196 



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✓ 



had recommendations, advised us to depart. 

 We found in this town a great number of per- 

 sons, who, by a certain ease in their manners, 

 enlargement of their ideas, and, I must add> 

 by a marked predilection for the government of 

 the United States, discovered, that they had held 

 frequent intercourse with foreigners. There ? 

 for the first time in these climates, we heard 

 the names of Franklin and Washington pro- 

 nounced with enthusiasm. The expressions of 

 this enthusiasm were mingled with complaints 

 on the actual state of New Andalusia ; the enu- 

 meration, often exaggerated, of it's natural riches ; 

 and ardent and anxious wishes, that happier 

 times might arrive. This disposition of mind 

 was striking to a traveller, who had just wit- 

 nessed, and so near, the great agitations of Eu- 

 rope. It foreboded, as yet, nothing hostile and 

 violent, no determinate direction. There was 

 that degree of vagueness in the ideas and the 

 expressions, which characterises in nations, as 

 in individuals, a state of half cultivation, an 

 immature display of civilization. Since the 

 island of Trinidad has become an English co- 

 lony, the whole of the eastern extremity of the 

 province of Cumana, especially the coast of 

 Paria, and the Gulph of the same name, have 

 changed their appearance. Strangers have set- 

 tled there, and have introduced the cultiva- 

 tion of the coffee -tree, the cotton-tree, and the 



