Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

1787.

St. George's, in Grenada, was made a free port

this year.

The Port of Nassau, in New Providence, was declared a free port, for certain articles specified in 27 Geo. III. c.27.

Thirty thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine Negroes were imported into the French part of St. Domingo, this year.

In January, Dr. Coke, with three other itinerant methodist preachers, visited Dominica, and preached in the house of a Mrs. Webley; but they only remained a few days upon the island, and did not leave any missionary behind them.

In 1790, Lord Rodney stated, in his examination before the committee of the House of Commons, that the French, in 1787, paid 200 livres a head premium, for every slave imported into St. Domingo and St. Lucia; and 100 for each imported into Martinico and Guadaloupe.

Elias Bascombe, a white man, and a Negro-boy slave, named Mark, the property of Benjamin Webster, Esq. of Grenada, were, on the 16th of August, out fishing in a canoe, when a heavy squall drove them to sea, without either food or water: they were driven to Jamaica, and nineteen days at sea- during all which time they had only two flying fishes, which jumped into their boat, to subsist upon. They made a sail of their clothes, and the rainwater caught in it was their only drink. The canoe drifted on shore, near Old Harbour-the Negro-boy lying upon his face, and Bascombe resting his head upon the boy, both naked, and both motionless. They were carried to a neighbouring Negro-hut, and recovered.

St. Domingo.-The French court suppressed the council at Cape François, and vested their authority in the one at Port-au-Prince, which was the ordinary place of residence of the captain-general, the intendant, and the other chief officers of the administration. Seats at this council were also given to officers of the army, and men in office of a lower rank than formerly, to augment their number: so that the minister, in the name of the court, met with less contradiction, and governed the colony with less difficulty.

The inhabitants of the northern province, of which the cape was the capital, were exceedingly enraged at this alteration. They were indignant that the most populous, the richest, and the best-cultivated province, which had consequently the most need "d'un tribunal en dernier ressort," should be deprived of it. They were jealous, also,

Colquhoun's British Empire, pp. 357. 373.
Edwards, vol. iii. p. 220.
Coke's West Indies, vol. ii. p. 353. Parliamentary Papers, 1790.
Woodard's Narrative, Lond. 1804, Appendix, No. 9.

that Port-au-Prince should be thus benefited at the expence of the cape, and that the power of the court should be increased in the colony.

A statement of their griefs, signed by 5000 of the inhabitants, was sent to Paris, to the Marquis de Paroi, and M. de Raynaud, to lay before the King.

The intendant took possession of the money arising from a polltax of a dollar a head upon the Negroes, which the parishes imposed upon themselves, to keep the churches in order, and supply the expences of divine worship. It amounted to about 1,500,000 livres annually, and the expenditure was under the controul of the council. The intendant disposed of it in the same manner he did the royal taxes. This seizure augmented the irritation in the north, and many refused to pay the tax. The disobedient were ordered to Port-au-Prince, where one of the wealthiest died: his death was imputed to vexations occasioned by the "chef des finances," and this added fuel to the general animosity.

September the 23d, at Balize, between four and five A.M., a hurricane came on from the N.N.W. About ten, it shifted to the S.W., and blew with increased violence. At the same time the sea rose and prevented the running off of the land floods. The lowlands were overflowed: not a house, hut, or habitation of or habitation of any kind, on either side the Balize, was left standing more than 500 were thrown down. One hundred persons perished: dead carcasses and logs of mahogany were floating about in every direction. Eleven square-rigged vessels, besides smaller ones, were totally lost.

The field Negroes in Cuba were found, by actual enumeration, to amount to 50,000 in number.

Imports of Slaves to British West Indies, from Report of Privy

[blocks in formation]

Soirées Bermudiennes, par F. C., 1802, Bordeaux, pp. 30. 33.

Annual Register, 1788, p. 193.

Brougham's Colonial Policy, book ii. sect. 2. p. 97.

Population of the British West Indian Isles, from Report

Privy Council, 1788.

[blocks in formation]

The number of converted Negro-slaves under the care of the Moravian brethren, at the end of this year, was-in Antigua, 5465; in St. Kitt's, 80; in Barbadoes and Jamaica, about 100; in St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John, about 10,000; in Surinam, about 400 — making, in the whole, 16,045.

In August, Dominica was visited by three gales of wind, on the 3d, 23d, and 29th, which destroyed all the vessels at the island. All the barracks and buildings upon Morne Bruce were blown down and destroyed, and several houses in the town shared the same fate.

May the 1st, the Earl of Dunmore was appointed governor of

the Bahama islands.

In January, the number of Methodists in society, in Antigua, amounted to nearly 2000.

The first Methodist missionaries landed in St. Vincent's on the 9th of January, 1787, and preached in Mr. Claxton's house, the same evening, to a large congregation. The next evening they preached at Mr. Clapham's, about ten miles from Kingston; and here Mr. Clarke, the missionary, was offered the use of a room for his congregation.

The president of the council also gave him leave to preach in the court house on Sundays. Six or seven of the soldiers stationed on the island were Methodists. The Negroes considered the missionaries as men imported for them, and the commencement of the undertaking was considered by the society exceedingly favourable.

The number of slaves imported into the Grenades was 3693.

Edwards, vol. i. p. 495.

Sir W. Young's West India Common-place Book, p. 3.
Annual Register, 1787, pp. 222. 233.
Coke's West Indies, vol. ii. pp. 253, 254, 255. 438.

or Seton remarked, that there were a considerable number egroes in St. Vincent, but the number could not be ascer

th

any

exactness.

l export of the four staple articles of produce of the British nies, from return to order of House of Commons, May 806, for 1787:

154,066 hhds. of sugar,

44,300 punchs. of rum,

33,990 cwt. o coffee, and 9,430,515 pounds of cotton.

a, St. Vincent's, Grenada, and Dominica were the only 1 which coffee was cultivated; and more than one-half of uce of them all came from Dominica.

From the capture of Jamaica, to December, 1787, 676,276 Negroes were imported into that island, of whom 31,181 are said to have died on board ship, after their entry, previous to their being distributed among the planters. Two hundred and forty thousand Negroes were upon the island in December, 1787. Between the latter end of 1780 and the beginning of 1787, 15,000 Negroes are said to have died from famine, or of diseases contracted by scanty and unwholesome diet. The inhabitants blame the interdicting foreign supplies as though, in one of the most fertile countries in the world, an agricultural population could not feed themselves, if allowed so to do.

In January, the first Methodist missionary was established at Basse Terre, St. Christopher's: his name was Hammet.

Barbadoes, to 1787, returned, on yearly average, of sugar crops, 12,211 hhds.

Antigua produced and exported 19,500 hhds. of sugar this year; and Grenada produced 13,500 hhds. of sugar.

Dominica produced 18,149 cwt. of coffee.

The produce of the French colony in St. Domingo freighted, for Europe alone, 470 ships, which contained 112,253 tons, and employed in their navigation 11,220 seamen.

From the report made to the privy council in 1788, it appears, that in 1787, the British West India trade employed 575 ships, carrying 132,025 tons of produce.

And from the returns made by the custom-house to the House of Commons, it appears that Great Britain imported 1,926,791 cwt. of sugar, from which she derived a revenue of £988,513, exclusive of the monies paid for drawback upon the sugars re-exported.

Sir W. Young's Common-place Book, pp. 18, 19, 20, 21. 29, 30. 32, 33. 36. 56. 74. Coke's West Indies, vol. iii. pp. 56. 398.

Report of the Lords of the Committee, 1789, Supplement to No. 15.

« AnteriorContinuar »