Thirdly. If there are more debts than one, and these together make up the sum which may cause the plantation to be subject to execution, still some law proceedings must be entered into, by which these several debts may be placed in such a form as to be considered as one debt. Thus the government does those things which ought not to be done, and leaves undone those things which ought to be done.

[165] “Qu’ils (les cabrouettiers) ayent soin, quand il est nécessaire de leur faire ôter les barbes, qui sont certaines excrescences de chair, qui leur viennent sous la langue, qui les empêchent de paître. Car les bœfs ne coupent pas l’herbe avec les dents comme les chevaux, ils ne font que l’entortiller avec la langue et l’arracher; mais quand ils ont ces excrescences, qui leur causent de la douleur, ils ne peuvent appliquer leur langue autour de l’herbe et deviennent maigres et sans force.”—Nouveau Voyage, &c. tom iv. p. 179.

Of this disorder I never heard, but there is one to which horses as well as horned cattle are subject; it is produced by the animals feeding upon fields of which the grass is very short. The flesh grows from the roots of the teeth towards their edges, and at last renders it impossible for the beasts to eat.

[166] The following is a statement of the number of cases of sugar exported from Pernambuco, from the year 1808 to 1813.

1808.4271
1809.12801
1810.9840
1811.7749
1812.8577
1813.9022

I obtained it from my friend Mr. I. C. Pagen, who resided at Recife during a considerable portion of the time.

[167] I have seen some fine cotton shrubs at the distance of one or two leagues, and even less, from the sea coast; but the attempts that have been made to cultivate it to any extent in such situations, have not, from what I have seen and heard, met with the desired success. Might not the Sea-Island seed be sent for, and a trial of it made? The Pernambuco cotton is superior to that of every other part, excepting the small quantity which is obtained from those islands.

Bolingbroke, in his “Voyage to the Demerary,” says that “On the sea coast the British settlers also commenced the culture of cotton, and found that land to answer much better than the soil up the river.”—In Phillips’ Collection, &c. p. 81.

The cotton of the settlements upon the part of South America of which he writes, is very inferior to that of Pernambuco.

In the Third Report of the Directors of the African Institution, p. 23, I find it stated, that “the saline air of the sea-shore, which generally destroys coffee, is favourable to cotton;” at p. 27, it is said that cotton never fails to degenerate “when it has been propagated in the same ground for many years without a change of seed.”