fore, advised his hearers to throw themselves on the mercy of the Spaniards, and announced his own intention of betaking himself to the farthest limits of West Florida, in order to settle "at or near Fort Notches [Natchez] on the Mississippi River."

That this was not idle talk is shown by the fact that Colonel Fanning set out, March 20, 1784, from St. Augustine, with seven families, his wife, and two negroes, all in open boats, for the Mississippi country. After sailing one hundred and sixty miles, he lost sight of his companions, and never saw them afterwards, although he waited for them twelve days, he tells us, at "Scibersken." From that point, he journeyed to Key West, where he was detained by a gale for more than a fortnight. There he met a Spanish schooner, and was warned that his boat was too small for the voyage he was undertaking, and that he stood a poor chance of escaping death at the hands of the Indians. Thereupon, he sailed back to one of the other keys, where he found an Italian skipper from New Providence, engaged in catching turtles. Fanning discovered this man to be untrustworthy and grasping, but, having no other alternative, engaged passage with him at an exorbitant price. Fortunately, however, the arrival of several other seaman from the Bahamas, on July 12, enabled Colonel and Mrs. Fanning to make the voyage to New Providence with a captain who showed them every attention. Landing at Nassau, the Fannings remained there only twenty days, and then sailed for New Brunswick, where they cast anchor, September 23, 1784. They departed a month later for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a view to obtaining land for settlement.1

Abaco, which probably received a greater share of the immigrants than any of the other Bahamas, is the largest island of the group, and one of the most fertile. Philip Dumaresq, who remained there as commissary for more than a year and a half, gives some particulars regarding the island, which enable us to identify it with Great Abaco: the length of the island, he says, is about a hundred miles, and in shape it "forms an elbow." He found the climate delightful, but noted that the soil was so shallow that in a dry season the sun heated the rock underneath and burned up any vegetables that had been planted. He also recorded 1. Flanning's Narrative, 1908, 37-46.

that an unusual drought had prevailed almost from the time the loyalists had arrived there. He wrote that Guinea corn, potatoes, yams, turnips, and other garden produce would grow very well, together with such fruits as oranges, limes, and plantains (bananas), and that cotton would thrive; but he complained that the settlers were all poor, had not the strength to do much, and that he had seen no fresh meat, except pork, since his arrival. However, poultry, he said, could be raised in plenty. The abundance of wild grapes convinced him that good wines might be produced, and he was told that indigo could be cultivated successfully. He and his family did not find the people of Abaco at all congenial, and he speaks of them in no complimentary terms in the letter to his father-in-law, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, the Boston loyalist, from which we glean our informant's impressions of the island and its occupants; on the other hand, the Commissary had nothing but good words for the treatment accorded him by John Maxwell, governor of the Bahamas, and General McArthur. These gentlemen, he testified, treated him only with the greatest politeness, and the former appointed him a magistrate in order, he declared, to keep him from being "insulted by the Abaco Blackguards.

1

If, however, Governor Maxwell showed himself kindly disposed towards this lone loyalist officer, he yet exhibited an unmistakable prejudice, which he shared with the older inhabitants, towards the new element in the colony. The coming of the loyalists thus brought with it factional feeling-feeling that grew so pronounced ere long as to lead the new settlers to disavow openly any responsibility for an address of regret presented to the Governor when he surrendered his office, and returned to England in the summer of 1785. The Americans promptly became the party of opposition to the existing government in the islands: they criticized the administration, accused Governor Maxwell of attempting to withold from them the right of trial by jury, and of other conduct which they characterized as tyrannical. They also found fault with some of the laws, on the ground that they were repugnant to those of the mother country, and they demanded reform. The elections of 1785 gave the loyalists some

I. The Gardiner, Whipple, and Allen Letters, Vol. II, 49. (In the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in Boston.)

members in the House of Assembly, but the native population was still in control there; and when several members, who favored the new party, withdrew from the House and persisted in absenting themselves against the House's orders, they were declared to be no longer eligible to seats in that body. The loyalists sent a petition to the Assembly asking for its dissolution, which, after being read, was handed over to the common hangman to be burned before the door of the House.

By the latter part of 1786, the Americans had become the stronger party in the Bahamas; but the Earl of Dunmore, who succeeded to the governorship at this time, pursued the same policy as his predecessor. He received petitions from New Providence, Abaco, Exuma, and Cat Island, again praying that the Assembly be dissolved; but, as he declined to accede to them, that body lasted about eight years longer, or until the end of Dunmore's administration. Then, finally, an act was passed that limited the life of a legislature to seven years.

Up to 1787, the title of the lands of the Bahamas had been vested in the Lords Proprietors of the islands. Now, however, the proprietary rights of these gentlemen passed to the Crown "on the payment of £2,000 to each of them." Henceforth, the King would exercise the rights of granting lands and collecting quit rents, although this was to be with less success, insofar as the quit rents were concerned, then under the Lords Proprietors.1

Besides affecting political conditions in the colony, the influx of the loyalists had a marked effect upon the commercial, agricultural, and social conditions of the archipelago. By 1800 the town of Nassau alone had a population-a little more than 3,000equal to the whole population of the only islands inhabited thirty years before, namely, New Providence, Eleuthera, and Harbor Island. The exports of Nassau are said to have amounted only to 5,200 for the years 1773 and 1774, and her imports to £3,600 for the same period; while for 1786 and 1787 the former had increased in value to £5,800, exclusive of the large amount of bullion exported, and the latter to £136,360. McKinnen, who made a tour of the Bahamas in 1802 and 1803, reports that six square-rigged vessels were seen at one time in Nassau harbor laden Fiske, The West Indies. 125; Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 426.

I.

with cotton for London, and tells us that during many years previous the exports of this commodity amounted to several hundred tons per annum. He also notes that the town was frequently visited while he remained there by African slave-ships, some of which disposed of their cargoes on the island. The principal trade of Nassau, McKinnen says, was carried on with England, the southern islands in the West Indies, and the United States, whence it derived continual supplies of live stock and provisions. The same authority states that the exports from the islands included salt, turtles, mahogany, dye and other woods and barks. Wrecking was also a source of considerable income, since wrecks were continually occurring among the Bahamas.2

Agriculture, even more than commerce, was given a new impetus by the American refugees, many of whom were planters from the South, accompanied by a considerable number of their slaves. It did not take these experienced cotton raisers long to clear lands and plant their crops. "It is said that fifteen years after their arrival, forty plantations, with between 2,000 and 3,000 acres in cotton fields, had been established on Crooked Island alone, and that on Long Island, which was settled at an earlier date, and which had been more extensively improved, there were in 1783 nearly 4,000 acres in cultivation. The combined yield from Long Island and Exuma for one year was estimated at over 600 tons." McKinnen found that the planters-most of whom came from Georgia, according to his account-had brought with them different varieties of seed, especially the Persian, but that Anguilla cotton was being more generally cultivated at the time. of his visit. It was customary to assign not more than four acres of Persian plants to each working slave, while five or six acres formed the usual allotment on the plantations where the Anguilla cotton was being grown. The best crops were secured from the higher lands, and amounted to one-half or three-fourths of a ton of clean lint for each working slave on some estates, although the average yield was about one-sixth of a ton or less. Another crop

I. Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 148; McKinnen, Tour Through the British West Indies, 216, 217; Northcroft, Sketches of Summerland, 282; McKinnen, Tour Through the British West Indies, 218, 219.

2. Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 149.

that was universally cultivated was Guinea corn. The production of cotton, however, was not destined to be permanently successful. When McKinnen visited the islands in 1802-1803, he found the plantations on Crooked Island for the most part deserted, and the proprietors generally despondent over the agricultural outlook. Mr. Charles N. Mooney of the United States Bureau of Soils, who has thoroughly investigated this subject, thinks that the same conditions probably prevailed in all the other islands, and proceeds to explain that the failure of cotton was due chiefly to the attacks of insects, but that other causes were also operative, as disclosed by a committee of planters who looked. into the matter at the time. This committee reported as additional causes for the failure of cottou growing, "the use of land unsuited to its culture, the injudicious and wasteful methods of clearing the land, and the exhaustion of the soil by unremitted tillage." The result appears to have been a marked decline in the production of cotton after the year 1805, together with a decrease in the value of land and slaves. These conditions led inevitably to the emigration of some of the planters with their negroes before the exportation of slaves from the British colonies was prohibited, and to attempts at securing the right to emigrate with them. after the slave trade was abolished in 1807. These conditions serve to explain the return to Florida of a body of loyalists who formed a settlement at New Smyrna, although they soon abandoned this place to seek homes in the States on account of the distasteful policy of the Spanish administration. The news of the activity of the opponents of slavery in England, which did not reach the Bahamas until 1815, must have had a further demoralizing effect upon cotton culture in the islands; and when slavery was abolished in 1834 cotton ceased to be an important crop. We are told that the fine estates that had been built up were now deserted and that the owners either moved to Nassau or left the islands altogether. When emancipation was declared the Bahama slave owners received 128,296 for their negroes, or £12, 148, 4d, per head. This was a comparatively low figure, 1. Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 148, 149; McKinnen. Tour Through the British West Indies, 183; Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 426, 552.

3. Geographical Society of Baltimore, The Bahama Islands, 149. 429.