whole world, under contribution for half a century. Colbert extended his attention also to the manufacture of wool; and the French, by fabricating lighter cloths, by employing more taste and fancy in the colours, and by the superior conveniency of the ports of Toulon and Marseilles, soon acquired the almost entire possession of the trade of Turkey, formerly so beneficial to England. The same, and other circumstances, have procured them a great share in the trade of Spain and Portugal'.

The prosperity of the French manufactures, however, received a temporary check from the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in 1685. The persecuted protestants, to the number of almost a million, who had been chiefly employed in these manufactures, took refuge in England, Holland, and other countries, where they could enjoy the free exercise of their religion; carrying along with them their arts and ingenuity, and even the fruits of their industry, to a very great amount, in gold and silver. They were much caressed in England, where they improved or introduced the manufacture of hats, of silk, and of linen. The importation of those articles from France was soon prohibited, as inconsistent with national interest; the culture of flax was encouraged; raw or unmanufactured silk was imported from Italy and China; beaver skins were procured from Hudson's Bay, where settlements had been established, and where all sorts of furs were found in the greatest plenty, and of the most excellent quality. Clock and watch work was executed in England with the utmost elegance and exactness, as well as all other kinds of machinery, cutlery, and jewelry; the cotton manufactory, now so highly perfected, was introduced; and toys of every species were at length finished with so much taste and facility as to become an article of exportation, even to the European continent, and privately to France itself, the birth-place of fashion, and the nursery of splendid bagatelles.

4. Anderson's Hist. of Commerce, vol. ii.

In the mean time, the English and French colonies, in North-America, enlarged their boundaries, and increased in wealth and population. The French colony of Canada, or new France, was augmented by the settlement of Lousiana, and a line of communication was established, before the middle of the present century, from the mouth of the river St Laurence to that of the Mississippi. The English colonies, more populous and cultivated, extended along the sea-coast, from the bottom of the bay of Fundy to the river Altahama, on the frontiers of Florida. New-England furnished masts and yards for the royal navy, as well as timber for other uses. New-York and New-Jersey, formerly known by the name of Nova-Belgia, conquered from the Dutch, in 1664, and Pennsylvania, settled in 1681, produced abundant crops of corn, and a variety of other articles for the European markets, as well as for the supply of the English islands in the West-Indies; the tobacco of Virginia and Maryland was become a staple commodity, in high request, and a great source of revenue; and the two Carolinas, by the culture of rice and indigo, and the manufacture of tar, pitch, and turpentine, so necessary to a naval and commercial people, soon became of vast importance.

But the most beneficial trade of both nations arose, and still continues to proceed, from their colonies in the WestIndia islands. The rich produce of those islands, which is chiefly intended for exportation, and all carried in the ships of the mother countries, affords employment to a great number of seamen; and as the inhabitants, who do not so much as make their own weating apparel, or the common implements of husbandry, are supplied with clothing of all kinds, household furniture, tools, toys, and even the luxuries of the table, from Europe, the intercourse is active, and productive of mutual prosperity and happiness. The islands in the American Archipelago, in a word, are the prime marts for French and English manufactures, and furnish the nations to which they belong, in their sugars, their

rums,

rums, their cotton, coffee, cocoa and other articles, with a more valuable exchange than that of gold.

Nor are those islands destitute of the precious metals, though now less plenty there than formerly. An inquiry into this subject will lead us to many curious particulars in the history of the West-Indies, and prove, at the same time, a necessary introduction to the maritime war between England and Spain, which broke out in 1739.

After the failure of the mines of Hispaniola, which were never rich, and the conquest of the two extensive empires of Mexico and Peru, where the precious metals were found in the greatest profusion, that valuable island was entirely neglected by the Spaniards. The greater part of its once flourishing cities were deserted by their inhabitants, and the few planters that remained, sunk into the most enervating indolence. The necessaries, however, and even many of the luxuries of life, were there found in abundance. All the European animals had multiplied exceedingly, but especially the horned cattle, which were become in a manner wild, and wandered about in large droves, without any regular owner. Allured by these conveniencies, certain French and English adventurers, since known by the name of Buccaneers or freebooters, had taken possession of the small island of Tortuga, as early as the year 1632, and found little difficulty, under such favourable circumstances, of establishing themselves on the northern coast of Hispaniola. They at first subsisted chiefly by the hunting of wild cattle. Part of the beef they ate fresh, part they dried, and the hides they sold to the masters of such vessels as came upon the coast, and who furnished them in return, with clothes, liquors, fire-arms, powder, and shots. But the wild cattle at length becoming scarce, the buccaneers

were

5. The dress of the Buccaneers consisted of a shirt dipped in the blood of the animals they had slain; a pair of trowsers, dirtier than the shirt; a leathern girdle, from which hung a short sabre, and some Dutch knives; a hat without any rim, except a flap before, in order to enable them to pull it

off

were under the necessity of turning their industry to other objects. The sober-minded men applied themselves to the cultivation of the ground, which abundantly requited their toil, while those of a bold and restless disposition associated with pirates and outlaws of all nations, and formed the most terrible band of ravagers that ever infested the ocean. To these ravagers, however, rendered famous by their courage and their crimes, France and England are indebted, in some measure, for the prosperity of their settlements in the West-Indies.

Nothing could appear less formidable than the first armaments of the piratical buccaneers, who took the name of Brothers of the Coast. Having formed themselves, like the hunters of wild cattle, into small societies, they made their excursions in an open boat, which generally contained be. tween twenty and thirty-men, exposed to all the intemperature of the climate; to the burning heat of the day, and the chilling damps of the night. The natural inconveniencies, connected with this mode of life, were augmented by those arising from their licentious disposition.

A love of freedom, which, duly regulated, cannot be too much cherished, rendered the buccaneers averse against all those restraints, which civilized men usually impose on each other for their common happiness; and as the authority which they had conferred on their captain, was chiefly confined to giving orders in battle, they lived in the greatest disorder. Like savages, having no apprehension of want nor taking any care to guard against famine by prudent economy, they were frequently exposed to all the extremities of hunger and thirst. But deriving even from their distresses, a courage superior to every danger, the sight of a.

off: shoes made of raw hides, but no stockings. (Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xv. liv. VII.) These barbarous men, the outcasts of civil society, were denominated Buccaneers, because they dried with smoke, conformable to the custom of the savages, part of the flesh of the cattle they had killed, in places denominated baccans in the language of the natives. Id. ibid.

They sel

sail transported them to a degree of frenzy. dom deliberated on the mode of attack, but their custom was to board the ships as soon as possible. The smallness of their own vessels, and their dexterity in managing them, preserved them from the fire of the enemy. They presented only to the broadside of the ship, their slender prows, filled with expert marksmen, who fired at the enemy's portholes with such exactness, as to confound the most experienced gunners. And when they could fix their grappling tackle, the largest trading vessels were generally obliged to strike.

Although the buccaneers, when under the pressure of necessity, attacked the ships of every nation, those belonging to the subjects of Spain were more especially marked out as the objects of their piracy. They thought that the cruelties which the Spaniards had exercised on the natives of the New-World, were a sufficient apology for any violence that could be committed against them. Accommodating their conscience to this belief, which, perhaps, unknown to themselves, was rather dictated by the richness of the Spanish vessels than by any real sense of religion or equity, they never embarked in an expidition without publicly praying to heaven for its success; nor did they ever return loaded with booty, without solemnly returning thanks to God for their good fortune".

6. Hist. Gen. des Voyages, ubi sup. Hist. Buccaneers, part i. chap. vi. 7. Id. ibid. This is a precious picture of the inconsistency of human nature, and a striking proof how little connection there frequently is between religion and morality! a truth which is farther illustrated by the following curious anecdote. "One of the chief causes of our disagreement," says an enlightened freebooter, speaking of the quarrels between the French and English Buccaneers, in their expedition to the South-Sea, "was the impiety of the "English; for they made no scruple, when they got into a church, to cut down "the arms of a crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their "fusils and pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints in the same "manner!" (Voy. des Flibust. per Raveneau de Lussan.) But it does not appear that those devout plunderers, who were shocked at seeing the image of a saint miamed, were more tender than the English Buccaneers of the persons or properties of their fellow-creatures, or ever attempted to restrain their impious associates from any act of injustice or inhumanity.