There are many different descriptions of grapes; the large sized, and which is merely a table grape, and is not made into wine, is about the size of a muscle plum, and the bunches are so large as sometimes to weigh twenty pounds.
The wines shipped from Madeira, are classed Tinta, or Madeira Burgundy, Malmsey, Sersial, and simple plain Madeira; the three first thirty pounds per pipe dearer than the latter, which is sixty pounds per pipe of 110 gallons, free on board. This high price is occasioned by the want of unanimity among the English merchants, or indeed a want of good faith towards each other, for they appear occasionally to rouse from their lethargy, meet at their consul's, and agree to give only certain prices for the wines at the press; but, immediately after, each out-bids the other, and the wine-jobber laughs in his sleeve, and profits by their folly.—Were a dozen of the principal wine shippers to be unanimous, they might, with ease, reduce the wines at the press one third of the present exorbitant prices, and could, of course, make a similar reduction in the shipping prices, when they would consequently have larger orders: but what can scarcely be credited is, that when they had what they term a factorial meeting to affix the shipping prices for 1819, all but two of the sapient assembly were for raising the price 8l. per pipe; and when these two proved to a demonstration that such conduct would only induce the wine-jobbers to make a similar rise, and merely add to their coffers, already overflowing with the effect of the merchants' past follies; the meeting still deemed it necessary to adjourn for a few days, before they would allow themselves to be convinced.
No foreign wine is allowed to be imported, not even a few dozen of Port for private use, although it is the production of the mother country: this is being strict indeed, yet it is justifiable, as a very few years since a discovery was made of an attempt to smuggle into the Island a number of pipes of wine from the Islands of Fayal and Tenneriffe; and had not the most rigid methods been adopted, the wine of Madeira would have lost its reputation, as no one who imported wine from thence could have been certain of having it genuine: consequently the wines were seized, and the heads of the casks were knocked out in the public marketplace, which overflowed with the contents: the boats that landed it were confiscated, and the smuggler condemned to transportation, or to pay to the crown, in addition to losing the wine, twice its amount.
The Island is well supplied with good beef, mutton, poultry, and some wild pidgeons, quails, partridges, snipes, woodcocks, wild rabbits, &c. The Atlantic furnishes the Island with abundance of excellent jew fish, john dory, pike, mullet, hake, mackeral, pilchards, turtle, cray fish, crabs, shrimps, limpets, &c. They have a breed of small but handsome and serviceable horses.
Most of the commercial characters on the Island are English; and among them are some respectable long established houses, possessing considerable capitals: there are about twenty different firms, and as many families. The total number of British subjects in Madeira, including women, children, clerks, and servants, amounts to one hundred; but they are too haughty, too jealous, and too envious of of each other, to be very sociable.
THE PROMPTER.
He does not work it right.
What a vulgar saying the Prompter has selected for his text in this number! Yet these vulgar sayings are often full of good sense.
I knew a young man who left the army with an invincible attachment to gambling. He followed it closely till he had lost most of his wages—he then purchased a shop of goods, mostly on credit—he had his nightly frolics—he kept it up—he was a blood of the first rate—his goods were soon gone and not paid for—his creditors began to cry peccavi—in fact, he did not work it right. But his friends helped him out of six scrapes, yea, out of seven. At length necessity broke his spirit—it tamed him—he married, became a man of business, recovered his lost credit—and now he works it right.