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BARBADOS. the quay, on the mole, on boats, on posts, on house-tops, through doors and windows, wherever a human foot could stand, was one appalling mass of black faces. As the barge passed slowly along, the emotions of the multitude were absolutely tremendous; they threw up their arms and waved their handkerchiefs, they danced, and jumped, and rolled on the ground, they sang, and screamed, and shouted, and roared, till the whole surface of the place seemed to be one huge grin of delight. Then they broke out into a thousand wild exclamations of joy and passionate congratulations, uttered with such vehemence that, new as it was then to me, it made me tremble, and gave me a deep sense of the nervous irritability and violent feelings of a people with whom I was becoming for the first time acquainted. Barbados is the most ancient colony in the British empire. It has never changed hands, and been invaded once only by the forces of the Long Parliament*. It was the asylum * Sir George Ascue appeared off Bridge Town on the 16th October, 1651, and seized a few ships in Carlisle B a y ; but Francis Lord Willoughby, the governor, presented such a determined front, that, the parliamentary leader could effect no landing till the January following, when he carried the fort at Speight's after a severe struggle. On the 16th of the same month an easy and honorable capitulation took place, and Lord Willoughby went to Europe. In 1664 De Ruyter attacked the forts in Carlisle Bay, but met with such a reception, that he prudently sheered off to leeward.