CHAP. 17 .] WEST INDIES. i6j 
government, after full investigation, was so tho¬ 
roughly satisfied of Mr. Park’s misconduct, as to 
issue, much to its honour, a general pardon of all 
persons concerned in his death, and two of the 
principal actors therein were even promoted, some 
time afterwards,, to seats in the council.. 
From this period I close my account of the civil 
concerns of Antigua, finding no occurrence in its 
subsequent history of sufficient importance to detain 
the reader; what remains therefore is chiefly topo¬ 
graphical, and I hope will be found correct. 
Antigua is upwards of fifty miles in circumfer¬ 
ence, and contains 59,838 acres of land, of which 
about 34,000 are appropriated to the growth of su¬ 
gar, and pasturage annexed: its other principal 
staples are cotton wool and tobacco; to wffiat ex¬ 
tent of cultivation I am not informed; and they 
raise in favourable years great quantities of provi¬ 
sions. 
This island contains two different kinds of soil; 
the one a black mould on a substratum of clay, 
which is naturally rich, and when not checked by 
excessive droughts, to which Antigua is particular¬ 
ly subject, very productive. The other is a stiff 
day on a substratum of marl. It is much less fer¬ 
tile than the former, and abounds with an inirradi- 
cable kind of grass, in such a manner, that many 
estates consisting of that kind of soil, which 'were 
once very profitable, are now so impoverished and 
