About this time, Governor Hamilton sent a party of settlers, under command of a Mr. Howell, from Antigua and the different Leeward Islands, to plant a colony upon Crab Island, a small island lying between Santa Cruz and Porto Rico. In the year 1699, the Scottish or Darien Company fitted out two large ships with a cargo of articles for traffic, and arms and ammunition, intending to form a settlement in America. While on their passage, they resolved to call in at Crab Island, and leave some of their party there; but upon their arrival, finding a large tent erected on the beach, with Danish colours flying, and not wishing to have any dispute, they left the island to the Danes, and proceeded to the Isthmus of Darien. The Danes having given up the colony, the English thought it a good time to put in a claim, and accordingly, as before remarked, Governor Hamilton sent a party to colonize it. Improvements were made about this time in the erection of mills for the purpose of grinding the sugar cane, and also in the art of sugar-boiling, which the Antiguans at that day appear to have been deficient in. Oldmixon, speaking of the sugar made in Antigua, says,—“It is so black and coarse, that no art could fine it; and, as if our sugar bakers in England scorned to put dirt in their coppers, it was generally shipped off to Holland and Hamburg, where it was sold for 16s., when any other brought from 18s. to 19s. per hundred.” In 1620, Lord Viscount Lowther was appointed to the government of the Leeward West India Islands, but his appointment was afterwards cancelled; and, in 1721, George I. appointed John Hart, Esq., former governor of Maryland, to be commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands, who arrived at Antigua about the middle of the year. About this time gambling raged to a great extent in Antigua, and it was thought necessary to adopt some measures to suppress it. It was therefore ordained, in 1723, that, if any person won more than seven pounds at one sitting, or within twenty-four hours from the time they first commenced playing, they were to forfeit treble the value, half of which was to be paid into treasury for the purpose of building and repairing forts, &c., and the other half to go to the loser. It is strange that, much about the same time, this vice was very prevalent in England. Indeed, profligacy of all kinds had increased in that kingdom to an alarming extent. This was supposed to have arisen from the infatuation of the South Sea scheme, which, intoxicating the minds of the people with the prospect of imaginary wealth, led them into every excess. If any of the Antiguans had joined in this infatuation, I am unable to say. I was led into the mention of it from the fact of both countries being, at the same period, subject to the same kind of vice.