BRUCE. AMERICAN LOYALIStS., $23 
Mr. Bruce found sufficient leisure time while at Nassau to 
collect much historical information which he published in his 
“Memoirs.” Most of the facts contained in the foregoing his- 
torical summary are collated from his book. So far as we have 
been able to learn, no other writer cither preceded or followed 
him in sketching the history of the Bahamas. The historic pen 
which Bruce laid down in 1742, when he left Nassau to make 
good the defenses of Charleston, 8. C., no one has taken up. 
The soothing air of the Isles of Summer is not favorable to the 
making or writing of history. We have gleaned but a few items 
with which to fill the intervening historical chasm measured by 
the past one hundred and thirty-seven years. 
When the independence of the United States was confirmed, 
and established by the treaty of peace in 1782, there were many 
inhabitants of the Carolinas and Georgia, who, during the revo- 
lutionary war, retained their affection for the mother country, 
and their loyalty to its government. These people lacked faith 
in the republic, and the same spirit which induced them or their 
ancestors to emigrate to the American colonies, caused them to 
abandon their new homes and seek their fortunes elsewhere. 
Many of them removed with their slaves to the Bahamas, and 
commenced new plantations upon a number of the islands. The 
virgin soil for a few seasons yielded large harvests; but its fertil- 
ity was soon exhausted. Deprived of trees and bushes, the fields 
were scorched by the hot sun, while swarms of destructive in- 
sects consumed and otherwise destroyed the scanty harvests. It 
required but afew years to complete the financial ruin of the 
new settlers. Their improvements and negroes were of little 
value in the absence of paying crops. What had been saved of 
their fortunes in the States speedily disappeared, and they were 
left destitute even of the means of removal from the little islands 
in which their courage and hopes were entombed, 
