6 COMMERCE OF ANGOSTUEA. 



the crocodile, and to escape from the conflict of the 

 elements. 



The town of Angostura, in the early years of its founda- 

 tion, had no direct communication with the mother-country. 

 The inhabitants were contented with carrying on a trifling 

 contraband trade in dried meat and tobacco with the West 

 India Islands, and with the Dutch colony of Essequibo, by 

 the Rio Carony. Neither wine, oil, nor flour, three articles 

 of importation the most sought after, was received directly 

 from Spain. Some merchants, in 1771, sent the first schooner 

 to Cadiz; and since that period a direct exchange of com- 

 modities with the ports of Andalusia and Catalonia has 

 become extremely active. The population of Angostura,* 

 after having been a long time languishing, has much in- 

 creased since 1785. At the time of my abode in Guiana, 

 however, it was far from being equal to that of Stabroek, the 

 nearest English town. The mouths of the Orinoco have an 

 advantage over every other part in Terra Firma. They 

 afford the most prompt communications with the Peninsula. 

 The voyage from Cadiz to Punta Barima is performed some- 

 times in eighteen or twenty days. The return to Europe 

 takes from thirty to thirty-five days. These mouths being 

 placed to windward of all the islands, the vessels of Angos- 

 tura can maintain a more advantageous commerce with the 

 West Indies than La Guayra and Porto Cabello. The mer- 

 chants of Caracas, therefore, have been always jealous of the 

 progress of industry in Spanish Guiana ; and Caracas having 

 been hitherto the seat of the supreme government, the port 

 of Angostura has been treated with still less favour than the 

 ports of Cuinana and Nueva Barcelona. With respect to 

 the inland trade, the most active is that of the province of 

 A^arinas, which sends mules, cacao, indigo, cotton, and sugar 

 to Angostura ; and in return receives generos, that is, the 



* Angostura, or Santo Thome de la Nueva Guayana, in 1768, had 

 only 500 inhabitants. (Caulin, p. 63.) They were numbered in 1780, and 

 the result was 1,513 (455 Whites, 449 Blacks, 363 Mulattoes and 

 Z;imboes, and 246 Indians). The population in the year 1789, rose to 

 4,590; and in 1800, to 6,600 souls. (Official Lists, MS.) The capital 

 of the English colony of Demerara, the town of Stabroek, the name of 

 which is scarcely known in Europe, is only fifty leagues distant, south- 

 east of the mouths of the Orinoco. It contains, according to Bolingbroke, 

 nearly 10,000 inhabitants. 



