me.

two years in the colonies, has rendered familiar to This chapter has been so carefully compiled as not to be uninteresting to any modern colonies. Lastly, I examine the causes why cultivation is on the decline in Terra Firma, and I point out the means of restoring to it that activity which it has lately lost.

Territorial productions necessarily attract com. merce; this chapter therefore, is naturally inserted after that on cultivation. The commercial system which Spain follows in respect to her colonies, has forced me to recite the alterations which it has undergone, and it obliges me to say, in honour of Spain, that this system vicious in its origin, has been gradually re formed in the manner that is most conformable to the interests of a mother country, which cannot avoid supplying her colonies with foreign manufac

tures.

Her imports, apparently exorbitant, are however, found upon reflection to be neither the off. spring of accident nor of ignorance, but the neces sary consequence of the fundamental error of the system. And it is now thirty years since their fiscal laws have been smoothed of all their roughness, and that all the sacrifices have been made in favour of commerce, which could be reasonably expected.

Independent of its connections with the mother country, the eastern part of Terra Firma, enjoys with the other Spanish possessions in America, a very advantageous and reciprocal trade; among these are Porto-Rico, Cuba, Vera-Cruz, Carthagena, and St. Martha.

The laws permit the exportation to the different colonies near the Gulf of Mexico, the surplus of

their live stock, hides, skins, drugs, and even other articles as well as cacao, with the leave of the intendant, which he readily grants; I next treat of contraband, which also has its system. All these different subjects enter into my 8th chapter, and are concluded by an inquiry into the consular establishment at Caraccas, and by the rates of duties on imports and exports.

In the 9th chapter, I have comprised every thing which relates to the finances. It will thence be apparent that until 1728, when the Company of Guipuscoa was established, the resources of the eastern part of Terra Firma were so trifling that Spain was obliged to send yearly from Mexico money for the officers, troops, and all other public expenses. In 1777, the finances of these provinces underwent an organization, which proves the importance they had already attained. The captain-general of Caraccas was discharged from the care of superintending them, and that business was delegated to an intendant; this gave to the whole department a new order and a new lustre. After having analyzed the functions and prerogatives of the intendant, and of the officers of the customs, I have recited the origin and object of each impost laid on the colonies, its assessment, its mode of collection, and its annual amount. This description is followed by a general table of receipts and expenditures.

I presume there are very few readers who will not think the details contained in the preceding chapters are fairly within the limits of history; but the promise I had made of leaving nothing untold concerning

these interesting regions, has determined me to add particular to general information, by making known to my readers the resources and special subjects of industry in each department of the captaingeneralship of Caraccas. This point I have aimed at in the 10th chapter under the title of a description of the Towns and their dependencies. I have delineated, not only the situation, temperature and population of each town, but likewise the character of the inhabitants, the quality of the adjacent lands, the employment of labour, the course of trade, the species of spontaneous productions, the crops which are artificially raised, and the rivers which water the respective regions, &c. &c. The like has been done in respect to the division of the provinces of the eastern part of Terra Firma into cabildos, erected in each town whose jurisdiction embraces all the adjoining villages as far as the boundary of the neighbouring cabildo. A necessary consequence of this method is, that a circumstantial description of the seat of each cabildo and its territory, constitutes the most complete and instructive topography which can be given of this country.

Spanish Guiana occupies the 11th chapter. I have condensed in it all that I have to say on this province, for the purpose of an advantageous display of it, and to give it that distinguished rank to which it is entitled in the catalogue of important colonies. Watered by the Oronoko, which runs through it a distance of five hundred leagues, and which receives in its course a prodigious number of considerable rivers, Spanish Guiana is destined by nature to be

come the most productive province of America, the commercial centre of its produce, as well as of the neighbonring provinces, whose navigable streams empty into the Oronoko.

The navigation of this river, the mass of whose waters is at least equal to that of the Amazons, having hitherto been a secret among a few pilots, I have considered it a matter of necessity to explain it very minutely; I have begun with the navigation of the upper part of the river towards the capital of Guiana. It offers but little that interests the foreign merchant, because all the business is done by the inhabitants of the country, who bring the produce to St. Tomé. It is therefore, to the long and perilous navigation of the Oronoko from its mouths to St. Tomé, that my researches have been chiefly directed. The unacquainted navigator must be extremely fortunate in his choice of an entrance, if he meets with no obstacle in sailing up the Oronoko, as it has fifty outlets, almost all of which are innavigable to any great distance, and which would generally lead him into a labyrinth amidst numberless islands, from which he could extricate himself but with difficulty, even with the aid of the compass. Even the most navigable branches of the Oronoko are not without these difficulties; they do not admit vessels of all capacities. Its bed, overspread with islands, shoals and rocks, offers a continued series of impediments which practice alone can overcome. This chapter is not the less interesting, inasmuch as it gives information of which geography and navigation stand in great need, respecting one of the most important rivers of the

globe. My discussion, therefore, has the merit of being the only one that has appeared, and I can confidently vouch for its correctness. The plan of the Oronoko, from its outlets to St. Tomé, was executed by the order of the king, and all the drafts relative to this undertaking have been deposited in the office of the ministry.

The English, whose views are all directed to commerce, are the only foreigners who have as much information as the Spaniards themselves, on the navigation of the Oronoko, the captain-generalship of Caraccas, and the other Spanish possessions; and these they inundate with contraband wares and merchandize.

Should I be happy enough to have a value set upon my writings, equal to the toil they have cost me, I shall consider as a favour of heaven the events which cast me on the 18th of January 1801, upon the coasts of Terra Firma. And in this case, I ought to declare my obligation to Gen. Leclerc, for a considerable of my success.

part

As soon as he arrived at St. Domingo, at the head of the army sent to restore order there, I lost no time in submitting to him my remarks on this colony, and explaining to him my literary project. The part of his answer, relative to this latter subject, is dated 10th Thermidor, 10th year, and couched in the following terms:

"I regret that the wants of the army which I "command, do not enable me to appropriate at this moment, to the furtherance of natural history, the 66 necessary sums. The time is certainly not re

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