at Koniah, than of the brutal intolerance of lefs fanatical Mahometans from Conftantinople to Aleppo. Having refided for fome time at Aleppo, Dr Griffiths was determined by a friend, an Englishman, to accompany him to Bufforah. A journey across the Defert at midfummer was, indeed, an arduous undertaking. Our traveller and his friend were not to be dismayed; but it does feem extraordinary that they should have taken with them the daughter of the latter, a child of feven years of age. Of the dangers, the difficulties, and the fufferings of thefe travellers, we have not room to give much account. Mr H., the companion of Dr Griffiths, died on the journey. The following defcription of this event is affecting, and would have been more fo, if our author had been lefs ambitious of writing in a pretty ftyle. At two o'clock P. M. the Simooleh blew stronger than usual from the S. E.; and on joining the Mohaffah, I foon obferved an afflicting change had taken place in the countenance of my friend. It was now that, in aggravation of all my fufferings, I forefaw the impoffibility of his long refifting the violently burning blafts which, with little intermiffion, continued to affail us. The thermometer hanging round my neck was up to 116; and the little remaining water, which was in a leathern bottle, fufpended at the corner of the Mohaffah, had become fo thick, refembling the refiduum of an ink-ftand, that, parched and thirsty as I felt, I could not relieve my distress by any attempt to swallow it. At length, I perceived evident marks of our approaching the longlooked for wells, where fome relief was to be expected. The hafty march of the leading camels and ftragglers, all verging towards one point, convinced me we were not far from the place of our deftination. Willing to communicate the glad tidings to my friend, I rode to him, and expreffed my hope that he would be foon refreshed by a supply of water. He replied, Thank God! but I am almost dead." I endeavoured to cheer his fpirits; and then urging my horfe, advanced to the spot where I obferved the camels were collecting together. In about half an hour, I found myself amongst a circle of animals greedily contending for a draught of muddy water, confined in a small fuperficial well about five feet in diameter. Preffing to the edge, I laid myfelf upon my belly, and by means of my hand fupplied myfelf with a fluid, which, however filthy in itself, and contaminated by the difgufting mouths of as many camels and men as could reach it, was a fource of indefcribable gratification. It is wholly out of the power of language to convey any idea of the blissful enjoyment of obtaining water after an almoft total want of it during eight-and-forty hours, in the scorching regions of an Arabian defert in the month of July! But this moment of gratification was foon fucceeded by one of peculiar horror and anxiety. Scarcely had I quenched my thirft before the Mohaffah arrived. I flew with a bowl full of water to my friend, who drank but little of it, and in great hafte. Alas! it was his laft draught! His His lovely child, too, eagerly moiftened her mouth of roses, bliftered by the noxious blaft! : Ι With difficulty Joannes and myself fupported my feeble friend to where the tent had been thrown down from the camel's back. He ftammered out a queftion refpecting the time of the day; to which I anfwered it was near four and requefting the Arabs to hold over him part of the tent (to pitch it required too much time), I unpacked as speedily as poffible our liquor-cheft, and haftened to offer him fome Vifnee (a kind of cherry brandy): but nature was too much exhaufted! I fat down, and receiving him in my arms, repeated my endeavours to engage him to swallow a small portion of the liqueur. All human efforts were vain! Guft after guft of peftilential air dried up the fprings of life, and he breathed his laft upon my bofom.' p. 376—8. Dr Griffiths concludes this volume, by informing his readers of his safe arrival at Bombay from Bassorah, though he does not favour us with the particulars of his voyage. We should be unwilling to pass a severe sentence on his innocent quarto. When a man has travelled half the world over,' it would be hard to discourage him from telling the story of his adventures, especially if he should be so polite as to attack no prejudices within a thousand miles of those to whom he addresses himself. This precaution taken, why should not a traveller tell how he dined on the plain of Troy; how he ate piloh at Durgoot, kebaubs at Ereklee, and a comfortable supper at a Turkish village, where he expected nothing but jaourt and pekmez? All this is certainly very interesting; and yet, as there may be too much of a good thing, we shall, easily excuse Dr Griffiths, if in his next volume he should not be quite so exact in informing us of the contents of his bills of fare. He might, we think, leave his readers to suppose that a traveller must eat and drink; and, after having heard so much about it, they will not doubt that Dr Griffiths always ate and drank as well as he could. With respect to the apparent plagiarisms of our author we shall say nothing, but leave the question to be settled between him and Messrs Eton and D'Ohgson. Upon the whole, we are inclined to part with our traveller in good humour. His volume, we think, will be found more edifying than most novels ; not so dull as most romances; and better worth buying than many books that are more loudly praised by more indulgent reviewers. ART. III. An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti; comprehending a View of the Principal Transactions in the Revolution of Saint Domingo, with its Ancient and Modern State. By Marcus Rainsford, Esq. late Captain Third West India Regiment, &c. &c. 4to. pp. 501. London, Cundle & Chapple. 1805. SINCE INCE the commencement of our Journal, we have made it a rule to pay especial attention to those discussions of colonial subjects, which interest England more than any other country, and which are daily acquiring new importance from the unhappy changes that have taken place in the balance of power, on both sides of the Atlantic. Among these questions, the topics connected with the slave trade, and, in general, with the condition of the race which forms the bulk of our colonial population, have naturally claimed the principal share in our notice; and we trust that our exertions have not been without some little effect in putting that momentous argument upon its right grounds; removed, on the one hand, from the perilous doctrines of negro liberty, which have desolated the colonies of France, and, on the other, from the lamentable error of the maxims still clung to by the legislature of our own country, with the same obvious and fatal tendency. It may be useful here to connect these scattered discussions, by a general reference to the articles under which they are to be found. In examining the able tract called the Crisis of the Sugar Colonies,' we took occasion to state those general views of the consequences of the colonial revolution, which had been suggested by the preceding events, and were countenanced by the existing circumstances of the West Indian community. Unhappily, the commencement of hostilities between the two great colonial powers, prevented the fulfilment of the expectations then entertained, and gave rise among many other evils in both hemispheres, to the undisputed· establishment of that formidable neighbour, whose present aspect we are now enabled more nearly to contemplate. The publication of Mr Dallas's History of the Maroons,' afforded an opportunity of discussing some subordinate questions connected with West Indian affairs, particularly the conduct of our government, and of the colonial legislatures, in the prosecution of the Maroon war. In the Voyage à la Louisiane' of Baudry de Lozieres, we met with some striking illustrations of the state of opinions in France, relative to colonial subjects. Mr Barrow's second volume upon the Cape, furnished some important additions to the mass of well-authenticated facts by which the advocates of abolition have established the fundamental position, that the bar barism barism of Africa is inseparably connected with the slave trade and M'Kinnon's Tour added several powerful documents to the evidence obtained from the enemies of the abolition, regarding various topics in the West Indian branch of the argument. When the discussion of the subject in Parliament gave rise to the Concise Statement of the Question,' we entered with some fulness into the various branches of the argument, and more especially into the topics which have been added to the cause by the revolution of late years. A Defence of the Slave Trade' having, upon the same occasion, been published by its friends, as a declaration of their grounds of proceeding, it appeared to merit attention, and we accordingly examined it at great length, and presented our readers with a detailed exposition of the whole question. The French treatise, entitled, Examen de l'Esclavage, gave us an opportunity of demonstrating the total change which opinions in France had undergone upon this great subject, and of adducing much new evidence from the confessions of our adversaries, against the system. And in noticing the tract lately published upon the Barbadoes correspondence, under the name of Horrors of Negro Slavery, we briefly explained the mighty confirmations deducible from those authentic documents to all the main doctrines of the abolitionists. By referring to these different articles, our readers will find the whole statement of this important subject, as it at present stands; and we purpose, for the future, only to take up such points in the controversy as may be presented in new lights, or to notice the additional information which shall from time to time be brought to view by the labours of succeeding authors. The work now before us contains somewhat deserving of this name, and relating to the branch of the subject in our eyes the most interesting of all, viz. the relation between the question of abolition, and the actual state of foreign affairs in the West Indies. Mr Rainsford has compiled this volume, by putting together large extracts, and ill-made abridgements of the most popular and accessible works upon the West Indies. This coalition he has effected without any great skill or ingenuity; and if we except the varieties of a style, which has no pretensions to either elegance or perspicuity, and but few claims to the praise of grammar, there is in nine tenths of the work no more of the nominal author, than of Bryan Edwards or the Abbé Raynal. The small portion which remains, consists of the information collect-ed by Mr Rainsford during a short residence on the island; and we only marvel how a person of ordinary capacity, with merely. eyes and memory, should have had such opportunities as he poscessed, and made so little of them. This little is certainly in teresting, and must form the subject of the present article, after we have stopped to sketch very generally the materials of the other chapters. The work begins with a long history of Columbus's transactions in St Domingo and elsewhere, subsequent to his discovery of that island. All this is taken from Dr Robertson and the Abbé Raynal; taken without any selection, and patched together with no sort of skill. An attempt to bring down the history of the colony to the period of the revolution, is then made; and here, Raynal is reinforced by Bryan Edwards, whose Historical Sketch of St Domingo' furnishes the whole view given by our author, of the situation of the island in 1789, unless in so far as he has added a few of the contradictory statements of M. de Charmilly, published in his Lettre à M. Bryan Edwards.' From the same sources he draws the whole of his narrative of the revolution, and of the war carried on in the colony; inserting in his text, not only the text of Mr Edwards, but several of the original papers given in his appendix, omitting some of that author's most interesting statements, correcting none of the mistakes and wilful errors into which he has been convicted of falling, and obscuring the whole by an arrangement and style, in comparison of which, the clumsy method and tawdry composition of Edwards, may be fairly said to rise towards perfection. In this manner are manufactured the first 212 pages of Mr Rainsford's book; and here Bryan Edwards leaves him to himself; so that the remainder of the narrative (with the exception of the materials furnished by his own residence on the island) is taken from the English newspapers during the last war which the French government carried on against the Blacks. Many of his documents, that is, of the letters and other official papers published in the journals of the day, are inserted in the text: the rest, together with the letter of Gregoire, the confession of Ogé, and other papers in Edwards's notes; an extract from a pamphlet by the author, in which he quotes a great part of the Marseilloise Hymn; a communication by a learned friend,' who propounds the scheme of draughting off the overgrown population of London to cultivate the West Indies; a fac-simile of Toussaint's handwriting; and a bit of a sentimental journey by a chaplain in the navy, form altogether an appendix of some hundred and odd pages. And this is the History of St Domingo,' by Captain Rainsford; and this is the true way to expand a narrative of thirty or forty pages, into several pounds weight of letterpress. It is necessary that we preface the abstract which we intend to exhibit of the original information contained in Mr Rainsford's narrative, |