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[Page 5]
I cannot close this letter without adverting to Mr Jacksons late eloquent speech upon West Indian affairs in Parliament, as it appears to be very greatly misinformed on some of ye most essential points He says that no respectable white inhabitant of this island visits old Huggins or any of his family. Now when Mr. Elliot visited this island on his first arrival in the West Indies to take possession of his Government, & not long after the Flogging scene in Charlestown - He preferred the society of these very people, & dined with them, which he refused every other invitation, & he was invited by all the respectable inhabitants of the island: this is a fact with which Mr Jackson seems wholly unacquainted. A few months since a Negro's skeleton found under very suspicious circumstances in a piece of canes belonging to Old Mr Edward Huggins, of cart whip's renown, & so I am credibly informed at no great distance from his dwelling house at Golden Lock, in the Parish of Gingerland: some clothes found near the skeleton, & recognized by the Negroes of the estate were hastily removed, & I believe destroyed, & a Coroners inquest taken, without a single medical gentleman having been summoned or attending. The Coroner was an Overseer upon Nisbits estate where he had been placed by Old Huggins, and has not yet been confirmed in his appointment by the Governor, nor, as far as I can learn, taken the requisite oaths; & the Jury consisted among others of a Mr & Mrs Huggins, a relative of the Family, not distinguished for sobriety & of whom the records of the island inform me that he was some years ago indicted for murder, & the verdict of the jury, that he was in capable even of subscribing his own name - Thus this business has been hushed up, & without any further investigation being deemed necessary, Old Huggins was elected a member of Assembly for the parish of St.Jame's, Windward, which his two sons Edward, & Peter Thomas, the first one of the Magistrates dismissed by order of the Prince Regent for assisting & countenancing the flogging - & the other the chief