Dl{. AJN^TUONY EOBINSON, OF JAMAICA 51 



first scraps of paper he could meet with — these blurred and blotted, 

 and sometimes soiled with dirt, were promiscuously thrown too-etlier, 

 from which cause the greater part of them have been irretrievably 

 lost. He never transcribed nor reduced them to any kind of order, 

 still procrastinating this as the destined occupation of some future 

 days of leisure — which unhappily never arrived, for in July 1768 

 he was seized with a violent illness which terminated fatally. " Of his 

 poetry also several essays were left, but never published, but his talent 

 in versification was that in which he least excelled. He was the first 

 discoverer of the art of manufacturing a vegetable soap from the 

 juice of the great American Aloe leaf [A(/ave Morris ii Bak.], and 

 for this invention he received a grant of Job pistoles from the House 

 of Assembly. This soap, being equally miscible with salt as with 

 fresh water, is therefore very useful to mariners. He obtained from 

 a species of palm tree [Ci/cas revoluta Thunb.], which abounds in 

 the more rocky and arid parts of the island, a very fine and nutritive 

 farina, not palpably different from the sago powder. He discovered 

 likewise a vegetable blue dye of rather more brilliancy than indigo. 

 And lastly, it was in attempting to perfect the discovery of a tree 

 balsam \_Symplionia globulifera L. f.] analogous in quality to the 

 celebrated balsam of Mecca that he underwent a fatigue so excessive 

 as to occasion the disorder of which he died." 



[Lunan, in the preface to his Hortiis Jamaicensis (1814), says 

 that liobinson's manuscripts afforded him " the greatest assistance," 

 and quotes from them in the course of his work. On one of 

 liobinson's descriptions (Hort. Jam. 149, not 169 as stated by He 

 Candolle) is based Amyris ? Bohinsonii DC. Prodr. ii. 82, which 

 Mr. B^awcett identifies with Hypelate trifoliata Sw.] 



By his Will, dated the 21st of April, 1768, " Anthony Eobinson, 

 of the 23'ii*ish of St. Catherine practitioner in Physic and Sur^j-ery," 

 after arranging for the payment of his debts and funeral charges by 

 the sale of his negro woman Phyllida and his negro boy, directed the 

 remainder of his estate and effects to be sold, and the value thereof 

 remitted to his sister, Anne Walker, of Sunderland. The will con- 

 tinues :—*' Item my Will is that my collection of drawings and 

 writings on plants and other Natural productions shall not be com- 

 prehended among the effects so directed be sold or remitted as above 

 mentioned But I do give such collection unto my good friend 

 liobert Long now of the Kingdom of Great Britain Esq in testimony 

 of m}' regard for him and lastly I do nominate constitute and appoint 

 Edvvai'd Long of the parish of Saint Catherine aforesaid Esqre to be 

 my Executor of this my Will." 



The Edward Long alluded to is the well-known historian of 

 Jamaica, and llobert was his brother. They were the second and 

 fourth sons of Samuel Long, grandson of the original Samuel Long 

 who came out as Secretary to the Commissioners sent by Cromwell in 

 the Penn and Venables's Expedition. Edward Long was secretary to 

 his second cousin and brother-in-law Sir Henry Moore (Governor of 

 Jamaica and later Governor of New York), and Chief Judge of the 

 Vice-Admiralty Court, but he is best known by his Hisfory of 

 Jamaica, pviblished in 1774. 



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