remember above three claps of thunder during the time I was on the island. The winter is very pleasant ; and it never freezes.

The proper time for sowing wheat and barley is from May to Auguft, and is got in December; that which has been fowed has produced twenty-five fold, and I think the increase may be greater. Two bushels of barley fowed in 1789 produced twenty-four bushels of a found full grain.

The Indian corn produces well, and is, in my opi nion, the best grain to cultivate in any quantity, on ac count of the little trouble attending its growth, and manufacturing for eating.

The Rio Janeiro fugar cane grows very well, and is thriving.

Vines and oranges are very thriving; of the former, there will be a great quantity in a few years.

Potatoes thrive remarkably well, and yield a very great increase ; I think two crops a year of that article may be got with great ease.

Every kind of garden vegetable thrives well, and comes to great perfection.

The quantity of ground cleared, and in cultivation, belonging to the public, was, on the 13th March 1790, from twenty-eight to thirty-two acres, and about eighteen cleared by free people and convicts for their gardens.

PHILIP GIDLEY KING.

London, January 10, 1791.)

791. }

1

An Account of the Number of Convicts which have been Shipped from England for New South Wales, and of the Number intended to be fent in the Ships now under Orders for that Service; made out pursuant to an Order of the Honourable House of Commons, dated 9th February, 1791.

Convicts fhipped

Convicts intended to be fent in the ships now under orders

Treafury Chambers,
March 18, 1791.

Numbers.

2,029

1,830

3,859

CHARLES LONG.

Efay on the Manners of Europe in Early Times.

Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.

POPE.

BEFORE the revival of letters, and the invention of printing, the manners of Europe were no less coarse than cruel,

In the cartularies of Charlemagne, judges are forbid to hold courts, but in the morning, with an empty stomach. It would appear, that men in those days were not ashamed of being feen drunk even in a court of jus tice.

It was customary both in France and Italy, to collect for fport all the ftrumpets in the neighbourhood, and to make them run races. Struvius mentions a te

nure, binding a vaflal, on the birth-day of his lord, to dance and ft before him. In the fame period, the judgment of Paris was a favourite theatrical entertainment: Three women stark-naked, represented the three Godeffes, Juno, Venus, and Minerva.

Nicknames, fo common not long ago, are an instance of the fame coarfenefs of manners; for, to fix a nickname on a man, is to use him with a contemptuous familiarity.

Swearing, as an expletive of fpeech, is a violent fymptom of rough and coarse manners. Such fwearing prevails among all barbarous nations. Swearing prevailed in France and Spain, till it was banished by polite manners. Elizabeth Queen of England was a bold fwearer; and the English populace, who are rough beyond their neighbours, are noted by ftrangers for that vice. Swearing renders facred names too familiar. God's beard, the common oath of William Rufus, fuggefted an image of our maker, as an old man with a long beard. In vain have acts of Parliament been made against swearing: It is eafy to avoid the penalty by coining new oaths; and as that vice proceeds from an overflow of fpirits, people in that condition brave penalties. Polished manners are the only effectual cure for that malady.

When people begin to emerge out of barbarity, loud mirth and rough jokes come in place of rancour and refentment. About a century ago, it was ufual for the fervants and retainers of the court of Seffion in Scotland to break out into riotous mirth and uproar, the last day of every term, throwing bags, duft, sand, or ftones all around.

An act of the court paffed for prohibiting this diforder, is fufficient evidence of its being cuftomary.

Inns were unknown in Germany, and, to this day, are unknown in the remote parts of the Highlands of

Scotland; because hofpitality prevailed greatly among the ancient Germans, and continues to prevail so much among our Highlanders, that a gentleman takes it for an affront if a stranger pafs his house.

Magnanimity and heroifm, in which benevolence is an effential ingredient, are inconfiftent with cruelty, perfidy, or any grovelling paffion. Never was gallantry in war carried to a greater height than between the English and Scots borderers, before the crowns were united. The night after the battle of Otterburn, the victors and vanquished lay promifcuously in the fame camp, without apprehending the least danger, one from

another.

→ Manners are deeply affected by perfecution. The forms of procedure in the inquifition of Spain, enable the inquifitors to ruin whom they please. A perfon accufed is not confronted with the accufer; every fort of accufation is welcome, and from every perfon: Nay, the perfons accufed, are compelled to inform against themselves, by gueffing what fin they may have been guilty of. Hence the profound ignorance of the Spaniards, while other European nations are daily improving in every art and in every science. Human nature is reduced to the lowest state, when governed by fuperftition, cloathed with power. Edinburgh, 2 April 4. 1791.

PROMETHEUS.

A Card.

LORD BUCHAN avails himself of the extenfive circulation of the Bee, to folicit the attention of his correfpondents, both at home and abroad, to the advancement of Scottish biography; a plan for which he offered, about ten years ago, and endeavoured to promote its execution, by publishing a life of the great inventor of the logarithms.

Many lives of illuftrious and learned Scots that ave been already offered to the pulbic, are fo barren in incident, and fo flight in compofition, as to give but little information or amusement to the reader, and ought to be confidered as no more than ground to be more fully explored and cultivated, of which the life of Buchanan is a remarkable inftance, having been handled either critically and heavily, as by Ruddimah, or flightly as by Bayle and the British biographical dictionary.

Lord Buchan requests the communication of original letters that may cafually be in the poffeffion of perfons who are not difpofed to make a biographical ufe of them themselves, and would wifh to see them made fubfervient to the honouring and illustrating the memories of the benefactors of mankind. He has received letters of the Scottish Virgil, Thomson, which will enable him to enrich the life of that truly eminent poet; and he wishes to be provided with materials for doing justice to the memories of his other great countrymen, which he has never been difpofed to hoard as an antiquary, but to scatter upon the waters of literature, that they may be found after many days. Anecdotes of illuftrious and learned Scots will be very acceptable, when they are characteristic, fuch as the following of Andrew Fletcher of Salton.Fletcher being in company one day with the witty Dr. Pitcairn, the conversation turned on a person of literature, whofe history was not diftinctly known. I knew the man well, faid Fletcher: He was bereditary profeffor of divinity at Hamburgh. Hereditary profeffor! said Dr. Pitcairn, with a laugh of astonishment and derifion. Yes, Doctor, replied Fletcher, bereditary profeffor of divinity! what think you of a hereditary king?