5o8 JAMAICA. 



fleet, which continued to rage there more or lefs for twelve years, 

 and fwept off above a third part of the white inhabitants. In the 

 year 1740, the South Sea galleons, having touched at Guayaquil, in 

 order to fecure their treafure, on account of the war between Spain 

 and Great Britain, brought with them a putrid malignant fever, which 

 had never been known at that place before, and numbers died of it: 

 it is needlefs to multiply examples of what muft have happened to 

 every country carrying on any confiderable trade ; this caufe is very 

 diftin£l from local maladies, excited and nourifhed by fomething per- 

 nicious to human health, in the foil or atmofphere. In regard to 

 the latter, a foreigner, fays Lind, who fixes his abode on a fickly fpot 

 in England, as for inftance at Hi/fea Barracks, mull: not call the 

 climate of England imhealthy, becaufe he fuffers from the difadvan- 

 tages of a bad fituation ; fo, to apply this remark to Jamaica, an 

 European, who fixes his refidence at Greenwich near Kingfton, or in 

 the near neighbourhood of a lagoon, ought not to reckon the cli- 

 mate of this ifland unhealthy, becaufe he has fuffered by an injudicious 

 choice. The faft really is, as before has been ftated, that healthy as 

 well as unhealthy fituations are to be found in all countries ; but 

 that the Englifli, for the convenience chiefly of their trade, and fome- 

 times through ignorance, have generally fixed on the moft unwhole- 

 fome fpots, for the fituation of their towns in the Weft Indies. The 

 healthy air of Barbadoes is owing to that ilLmd's being entirely 

 slearcd of wood ; but the principal town there is fixed on a fwamp, 

 and-therefore perhapi incurably unhealthy. Bafle-Terre in St. Kitts, 

 St. John's in Antigua, are not lefs. fo, and, as I am informed, from 

 the like reafon 1_^]. 



The 



[«] In the year 1766, fixtecn French Proteftant families, confilVng of/if/v perlbns, were fent, 

 at the expence of government, to IJ'cft Floritia; the ground allotted tor their refidence was on the 

 iiJeof a U\[\, fiiyroiiutli'd iv:tl> marflhs^ at the mouth of the river Scambia. Thefe new fettlers ar- 

 rived in winter, and continued healthy till the fickly months, which in that country are thofe of 

 Ju^ and Augiijl ; during thefe two months the annual fever of that climate proved fo fatal to them, 

 that, of the fixij, only fourteen furvived ; and even this fmall remnant were all in a bad Hate of 

 health in September, and moft ot them died in a (tw inonths attcnvards. Such cataftrophes are 

 (hocking ; efpecially when we confider, that if thefe indullrious people had been fixed on a healthy 

 fpot, not incommoded with the malignant vapours of a fwanipy foil, they might have lived many 

 years, and covered a large diftrifl wiih their offspring. Kalin gives another inibnce of fuch fatal 

 fituations, in the little town of iVj/c?/;, in I'enfylvania, adjacent to which are fome very low fwampy 

 nieatlows. They who come hither Irom other parts acrjuirc a very pale fickly look,, although they 



enjoy 



