A TRIP TO T.&INTDAD. 



391 



and that observations of four stars in the Great Bear, 

 made by Gamboa, gave to Mon. Oltmanns while 

 ascertaining the declination according to Piazzi's 

 catalogue, a latitude of 21° 46' 25." 



The lieutenant governor of Trinidad, whose juris- 

 diction then comprised Villa Clara, Santi Espiritu, 

 and Puerto Principe, was a nephew of the celebrated 

 astronomer, Don Antonio Ulloa. He gave us a great 

 dinner at which we met several of the French 

 refugees from St. Domingo, who had brought hither 

 only their industry and their intellectual acquire- 

 ments. The export of sugar from Trinidad, accord- 

 ing to the returns made up at Havana, did not then 

 exceed four thousand boxes. The inhabitants com- 

 plained of the impediments which the general 

 government, in its unjust preference for Havana, 

 placed in the way of the agricultural and commer- 

 cial development of the Central and Eastern districts 

 of the island ; as also of the great accumulation of 

 wealth, population, and authority at the capital, 

 while the rest of the country was almost a wilder- 

 ness. Many minor centres, distributed at regular 

 distances through the island, were preferred to the 

 prevailing system, which had resulted in attracting 

 to a single point, wealth, corruption of manners, and 

 the yellow fever. Similar exaggerated accusations, 

 and complaints of provincial cities against the capi- 



