144- STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



these circumstances, little improvement could be expected; 

 crippled as they were, without trade or support from the mo- 

 ther country, and only deriving a little assistance from the 

 British AVest Indies, it was surprising that three hundred 

 estates were absolutely in cultivation at this time, worked by 

 twenty-five or twenty-eight thousand negroes ; the population 

 in white inhabitants did not exceed twelve hundred. 



