OBSERVATION.——_I cannot omit to mention in this place, that Mr. Geoffrey de Villeneuve, a young French officer, and skilful naturalist, who made a very extensive journey in the year 1787 into the interior parts of the country above Goree, will probably soon entertain the publick with a faithful description thereof, so much the more interesting, as he has with indefatigable pains and deep knowledge, examined the disposition of the inhabitants, and the nature of the country, in a manner which certainly will do honour to the philosophy of this century._ [9] That it is necessary for a _free_, _commercial_, and _laborious_ nation to look out for foreign settlements, when _population_ and _manufactured products_ encrease in a similar proportion, is a truth as evident as that without _enlarging space_ for the former, and _seeking for an emporium_ for the latter, the progress of _population_ and _commerce_ must necessarily and of course cease. Hence sound policy dictates that the government of such a nation should with the affectionate care of a provident father, prepare proper places for receiving the superabundance of population and products—a principle which few mother countries seem to have observed in the settlement of colonies. In a future treatise the author will endeavour to shew, that this fundamental mistake is the true cause of the ruinous and unsupportable expence in which all the European colonies have involved their respective mother countries. He will propose a plan, the adoption of which he is of opinion would effectually prevent such ruinous consequences in any settlement that may hereafter be established by the Europeans. He will also enumerate the productions of the coast of Guinea, and the European commodities preferred by the inhabitants, adding some directions and cautions proper to be observed in trading and conversing with them, together with several other interesting particulars. [10] I cannot help here reflecting on the strange means the French employ for the encouragement of this execrable trade. They allow their merchants a bounty of 150 livres tournois for each slave they import into _Cayenne_ and _La Guyenne_ Françoise; 100 livres for the southern parts of _St. Domingo_; 80 livres for _La Jeremie_ and its dependencies; 60 livres for _St. Marie_, _Leogane_, and _Port au Prince_; and 50 livres for _Cape François_ and its dependencies.—Besides this, Government pays a premium of 40 livres per ton for all the ships that go to the coast, and they are also more favoured in the measurement than any other. These bounties, granted for promoting the sale of human flesh, is the occasion of their committing the most abominable abuses, which cry for vengeance, and are even injurious in the extreme to the Government which encourages them.