chap, in.] WEST INDIES. 
SECTION II. 
DOMINICA. 
THE island of Dominica, was so named by 
Christopher Columbus, from the circumstance of 
its being discovered by him on a Sunday.* My 
account of it will be very brief, for its civil history, 
like that of St. Vincent, is a mere blank previous 
to the year 1759, when by conquest it fell under 
the dominion of Great Britain, and was afterwards 
confirmed to the British crown, by the treaty of 
peace concluded at Paris in February 1763. 
Notwithstanding that Dominica had until that 
time been considered as a neutral island, many of 
the subjects of France had established coffee plan¬ 
tations, and other settlements, in various parts of 
the country; and it reflects honour on the British 
administration, that these people were secured in 
their possessions, on condition of taking the oaths 
of allegiance to his Britannic majesty, and paying a 
small quit-rent.f The rest of the cultivable lands. 
* November 3 d, 1493. It was the first land which he discovered in 
his second voyage, after having been twenty days at sea from the Ca¬ 
naries. 
•{- The crown granted them leases, some for fourteen, and others 
‘for forty years, renewable at the expiration thereof, with conditions in 
