14 J A M A I C A. 



to upright pods, which fupported the roof. The pofts were for 

 the moll: part crooked, not even fcpared, and many of them had 

 fome remnant of their bark; but they retained for the moft part 

 their primitive folidity. The whole of the wood-work, indeed, 

 feemed to have pafled through no other hands than thofe of a 

 clumfy flTip-carpenter, The Spanifh tafte for the elegancies of 

 archite£lure fcems to have b.e.evli. .reifrided to their religious lliruc- 

 tures. They afe,. howeyej-^ to be commended for providing .all 

 their. AiTaerican towns with a Iquat'e...., Tlie fquare in this town 

 is notoidy a decoration, but the means of rendering the governor's 

 bouIeT^nrrd-rh'STourj^roT^^ i^oi'.e airy, pleafant, and health- 



ful. In the Weft-quarter of the town ftand the gaol fdr'^ttTe"" 

 county of Middlefex, a free-fchool, a poor-houle, and the fham- 

 b!cs. The gaol is a fquare of eighty-five feet, and contains an open 

 iirea within of about fifty-two : it is under the dircvftion and ma- 

 nagement of the provoft-marihal, or his deputy, who fometimes 

 is not fo careful as he ought to be in ordering the apartments to be 

 kept clean and wholefome : on the contrary, the room appointed 

 for the reception of felons, which runs along one fide of the court, 

 is (b loaded with filth in general, as to be perfectly peftiiential, 

 not only to the miferable wretches wlio are tliere confined, but to 

 the poor debtors, who now and then are indulged with liberty of 

 accefs into the court by way of enjoying a (hort walk in the open 

 air : add to this, that on the outfide of the wall there is fuffered 

 a conftant accumulation of putrid mud and water, fufficient to 

 poifon all the neighbouring atmofphere. In this delightful place 

 of cuftody debtors and malcfatflors of all forts, ail fexes, and com- 

 plexions, are promifcuoufly crowded ; a circumftance highly dif- 

 graceful to the publick humanity, more eipecially in a country 

 where it is thought politically expedient to maintain a diftinftion 

 between Whites and Negroes. It is therefore not a little aftonifh- 

 ing, that the debtor and the criminal fliould be huddled together ; 

 and that White perfons, who have committed no other offence 

 •tlian that of infolvency, iliould be aflbciated with the mofl: beftial 

 and profligate wretches of the Negroe race, as if it was intended to 

 ihew that incarceration, like death, is a leveler of all diftin£lions. 

 The number of perfons generally in confinement confifts of about 



twelve 



