PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 417 



town sent a flourishing plant covered with fruit to Louis 

 XIV., who placed it in his garden at Marly. Coflee 

 was also grown in the hothouses of the king's garden 

 in Paris. One of the professors of this establishment, 

 Antoine de Jussieu, had already published in 1713, in 

 the Memoires de VAcademie des Sciences, an interesting 

 description of the plant from one which Pancras, director 

 of the Botanical Garden at Amsterdam, had sent to him. 

 The first coffee plants g]*own in America were intro- 

 duced into Surinam by the Dutch in 1718. The Governor 

 of Cayenne, de la Motte-Aigron, having been at Suri- 

 nam, obtained some plants in secret and multiplied them 

 in 1725.^ The coffee plant was introduced into Mar- 

 tinique by de Clieu,^ a naval oflicer, in 1720, according 

 to Deleuze ;^ in 1723, according to the Xotices Statistiqiies 

 SUV les Colonies Frangctises^ Thence it was introduced 

 into the other French islands, into Guadaloupe, for in- 

 stance, in 1730.^ Sir Nicholas Lawes first grew it in 

 Jamaica.^ From 1718 the French East India Company 

 had sent plants of Mocha coftee to Bourbon ;'^ others say ^ 

 that it was even in 1717 that a certain Dufougerais- 

 Grenier had coffee plants brought from Mocha into this 

 island. It is known how the cultivation of this shrub 

 has been extended in Java, Ceylon, the West Indies, and 

 Brazil. Nothing prevents it from spreading in nearly 

 all tropical countries, especially as the coffee plant thrives 



^ This detail is borrowed from Ellis, Diss. Caf., p. 16. In tlie Notices 

 Statistiques sur les Colonies Fraiicaises (ii. p. 46) I find : "About 1716 or 

 1721, fresh seeds of the coffee having been brought secretly from 

 Surinam, in spite of the precautions of the Dutch, the cultivation of 

 this colonial product became naturalized at Cayenne." 



2 The name of this sailor has been spelt in several ways — Declieux, 

 Duclieux, Desclieux. From the information supplied me at the minis- 

 tere de la guerre, I learn that de Clieu was a gentleman, and a connec- 

 tion of the Comte de Maurepas. He was born in Normandy, went into 

 the navy in 1702, and retired in 1760, after a distinguished career. He 

 died in 1775. The oflBcial reports have not neglected to mention the 

 important fact that he introduced the coffee plant into the French 

 colonies. 



^ Deleuze, Hist, du MusSum, i. p. 20. 



* Not. Stat. Col. Frang., i. p. 30. * Ihid., i. p. 209. 



® Martin, Stat. Col. Brit. Emp. ^ Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., iv. p. 135. 

 • 8 Not. Stat. Col. Frang., ii. p. 84. 



2 E 



