124 



succeeded so well for some years, that the 

 cotton -tree now grows wild on the borders of the 

 lake of Valencia. We have found shrubs of eight 

 or ten feet high, entwined with bignonia and 

 other ligneous creepers. The exportation of 

 cotton from Caraccas however is yet of small 

 importance. It amounted at an average at La 

 Guayra scarcely to three or four hundred 

 thousand pounds in a year ; but including all 

 the ports of the Capitania-general it arose, on 

 account of the flourishing culture of Cariaco^ 

 Nueva Barcelona, and Maracaybo, to more 

 than 22,000 quintals*. This is nearly the half 

 of the produce of the whole Archipelago of the 



* In 1794 the exportation from all the ports of the 

 Capitania-general for Spain amounted to 804,075 pounds of 

 cotton ; for other Spanish colonies in America, particularly 

 for the industrious province of Campeachy, where they 

 manufacture a great quantity of cotton goods, 90,482 ; for 

 foreign colonies, 117,281 ; total, 1,011,838 pounds. (Informe 

 del Sr Conde de Casa Valencia, MS.) In the same year, La 

 Guayra alone exported but 431,658 pounds, 126,436 pounds 

 of which were from the province of Maracaybo. Exportation 

 of this port (without including the contraband trade) 



1789 170,427 pounds 



1792 258,502 



1796— 537,178 



1797 ; 107,906 



f " lor the first six months of 1809, see the Semanario deSanta 

 Fe, vol. ii, p. 324. The prices in 1794 were from thirty- 

 four to fifty-six piastres the quintal. 



