668 A. D. 1780. 



the negroes were thenceforth treated with more tendernefs, and feveral 

 machines for abridging their labour were introduced *. 



In Tobago the hurricane was but (lightly felt, and did no great 

 damage. 



In Grenada, now under the dominion of France, it made great de- 

 folation : and it alfo produced fome benefit as an alleviation of the 

 calamity. The devaftations committed in this ifland by the carnivorous 

 ants, and the ineffedual attempts to deftroy them, have already been 

 related (p. 610). They had lately decreafed in confequence of the 

 decreafe of the canes, their principal Ihelter, as many of the planters 

 had been compelled by their ravages to abandon the cultivation of 

 fugar. But their complete extermination was now effedled by the hur- 

 ricane, which tore up the trees, canes, and other plants, uirder which 

 they burrowed, and let the water in upon them, which drowned them 

 all. Thus did a dreadful fcourge operate in fome degree as a blefling 

 by relieving the ifland from the continual ravages of thofe invincible 

 vermin f . 



All-over the Weft-India feas vaft numbers of (hips of war and mer- 

 chantmen belonging to different nations were loft. Of the crews of two 

 of our frigates wrecked on "the coaft of Martinique only thirty-one men 

 efcaped alive, and they were immediately fent to Commodore Hotham 

 at St. Lucia by the generofity of the marquis de Bouille, who declared, 

 he could not confider as prifoners of war men whom the fury of the 

 elements had thrown defencelefs upon the ftiore of his government. 



The powers of Europe had long beheld with eyes of envy and 

 jealoufy the naval fuperiority of Great Britain ; and they hoped, that 

 the feceflion of the revolted colonies of Am.erica, and the alliance of 

 France and Spain with them, would be fully fufficient to humble the 

 power of this country, which ftood unfupported by a fingle ally. But 

 when it appeared, that the maritime force of Great Britain alone was 

 ^capable of maintaining the arduous conflid; againft the fleets of France, 

 Spain, and America, and that even the Britifli privateers conftituted a 

 naval force fufficient to curb the attempts of the fubjefts of the neutral 

 powers to eonvey warlike ftores to the enemies of Great Britain, a plan 

 was formed for a more extenfive, and more powerful, oppofition to, 

 .what was called, the maritime tyranny of Great Britain. 



Ruflia is a vaft empire, v/hich can pour forth a moft formidable 

 army, but which the hand of Nature has fliut up from ever becoming 

 a maritime power, or having any immediate conne6lion with the ocean, 

 except in the frozen regions of it, and the almoft-unnavigated northern 

 extremity of the Pacific. Neverthelefs, the emprefs of Ruflia, whom 



* Sec the anfwera from Barbados in the Report CafllcsEfq'. in « letter to General Mclvi'ie F. R. S. 

 af the privy council vpon tbejlatie trade. in \ht Philofoph> TrcinfaSions, F. Ix.NX,/. 346. 



\ Sec Olfervathnt on the /ujar ants bj John 



