A WEST INDIA PARSON.

[From Colgridge's Six Months in the West Indies.]

The church in Roseau is well situated and tolerably finished without, but the interior is in a miserable state. The common pitch pine, white unpainted, has a particularly unpleasant effect in a hot climate; it always oppressed me in a remarkable manner. About a hundred persons, chiefly colored, attended the morning service, they had few books, and apparently came for the purpose of seeing the bishop; certainly with one or two exceptions, they were entirely unacquainted with the ordinary ritual of the established religion. The Church of England indeed does not flourish in Dominica, which, considering the great capacity and spirituous affections of the people, is a matter of some character of surprise. I believe there are 2,000 protestants in this colony, of which number the Methodists form the larger part, about 16,000 are Papists, under the care of three Spanish priests; so that it is consolatory to the sympathies of obese and liquescent men to know that if true religion thrive not in Dominica, at least its minister does, since he is worth his salary, and just so much breathing exercise o' Sundays as may conduce to a good digestion for the rest of the week. Not that I would be thought to impeach the zeal of the rector of Roseau; very far from it; it is too well-known to be questioned, and it argues an unusual degree of apathy or stubbornness in those who are the daily witnesses of it, that its effects are not more perceptible.

Mr. Newman is great and remarkable; but he is not so great and remarkable as his predecessor Mr. Audain. This Mr. Audain was a patriot; few of his cloth like him; he was not content with praying against the enemies of his country—he fought against them also. St. Peter certainly owned a boat, and the authorized translation (Mr. Audain loved literal orthodoxy) intimates a partnership amongst some of the Apostles in a ship. So, Mr. Audain built a schooner, and carried on for many years a system of polemical politics with the disputants of the French school to his own abundant profit and notoriety. It is even yet fresh in the recollections of the inhabitants of Roseau, with how joyful a rapture this holy Dominican once broke off the service on a Sunday, unable to repress the emotions of his triumph on seeing the vessel of his faith sail into the bay with a dismantled bark laden with sugar, rum and other gallic vanities from Martinique.*

It was shortly after this event that the star of Audain began to wax dim. His zeal was equally great, his courage undaunted, but his evil destiny met him at every turn. An acquaintance of mine met him one day in the streets of Bassaterre, in St. Kitts, surrounded by negroes, to whom he was distributing plantains, yams, potatoes and other eatables, and holding private talk with them all by turns. Having caught my friend's eye, he came up to him and said, 'I am going to smuggle all these rascals into St. Eustatius.' He did so in his schooner, but remained himself on shore. A privateer of Nevis captured the smuggler before she could get to her market. Audain became furious, went himself to Nevis, and challenged the owner of the privateer to fight. The challenge was not accepted; and Audain immediately possessed the name of the recusant, as that of a scoundrel, on the court house. He himself for two days kept watch upon the platform with a sword by his side and four pistols stuck in his belt, to see if any one dared to touch the shields.

Audain fired another schooner and cruised in her himself. But fate was too heavy for him, though he struggled against it like a man. On the second day a large vessel was seen to leeward; he ascertained her to be worthy his armed, bore down on her as upon a certain prey. When he came within pistol shot, fourteen masked ports were opened and as many guns pointed at him through them. Audain was obliged to strike in an instant, and, with his carpenter, succeeded in secreting himself under the water casks in the hold of his schooner. The rest of the crew were taken out in the morning, upon further search their asylum was discovered. They were brought upon deck, and the Spaniards were on the point of sawing them by inches, when their captain exclaimed with rapidity, 'Hold all! this man's life is sacred, and the other's too for his sake.' Audain had formerly done the Spaniard great service at St. Thomas's, and it now saved his own and his carpenter's life.

Up to this time Audain, though occasionally and quietly for the above-mentioned, had continued the minister of Rosseau. He was a singularly eloquent preacher in the pathetic and suasory style, and he rarely failed to draw down tears from the cheeks of most of those who heard him. His manners were fine and gentle, and his appearance even venerable. He was hospitable to the rich and gave alms to the poor. But his repeated losses were such as to bear a royal merchant down, and the Dominicians became more scrupulous, and a governor came who knew not Audain. So Audain abdicated the pulpit of Rosseau.

Privateering and smuggling had lulled; so now he commenced honest trader. He went to St. Domingo with a cargo of Corn, sold it well, and lived on the island. But his star grew fainter and fainter. He quarrelled with two black general officers, challenged them both and shot them both severely. Christophe sent for him and told him that, if the men recovered, it was well, but if either of them died, he would hang him on the tamarind tree before his own door. Audain thought the men would die, and escaped from the tamarind tree by night in an open boat.

He now settled in St. Eustatius, put on his black coat again and recommenced clergyman—St. Eustatius is a fine place yet for the soul—his labor has made surprisingly slow advances in it. There were many religious, but no priest, in the island when Audain made his appearance there. He was become liberally minded by misfortune, and he was always actuated by a faith of such immense catholicity that it comprehended within its limits every variation of opinion from the centre of Christianity, as the jelly embraceth the spokes of a wheel. Audain offered to minister to all the sects respectively, which the free traders thankfully accepted. In the morning he celebrated mass in French, in the forenoon read the liturgy of the Church of England, in the afternoon spackened the Dutch service, and in the evening harangued the Methodists.

His star descended proner and proner, though he seemed to be gaining wealth and fame. Audain was a married man, but his wife resided and still resides at Bristol. A Dutch widow, rich, pious and large, cast a widow's eye on Audain; the rigor of creed violetly softened under the afternoon spackeneding of Audain, as Dutch butter melts under the kisses of Titan, and she told Audain that, if Heaven had made her such a man, she would have married twice. The hint was as broad as herself, but Audain liked it the better for its dimensions, and married her on the spot, spackening the service himself.

Audain has fought thirteen duels, and is a good boxer. Once upon a time, he fired twice without hitting; upon which he threw down his pistol on the ground, and said sternly to his second, 'Take care that does not happen again!' suggesting his pistol had not been charged with ball. A delay occurred; he fired again for the third time, upon which Audain went up to his antagonist, squared his body, saying 'Something however, sometimes between, good sir,' knocked him down with a flush hit on the nose.

Audain is now about sixty years of age, and has wholly reformed his manners. He loves his Dutch wife, and says his prayers so loud at night as to disturb his neighbors. His English wife sends him a Christmas box annually. He is a man of infinite talent, and has seen the world. I trust the report is true, that, like Lazarillo de Tormes and Gil Blas, he is writing a life of himself. It would be the most interesting book of this age If he does not, these few lines may happily serve to rescue him from an oblivion which he does not seem to deserve.

* This is like the Cornish vicar. He was preaching one afternoon in a seaside church during a heavy southwest gale, when all on a sudden his audience began to leave, take down their hats, and push towards the door. The vicar, having the advantage of pulpit eminence and long experience, immediately perceived the cause, and, animated with a just indignation at their conduct, ordered them, as they valued their souls' welfare, to remain quiet till the end of the sermon. The good man in his eagerness to restrain them even left the pulpit, and, like Aaron, ran into the midst of the congregation, following and exhorting them, till he reached the porch; when, tucking up his gown under his arm, he shouted out, 'Now, my boys, let us start fair!' and immediately outran them all, as in his days of his heels, to administer Cornish relief to a distressed merchantman.

My friend Mr. Oxley, in Barbadoes, says he was present at a scene in Tortola, where Audain figured in the manner mentioned in the text; probably it happened twice.