49^ A. D. 1660. 



where he inftrufted the planters in the cultivation of the fugar-cane ; 

 for which, and his other great improvements, he was afterwards ap- 

 pointed governor of Jamaica, and fo continued from 1663 to 1669. 



About this time, the Dutch attempted the conqueft of Goa, the chief 

 fettlement of the Portuguefe in Eaft India ; but it being then probably 

 in a better condition than iince, they were not able to take it, although 

 they blocked up the bar of that city for twelve years together. Goa 

 was flill a magnificent city, full of churches and monafteries : fome ac- 

 counts fay, to the number of eighty ; and that its diftridt extended for- 

 ty miles along the coafl:^ and fifteen miles within land. That there were 

 then about 30,000 perfons in its diflrid, who lived by the church, be- 

 ing equal in number to the laity there, (a mofi: wife nation furely !) 

 befides 50,000 native Indians. Yet it is no wonder that mofi: of the 

 laity are defcribed to be poor, fince the clergy fwallow up the bulk of 

 its riches. Goa is, in our time, much decayed, occafioned chiefly in- 

 deed by the Portuguefe having lofl mofi: of their fettlements and fadlo- 

 ries in India. Yet it was defcribed fome years ago as having 140,000 

 people of all forts under the Portuguefe dominion, in the ifles of Goa, 

 South Salfet and Bardes, whither three or four large veflels went yearly 

 from Portugal, now probably not fo many. 



We may here obferve, that the parliament this year paflled an att in 

 favour of the Dutch or Flemings at Colchefter, who in Queen Elizabeth's 

 time brought the manufadure of bayes into England. Hereby the 

 governor of the Dutch bay-hall in that town, and the Dutch people be- 

 longing to that community, were confirmed in all the privileges and 

 immunities which they had at any preceding time enjoyed. And all 

 bayes made in that town were diredted to be carried to their row-hall, 

 to be fearched and ftamped, before they be fold. [12 Car. II, c. 22.] 



The coins of King Charles II confifted of the fame pieces with thofe 

 coined in the fecond year of his father, and were all hammered, till the 

 year 1663, when milled money was coined. 



In this remarkable year was the royal fociety of London formed and 

 incorporated by King Charles II ; of which the author of this work 

 does not prefume to give the complete and perfed: charadter and eulo- 

 gium. It is fufficient for his purpofe only to remark, that its improve- 

 ments in aftronomy and geography are alone fufficient te exalt its repu- 

 tation, and to demonftrate its great utility even, to the mercantile world, 

 without infifting on its many and great improvements in other arts and. 

 fciences, fome of which have alfo a relation to commerce, navigation, 

 manufadures, mines, agriculture, &c. Voltaire, in his Age of Louis 

 XIV, obferves, ' that to this illuflrious fociety the world is indebted 

 ' for the late difcoveries relating to light, the principle of gravitation, 

 * the motion of the fixed fl:ars, the geometry of tranlcendant qualities, 

 ' and an hundred other difcoveries, which, in this refped, might juflly 



