until they become worse than brutes. The consequence is apparent; the French take every care of their health, but the British study nothing so minutely as their own destruction, literally dying in the fumes of intemperance, with their minds full of obscenity;' disgorging it at the mouth.

Coffee requires great nicety in roasting; if underdone, its virtues will not be imparted; if over-done, it will have a flattish, burnt, and bitter taste; therefore its virtues will be destroyed. It ought to be confined very close at the time of roasting, and also till used, in order to retain its pungent flavour. The French always make it very strong, preferring the fine syrup of crude sugar to lump or loaf. The way they make it, is, to take a cupful of ground coffee which they put into something almost exactly resembling a small funnel lined with flannel; they then pour as much boiling water over it as will fill a cup; they use it without milk, The extraordinary influence which coffee, thus judiciously prepared, imparts to the stomach, from its tonic and invigorating qualities, is strongly exemplified by the immediate effect produced on taking it, when the stomach is overloaded with food, nauseated with surfeit, or debilitated by intemperance. To constitutionally weak stomachs it affords a pleasing sensation; it accelerates the progress of digestion, corrects crudities, and removes flatulencies; besides its effects in supporting the harmony of the gastric powers, when it diffuses a genial warmth that cherishes the animal spirits, and takes away, according to BAGLIVE, the listlessness and langour which so greatly embitter the hours of nervous people after any deviation to excess, fatigue, or irregularity. The foundation of all the mischiefs of intemperance is Jaid in the stomach; for, when it is injured, instead of

preparing the food, that the lacteals may carry into the constitution sweet and wholesome juices, to support the health, it becomes the source of disease, and disperses through the whole frame the cause of decay. From the efficacy of coffee in attenuating the viscid fluids, and increasing the vigour of the circulation, it has been used with great success in the dropsy, and in those comatosi, torpid, anasarca's diseases that arise in the West Indies from viscid food, obstructed perspiration, and the oppressive heat of the sun. In vertigo, lethargy, catarrah, and all disorders in the head, from ob structions in the capillaries, long experience has proved it to be a powerful medicine; and in certain cases of apoplexy it has been found serviceable even when given in glysters, where it has not been found convenient to convey its effects by the stomach. The different species of head-ach, such as cephaloea, hernicrania, and clavus, are more frequent and more violent in this part of the world than in Europe. Coffee is the only medicine that gives relief; opiates are sometimes used, but coffee has an advantage that opium does not possess, for it may be taken in all conditions of the stomach, and at all times, by women who are most subject to those complaints; as it dissipates those congestions and obstructions, that are frequently the cause of the disease, and which opium is known to increase when its temporary relief is past. From the stimulant and detergent properties of coffee it is used in obstructions in the viscera; it powerfully promotes the menses, and mitigates the pains attendant on a sparing discharge of that evacuation. In the West Indies the chlorosis and obstructed menses, are common among laborious females, exposed to the effects of their own carelessness, and the rigorous transition of the climate, strong coffee drank

I

warm in a morning fasting, and good exercise after it, has been productive of innumerable cures. The industrious overseers of plantations, and other Europeans employed in cultivation, who, from the nature of their occupations, must be exposed to the morning and evening dews, find great support from a cup of coffee before: they go to the field; it fortifies the stomach, and guards them against the diseases incident to their way of life, especially in clearing lands, or when their residence is in humid situations, or in the vicinity of stagnant water.

Those again who are imprudently addicted to intemperance, find coffee a benign restorer and bracer of the stomach, for that nausea, weakness and disorderly condition, which is brought on by drinking bad fermented liquors and new rum to excess. Coffee has also the admirable property of promoting perspiration, allaying thirst, and checking preternatural heat.

For more of the medicinal virtues of the coffee I beg leave to refer you to Dr. Moseley's treatise, which I have consulted in the preceding remarks. Although it has been published about eighteen years, it is somewhat şingular it has never found its way into the British West India Islands; if it has, the excellent advice it contains does not seem to be followed. No one stands in need of it more than the soldier, to whom it ought to be recommended, not only by the medical men attached to the army, but by the commanding officers; instead of that, those I have conversed with have not so much as heard of it. Alas! the comfort of the poor soldier is unhappily overlooked in more, nay, in many more, instances than this, which it would be a work of supererogation in me to notice.

It is, however, astonishing that coffee, which boasts of so many medicinal virtues, should be so little used in

Britain; and when used, it is made so meagre as to have no more virtue in it than what the water contains. It is true, there is more trouble attending it, in the operation, than tea, which is probably the reason why the latter is so much run upon, although found to be very prejudicial to the human frame. Dr. James, I think, somewhere declares, That whatever virtues are ascribed to tea, or however useful as a medicine it may be in China, he is very certain, that either the tea, or the water, or both, are extremely prejudicial as an habitual drink in England, in so much so, that he (himself) had known many hysterical cases relieved, and some cured, by leaving off tea, without taking any remedy whatever; and, in one particular, which was attended with terrible convulsions. Let the properties of tea be what they may, I do not mean to trouble myself about them, leaving it to others who have more-leisure and are more 'capable of elucidating the subject. However, the most innocent way, I fancy, of using it, is according to the original Scotch fashion, which I have frequently-heard related, though I cannot vouch for the truth of it. You may have heard of this circumstance. It is thus: A North Briton brought a couple of pounds of it home to his mother as a valuable present; the honest woman invited her neighbours to partake of the rarity, which she boiled all together, like kail, in an iron pot, and threw the water away; the leaves, after mixing them with a lump of good butter, of her ain kirning, she put before her visitors, who, as the tale says, thought it verra gude!The extraordinary length of this letter bids me say

Vale,

LETTER V.

Arguments deduced from Antiquity to evince that the Climate is no impediment to the Industry of the Whites Extraordinary longevity-Climate HealthyDebauchery and Intemperance destructive-Conduct of the European-Mode of choosing MistressesReflections thereon-A Creolian method of acquiring a Fortune by ablocating Prostitutes-West India Tavern a common lustrum-Philadelphian method of getting Slaves-Career of the European-Salacity and festivity how fatal-Diseases and Mortality among the Negroes-Mal d'Estomac, or Dirt Eating -Its Origin and Effects.

DEAR SIR,

Head-Quarters, PUERTO DE ESPANA, Feb. 1803.

HAVING in my preceding letters given

you a superficial view of the colony and its productions, I shall now proceed to state my reasons why I think a White Population would thrive. I do not mean to say much respecting the slave trade, but to enquire into the best account to which this Island could be turned, in every view of colonial and national policy. To cultivate it would require an importation of more than 240,000 Negroes, independent of those already on it, whom I shall, for the sake of argument, calculate at