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An Account of the European Settlements in America
An Account of the European Settlements in America Author:Edmund Burke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V IN AMERICA. 33 CHAP. III. A description of Martinico.—Of Guadaloupe and other French islands.—Their produce.—Observations on the mistakes that have be... more »en made about their value. Martinico is the next island in importance, which the French possess in America. It is one of the Caribbees or Windward islands, and the principal of them; about sixty miles in length, and at a medium about half as much in breadth. It is forty leagues to the North-West of Barba does. It has pretty high hills, especially in the inland parts. From those hills are poured out upon every side a number of agreeable and use ful rivulets, which adorn and fructify this island in a high degree. The bays, and harbours are numerous, safe, and commodious; and so well fortified, that we have always failed in our attempts upon this place. The soil is fruitful enough, abounding in the same things which our islands in that part of the world produce, and upon which I shall the less insist on that account. Sugar is here, as it is in all the islands, the principal commodity, and great quantities are here made. made. Their export cannot be less than sixty or seventy thousand hogsheads, of five or six hundred weight, annually, and this certainly is no extravagant estimation. Indigo, cotton, pimento or allspice, ginger, and aloes are raised here; and coffee in great abundance; but to what value I cannot exactly say. Martinico is the residence of the governor of the French islands in these seas. Guadaloupe is the largest of all the CaribbeeS, and in that division called the Leeward islands. It is almost cut in two by a deep gulph that closes the side of a narrow isthmus, which con- nects the two peninsulas that compose this island, It is upwards of sixty miles long, and about the same breadth. Its soil is...« less