50 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



I have often considered with astonishment, the mixture 

 of European inhabitants which destiny has heaped toge- 

 ther in this community. Dutch, Germans, Prussians, Rus- 

 siansj Swedes, Danes, Spaniards, French, and Americans, 

 may be incorporated as one-third of the white population, and 

 Great Britain claims the other two. All national enmdty seems 

 to be forgotten, while the pursuits of the motley group are di- 

 rected unanimously to climbing the ladder of fortune. Men 

 tire seen on all its stages, looking forward with anxious solici- 

 tude for the time of reaching the heighth of their ambition. 

 Happily, commercial competition has in it little of envy; for 

 each finds his own account in the success of his rival. The 

 rich man is a better customer, a more liberal creditor, a safer 

 debtor, than the necessitous: every one thrives the faster, be- 

 cause his neighbour has already thriven. 



There is a market-place where the negroes assemble to sell 

 their truck, such as fruit, vegetables, fowls, eggs, and where 

 the hucksters expose for sale articles of European manufacture 

 (much in the same manner as the pedlars do in England) in 

 addition to salt beef, pork, and fish, bread, cheese, pipes, 

 tobacco, and other articles, in small quantities, to enable the 

 negroes to supply themselves agreeably to the length of their 

 purses. Hucksters are free women of color, who purchase 

 their commodities of merchants at two or three months credit, 

 and retail them out in the manner described. Many of them 



