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twenty to thirty thousand piastres. The cap- 

 tain-general of Caraccas, Mr. de Guevara Vas- 

 conzelos, was of opinion with the most able 

 Spanish engineers, that the Mirddor, which in 

 my time mounted only sixteen guns, would 

 contribute very little to the defence of the place > 

 and caused the work to be suspended. Long 

 experience has proved, that very elevated bat- 

 teries, even when provided with heavy guns, 

 act with much less effect in defending a road- 

 stead, than low and half-drowned batteries^ 

 mounted with cannon of less size, but erected 

 on the shore itself or on jetties. We found 

 Porto-Cabello in a state of defence little calcu- 

 lated to inspire confidence. The fortifications 

 of the port and round the town, which have 

 about sixty guns, require a garrison of eighteen 

 hundred or two thousand men, and there were 

 not six hundred. One of the king's frigates had 

 been attacked in the night by the armed boats 

 of an English man-of-war, and taken, though 

 anchored at the entrance of the harbour. The 

 blockade rather favoured than prevented illicit 

 commerce ; and every thing at Porto-Cabello 

 seemed to announce the increase of population 

 and industry. Among the most active branches 

 of fraudulent intercourse are those with the 

 islands of Curassoa and Jamaica. More than 

 ten thousand mules are exported annually. It 

 is curious enough to see these animals em- 



