1M E G 
Birman gbvernor of Perfaim for a ratification and final 
adjuftment of the treaty. After fome delay,'an inftru- 
ment was formally executed, confiding of nine articles. 
Some valuable commercial immunities were by tliefe ceded 
to the India Company ; the ifiand of Negrais was granted 
to them in perpetuity, together with a piece of ground 
oppofite to the old town of Ferfaim, for the purpofe of 
erecting - a factory ; in return for which, the company en¬ 
gaged to pay an annual tribute, confiftingof ord.lphce and 
military (lores. The king fanftidned this agvefement. 
Negrais was, confequently, continued in the poflefiion of 
the Englifli, and the allotted portion of ground was ac¬ 
tually meafured. During the abfence of Alompea, tire 
Birman fovereign, upon a military expedition, the Pe- 
guers made an infurreftion, and the Englifli at Negrais 
were fufpefted of having been inftrumental in producing 
it. Prejudices, of courfe, were excited againft them, and 
they were reprefente'd to the Birman monarch as perfi¬ 
dious, holtile to his government, and confpiring to effedl 
its overthrow. The affairs of the Britilh government in 
India did not allow the neceflary fupplies for the fupport 
of the fettlement at Negrais; and on the 14th of May, 
captain Newton, who was recalled, reached Bengal with 
35 Europeans and 70 natives ; having left a few perfons 
to take care of the teak-timber and materials for fhip- 
building, that could not be conveniently removed, and 
to preferve the right of poflefiion, if it fliould be deter¬ 
mined at any future time to re-eftablifti the fettlement. 
Soon after this event, a deputy was fent from Bengal to 
execute the bufinefs above mentioned, and to take up his 
refidence. But, foon after this, under the pretext of a 
letter from the king, fome Birmans entered the factory, 
aflafiinated Mr. Sotheby the refident, Mr. Hops, and Mr. 
Briggs, with about 100 others attached to the fettlement; 
and it was with fome difficulty that two veffels lying in 
the river efcaped. Lat. if. N. Ion. 95. 32. E. 
NEGRA'RO, a town of Italy, in the Veronefe: fix 
miles north of Verona. 
NEGREPELIS'SE, a town of France, in the depart¬ 
ment of the Lot, on the Aveiron ; formerly fortified by 
the proteftants ; but in 1621 the fortifications were de- 
ftroyed. It is feven miles north-eaft of Montauban, and 
twenty-one fouth of Cahors. Lat. 44-4. N. Ion. 1. 36. E. 
‘ NE'GRIL IIAR'BOUR (North), a bay on the well 
coafl of Jamaica. Lat. 18.22. N. Ion. 78.21. W. 
NE'GRIL PO'INT (North), a cape on the weft fide of 
Orange Bay, in the ifiand of Jamaica. Lat. 18. 23. N. 
Ion. 78. 21. W. 
NE'GRIL PO'INT (South), a cape on the weft coaft 
of Jamaica. Lat. 18. 17. N. Ion. 78. 23. W, 
NEGRIL'LOS, a clufter of-fmaU iilands in the Pacific 
Ocean, net the coaft of Peru. Lat. 4. 40. S. 1 
NE'GRO, /! [Span, neg.re, Fr.] A blackmoor.— Negroes, 
tranfplanted into cold and flegmatic habitations, continue 
their hue in themfelves and their generations. Brown. 
The origin of the negroes, and the caufe of their remark¬ 
able difference from the reft of the human fpecies, has 
much perplexed the naturalifts. Mr. Boyle has obferved, 
that it cannot be produced by the heat of the climate ; 
for, though the heat of the fun may darken the colour of 
the (kin, yet experience does not (how that it is fufficient 
to produce blacknefs like that of the negroes. 
In Africa itfelf, many nations of Ethiopia are not black; 
iior were there any blacks originally in the Weft Indies. 
In many parts of Afia under the fame parallel with the 
African region inhabited by the blacks, the people are 
but tawny. He adds, that there are negroes in Africa 
beyond the fouthern tropic; and that a river fometimes 
parts nations, one of which is black, and the other only 
tawny. Dr. Barriere alleges that the gall of negroes is 
black, and, being mixed with their blood, is deposited 
between the fkin and fcarf-fkin. However, Dr. Mitchel 
of Virginia, in the Philofophical Tranfaflfions, N° 476. 
has endeavoured by many learned arguments to prove, 
that the influence of the fun in hot countries, and the 
N E G 683 
manner of life of their inhabitants, are the remote caufes 
of the, colour of the Negroes, Indians, &c. Lord Karnes, 
on the other hand, and fuch philofophers as he, whole 
genius and imagination are too lively to fubmit to a dry 
and .painful inveftigation of fadts, have contended that no 
phyfical caufe is fufficient to change the colour, and what 
we call the regular features, of white men, to the dark hue 
and deformity of the woolly-headedNegro. Their argu¬ 
ments have been examined with much acutenefs and in¬ 
genuity by Dr. Stanhope Smith of New Jerfey, Dr. Hunter, 
and profeflor Zimmerman, who have made it in a high 
degree probable, that the adtion of the fun is the original 
and chief caufe of the black colour, as well as diftorted 
features, of the negro. See the article Complexion, 
vol. iv. 
True negroes are found in no quarter of the globe 
where the heat of the climate is not very great. They 
exift no-where but in the torrid zone, and only in three 
regions fituated in that zone, viz. in Senegal, in Guinea, 
and on the weftern ftiores of Africa, in Nubia, and the 
Papous-land, or what is called New Guinea. In all thefe 
regions the atmofphere is fcorching, and the heat exceflive. 
The inhabitants of the north are whiteft; and as we ad¬ 
vance fouthwards towards the line, and thole countries 
on which the fun’s rays fall more perpendicularly, the 
Complexion gradually afiumes a darker (hade. And we 
believe chat the -reader, who (hall candidly weigh in his 
own mind what we have faid under the article Com¬ 
plexion, will agree with us, that the black colour in the 
torrid zone, the fparfe crifp hair of the negroes, and the 
peculiarities of their features and form, proceed front 
caufes altogether extrinfic ; that they depend on local 
temperature and the ftate offociety; and that they are as 
accidental as the various (hades of colour which charac- 
terife the different nations of Europe. If the whites be 
confidered as the dock whence all others have fprung, it 
is eafy to conceive how they have degenerated into ne¬ 
groes. Some have conjedtured that the complete change 
may have taken place at the end of three centuries, whilft 
others have thought that it could not be effefted in lefs 
than double that period. Such conjedtures can be formed 
from no certain data ; and a much greater length of time 
is undoubtedly neceflary before negroes, when tranfplant¬ 
ed into our temperate countries, can entirely lofe their 
black colour. By crofting the breed with whites, every 
taint of the negro colour may be expelled, we believe, 
from the fifth generation ; according to the .following 
lcale : 1. A white man with a negro woman, or a ne¬ 
gro man with a white woman, produce a mulatto, half 
white and half black, or of a yellow-blackifh colour, with 
black fliort frizzled hair. 2. A white man with a mulatto 
woman, or a negro with a mulatto woman, produce a 
quadroon, three-fourths white and one-fourth black, or 
three-fourths black and one fourth -white, or of a lighter 
yellow than the former : in America they give the name 
of cabres to thole who are defeended from a black man and 
a mulatto woman, or a mulatto man and a black woman, 
who are three-fourths black and One-fourth white, and 
who are not fo black as/a negro, but blacker than a mu¬ 
latto. 3. A white man with a quadroon woman, or a 
negro with a quadroon woman, produce a mcfiizo, -feven- 
eighths white and one-eighth black, or feven-eighths 
black and one-eighth white. 4. A white man with a mef- 
tizo woman, or a negro with a meftizo woman, prodhee, 
the one almoft a perfect white, the other almoft a per¬ 
fect black, called a quinteroon. This is the laft grada¬ 
tion, there being no vifible difference between the fair 
quinteroon and the whites ; and the children of a white 
and a quinteroon confider themfelves as free from all taint 
of the negro race. 
But, without this intermixture of colours, we are af- 
fured, by travellers of undoubted credit, that the varie¬ 
ties among the blacks are equally numerous as thofe 
Among the whites. The blacks, as well as the whites, 
have their Tartars and Circaffians. The natives of Guinea 
, * are 
