Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



it is not surprising that our traveller hastened 

 to land, which he did with difficulty and not 

 without being well wetted. He went to " Mr. 

 Pickford and Mr. Allen* s, the Consull's house, 

 to whom the shippe was consigned ; where we 

 met with civil entertainment from those persons, 

 whose repute as well as gravety gave weight to 

 their wordes." In these days gravity, even 

 among consuls, is not a very common character- 

 istic. It may be that the disappearance of the 

 Barbary pirate has made us all more light- 

 hearted. From the Consul, Mr. JeafFreson 

 learnt that the island produced " some years 

 twenty-five thousand pipes of wine, besides 

 sugar and corne, with which it doth not suffi- 

 ciently fournish its people, who are supplied 

 from England and elsewhere, as allso for 

 herrings, pilchards, beefe, mutton, baizes, 

 perpetuanas, hatts and the like, which are there 

 bartered for wine and sweetmeats." It was, as 

 appears elsewhere in the letters, a profitable 

 business for ships outward bound to the West 

 Indies to call at Madeira and exchange such 

 goods for wine to be subsequently bartered 

 in the Leeward Isles for sugar, tobacco or 

 indigo. Writing later from St. Kitt's to his 



114 



