( 176 ) 



fifth during some years of that period is said to have amounted to at 

 least a milhon sterhng annually. 



The mines which produced this immense wealth at length became 

 gradually less abundant; and, as the precious metal disappeared, num- 

 bers of the miners retired, some to the mother-country, loaded with 

 riches, which tempted fresh adventurers, and many to Rio de Ja- 

 neiro and other sea-ports, where they employed their large capitals 

 in commerce. 



Villa Rica at the present day scarcely retains a shadow of its for- 

 mer splendour. Its inhabitants, with the exception of the shop- 

 keepers, are void of employment ; they totally neglect the fine coun- 

 try around them, which, by proper cultivation, would amply com- 

 pensate for the loss of the wealth which their ancestors drew from 

 its bosom. Their education, their habits, their hereditary prejudices, 

 alike unfit them for active life ; perpetually indulging in visionary 

 prospects of sudden wealth, they fancy themselves exempted from that 

 universal law of nature which ordains that man shall live by the sweat 

 ofhis'ibrow. In contemplating the fortunes accumulated by their pre- 

 decessors, they overlook the industry and perseverance which ob- 

 tained them, and entirely lose sight of the change of circumstances 

 which renders those qualities now doubly necessary. The successors 

 of men who rise to opulence from small beginnings seldom follow 

 the example set before them, even when trained to it ; how then 

 should a Creolian, reared in idleness and ignorance, feel any thing of 

 the benefits of industry ! His negroes constitute his principal pro- 

 perty, and them he manages so ill, that the profits of their labour 

 hardly defray the expences of their maintenance : in the regular 

 course of nature they become old and unable to work, yet he con^ 

 tinues in the same listless and slothful way, or sinks into a state of ab- 

 solute inactivity, not knowing what to do from morning to night. 

 This deplorable degeneracy is almost the universal characteristic of 

 the descendants of the original settlers ; every trade is occupied 

 either by mulattoes or negroes, both of which classes seem supe- 



