CHAP, ii.] WEST INDIES. 163 



fifteen hundred. Penn, in his examination before the 

 protector's council, on the 12th of September 1655, 

 states them at twelve or fourteen hundred only, of 

 whom he says about five hundred men were in arms 

 when the English landed. It is remarkable., howe- 

 ver, that Blcme, who compiled a short account of 

 Jamaica so early as 1672, avers that the town of St. 

 Jago de la Vega consisted of two thousand houses, 

 two churches, two chapels and an abbey. There 

 must therefore have happened at some period a won- 

 derful diminution in the number of the white inhabi- 

 tants, and the expulsion of the Portuguese settlers, as 

 related by this author, appears the more probable. 

 Blome perhaps has given an exaggerated account of 

 the number of the houses; but sufficient evidence 

 remained, until within these few years, ot the build- 

 ings consecrated to divine worship, particularly of the 

 two churches and the abbey. 



Of the other principal settlements, the chief ap- 

 pears to have been at Port Caguay, since named by 

 the English Port Royal; but though it was next in 

 consequence to St. Jago, it was probably nothing 

 more than an inconsiderable hamlet, established for 

 the purpose of some small traffic with the ships bound 

 from Hispaniola to the continent. Its subsequent rise 

 and extensive prosperity, its deplorable wickedness 

 and fatal catastrophe, are circumstances too well 

 known to be repeated.* 



* The following singular inscription appears on a tomb stone, at 

 Green-bay, adjoining the Apostles' battery, near this town. 



" DIEU SUR TOUT. 

 " Here lies the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq. who departed this life, at 



