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There is a general order to work all the gold-mines which were for- 

 merly confiscated, and this measure will, it is hoped, increase the 

 quantity of gold, and have a good effect in every respect. 



If Government are obliged to hire negroes wherever they can ob- 

 tain them, (which appears to be the case,) it would be at least expe- 

 dient to have a store to supply them, in order that the money paid 

 in wages to them might return into the funds of the establishment. 



The hiring of negroes to the diamond works is the favourite occu- 

 pation of all ranks in Tejuco ; rich and poor endeavour to engage in 

 it to as great an extent as their property will allow. The pay of the 

 slaves is trifling compared with the risk, their labour being heavy, 

 their maintenance poor, and their treatment harsh; there must, there- 

 fore, be some temptation not openly seen, yet as well known as light 

 from darkness. Numbers of persons are thus induced to reside in 

 Tejuco under various pretexts, but with no other real view than to 

 get their negroes into the service, and to live idly on their wages, and 

 on what they conceal or pick up. Thus all fatten upon the pasture, 

 except those in the extreme of indigence, and others who, from neg- 

 lect of economy, are always poor. There are a numerous class, from 

 the age of seven years to upwards of twenty, who are without any 

 visible means of earning their subsistence, and would remain idle 

 even if manufactories were established ; for though they are brought 

 up from their infancy with negro-children, yet in the working de- 

 partment they would abandon their former play-fellows. The people 

 in general are rendered more averse from habits of regular industry 

 by the continual hopes which they indulge of becoming opulent by 

 some fortunate discovery of mines ; these fallacious ideas, which 

 they instil into the minds of their children, strongly prejudice them 

 against labour, though they all exist miserably, and not unfrequently 

 depend upon donations. Their education is extremely limited : they 

 are in general total strangers to the sciei*ces, and are very scantily 

 informed on any useful subject. 



