14 NOVEMBER 1931, Page 19

A Hundred Years Ago THE " SPECTATOR," NOVEMBER 12TH, 1831.

TORTOLA.

Letters from this island describe a bloody and horrible plot which had just been discovered among the slaves to murder their masters, burn their houses, slaughter all their children, fire all the estates, and take the grown-up women for wives. It is very for- tunate that all the plots of slaves against their masters in the West Indies are invariably found out before any mischief is done. The present case is not an exception from this universal rule. The letter says, that the wrath of the Negroes was chiefly directed against those masters who had treated them most indulgently. Of course 1