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MR. GILBERT.
became themselves the mistresses of white men, or, in the West Indian term, housekeepers, while the males were content to drag on their existence much in the same way as a tolerated spaniel, which at one moment is noticed by a gracious nod, and allowed to lick the feet of its master, while at the next it is kicked out of the apartment, or spurned from the pathway. As time wore on, and knowledge slowly progressed, the fathers of these poor children were led to send them to some place of instruction, where, besides acquiring the mere rudiments of reading and writing, they became grounded in plain, but solid learning. Having thus passed through the early stages of life, the males followed mercantile or agricultural pursuits ; and as, perhaps, wealth poured in upon them, and they felt in their own bosoms their superiority to many of the white inhabitants, their eyes became more and more opened, and they more and more felt their degraded state. They were debarred from holding any office of trust— were not allowed to act as jurors—and were prevented from serving in the militia, until the year 1793, when, as a great concession, or else because the “ great folks" thought it for the public good, they were allowed to serve as pioneers, or drag the heavy artillery. The very churchyard was denied them, and their mortal remains were deposited by the roadside, where only the suicide or the murderer found a grave ; while, should a white man be seen to take one of them, even the most respectable among the class, by the hand, in the way of social intimacy, that white man would be scouted from all ranks of society for his indecorous behaviour. In 1798, Mr. Gilbert, (a relation to the Mr. Gilbert, the founder of Methodism in Antigua,) for many years the superintendent of his majesty's dockyard at English Harbour, was united in the bands of wedlock to a highly respectable and accomplished coloured lady of Antigua. The iniquity} of this action, as they deemed it, was resented by his
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