expedient which, though unsuccessful on one occasion, (we mean in Trinidad,) is likely, we hope, to be renewed with better prospects in this season of confirmed tranquillity.

The population of St. Lucia was increased by the emigrations of French settlers from St. Vincent, whose plantations attracted the attention of English colonists arriving from other islands with the command of capital; and the temptation of the offers from the latter was not to be resisted, especially by men who had the option of obtaining land for nothing in St. Lucia. The ease with which loans are procured, on particular occasions, from British merchants, is often injurious to an imprudent planter; and M. LE BLOND represents this as particularly the case with those of his countrymen who were settled at Grenada. Being in general very ignorant of calculation, they saw only the fair side of the question, and considered an interest of six per cent. as a mere trifle in comparison with the large incomes which they grasped in imagination from their The magnitude of the intervening charges for the construction of buildings and the purchase of negroes was overlooked in their sanguine anticipations; purchases were made at very long credit; and for a season the planter seemed to overflow with wealth. Their humble dwellings were superseded by splendid mansions; and the cost of their rum and sugar-works amounted frequently to 8 or 9000l.: an expence which, added to a wasteful mode of living and the practice of gambling, soon brought a number of them to ruin, and obliged them to seek shelter from their creditors by flying to St.Lucia.

The unceremonious departure of these gentlemen, with their negroes, led to the enactment of a law in Grenada, prohibiting any person from quitting the island without the permission of government: but it was in vain to attempt to repress this practice. One planter, having invited his creditors to a splendid entertainment, under the pretext of settling his affairs, embraced the opportunity offered by the inebriation of his guests to embark with his negroes, his servants, and every person belonging to the house; and he had been at sea above an hour with a fair wind, before any of his credulous friends suspected the trick, or were able to make a search through the house, where they found only an old negro, who was too infirm to accompany his master. Some days afterward, a petty coffee-planter embarking with forty slaves in the night was stopped by two constables, but succeeded in getting off, with his swarthy attendants, by main force. The repetition of such evasions made the English creditors alter their plan; so that, on the slightest suspicion, the debtors were obliged to give security, or to go to prison, or to remain cooped up at home. It was amusing to see, in the town of St. George, a number of debtors leave their homes exactly at sun-set, and walk together without apprehension, during any part

of

of the night; taking, however, the precaution to get within-doors at sun-rise, and to keep close quarters at home on every day of the week except Sunday, when they were allowed to go abroad. Such was the law in those days; and a fraudulent debtor might thus bid defiance to his creditors, and live at his ease as long as he was not touched on the shoulder by a constable while the sun was above the horizon.'

In addition to the notices of Martinique, St. Lucia, and Grenada, M. LE B. communicates a variety of observations on other islands, viz. St. Vincent, Cariuacou, and the groupe called the Grenadines. Our other duties, however, do not permit us to dwell longer on his insular progress; and it is time to take some notice of the circumstances attending his travels on the continent of Spanish America. After having acquired some property in Grenada, he removed, in 1772, to Trinidad; where he formed a plantation as a place of retreat under any circumstances that might occur. He also obtained permission to travel with passports all over the continent of Spanish America, and with that view he studied the Spanish language. After these preparations, he began his travels on the main-land, and proceeded to Angostura, now called St. Thomas, the new capital of Spanish Guiana. The speculation which led him thither was not successful, but the expedition was of use in supplying him with curious facts regarding the lake of Parima, and the much-vaunted region El Dorado, the object of so many exaggerations, but which in reality is not destitute of gold mines. From that quarter he continued to sail up the Oroonoko, through immense meadows, all the way to Varinas; and, having achieved the narrow and dangerous passage of Los Callejones, he proceeded, through the long chain of the Cordilleras, which extend from the province of Merida, by the towns of Grita, Pamplona, Santa Fé de Bogota, Popayan, &c. to the province of Guayaquil, situated along the Pacific ocean. He visited likewise the coast stretching from the country of Platina, (le Choco,) beyond Lima, the capital of Peru.

A thousand obstacles oppose the progress of the traveller in these immense regions. In the plains, he finds roads rendered impracticable by rain; and, in ascending mountains, the fall of a rock or of a tree is sufficient to obstruct the path, and to oblige him to retrace his steps. He is under the necessity of providing himself with tents for his rest at night; being often obliged to proceed for several days together without finding inns, dwellings, or any thing except the fambos, or miserable receptacles which are provided by government in the Andes of Peru. Exposed to the attacks of the wild In

dians, whom the Spaniards have not yet subjected, he has need of all his courage to traverse sandy deserts, where his mules are liable to perish by hunger or thirst. He must take the resolution of crossing large rivers at the hazard of drowning, if the animal should fail on which he rides; and he is often obliged to pass dangerous torrents, holding fast by ropes which stretch from one bank to the other. The only compensation for so many inconveniences and dangers consists in the interest of the adventures to which they give rise, and the delight afforded by the magnificent scenery of the Cordilleras; which present on one side volcanoes smoking in a region of snow, and, on another, enormous rocks which appear to lose themselves in the immensity of space.

'My plan,' says M. LE B., was to make some stay in all the principal towns which I visited; and the exercise of the medical profession opened to me the doors of a number of houses. The society into which I was received, and the curious anecdotes which I conse quently learned, gave me an ample field of information regarding the manners of the Spanish Americans, whose character is marked by conspicuous distinctions, arising from the influence of the different climates which they inhabit. As to the savages of America, I endeavoured to study them in the double relation of their political and their moral conduct. So long ago as 1785, I read to the French Academy of Sciences some memoirs containing the general result of my travels; and the Journal de Physique of that year inserted an essay on the natural history of the country around Santa Fé de Bogota, the capital of the New Kingdom of Grenada. Among other matters, it noticed that the temperature of that elevated region prevents the multiplication of most of the animals and plants of the torrid zone; while the animals, the culinary plants, the grain, and the fruit-trees of Europe, brought thither by the Spaniards, prosper as in their natural climate; and the sight of wheat, barley, and potatoes, brings forcibly to the European traveller the recollection of his native land. The children of the Spaniards and Mulattoes bear, in this country, a considerable resemblance in point of complexion to the natives of a cold climate. These observations were at that time new, and wore the aspect of exaggeration; but the concurring reports of subsequent travellers have completely confirmed them.

Among the physical topics of chief importance discussed in my work, are the two following:

(1.) Why are the plains in the West Indies and South America. generally more extensive towards the east than towards the west, and why has the sea less depth on its eastern shore?

(2.) How does it happen that the western coasts in those regions are generally covered by steep chains of primitive mountains, of which the vertical divisions every where display naked rocks of considerable height; while their bases are lost in the depth of the

ocean;

ocean; and their masses, separated from each other by greater or smaller spaces, present bays, inlets, and harbours, where the sea is in general deep and tranquil?'

Such are the topics which M. LE B. promises to discuss in his ensuing volumes. He engages also to furnish observations respecting the Indians of French Guiana, in whose neighbourhood he passed the long period of eighteen years. This protracted stay took place on his proceeding a second time to the West Indies, after the year 1785, when he bore a kind of official character, being commissioned by the French government to make researches with the view of procuring increased supplies of Peruvian bark. He had so successfully cultivated the confidence of the Indians, that a tribe of them, conscious of their weakness and ignorance, made application through him for missionaries to instruct them; a request with which it would have been of great importance to have complied. For this purpose, two of the chiefs of their nation followed him to Cayenne, with twenty-eight of their vassals: but, unluckily, the Revolution had broken out in France, and he received orders to discontinue his labours. He thinks that the discovery of supplies of bark, in the high mountains to the west, would have enabled the Indians to indemnify his government for any pecuniary advances which they might have wanted; and the attempt to introduce among them the comforts of civilized society would have succeeded, if it had been managed with a proper knowlege of their disposition.

We shall take an opportunity of reporting the subsequent publications of M. LE BLOND, when they reach us.

ART. V. Fuite de Bonaparte; &c. i. e. Bonaparte's Flight from Egypt; a Collection of authentic Documents respecting his Desertion of the Army, and the Condition in which he left it, without Money, Provisions, Arms, or Ammunition; together with his Letters addressed to the Grand Vizier, and intercepted by the British Corvette El Vincejo. 8vo. pp. 86. Paris. 1814.

A Ta time when encouragement is given to bring forwards every latent document of Bonaparte's misconduct, it might be expected that his abandonment of the Egyptian army would be laid before the eyes of the public in France; where, from the uninterrupted controul exercised by him ever since his arrrival, a great degree of ignorance has existed with regard to this part of his history. At Paris, he ascribed this return, with his usual artifice, to sollicitude for the welfare of France; in Egypt, he caused it to be published that he went home to procure relief for the army. These professions, however un

likely to impose on men of discernment, have actually obtained currency for many years among our Gallic neighbours, by whom the declarations sanctioned by the ruling, power are generally. received with blind confidence.

It was curious to remark, before the return of Bonaparte from Egypt, the diversity of feeling among Frenchmen at different times concerning the extraordinary expedition to that country. On the news of his escape from the English fleet, and his successful landing at Alexandria, the contest lay in the inquiry to whom the public was chiefly indebted for a plan apparently replete with so much benefit to France, and so much injury to her sworn enemy, England. On this as on other occasions, Barras claimed the merit of having brought forwards the invincible commander; while many other shinted significantly. at their having borne a greater share in the plan than the public supposed. The news, however, of the battle of the Nile, and the subsequent account of the memorable siege of Acre, produced a total revolution of opinion; and nobody could afterward explain how the notion of so strange an expedition had first been conceived. The only official ray of light given to the world on this topic is contained in the memorial of Merlin, formerly member of the Directory. "It is a fact," says

Merlin, (p. 20.) "that Bonaparte himself composed the minutes of all the orders, instructions, and decrees which were issued on this subject by the Directory; and, if it were not he who first conceived the plan of the expedition to Egypt, it may at least be safely asserted that without him it would have gone no farther than a mere project."

Among the different letters contained in the present collection, that of M. Poussielgue, comptroller of the finances in Egypt, to the Directory, is one of the most clear and circumstantial:

"Cairo, 1 Vendemiaire (23d September) 1799.

"I have exclusively had the charge, since the arrival of the army in Egypt, of the finances and other branches of public œconomy in this country; and, on the departure of General Bonaparte, I feel it incumbent on me, in the critical position in which he leaves us, to transmit to you a short but faithful sketch of the observations which I have made, and the opinions arising from them.

"Travellers, and even the official agents of the French government, who have been in Egypt, have concurred in giving such exaggerated views of its fertility, as well as of the treasures contained in the country, that a residence of fifteen months, and the investigations of many well-informed men, have scarcely sufficed to efface this false impression. The ordinary revenue was computed by these persons at 2,000,00ol. sterling, and some have calculated it at even -2,500,000l. Now the fact is that, even in time of peace, it does not exceed 800,000l.; and it would require an extensive and well-pro.

tected