century a
little paradise, containing 4000 white citizens, who had dwindled
down in 1805, under the baneful influences of slavery, to 1300; in
1832 (the period of emancipation) to 500; and in 1854 to only 170.
{27a} A happy place, however, it is said still to be, with a
population of more than 10,000, who, as there is happily no Crown
land in the island, cannot squat, and so return to their original
savagery; but are well-ordered and peaceable, industrious, and well-
taught, and need, it is said, not only no soldiers, but no police.

One spot on the little island we should have liked much to have
seen: the house where Nelson, after his marriage with Mrs. Nisbet,
a lady of Nevis, dwelt awhile in peace and purity. Happier for him,
perhaps, though not for England, had he never left that quiet nest.

And now, on the leeward bow, another gray mountain island rose; and
on the windward another, lower and longer. The former was
Montserrat, which I should have gladly visited, as I had been
invited to do. For little Montserrat is just now the scene of a
very hopeful and important experiment. {27b} The Messrs. Sturge
have established there a large plantation of limes, and a
manufactory of lime-juice, which promises to be able to supply, in
good time, vast quantities of that most useful of all sea-medicines.

Their connection with the Society of Friends, and indeed the very
name of Sturge, is a guarantee that such a work will be carried on
for the benefit, not merely of the capitalists, but of the coloured
people who are employed. Already, I am assured, a marked
improvement has taken place among them; and I, for one, heartily bid
God-speed to the enterprise: to any enterprise, indeed, which tends
to divert labour and capital from that exclusive sugar-growing which
has been most injurious, I verily believe the bane, of the West
Indies. On that subject I may have to say more in a future chapter.
I ask the reader, meanwhile, to follow, as the ship's head goes
round to windward toward Antigua.

Antigua is lower, longer, and flatter than the other islands. It
carries no central peak: but its wildness of ragged uplands forms,
it is said, a natural fortress, which ought to be impregnable; and
its loyal and industrious people boast that, were every other West
Indian island lost, the English might make a stand in Antigua long
enough to enable them to reconquer the whole. I should have feared