y hands for so many years that they were
like old and faithful friends, and of which many had been given me at
different times by the persons in the world whom I most value.

"But against all this I have to set the preservation of our lives, in
a way the most awfully providential; and the safety of every one on the
Estate. And I have also the great satisfaction of reflecting that all
the Negroes from whom any assistance could reasonably be expected,
behaved like so many Heroes of Antiquity; risking their lives and limbs
for us and our property, while their own poor houses were flying like
chaff before the hurricane. There are few White people here who can
say as much for their Black dependents; and the force and value of the
relation between Master and Slave has been tried by the late calamity on
a large scale.

"Great part of both sides of this Island has been laid completely
waste. The beautiful wide and fertile Plain called the Charib Country,
extending for many miles to the north of Colonarie, and formerly
containing the finest sets of works and best dwelling-houses in the
Island, is, I am told, completely desolate: on several estates not a
roof even of a Negro hut standing. In the embarrassed circumstances of
many of the proprietors, the ruin is, I fear, irreparable.--At Colonarie
the damage is serious, but by no means desperate. The crop is perhaps
injured ten or fifteen per cent. The roofs of several large buildings
are destroyed, but these we are already supplying; and the injuries done
to the cottages of the Negroes are, by this time, nearly if not quite
remedied.

"Indeed, all that has been suffered in St. Vincent appears nothing
when compared with the appalling loss of property and of human lives at
Barbadoes. There the Town is little but a heap of ruins, and the corpses
are reckoned by thousands; while throughout the Island there are not, I
believe, ten estates on which the buildings are standing. The Elliotts,
from whom we have heard, are living with all their family in a tent; and
may think themselves wonderfully saved, when whole families round them
were crushed at once beneath their houses. Hugh Barton, the only officer
of the Garrison hurt, has broken his arm, and we know nothing of his
prospects of recovery. The more horrible misfortune of Barbadoes is
partly to be accounted for by the fact of the hurricane having begun
there during the night. The flatness of the surface in that Island
presented no