sure for ameliorating the situation of the West India Islands may prove successful, by introducing amongst them the cultivation of the seeds and plants of the East Indies. This, by increasing their means of subsistence, would add to their comfort and happiness. The industry of those islands has hitherto been directed almost exclusively to objects of luxury; but undoubtedly, many fruits and vegetables might also be abundantly cultivated. If from the nature of their population, or any other cause, they should not yield such an ample produce of corn, as the fertile and extensive fields of India, yet they may be able to furnish a supply sufficient for their own support.

The cocoa-nut tree, he observes, which is produced spontaneously in all our West India Islands, and which there, is rarely applied at present to any purpose of utility, might be converted into a valuable article of commerce. In the East Indies, where this tree is cultivated with great labor and expense, it is the source of an extensive and profitable trade. It has lately been suggested, to import the oil of the cocoa-nut into this country, where it might be used for all the purposes of burning; likewise in some of our manufactures. The coir rope, made from the fibres of the husk, would also serve every domestic purpose of our islands.

Colonel Walker adds, that all tropical countries bear a certain resemblance to each other in soil and climate; it is therefore presumable, that whatever grows in the East Indies, would succeed in the West. Accordingly, such plants as have already been transported from the former to the latter, have soon naturalised themselves, and many vegetable productions are indigenous in both countries. The effect of particular articles can only be known by experiments; but from analogy, and the trials that have been made, there is every reason to hope, if due pains were taken, that many useful articles of culture, might be introduced from the East Indies into our West Indian Colonies.

NO. VIII.

On the means of promoting the prosperity of our West Indian Colonies.

ABOUT a month ago, (on the 6th of December, 1814,) I addressed a letter to the planters, merchants, and others interested in the improvement and prosperity of our West Indian Colonies, suggesting some hints which I had reason to believe would be of considerable advantage to those Colonies. I circulated some copies of that paper, with a view of procuring the observations of several intelligent in

dividuals, who had a personal knowledge of those remote but valuable appendages to the British empire. My expectatious of deriving from them important additional information have not been disappointed. The number of answers, compared to those of papers circulated, has been considerable. The result of the inquiry is, that the means of promoting the prosperity of our West India Colonies, are; 1. To increase their productive population; and, 2. To augment the food grown, so as to render them more independent of foreign supply than is the case at present.

1. Increased Population.

The most fertile territory is of little value, unless it has hands to cultivate it. To procure the necessary number of laborers for our West India colonies, where the population was scanty, it had been the practice to purchase negroes on the coast of Africa, and to bring them as slaves to be sold in the colonies. This traffic was in the highest degree inhuman and barbarous, and the horrors attending it have induced the British legislature entirely to prohibit it under the severest penalties. It was expected that the planters would be compelled, in order to preserve the population on their estates, to take such care of their negroes, as to keep up at least their former numbers. It is reported to me that in some estates, favorably situated, an increase at the rate of from two and a half to three per cent. has taken place. That is the case on one estate, in a mountainous district, where there is pure air, and abundance of water, so favorable to the cleanliness of the young in particular; but where the water can only be procured from deep wells, and by means of great manual labor, the negroes will not be at the trouble of procuring it in sufficient quantities. Wherever there is also stagnant water, rendering the atmosphere cold and damp, there a great mortality prevails among " the Children of the Sun," as they are called, who are never so happy as when exposed to the most violent heat of that luminary. The annual decrease, in such cases, is estimated at above two per cent.

I had imagined that the labors of the negroes might be greatly facilitated by the use of machinery. But their prejudices against the adoption of such aid will not easily be surmounted. A correspondent informs me, that he introduced wheel-barrows on his estate; but they were soon broken to pieces, the negroes insisting on carrying the dung, water, &c. on their heads, conceiving the use of a wheel-barrow was a species of degradation.

Two resources, however, still remain. 1. To prevent the most fatal disorders to which the negroes are now liable; and, 2. To introduce a new description of laborers into those countries.

1. The numbers of grown up negroes, but still more of infants

who perish from the locked jaw, are immense. The loss has rather diminished in some districts, but has never been materially lessened. It is beyond a doubt, however, that this dreadful malady may be cured by the use of electricity. The spasms which occasion it, may thus be removed, and the parts are thus enabled to perform their proper functions. This simple but efficacious remedy, is to be tried at St. Croix, by its intelligent governor, General Oxholm, on his estates in that island.

There are other disorders to which negroes are subjected, as the horrid disease called the yaws, for which improved modes of treatment have been suggested; but that is the province of the physician to discuss.

As a means of augmenting the population of our West India Colonies, I now beg leave to suggest a plan which seems to me the most expedient of any hitherto suggested.

In the former paper I mentioned, that in Guzerat a species of grain is cultivated called badgeree, which grows without irrigation, and is the great article of food with the more numerous inhabitants of that country. Its success in the West Indies, where the soil and climate are nearly similar, cannot be doubted. Transport, therefore, not only the grain, but the people who raise, and who consume it. Let them be free West India laborers, and you at once put an end to the distresses of the Colonies. They will thus obtain surplus food and surplus labor, and the decrease to the black population, will no longer be materially fatal to the interests of the planters.

To any new plan, objections will of course be started; but to this proposal they are of little moment. The numbers who live upon badgeree, and other grains of a similar description, are so great, and multiply so fast, that there will be no difficulty in procuring as many laborers as can be required in the West Indies, They bring their own favorite sorts of food with them, and consequently will not feel a change of residence, in the same manner as if they were compelled in that respect to alter their usual habits. The raising their food would require but little labor, and consequently they would have much spare time to be employed in the service of the planters. They would introduce some useful practices from their own country, in regard to the preservation of health, and the uses of various trees and plants, as the Cocoa tree, &c. They are more docile than the negroes, and would sooner adopt European improvements: and as they are accustomed to receive wages in their own country, at the rate of only two-pence halfpenny a day, they would consequently raise West Indian productions cheaper than by the labor of slaves.

2. Increased Food.

On this subject I find strong prejudices entertained, against the employment of West Indian Estates, for any other purposes but producing the most valuable articles. A single observation however, from a most respectable correspondent, refutes such doctrines. He states, "The planters of Barbadoes wisely devote a larger proportion of the soil to the raising of provisions than any of the other islands; and consequently, although they remit less to the united kingdoms, than their neighbors, in proportion to their plantations, yet they incur fewer expenses, buying little more of food for their cultivators, than a small weekly proportion of fish from British America."

Others maintain, that ground provisions ought alone to be cultivated in those countries: but this is a hazardous mistake, as appears from the following important extract of a communication on that subject. "Your hints to West India planters merit the most serious attention from that class of people, and if acted upon, will be found productive of much good, to the Islands in particular. In the Colonies of Demerara, &c. they have great variety of provisions, such as plantains, yams, bread-fruit, &c. Their ground is too valuable, and labor too expensive, to raise wheat, as an article of negro food; they don't like it, unless when baked into bread, and this, on plantations, they have not the means of doing. I remember one year that the ground provisions in Demerara failed, and that consequently American flour, of the best quality, was served out to the negroes on the different estates in lieu of plantains, &c. They used it in various ways excepting as bread. The consequence, however, was, a most alarming mortality among them that year. Dysentery carried off many hundreds of them, and the use of flour was supposed to be the cause of it. I think it was the year 1802, or 1803."

Hence it is evident, that ground provisions cannot be entirely depended on, and that some species of grain ought to be cultivated, of which the badgeree is likely to be the most beneficial, from the rapidity of its growth, for if sown in July or August, it will be reaped in September or October, and its wholesomeness is unquestionable.

On the whole, if these ideas are taken up by the West India planters, with that energy that belongs to their character, they may depend on a change of a most favorable nature in their future prospects. In the words of an intelligent friend," there is no calculation of the general good that would result from an interchange in the improvements of cultivation in our East and West India dominions; and after the wars and desolations which have for so many

years produced the distresses of mankind, to what wiser or more useful attentions can our exertions now be turned, than to those of agriculture ?"

4, Edgware Road, London, 10th January, 1815.

JOHN SINCLAIR.

POSTSCRIPT.

N. B. In a communication from one of the most respectable planters in Jamaica, he observes, “That the tastes and prejudices of the negroes cannot be controlled or directed." Hence, however, arises the necessity of introducing a new race of people into those islands, who, possessing milder dispositions, will not be so stubborn. It is likewise a very different case, being compelled to take a new species of food, and seeing others in the same rank in life, living upon that article. If it appears in their case to be nourishing and wholesome, a taste for it may be gradually acquired.

I am glad to find that my correspondent is sending out ploughs and other agricultural implements with confident hopes of ultimate success. For merely stirring the ground, preparatory to the hoes, perhaps "The Grubber," as lately improved in East Lothian, would be of more use than even the plough, unless the ground must be stirred to the depth of from six to eight inches.

There certainly will be some difficulty at first, in the introduction of new grains, and new instruments of husbandry. But rouse a general spirit for improvement, and these difficulties vanish. New modes become fashionable; an emulation is excited who shall succeed best in the new system;-the narrowest minds become expanded; and improvements proceed, in some cases with a rapidity as if they were carried on by magic. Such would be the case in the West Indies in particular, where the planters are distinguished by active and energetic minds.