the Spaniards, till its poffeffion by the English in the reign of Charles the Second; by the Dutch toward the end of the fame reign; by the French in the year 1712, who tock the fettlement from the Hollanders with five fhips of war, and fold it to them immediately for 56,6181. Sterling. They have.continued ever fince its undisturbed proprietors. In the fame part there are particular details of the revolts of the negro flaves of the colony at different times. Thefe are a very proper introduction to that portion of Capt. Stedman's work which relates to the expedition undertaken to subdue and dif

perfe them, while he was on the coaft, in which he bore a very confiderable and diftinguished fhare.

He thus defcribes one of the leaders of the rebels, with circumftances not very honourable to European faith.

"Baron, with the greatest number of the rebels, efcaped into the woods, having first found means, however, to cut the throats of ten or twelve of the rangers, who had loft their way in the maith, and whom he feized as they ftuck fast in the swamp; and cutting off the ears, nofe, and lips of one of them, he left him alive, in this condition to return to his friends, with whom, however, the milerable man foon expired.

"This Baron had formerly been the negro flave of a Mr. Dahlbergh, a Swede, who, on account of his abilities, had advanced him to the rank of a favourite, had taught him to read and write, and bred him a mafon. He had also been with his master in Holland, and was promifed his manumiffion on his return to the colony. But Mr. Dahlbergh, breaking his word with regard to his liberty, and felling him to a Jew, Baron obftinately refuted to work, in confequence of which he was publickly flogged under the gallows. This ulage the negre to violently refented, that from that moment he

vowed

revenge against all Europears without exception, fled to the woods, where, putting himself at the head of the rebels, his name became dreadful, and particularly fo to his former master Dahlbergh, as he folemnly fwore that he should never die in peace till he had wafhed his hands in the tyrant's blood."

In the page immediately fucceeding that from which we have extracted the above paffage, another occurs of a very different nature, which is a proper contralt to that which precedes it. As it alto difplays to great advantage our author's talent for defcription, and makes the reader, in fome fort, acquainted with the heroine of the ftory, we fhall here prefent it to him.

"This charming young woman I first faw at the house of a Mr. Demelly, fecretary to the Court of Policy, where I daily breakfasted, and with whofe lady, Joanna, but fifteen years of age, was a very remarkable favourite. Rather taller than the middle fize, fhe was poffeffed of the moft elegant fhape that nature can exhibit, moving her well-formed limbs with more than common gracefulnefs. face was full of native modefty, and the moft diftinguifhed tweetnefs; her eyes, as black as ebony, were large and full of

Her

exm

expreffion befpeaking the goodness of her heart, with cheeks, through which glowed, in fpite of the darknels of her complexion, a beautiful tinge of vermillion, when gazed upon. Her note was perfectly well formed, rather fmall; her lips a little prominent, which, when the fpoke, difcovered two regular rows of teeth, as white as mountain fnow; her hair was a dark brown, inclining to black, forming a beautiful globe of imali ringlets, ornamented with flowers and gold pangles. Round her neck, her arms, and her ancles, he wore gold chains, rings and medals; while a shawl of India muflin, the end of which was negligently thrown over her polifhed houlders, gracefully covered part of her lovely bofom; a petticoat of rich chintz alone completed her apparel. Bareheaded and bare-footed, the fhone with double luftre as the carried in her delicate hand a beaver hat, the crown-trimmed round with filver. The figure and ap. pearance of this charming creature could not but attract my particular attention, as they did indeed that of all who beheld her, and induced me to enquire from Mrs. Demelly, with much furprize, who the was, that appeared to be to much diftinguifhed above all others of her fpecies in the colony.

"She is, Sir," replied this lady, "the daughter of a respectable gentleman, named Kruythoff, who had, befides this girl, four children by a black woman called Cery, the property of a Mr. D. B. on his eftate called Fauconberg, in the upper part of the river Comewina.

"Some few years fince Mr. Kruythoff 'madetheoffer of above one thousand pounds fterling to Mi. D. B. to obtain manumiffion for his offspring, which being inhumanly refuted, it had fuch an effect on his ipirits, that he became frantic, and died in that melancholy itate loon after, leaving in flavery, at the di.cretion of a tyrant, two boys, and three fine girls, of which the one now before us is the eldeft.

"The gold medals, &e. which feem. to iurprize you, are the gifts which her faithful mother, who is a deserving woman towards her children, and of fome confequence amongst her caft, received from her father (whom the ever attended with exemplary ailection) jult before he expired.

:

"Mr. D. B. however met with his juft reward for having fince driven all his beit carpenter negroes to the woods by his injustice and leverity, he was ruined, and

obliged to fly the colony, and leave his eftate and ftock to the difpofal of his creditors, while one of the above unhap py deferters, a famboo (the offspring, that is, of a mulatto and a negro), has, by his induftry, been the protector of Cery and her children. His name is Jolycoeur, and he is now the firft of Baron's captains, whom you may have a chance of meeting in the rebel camp, breathing revenge against the Chriftians.

Mrs. D. B. is ftill in Surinam, being arretted for her husband's debts, till Fauconberg fhall be fold by execution to pay them. This lady now lodges at my house, where the unfortunate Joanna atteras her, whom the treats with peculiar tendernets and diftinction.”

"Having thanked Mrs. Demelly for her account of Joanna, in whofe eye glittered the precious pearl of fympathy, I took my leave, and went to my lodg ing in a state of fadnels and ftupefaction. However trifling, and like the tile of romance,this relation may appear to fome, it is nevertheless a genuine account, and, en that fcore, may not be entirely uninterefting to my readers."

Capt. Stedinan mentions, in a note at the bottom of the page, that, in Surinam, if a mother be in flavery, her offspring are her mafter's property, fhould their father be a prince, unless he obtains them by purchate. We apprehend that this regulation is univerfal wherever flavery is eftablished. The narrative above cited is ornamented by a whole-length reprefentation of Joanna, in which both the lover and the artift have laboured with inimitable fuccefs.

In the Fifth Chapter a circumftance is detailed which fhews that, however harsh the treatment of the flaves may occasionally be at Surinam, yet, on the whole, the planters are not forry to favour them, when it may be done by transferring their hardfhips to others. This proves, we

fhould think, that of wanton cruelty po'cy will, for the most part, prevent the perpetration.

Five or fix failers now were buried every day, belonging to the merchantfhips, whofe lamentable fate I cannot pais by unnoticed, being actually used worfe than the negroes in this icorching climate, where, belides rowing large flat-bottomed barges up and down the river, day and night, for coffee, fugar, &c. and being expoled befides to the burning fun and heavy rains, and ftowing the above commodities in a held as hot as an oven, they are obliged to row every

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