In surveying these islands collectively, the circumstance that first presents itself to notice is, the burthen of the four and half per cent. on their exported produce, to which they are all subject equally with Barbadoes, and which, though granted by their own assemblies, was, in most other cases, as well as the Virgin Islands, the price of a constitutional legislature, and a communication of the common privileges of British subjects.

It would without doubt be satisfactory to the reader to be furnished with an account of the produce of this duty, and the particulars of its disposal, but no such information to my knowledge has of late been given to the public. The last return that I am possessed of is dated so long ago as the year 1735. From whence it appears that the whole money collected on this account in twenty-one years (from Christmas 1713 to Christmas 1734) amounted to 326,5291. 3s. 3 d. sterling.

From the nett money paid into the Exchequer the governor-general of these islands receives a salary of 12001. sterling, exclusive of the several sums granted him by the colonial assemblies*, and I believe that salaries are allowed from the same fund to the lieutenant-general, and the several lieutenant-goI have been informed too that the governors of the Bahama and Bermudas islands are likewise paid out of this duty. The balance which remains after these, and

vernors.

some other deductions are made, is wholly at the king's disposal.

But it is impossible not to observe that almost all the islands within this government, as well as Barbadoes, have been for many years past progressively on the decline, and it is therefore probable that the present net produce of this duty is not more than sufficient to defray the several incumbrances with which it is loaded. The negroes indeed have been kept up and even augmented by purchase, because as the lands have become impoverished, they have required a greater expence of labour to make them any way productive; but as the returns have not increased in the same degree, nothing could have saved the planters from ruin, but the advanced price of sugar in the market of Europe.

It appears from authentic accounts laid before parliament, that the import of sugar into Great Britain from all the British West India islands (Jamaica excepted) has decreased in the course of twenty years from 3,762,804 cwt. to 2,563,228 cwt.; the difference in value, at a medium price, cannot be less than 400,000l. sterling, and it will be found to have fallen chiefly on those islands which are subject to the duty in question, to the effect of which, therefore, the deficiency must be chiefly attributed: for being laid not on the land, but on the produce of the land, it operates as a tax on industry, and a

penalty

penalty which falls heaviest on the man who contributes most to augment the wealth, commerce, navigation, and revenues of the mother country. It is considered by the planters as equal to 10 per cent. on the net produce of their estates for ever. Under such a burthen, which, while it oppresses the colonies, yields a profit of no great consideration to the crown, they have been unable to stand a competition with the British planters in the other islands, and have been depressed still more by the rapid growth and extensive opulence of the French colonies in their neighbourhood. Thus a check has been given to the spirit of improvement, and much of that land which, though somewhat impoverished by long cultivation, would still, with the aid of manure, contribute greatly to the general returns, is abandoned, because the produce of the poorest soil is taxed as high as that of the most fertile.

To the loss arising from decrease of produce, accompanied with an increase of contingent expences, must be added the ruinous effects of capture in the late American war. The damages sustained in St. Christopher's alone, by De Grasse's invasion in 1782, from the destruction of negroes and cattle, and the burning of the canes, were estimated at 160,000l. sterling, which sum was made up to the sufferers by a poll-tax on the slaves, of no less than forty shillings. The annual taxes for defraying the current charges of their internal governments, in all the islands, are also exceedingly burthensome; besides parish taxes for the repair of the roads, the maintenance of the

clergy, and the relief of the poor.

But, under all these and the other discouragements which are felt by the proprietors, the wealth which still flows from these little dependencies into the mother country, must fill every reflecting mind with surprise and admiration. An extent of cultivated territory, not equal to one-tenth part of the county of Essex, adding yearly one million and a half to the national income, is a circumstance that demonstrates, beyond all abstract reasoning, the vast importance to Great Britain of having sugar islands of her own. At the same time, it is both amusing and instructive, to consider how little the present returns from these islands are answerable to the hopes and expectations of their first European possessors; or rather it affords an animated illustration of the wisdom of Providence, which frequently renders the follies and weaknesses of man productive of good. The first English adventurers were influenced wholly by the hopes of opening a golden fountain, similar to that which was flowing from Peru and Mexico, to Spain.

The nation was told of countries where the mountains were composed of diamonds, and the cities built wholly of ingots of gold. Such were the dreams of Abot, Frobinsher, and Gilbert; and it is a lamentable display of the power of avarice on the human mind, to behold the sagacious and learned Raleigh bewildered in the same folly! Experience has at length corrected this frenzy, and Europe is now wise enough to acknowledge that gold and silver have only an artificial

and

and relative value; that industry alone is real wealth, and that agriculture and commerce are the great sources of national prosperity.

The produce of these islands, however, though of such value to the mother-country, is raised at an expence to the cultivator, which perhaps is not equalled in any other pursuit, in any country of the globe. It is an expence, too, that is permanent and certain; while the returns are more variable and fluctuating than any other; owing to the calamities to which these countries are exposed, both from the hands of God and man; and it is mournful to add, that the selfish or mistaken policy of man is sometimes more destructive than even the anger of Omnipotence!

At the time that I write this (1791) the humanity of the British nation is tremblingly alive to the real or fictitious distresses of the African labourers in these, and the other islands of the West Indies: and the holders and employers of those people seem to be marked out to the public indignation for proscription and ruin. So strong and universal a sympathy allows no room for the sober exercise of reason, or it would be remembered, that the condition of that unfortunate race must depend greatly on the condition and circumstances of their owners. Oppression towards the principal will be felt with double force by his dependents, and the blow that wounds the master, will exterminate the slave.

The propriety of these remarks

will be seen in subsequent parts of my work, when I come in course to treat of the slave-trade and slavery; and to consider the commercial system of Great Britain towards the West Indian dependencies, of which I have now completed the catalogue. Here, then, I might close the third book of my history; but it has probably occurred to the reader, that I have omitted the two governments of Bahama and Bermudas *, to which indeed it was my intention, when I began my work, to appropriate a distinct chapter. An examination of my materials has induced me to alter my purpose; finding myself possessed of scarce any memorials concerning the civil history of those islands, that are not given in the numerous geographical treatises with which the shelves of the booksellers are loaded. To repeat, therefore, what may be found in books that are always at hand, were to manifest disrespect to the reader, and disregard to myself. Of the present state of the Bahama islands, I need not be ashamed to acknowledge my ignorance, inasmuch as even the lords of the committee of council for the affairs of trade and plantations, were unable to obtain satisfactory information concerning it.

To their lordships inquiries, in 1789, as to the extent of territory in those islands, the quantity of land in cultivation, the number of white inhabitants, productions, and exports, &c. the only answer that could be obtained from the gover

nor

nor was this, "that it was at that time impossible to ascertain any of those particulars." It appears, how ever, from the testimony of other persons, that these islands in general are rocky and barren; that the only article cultivated for exportation is cotton, of which the medium export is fifteen hundred bags of 2 cwt.; that the inhabitants (who in 1773 consisted of two thousand and fifty-two whites, and two thousand two hundred and fortyone blacks) have been of late years considerably augmented by emigrants from North America; but of their present numbers no precise account is given.

Concerning Bermudas governor Brown is more explicit. From his answers to their lordships' queries, it appears, that they contain from twelve to thirteen thousand acres of very poor land, of which nine parts in ten are either uncultivated, or reserved in woods for the supplying of timber for building small ships, sloops, and shallops for sale; this being in truth the principal occupation and employment of the inhabitants, and the vessels which they furnish being built of cedar, are light, buoyant, and unexpensive.

Of the land in cultivation no part was appropriated to any other

purpose than that of raising Indian corn, and esculent roots and vegetables (of which a considerable supply is sent to the West Indian islands) until the year 1785, when the growth of cotton was attempted, Lut with no great success, there not being at present more than two hundred acres applied in this line of culture.

The number of white people of all ages in Bermudas, is five thousand four hundred and sixty-two; of blacks, four thousand nine hundred and nineteen *.

Thus it appears that the lands become less fertile as we recede from the tropics; and were there not, as there certainly is, an unaccountable propensity in the greater part of mankind to under-rate what they have in actual possession, it would require but little effort to convince the public of the vast importance of our West Indian dependencies; of which the progressive growth has now been traced from the first settlement. What remains is to convey that conviction to the English reader. This, then, after taking a cursory survey, for the gratification of curiosity, of the present inhabitants and the system of agriculture, is the chief object of Mr. Edwards in his second volume.

THE