'2 -4
L E T T E R H
SIN C E the date of my laft feveral fhips have arrived here, viz.
three fail from London, and an American brig.
The American^ bufinefs, it feems, was to pick up horfes, or
any cattle he could lay hands on ; but none being here, he weighed
anchor after Haying a few khours. The London veffels are employed
in the Southern whale filhery ; one of them, juft come
out, belongs to a Mr. Montgomery, in Prefcott-ftreet, Goodmans-
-Fields : the brig I have heard nothing about; and the other Ihip,
t o ____ Hamet, Efq; (now Sir Benjamin Hamet.) She is called
the Hamet, after her owner, and commanded by a Captain Clarke,
-who is a good hearty kind of man, and fo obliging as to take the
-charge of our letters.
-I Ihallnow proceed to finilh what further account I am able to
give thee of this place. The Fort and Caftle (or rather the paltry
places which ferve as an apology for them) are fituated on an eminence,
near half a mile from the water fide, and commanded by a
Captain, with a detachment of foldiers, fufficient, no doubt, to keep
the Bland in proper fubjugation, but purely unable to repel any
-foreign armament.
Immediately behind this fortrefs, on a large plain,, ftands the
Town of Praya, confifting of about fifty or fixty huts, Handing at
a good diftancefrom each-other, and form a large quadrangle,
where the market is held.: near the center is a pile of ftones,
which
which ferve as a crofs. ,Thefe huts (for I can call them no better)
are built with ftones, without any cement, and are perhaps as
poorly conftructed, as the moft miferable out-houfe belonging to
an Englifh farmer. They confift only of a ground-floor, which is
generally divided into two, or at moft three rooms.
Beds are a luxury not known in general here, the people ileep-
ing on mats : indeed I faw one at the merchant’s before-mentioned,
but fcarcely a menial fervant in England would fleep in it.
The natives are blacks, and generally fervants to the Portugueze,
many of whom refute here. They profefsthe Roman Catholic
religion, of which they feem very tenacious. One day when I was
at Praya, the people were going to public worlhip, and, impelled
by curiofity, I was polling tp the chapel, in order to fee their
method of faying mafs ; but the Commander of the Fort happening
to fee me, fent one of his foldiers to order me back.
The Portugueze behave kindly to ftrangers, but, perhaps, this
may proceed from interefted motives, as we went to their houfes
to purchafe fruit, &c. A good woman at one of the houfes made
me a mefs of boiled Indian wheat, mixed up with goat’s milk, and
fweetened with fugar, much like a good Englilh houfewife’s firmity :
this Ihe prefled me to partake of with fo much good-nature, that I
could not refufe eating, and found it a very agreeable mefs. It
might be imagined from the warmth of the climate, that the females
are naturally amorous ; yet both the natives and Portugueze
conftantly refilled every felicitation of that kind from our gentlemen,
though they enforced their rhetoric with very tempting prefen
ts : whether thefe conllant denials proceeded from a real love,
of chaftity, I lhall leave thee to determine.
1785.
Oftober.
D Ijudge