SECTION IV.

MONTSERRAT

Of this little island, neither the extent nor the importance demands a very copious discussion. It was discovered at the same time with St. Christopher's, and derived its name from a supposed resemblance which Columbus perceived in the face of the country to a mountain of the same name near Barcelona.

The name was all that was bestowed upon it by the Spaniards. Like Nevis, it was first planted by a small colony from St. Christopher's, detached in 1632, from the adventurers under Warner. Their separation appears indeed, to have been partly occasioned by local attachments and religious dissentions; which rendered their situation in St. Christopher's uneasy, being chiefly natives of Ireland, of the Romish persuasion. The same causes, however, operated to the augmentation of their numbers; for so many persons of the same country and

religion adventured thither soon after the first settlement, as to create a white population which it has ever since possessed; if it be true, as asserted by Oldmixon, that at the end of sixteen years, there were in the island upwards of one thousand white families, constituting a militia of three hundred and sixty effective men.

The civil history of this little island contains nothing very remarkable. It was invaded by a French force in 1712, and suffered so much from the depredations of that armament, that an article was inserted in the treaty of Utrecht for appointing commissioners to inquire into the damages; which, however, were not made good to the sufferers. It was again invaded, and with most of the other islands captured by the French, in the late war, and restored with the rest.

Nothing therefore remains, but to furnish the reader with an account of its present state in respect of cultivation, productions, and exports.

Montserrat is about three leagues in length, and as many in breadth, and is supposed to contain about thirty thousand acres of land, of which almost twothirds are very mountainous, or very barren. The land in cultivation is appropriated nearly as follows. .In sugar, six thousand acres: In cotton, provisions, and pasturage, two thousand each. None other of the tropical staples are raised. Its average crop from 1784 to 1788, were 2,737 hogsheads of sugar

of sixteen hundred weight, 1,107 puncheons of rum, and 275 bales of cotton. The exports of 1787, and their value at the London market, will be seen in a table annexed to this chapter. They are produced by the labour of one thousand three hundred whites, and about ten thousand negroes.

The government is administered in this, as in the other islands, by a legislature of its own, under the captain general. The council consists of six members, and the assembly of eight, two from each of the four districts into which it is divided; and the proportion which Montserrat contributes to the salary of the captain general is £.400 per

annum.

SECTION V.

VIRGIN ISLANDS.

Of the Virgin Islands I have so few particulars to communicate, that I fear the reader will accuse me of inattention or idleness in my researches. I have, however, solicited information of those who I thought were most likely to afford it; but if my inquiries were not slighted, my expectations were not gratified. Even in a late historical account by Mr. Suckling, the chief justice of these islands, I find but little of which I can avail myself. It furnishes no particulars concerning their extent, their cultivation, or their commerce. It is silent as to the number of their present English inhabitants. The author is even misinformed as to the origin of their present name; for he supposes that it was bestowed upon them in 1580, by Sir Francis Drake, in honour of queen Elizabeth; but the fact is, that these islands were named Las Virgines by Columbus himself, who discovered them in 1493, and gave them this appellation, in allusion to the wellknown legend in the Romish ritual of the 11,000 virgins.

The Spaniards of those days, however, thought them unworthy of further notice. A century after