TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 187 



in driving carts, in planting and gathering potatoes, and many 

 other offices ; and some are already become expert ploughmen. 

 But the establishment here is necessarily different from that in 

 any other place. At Java, at Prince of Wales' Island, and other 

 settlements, I am told, they are the leading persons in farming: 

 and at Ceylon this was unsuccessfully attempted ; for they culti- 

 vated nothing more than for their own immediate wants, and were, 

 in consequence of little service to that colony. If provisions were 

 cheap, the experiment might be worth a trial here : but, in the 

 present state of St. Helena, it would certainly fail ; because, if 

 Chinese had lands, they would do as their neighbours ; for it 

 could not be expected they would sell at lower prices. It was 

 these considerations that induced me to form them into a reeular 

 establishment. The Company pay the labourers a shilling a day, 

 and find them in rations ; and by this mode, their military services 

 may be at command, and very useful in aiding the corps of 

 artillery, in dragging of cannon, and carriage of ammunition ; in 

 short, in employments similar to those of the artillery Lascars in 

 India. As they are all placed under the direction of European 

 overseers, it cannot be doubted that much more labour is obtained 

 from them than if they were left to themselves. This mode of 

 management, the Rt. Honourable Lieutenant-General Maitland 

 admitted was far better than that he had introduced on the island 

 of Ceylon, by giving them lots of land. It is the mode I recom- 

 mend, as the most advisable at first, in all places where Chinese 

 may be introduced ; and where the prices of the products of the. 



1731, April 2d. Paragraph 1 7 . " We will dispose of the salt beef as well as we can ; 

 the blacks will little want it, for we still continue to catch fish in great plenty, and that 

 yearly saves your Honours a great sum. 



December 28th. Paragraph 6. " We have still good luck in our liihery the year 

 round j upon which, and beef and pork, your blacks are plentifully fed." 



