H HISTORY OF THE [book. v. 
ties, that of Thomas Gage, an Englishman, who 
went to New Spain in 1625, and of whom I have 
had occasion to speak in a former part of this work. 
Gage’s voyage is now before me, and it is certain 
that he enumerates sugar-canes among the fruits 
and provisions supplied the crew of his ship by the 
Charaibes of Guadaloupe. “ Now,” observes La- 
bat, “ it is a fact that the Spaniards had never culti¬ 
vated an inch of ground in the smaller Antilles. 
Their ships commonly touched at those islands in¬ 
deed, for wood and water, and they left swine in 
the view of supplying with fresh provisions such of 
their countrymen as might call there in future; but 
it were absurd in the highest degree to suppose, 
that they would plant sugar-canes, and put hogs 
ashore at the same time to destroy them. 
“ Neither had the Spaniards any motive for be¬ 
stowing this plant on islands which they considered 
as of no kind of importance, except for the pur¬ 
pose that has been mentioned 5 and to suppose 
that the Charaibes might have cultivated, after 
their departure, a production of which they knew 
nothing, betrays a total ignorance of the Indian 
disposition and character. 
ff But,” continues Labat, “ we have surer testi¬ 
mony, and such as proves beyond all contradiction, 
that the sugar-cane is the natural production of 
America. For besides the evidence of Francis 
Ximenes, who, in a treatise on American plants, 
printed at Mexico, asserts, that the sugar-cane 
