id the negro, shuddering the bare recollection.

"Now tell me," said Kingston, "of course you recollect being in your own
country?--Which do you like best--that or this?"

"Ashantee very good country--Barbadoes very good country. Ashantee
nebber work, hab no money--here plenty work, plenty money."

"Well, but where would you rather be, here or there?"

"Don't know, sar. Like to find country where no work, plenty money."

"Not singular in his opinion," observed Newton.

"Men do all work here, sar: women only talk," continued the negro. "My
country, men nebber work at all--women do all work, and feed men."

"Then what does the man do?" inquired Berecroft.

"Man, sar," replied the negro proudly, "man go fight--go kill."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, sar, that all."

"So, you then mean to say, that if you could go back to Ashantee now,
you would remain there?"

"Yes, sar, stay there--do no work--sleep all day--make women feed me."

"How inveterate is early habit!" observed Mr Berecroft. "This man,
although free in a civilised country, would return to his idleness and
resume his former ignorance."

"And so would every slave not born in the country. It requires one or
two generations to destroy this savage nature," replied Kingston. "I
believe idleness, like gout, to be an hereditary disease, either in
black or white; I have often observed it in the latter. Now, until man
labours there is no chance of civilisation; and, improved as the race of
Africa have been in these islands, I still think that if manumitted,
they would all starve. In their own country nature is so bountiful that
little or no labour is required for the support of life; but in these
islands the soil, although luxuriant, must be nurtured."

"You do then look forward to their ultimate freedom?" inquired Newton.

"Most assuredly. Already much has been done, and if not persecuted, we
should be able and willing to do much more."

"The public mind in England is certainly much inflamed against you,"
said Berecroft.

"It is; or rather, I should say, the more numerous public composed of
those persons unable to think for themselves, and in consequence, led by
others, styling themselves philanthropists, but appearing to have very
jesuitical ideas with regard to truth. This I have no hesitation in
asserting, that if philanthropy had not been found to have been so very
profitable, it never would have had so many votaries: true philanthropy,
like c