Though small in its dimensions, little exceeding the Isle of Wight, Barbados has hitherto been considered, and justly, one of the most important of the West Indian Islands. Its position to the windward of all the others; its being the seat of government and head quarters of the troops; the wealth of its inhabitants and their numbers; its comparatively good state of cultivation and productiveness, are some of the principal circumstances which have conduced to its being so highly estimated. Other circumstances might be mentioned as aiding: such as its having been one of the earliest colonized; its never having been conquered by a foreign enemy; and not the least remarkable and worthy of note, its having struggled through all the difficulties it has had to encounter—many of them formidable—displaying a progressive improvement, and promising moreover to afford, if not already affording an example of the triumph of free labour over slave labour, and a vindication of the cause of humanity, even materially viewed. It is not vastness of space be it remembered that gives importance to a country; witness those spots in which we have been, and are so deeply interested, such as Palestine, Attica, and so many others, narrow in their limits, wide in renown—the people inhabiting them, and their deeds having earned them their renown.