390 A. D. 1635. 



Private copper farthings, or tokens, as they were then called, being flili 

 ufed in retail bufmefs, King Charles ilTued a proclamation forbidding 

 the currency of them, and ordering that none be ufed but thofe for- 

 merly ifTued by his father's authority. 



Guadaloupe, one of the largefl; of the Caribbee iflands, was now fet- 

 tled on by the French. According to the French author of the Hiftory 

 of the Caribbee iflands, it is one of the moft flouriftiing of them. He 

 fays that the French in that ifland ufed the plough, a thing not to be 

 feen in any of the other ifles ; and after the plough, it bears rice, Tur- 

 key-wheat, caflavia-root, potatoes ; and in fome parts, ginger and fugar- 

 canes, with great increafe. 



The French from St. Chriflophers in this fame year firfl planted Marti- 

 nico, where they found many native Caribs, with whom at firfl they lived 

 peaceably, but had afterward fierce war with them, tiU they drove 

 them into inacceflible rocky places and mountains. The French inha- 

 bitants were, (in 1658) 10,000 in number, and the Indians and ne- 

 groes as many more. It is the largefl of all the Caribbee ifles, and is 

 forty-five leagues in circuit. Though at firfl, like the other ifles, they 

 chiefly planted tobacco and cotton, yet now (1658) it produced 10,000 

 hogflieads of fugar, befide ginger, pimento, cocoa, caflla, &c. Here 

 the governor-general of all the French Caribbee iflands refides to this 

 day. It is now fo fruitful and populous as to be faid to have a militia 

 of 10,000 men or more, and 60,000 negros: being alfo finely furnifli- 

 ed with rivers, fprings, and harbours, and moft excellent fruits, vafl: 

 quantities of fugar, melafl^es, coffee, cotton, indigo, ginger, &c. 



In the fame year. Colonel Jackfon, with a number of Englifli fliips 

 from our Leeward iflands, landed on Jamaica, and with only 500 men 

 attacked the fort of St. Jago de la Vega, with 2000 Spaniards in it, 

 which, with the city, they took and lacked, with the lofs of forty rnen 

 only ; then they re-embarked, after receiving a ranfom for forbearing 

 to burn it. 



About this time the French firfl planted on the ifle of Cayenne, over 

 againft a river of the fame name on the coaft of Guiana, from whence, 

 however, they were feveral times driven out by the Dutch ; but the 

 French finally retook it in 1676, and have held it ever fince. It is 

 about feventeen leagues in compals. Here they have fundry fugar 

 plantations. They have fince fettled on the continent over againft Cay- 

 enne. 



We cannot be quite pofitive whether the French did not about this 

 time fettle on the great river of Niger, otherwife called Senegal river, on 

 the weft coaft of Africa, where the beft gum Senegal is produced, but 

 we imagine from fome circumftances that it was nearly at this time *. 



* The learned De Guignes dates theory? fettlcmeiit of the French at Senegal in 1364 or 1 365., 

 \_Memotre! de Litlerature, V. xxxvii, pp. 518, 520.3 M, 



