INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Ixiii 



*' many of the inhabitants ; which we will not permit to con- 

 " tinue amongst you : for they that will not plant, and take care 

 *' for provisions of their own, we will not supply them : rather 

 " send them home under the title of drones." 



This threat was actually carried into execution by Governor 

 Roberts in the year 1708 ; and had a temporary effect. But, 

 notwithstanding those orders and menaces, and all that had been 

 done during more than a century to excite a proper spirit of 

 industry amongst the landholders, I found on my arrival in 1808, 

 that 88 acres, in gardens and potatoe grounds, was the total 

 quantity of cultivation. This indeed was barely sufficient for a 

 scanty supply to the shipping : and the produce was sold at the 

 most exorbitant rates. Under such circumstances, it may readily 

 be imagined, that little, if any, of the island produce was con- 

 sumed by the inhabitants. The fact is, that in 1808, there was 

 a population of 3600 living almost wholly upon the public stores, 

 obtaining most of the necessaries of life in profusion, at prices 

 not exceeding one-third of the prime cost in England.* 



Nothing could possibly be more adverse to improvements than 

 so strange and unprecedented a system. The feeding of a popu- 

 lation was not only baneful in its effect upon industry and cul- 

 tivation, but the scanty produce which so small a portion of the 

 lands afforded, aided by a combination to keep up the prices, had 

 enhanced every article of farm produce to such a degree, that the 

 object of maintaining the island, at so great an expense, was 

 almost entirely defeated. The commanders of ships could not 

 purchase refreshments for the seamen at the rates which were 

 extorted : accordingly, they took no more than what they re- 

 quired for themselves and passengers ; and the consequence 

 was, that the quantities exported, of island products greatly 



* See page 207. 



