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no precife knowledge of the period when 

 their anceftors firft arrived. Through feveral 

 generations they have been born, and have 

 conftantly lived upon the ifland. They re- 

 gard it as their native, and only abode, and 

 do not, like their more wealthy neighbours, 

 look to England as another and a better home. 

 Of fome of thefe old families I may, perhaps, 

 fpeak more particularly in another letter. 



If in point of produce Barbadoes now 

 yields to other 1 fettlements — if its population 

 and commerce have decreafed — if its thick 

 woods have fallen before the rueful axe — and 

 if its mountains are lefs afpiring than the 

 towering fummits of fome of the neighbouring 

 iflahds ; (till its trade and product continue to 

 be important ; its population great ; and the 

 pi&urefque fcenery of its furface, perhaps, 

 unrivalled. Nor are thefe its only advantages ; 

 for, in confequence of being more cleared, and 

 more generally cultivated, than the other 

 iflands, its temperature is more equable, and 

 its air more falubrious. Damp woods do 

 not interrupt, nor ftagnant morafles em- 

 poifon the breeze. Every part is expofed to 

 the full perflation of the trade- wind ) by th 



