A. D. 1 791. 227 



(AugLift 23"). The horrors, maflacres, and defolations, which enfued, 

 I am happily exempted from entering upon any relation of, further than 

 to obferve, that vail numbers of the negroes eftablifhed themfelves as a 

 free community in the interior mountainous diflrids, where they fub- 

 fifted in a ftate of favage independence and continual hoftility againft 

 the cultivated part of the ifla"ji ; that in the outlet of this horrid war- 

 fare, vvherein many thoufands of people of all colours perilhed, about 

 190 fugar plantations, and 1,196 plantations of indigo, cotton, and 

 coffee, were deftroyed, the deficiency of the year's crop being eftinv 

 ated in November at confiderably above two millions fterling ; and 

 that the exportation of coffee, which fince the year 1789 had been in 

 all about 76,000,000 pounds annually, and was expeded to amount to 

 80,000,000 in the year 1792, was prodigioufly reduced. 



Mr. Edwards obCerves, that the mountain lands in Jamaica are very 

 proper for producing coffee, that the cultivation of the inland grounds 

 is facilitated by the ifland being now interfeded by roads in every di- 

 redion, and that the time is exceedingly favourable for pufhing forward 

 a very extenfive cultivation of coffee. And, from the returns of the 

 negroes employed in that branch of cultivation, he eflimates that 

 16,000,000 pounds of coffee might be produced in the year 1797 in 

 Jamaica, which, during the heavy duties previous to the year 1783 

 never exported 1,000,000 *. \_Edwards'' s Hljl. of S-. Domingo. — Edwards^s 

 Hift. of Wefi-Indies, V. ii, p. 301.] 



A commencement of a fifhery for fpermaceti whales on the coafl of 

 New South Wales was made by Captain Melville, commander of the 

 Britannia, a fhip belonging to Meflieurs Enderby and Sons, the firfl 

 Britifh merchants who adventured in the fouthern whale fifhery. Hav- 

 ing difcovered, in his pafliige to Port Jackfon with a load of convids,, 

 that the fpermaceti whales are more abundant in the feas adjacent to 

 that country than near the coafts of South America, he failed from that 

 port on a whaling expedition ; and he was followed by feveral other 

 veffels, which, like his own, were fitted for the whale fifhery, and, ac- 

 cording to the original deftination of their voyages, were to have flretch- 

 ed acrofs the Pacific ocean to the coaft of Peru upon that purfuit. Cap- 

 tain Melville got only one whale out of four that he killed, nor were 

 the other veffels more fuccefsful, owing to the very tempeftuous weather 

 while they were out. But they were fufficiently encouraged to confider 

 thofe feas as very flivourable for the profecution of the moll valuable 

 branch of the whale fifhery. 



Mr. Hill, a carpenter in the navy, invented an improved method of 

 flopping fhot-holes, and even greater openings, in the bottoms of fliips 



* Mr. Edwards gives the following account of coffee fliipped from Jamaica, txtraiflcd from the 

 book*- of the naval oflicer of the ifland. 



1111774 - - 654,700 pounds. 



17t*0 the crop being ship- 

 ped before the hur- 

 ricane - 735,392 



Inl788 - 1,035,368 pounds. 



17S9 - • 1,493,282 



1790 - 1,783,740 



IHjJl. of the Wejl-htdies, V. \, p. 241.] 



Ff 2 



