MT. 26 .]
LETTERS.
127
] st of October, nor can I help it. All on board desire to bekindly remembered. Farewell.
Yours affectionately,
I shall not write to our Father this Packet, as I have done itto you and Kate. Give my kind love.
TO WILLIAM LOCKER , ESQ., WEST MAI.LING.
[Autograph, in the Locker Papers.]
Boreas, St. Kitts , March ICth, 1785.
My dear Friend,
Since my last, I have been at Prince Rupert’s Bay, andwith great difficulty reached the house which Admiral Parry 7built upon his land. The house is levelled with the ground,nor should I have known it was anything but a wood, had notmy guide told me this was the estate. I made every inquiry itwas possible for me to do as to worth, or what could be donewith it: from the whole I have heard it is not possible to sellor let it. If you claim it, the taxes are far more than it isworth in its present state, and they have proclamations forgiving the Loyalists land gratis , so much do they want settlersfor the Island . The soil is bad, so much so, that several mu-lattoes settled upon the cleared part after Admiral Parry leftit, and lived in the house, but at last they abandoned it, notbeing able to get roots to grow in it. Governor Stewart 7 8 hasan estate at Prince Rupert’s, but quite in another situation ;am told he wishes for the money lie has laid out upon it.
And now let me tell you a very extraordinary anecdote ofDominica . When the English first took possession of it, theythought it a fine sugar Island ; they built by far the best worksof any Island in our possession, but time has proved that thesoil is not proper for sugar, as it takes some hundred gallonsof juice to make a hogshead more than at any other Island .Cotton and coffee are the only commodities it will produce in
7 Vide p. 113.