ed a most amiable and excellent citizen from his friends and the public, and hurried him to an untimely grave. Such is the vanity of hope, and the uncertainty of life!†

† A very accurate and comprehensive catalogue of Mr. East's superb collection having since been obtained, it will be found in the fourth volume; and the catalogue above mentioned, which was inserted in the first edition, is now therefore omitted.

220

CHAPTER V.

Topographical description.-Towns, villages, and parishes.Churches, church-livings, and vestries.-Governor or commander in chief.-Courts of judicature.—Public offices.Legislature and laws.-Revenues.-Taxes.-Coins, and rate of exchange.-Militia.-Number of inhabitants of all conditions and complexions.-Trade, shipping, exports and imports.Report of the Lords of Trade in 1734.-Present state of the trade with Spanish America.-Origin and policy of the act for establishing free ports.-Display of the progress of the island in cultivation, by comparative statements of its inhabitants and products at different periods.-Appendix No. I. No. II.

HE island of Jamaica is divided into three coun

TH ties, which are named Middlesex, Surry, and

Cornwall. The county of Middlesex is composed of eight parishes, one town, and thirteen villages. The town is that of St. Jago-de-la-Vega or Spanish Town, the capital of the island. Most of the villages of this and the other counties, are hamlets of no great account, situated at the different harbours and shipping places, and supported by the traffic carried on there. St. Jago-de-la-Vega is situated on the banks of the river Cobre, about six miles from the sea, and contains between five and six hundred houses, and about five thousand inhabitants, including free people of colour.

It is the residence of the governor or commander in chief, who is accommodated with a superb palace; and it is here that the legislature is convened, and the court of chancery, and the supreme court of judicature, are held.

The county of Surry contains seven parishes, two towns, and eight villages. The towns are those of Kingston and Port Royal; the former of which is situated on the north side of a beautiful harbour, and was founded in 1693, when repeated desolations by earthquake and fire had driven the inhabitants from Port Royal. It contained in 1788, one thousand six hundred and sixty-five houses, besides negro huts and warehouses. The number of white inhabitants, in the same year, was six thousand five hundred and thirty-nine; of free people of colour three thousand two hundred and eighty; of slaves sixteen thousand six hundred and fifty-nine;-total number of inhabitants, of all complexions and conditions, twenty-six thousand four hundred and seventy-eight. It is a place of great trade and opulence. Many of the houses in the upper part of the town are extremely magnificent; and the markets for butcher's meat, turtle, fish, poultry, fruits and vegetables, &c. are infeI can add, too, from the information of a learned and ingenious friend, who kept compárative registers of mortality, that since the surrounding country is become cleared of wood, this town is found to be as healthful as any in Europe.‡

rior to none.

The number of the white inhabitants in Kingston, had increaset in 1791 to about 7000. In that year the burials were 151 white men (in

'Port-Royal, once a place of the greatest wealth and importance in the West Indies, is now reduced, by repeated calamities, to three streets, a few lanes, and about two hundred houses. It contains, however, the royal navy yard, for heaving down and refitting the king's ships; the navy hospital, and barracks for a regiment of soldiers. The fortifications are kept in excellent order, and vie in strength, as I am told, with any fortress in the king's dominions.

Cornwall contains five parishes, three towns, and six villages. The towns are Savanna-la-Mar on the south side of the island, and Montego-bay and Falmouth on the north. The former was destroyed by a dreadful hurricane and inundation of the sea in 1780, as I have elsewhere related. It is now partly rebuilt, and may contain from sixty to seventy houses.

Montego-bay is a flourishing and opulent town; consisting of two hundred and twenty-five houses,

cluding forty-five from the public hospital), twenty-three white women, and twenty white children. Total one hundred and ninety-four. Of the men, the whole number from the hospital, and a great many of the others, were transient persons, chiefly discarded or vagabond seamen; but without making any allowance for extraordinary mortality on that account, if this return, which is taken from the parochial register, be compared with the bills of mortality in the manufacturing towns of England, the result will be considerably in favour of Jamaica. In the large and opu、 lent town of Manchester, for instance, the whole number of inhabitants in 1773, comprehending Salford, was 29,151, and the average number of burials (dissenters included) for five preceding years was nine hundred and fifty-eight. If the mortality in Manchester had been in no greater proportion than in Kingston, the deaths would not have exceeded 813.

thirty-three of which are capital stores or warehouses. The number of top-sail vessels which clear annually at this port are about one hundred and fifty, of which seventy are capital ships; but in this account are included part of those which enter at Kingston.

Falmouth, or (as it is more commonly called) the Point, is situated on the south-side of Martha-Brae harbour, and including the adjoining villages of Martha-Brae and the Rock, is composed of two hundred and twenty houses. The rapid increase of this town and neighbourhood within the last sixteen years is astonishing. In 1771, the three villages of MarthaBrae, Falmouth, and the Rock, contained together but eighteen houses; and the vessels which entered annually at the port of Falmouth did not exceed ten. At present it can boast of upwards of thirty capital stationed ships, which load for Great Britain, exclusive of sloops and smaller craft.

Each parish (or precinct consisting of an union of two or more parishes) is governed by a chief magistrate, styled Custos Rotulorum, and a body of justices unlimited by law as to number, by whom sessions of the peace are held every three months, and courts of Common pleas to try actions arising within the parish or precinct, to an amount not exceeding twenty pounds. In matters of debt not exceeding forty shillings, a single justice is authorized to determine.

The whole twenty parishes contain eighteen churches and chapels,§ and each parish is provided with a

Two or three more have been erected since this account was written.