32 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



On January 1, 1S39. Duniont d'Urville, conunanding the Astrolabe 

 and Zeh\\ paid his setond visit to Guam. Attached to the expedition 

 were Hombron and Jaequinot, as doctors and botanists, and Ai^ago as 

 artist. Two collections of plants were made on this expedition, the 

 first by the above-named botanists, the second, including several new 

 species of algte, by Diunont d'Urville himself. Besides the official 

 reports of this expedition" a narrative was written by Arago.* 



Hombron gave his collection of plants to ^I. Benjamin Delessert, 

 whose herbarium was afterwards presented by one of his nieces to the 

 city of Geneva. Switzerland. It has been placed in a building in the 

 Botanical Garden of that city. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE ARCHIVES OF GUAM. RELATING TO ITS ECONOinC 



HISTORY. 



At Agana, the capital of Guam, thei'e are a number of letter books 

 containing copies of the official communications of the governors of 

 the Mariannes to their immediate superior, the captain-general of the 

 Philippines. In these letters various questions are discussed at length 

 regarding the policy which should be pursued to make the Marianne 

 Islands self-supporting and profitable to Spain, and to make the 

 natives prosperous and happv. Arguments are advanced in favor 

 both of protection and of free trade with visiting vessels. Attempts 

 were made to compel the natives to till the ground, and inducements 

 were offered by tempting their self-interest. Causes for the failure of 

 the population to increase were sought in the destruction of the crops 

 by hurricanes and pests, in the use of unwholesome or injurious food, 

 and in the disinclination of the natives to work more than was neces- 

 sary for their daily needs. Some of the governors greedily monopo- 

 lized all trade, forcing the natives and the soldiers of the barracks 

 to buy goods from them at prices arbiti-arily fixed by themselves, 

 and forbidding the natives to sell their products to the whalers who 

 flocked to the islands. Others gave the natives free license to trade 

 and entered into their daily life by cultivating farms of their own 

 after the native fashion. Efforts were made to benefit the islands by 

 decrees of the captains-general of the Philippines, to whose ears came 

 stories of dishonesty and oppression on the part of the governors, and 

 confidential subordinates were sent to the islands to see what could be 

 done for their good. The following extracts, showing the efforts made 

 in behalf of the islands and the natives, are taken from the archives 

 at Agana. 



« Voyage au pole sud, etc. , 1841-1 854. See List of works. 



*Arago, .Jacques Etienne Victor. Voyage autour du monde, etc., lS4o. See List of 

 works. 



