it was sent in neutral bottoms to the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, before its capture by Admiral Rodney, and from thence it was exported to England, under the most extravagant expenses and loss to the proprietors.

Other parts of their produce were sent in Dutch vessels, which were engaged for the purpose in England, to Rotterdam; and after the breaking out of the war with the Dutch, the produce of Dominica was sent under imperial colours to Ostend, where the sugar sold from six to eight pounds sterling the hogshead.

These accumulated distresses ended in the absolute ruin of many of the planters, and no less than thirty sugar plantations were in consequence thereof, thrown up and abandoned by the proprietors. At length, however, the day of deliverance arrived; for, in the month of January 1783, Dominica was restored to the government of England. The joy which on this event, animated the bosom, and enlightened the countenance of every man, whom painful experience, under an arbitrary government, had taught to set a right value on the British constitution, may be conceived, but cannot be described. The inhabitants were now restored to the full enjoyment of their former privileges, under a civil establishment, similar to those of the other British colonies in the West Indies, which being hereafter to be described at length, it is unnecessary to enlarge upon in this place, except to ob

serve, that the legislative authority of this island is vested in the commander in chief, a council of twelve gentlemen, and an assembly of nineteen members.* The few observations therefore which follow, concerning its present state and productions, will conclude my account.

Dominica contains 186,436 acres of land; and is divided into ten parishes. The town of Roseau is at present the capital of the island, and is situate in the parish of St. George, being about seven leagues from Prince Rupert's bay. It is on a point of land on the S.W. side of the island which forms two bays, viz. Woodbridge's bay to the north, and Charlotteville bay to the southward.

Roseau is about half a mile in length, from Charlotteville to Roseau river, and mostly two furlongs in breadth, but less in some parts, being of a very irregular figure. It contains not more than five hundred houses, exclusive of the cottages occupied by negroes. Before its capture by the French, it contained upwards of one thousand.

This island is twenty-nine miles in length, and may be reckoned sixteen miles in breadth. It contains many high and rugged mountains, interspersed with fine vallies, and in general they appear to

*The governor's salary, exclusive of his fees of office, is £.1,300 sterling, payable out of the four and a half per cent. duties; whether he has any addition from the colonial assembly I am not informed.

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be fertile. Several of the mountains contain unextinguished volcanoes, which frequently discharge vast quantities of burning sulphur. From these mountains also issue springs of hot water, some of which are supposed to possess great virtue in the case of tropical disorders. In some places the water is said to be hot enough to coagulate an egg.

Dominica is well watered, there being upwards of thirty fine rivers in the island, besides a great number of rivulets. The soil, in most of the interior country, is a light, brown coloured mould, and appears to have been washed from the mountains. Towards the sea-coast and in many of the vallies, it is a deep, black, and rich native earth, and seems well adapted to the cultivation of all the articles of West Indian produce. The under stratum is in some parts a yellow or brick clay, in others a stiff terrace, but the land is in most places very stony.

I am afraid, however, that the quantity of fertile soil bears but a very small proportion to the whole; there not being more than fifty sugar plantations at present in cultivation, and it is computed,

*In the woods of Dominica are innumerable swarms of bees, which lodge in the trees, and produce great quantities of wax and honey, both of which are equal in goodness to any in Europe. It is precisely the same species of bee as in Europe, and must have been transported thither the native bee of the West Indies being a smaller species, unprovided with stings, and very different in its mannere from the European.

that on an average one year with another, those fifty plantations do not produce annually more than three thousand hogsheads of sugar. This is certainly a very small quantity of that article for such an extensive island, or even for the number of su gar plantations at present under cultivation, allowing only one hundred acres of canes to each.

Coffee seems to answer better than sugar, there being somewhat more than two hundred coffee plantations in Dominica, which in favourable years have produced three millions of pounds weight.

A small part of the lands are also applied to the cultivation of cacao, indigo, and ginger; but I believe that most of these articles, as well as of the cotton, which are comprehended in the exports, have hitherto been obtained from the dominions of foreign states in South America, and imported into this island under the free-port law.

The number of white inhabitants, of all descriptions and ages, appears, by the last returns to government, in 1788, to be 1,236; of free negroes, &c. 445; and of slaves 14,967. There are also, from twenty to thirty families of the ancient natives, or Charaibes, properly so called. They are a very quiet inoffensive people, speak a language of their own, and a little French, but none of them. understand English.*

* A late writer gives the following account of these people; "They are of a clear copper colour, have long, sleek black hair: their per

Such is the information which I have collected concerning the civil history and present state of Dominica, for great part of which I am indebted to a late publication by Mr. Atwood.* Nothing now remains but to set forth the particulars and value of its productions, which I shall adopt, as in other cases, from the return of the inspector-general for the year 1787.

sons are short, stout, and well made, but they disfigure their faces by flattening their foreheads in infancy. They live chiefly by fishing in the rivers and the sea, or by fowling in the woods, in both which pursuits they use their bows and arrows with wonderful dexterity. It is said they will kill the smallest bird with an arrow at a great distance, or transfix a fish at a considerable depth in the sea. They display also very great ingenuity in making curious wrought panniers, or baskets of silk grass, or the leaves and bark of trees."

* See the History of the Island of Dominica, by Mr. Thomas Atwood, 1791. Treating of the natural productions of this island, Mr. Atwood gives the following account of an insect, which he calls the vegetable fly. "It is of the appearance and size of a small cockchafer, and buries itself in the ground, where it dies; and from its body springs up a small plant, which resembles a young coffee tree, only that its leaves are smaller. The plant is often overlooked, from the supposition people have of its being no other than a coffee plant; but on examining it properly, the difference is easily distinguished; the head, body, and feet of the insect appearing at the foot, as perfect as when alive." This account is extraordinary, but not more surprising than the Rev. Nicholas Collins's description, in the American Philosophical Transactions, (Introduction to vol. iii. p. 23), of a certain zoophyton in the Ohio country, which, (he declares), is alternately vegetable and animal; for having crawled about the woods in its animal state until it grows weary of that mode of existence, it fixes itself in the ground, and becomes a stately plant, with a stem issuing from its mouth." I give these accounts as I find them, without vouching for the veracity of either.