Settled by continued to fufpect both thofe governors of having been at the bottom of the maffacre. This dreadful catastrophe discouraged the English from the French reinhabiting St. Lucia; nor could the governors of Barbadoes prevail with any of their countrymen to live in an ifland where they were fubject to fuch tragical vifits, and at fuch a diftance from all relief from their other fettleA.D. 1644. ments. When the civil wars broke out in England, Parquet fent thither forty men, under one Rouffelan, well provided with ftores and ammunition. The firft ftep this adventurer took, was to build a strong pallifadoed fort upon the island, mounted with cannon and patteraroes; he proceeded to erect dwelling-houfes, clear ground, cure tobacco, and raise provifions of all kinds. This little fettle-. ment throve exceedingly. Rouffelan having married a Caribbee woman, was very agreeable to the favages, who not only left him and his colony unmolefted, but even favoured them with an advantageous trade. All the good fortune of the French upon this ifland, however, ended with the life of Rouffelan, who died in 1654, and was fucceeded by la Riviere. This gentleman had fo good an opinion of the friendly difpofition of the favages, that he built a dwelling-house for himself and his family, without the protection of the fort: he could not have acted more imprudently; the Caribbees by this time were quite alienated from the French, and refolved to cut them off. But they concealed their defign with great art, and continued to visit and to traffic with la Riviere as before. At laft, towards the end of the year, a large number of them came to his houfe, where they were hofpitably entertained. At majacred. length one of them gave a fignal, which they had concerted among themfelves, and all of them falling upon the French, they murdered la Riviere, with ten others, plundered his houfe, and carried off his wife, two of his children, and a Negro flave. Haquet, who fucceeded to the government, being fully apprized of the favage treachery of the Caribbeans, used all imaginary precautions to avoid it; but, as the event proved, all was without fuccefs. They repaired to his fort with the most friendly appearances, and traded fairly with him for turtle, A.D.1656. and other commodities. Pretending they had left a large quantity of turtle on a neighbouring hill, he was prevailed upon, attended by no more than three of his foldiers, to go thither, and the favages fpying their opportunity, threw him from the hill into the fea. Haquet was ftunned, but not hurt, by the fall. He recovered himfelf, and made Who are the best of his way to the fort; but, before he could reach it, he was mortally wounded by an arrow, and died in three days. This governor was fucceeded by one Breton, who being of low extraction, and ufing the garrifon ill, they confpired to affaffinate him; but he escaped into the woods, and eluded all the fearch they could make. The garrifon ftript the fort, and feizing a fhip in the road, efcaped to the Spaniards, by whom they were protected. About ten days after this tranfaction, a French fhip The French paffing by from Grenada, her captain perceived, that repoffefs the though the confpirators had carried off all the furniture and. and moveables they could tranfport, yet that the fort itself and its artillery were in good condition. He therefore left it in cuftody of four of his feamen, whom he furnished with neceffaries and provifions. As this captain was preparing to fail, Breton made him a fignal, and was received on board. Parquet understanding what had happened, sent to St. Lucia one Coulis, with a fmall reinforcement, and in a little time Mr. Aygremont arrived as governor. During his administration, the English attacked the fort, but were repulfed. However, the favages held the French in fuch deteftation, that Agremont was affaffinated by them A.D.16 0. in a party of hunting. In about two years after this event, Mr. Warner, an Englishman, whofe mother was a Caribbean, having received a commiffion to be governor of Dominica for the English, purchased for his countrymen the ifle of St. Lucia from the Caribbeans. In confequence of this acquifition, the English fent five fhips of war, with fourteen or fifteen hundred men on board, to take pofleffion of the ifland, and were joined by about feven hundred of the Caribbeans in their canoes. Bonnart, the French governor of the fort, not having above a dozen of foldiers, furrendered it upon the first fummons, upon condition, that he and his men, with their baggage, cannon, and ammunition, fhould be carried to Martinico. But Labat pretends that this capitulation was not well obferved. The English having got poffeffion of the ifland, under The English fo fair a title as that of a bargain with the natives, one again take Mr. Cook was made governor; but no care had been taken offion. to keep poffeffion. Their provifions fell fhort, and epidemical difeafes made fuch havock among them, that, in a fhort time, the poor fettlement was reduced to eighty-nine perfons. In fuch a difmal fituation it is no wonder that the few furvivors, having before their eyes nothing but death by famine or difeafe, fet fire to the fort, and. abandoning the fettlement, difperfed themfelves through the P 2 other A.D.1666, other English iflands. Father la Tetre, another French writer, affirms, that the English made an offer to the French of yielding up the island to them, which was accepted; but that the English were perfuaded by lord Willoughby, governor of Barbadoes, to retract their offer, on his promifing to fend them relief. His fuccours, however, were fo long in coming, that they were obliged, in the manner we have mentioned, to abandon the fettlement. Two days after their retreat, lord Willoughby, who perfectly well underflood the commerce of the Weft Indies, and the importance of St. Lucia, arrived, as fome fay, in perfon, with reinforcements, and took poffeffion of the island anew. This ceremony was from year to year renewed with all requifite folemnities, by fucceeding governors of Barbadoes, within whofe commiflion St. Lucia lay; but the inattention of the administration under Charles II. and his close connections with France, obftructed all measures for its profperity. By the treaty of Breda, in that reign, and that for the neutrality of the West Indies and America, in the fucceeding, the British claim to St. Lucia was in fome meafure fufpended by the arts of France, though St. Lucia was certainly among the iflands that by thofe treaties as well as by that of Ryfwick, were ftipulated to be restored to the crown of Great Britain'. St. Lucia continued, after this period, to be frequented equally by French and English; but the only constant inhabitants of it were carpenters, hewers of wood, and other labourers for felling and preparing timber for fhip-building. In procefs of time, runaway foldiers and failors found St. Lucia, on account of its rocks and fastnesses, to be a most excellent receptacle. In the year 1689, when fir Hans Sloane was there, a fmall colony of Barbadians refided on St. Lucia, and lived by furnishing their own ifland with timber. Even the treaty of Utrecht did not restore St. Lucia to the English, the French pleading, that it was not comprehended in the islands to be restored by the peace of Ryfwick, because it was not conquered from the English, but abandoned by them; and therefore the French entered upon it as an unoccupied ifland. In 1719, the regent of France made a grant of this ifland to M. d'Eftrces; but in confequence of a fpirited re monftrance from the British ambaflador to the court of Verfailles, the grant was recalled, and d'Eftrees obliged to withdraw his people. In 1722, George I. king of England, granted this ifland and that of St. Vincent, to John, duke of Montagu, who was at a great expence in fending out people and fores to make a fettlement; but the French king fent thither an armament, which compelled them to defift and leave the island. In a word, both courts agreed to confider it as neutral, till the treaty of peace concluded at Paris, in 1763, it was ceded to France in perpetuity. SAINT VINCENT. THIS ifland is about twenty-four miles in length and St. Vincent, eighteen in breadth, and lies about fifty miles north-weft a neutral of Barbadoes. The aborigines were Caribbeans, but, by a iland. ftrange intermixture of fhipwrecked, or runaway Negroes, the Negroe complexion and fpecies has the predominancy. The inhabitants of St. Vincent, before the ceffion of it to the crown of Great Britain by the treaty of Paris, 1763, were extremely tenacious of their independency, but far from being fo ferocious as many of the other favages, because they often traded with the European nations, bartering refreshments for hatchets, fciffars, knives, and toys. St. Vincent was more populous than the other Caribbee Ilands of the fame dimenfions, because it was the general rendezvous of those favages when they carried on war with the people of the neighbouring continent, with whom they feldom were at peace. The Caribbeans confulted their own intereft very improperly when they admitted the Negroes into a partnership of their foil; for the latter tyrannized over them to fuch a degree, as provoked them to make feveral attempts to introduce the French and English into the ifland, that they might difpoffefs the Negroes. Thefe, however, having fome knowlege of the European difcipline and manners, baffled all the attempts made to difpoffefs them, and are faid to have lived on the island plentifully and comfortably. St. Vincent is one of the beft of all the Antilles iflands. The foil is excellent, as likewife the water and the wood. Tobacco may be cultivated here to great perfection, and had the Europeans fucceeded in making a fettlement upon it, it must have foon become a kind of storehouse for Martinico and the other Caribbee iflands, as every thing neceffary for life is here eafily raifed. The Negroes affimilate themselves as much as poffible to the Caribbeans in their drefs and manner of living; but they are cafily diftinguishable by their woolly heads and flat features. Both of them have feparate chiefs, but no one claims to be fovereign their government approaching more to the republican than any other form. When the duke of Montagu's attempt to people this ifland, and that of St. Lucia took place, the French, from Martinico and their other iflands repaired P 3 hither, hither, and prepoffed the inhabitants, both Negroes and Indians, against the English, who, they faid, intended to make them flaves. All the endeavours of Mr. Egerton, who was fent thither by captain Vring, to perfuade the natives to fubmit to the duke of Montagu's proprietary power, could not get the better of this prepoffellion; nor could the natives form any idea of the right which a king of England, or any other potentate, had to difpofe of their island. Their numbers, which amounted in the whole to about fourteen thousand, made them the more fecure. The EngMr. Egerton failing in his folicitations, Mr. Braithwaite, fb attempt who had been appointed lieutenant-governor under Mr. to fettle it. Vring, was fent from Antigua, to which island the fettlement defigned for St. Lucia had retired, in the Griffin floop, attended by the Winchelsea man of war, to make a fresh attempt upon the inhabitants. This became the more neceffary, on account of the orders lately arrived from England, which were peremptory, that a fettlement should be made on St. Vincent. Mr. Braithwaite coming to an anchor off the island, was vifited by a perfon who pretended to be a chief, with twenty-two other inhabitants, but he foon had reafon to believe that this chief was an impoftor, and had no other view than to cajole him, with a view to obtain fome prefents. The currents having driven Mr. Braithwaite's fhip from this ftation, he anchored in a spacious bay to leeward of the island, which then prefented a place very proper for making a fettlement. Here he landed, but found the fhore covered with Indians, headed by a Frenchman, and all of them furnished with fire-arms. They immediately feized Braithwaite, carried him a mile up the country, where he was introduced to their general, who was furrounded by a guard of a hundred Indians, fome with fire-arms, and others with bows and arrows. A Frenchman ferved as interpreter between the chief and Braithwaite, who found himself under a neceflity to conceal his real errand, by pretending that he had come upon the island only to wood and water; and he offered to leave hostages in cafe the chief could be perfuaded to trust himfelf on board the English fhip. This offer was rejected, and Braithwaite was given to understand, that his fafeft courfe would be to get under fail, as information had been received, that he intended to force a fettlement upon the ifland; nor was be permitted either to wood or water. Returning to the beach, he found an additional number of Negroes with fire-arms; but when he got into his boat he fent on fhore a prefent of some refreshments to the Indian chief. The fcene was now changed, The French interpreter, |