716 



Some merchants in 1771 sent the first schooner 

 to Cadiz : and since that period a direct ex- 

 change of commodities with the ports of Anda- 

 lusiaand Catalonia has become extremely active. 

 The population of Angostura*, after having been 

 a long time languishing, has much increased 

 since 1785 : at the time of my abode in Guy- 

 ana, however, it was far from being equal to that 

 of Staebroeck, the nearest English town. The 

 mouths of the Oroonoko have an advantage over 

 every other part in Terra Firma. They atFord 

 the most prompt communications with the penin- 

 sula. The voyage from Cadiz toPuntaBarima is 

 performed sometimes in eighteen or twenty days. 

 The return to Europe takes from thirty to thirty- 

 five days. These mouths being placed to wind- 

 ward of all the islands, the vessels of Angostura 

 can maintain a more advantageous commerce 

 with the West Indies than La Guayra and Porto 

 Cabello. The merchants of Caraccas therefore 

 have been always jealous of the progress of indus- 



* Angostura, or Santo Thome de la Nueva Guayana, in 

 1768, had only 500 inhabitants. (Caulin, p. 63.) They were 

 numbered in 1780, and the result was 1513 (455 Whites, 

 449 Blacks, 363 Mulattoes and Zamboes, and 246 Indians). 

 The population in the year 1789 rose to 4590 j and in 1800, 

 to 6600 souls. {Official Lists, MS.) The capital of the English 

 colony of Demerara, the town of Staebroeck, the name of 

 which is scarcely known in Europe, is only fifty leagues dis- 

 tant, south-east of the inouth of the Oroonoko. It contains, 

 according to Bolingbroke, nearly 10,000 inhabitants. 



