The negros in Dominica, under the description of slaves, are between fifteen and sixteen thousand; but not more than one half of that number belongs to the English inhabitants, whose plantations in particular are but thinly furnished with them. This is owing to a variety of causes; and among others, to the rather imprudent conduct of some of the first English settlers, after the country was ceded to Great Britain. Many of them brought negros who had only been in the capacity of domestics; some, those that were banished from other islands for their crimes, and others purchased negros just brought from Africa, for the purpose of settling their new estates. These were immediately set to work, to cut down massy, hard wood trees, to lop and burn the branches, clear the ground of the roots, and to labour at difficult, though necessary business, for which they were by no means qualified. The consequences of these great mistakes soon after appeared, for the domestic and new negros labouring in such work as they were not used to, in a climate, which, from the abundance of its woods, was so unsettled, that it rained greatest part of the year; whilst they had only temporary huts covered with the branches and leaves of trees to shelter them in at night, and were subject to many inconveniences in the day-time; this very uncomfortable situation occasioned the death of numbers, and caused others to run away into the woods, where many of them perished. The increase of runaway negros also owes its origin, in a great measure, to the impolitic conduct of some of the first English settlers: for, during the neutral state of this island, a number of French and Spaniards had settled themselves on the most fertile parts of the sea-coasts, and had raised to themselves very fine sugar and coffee estates. Among these were some Jesuits, who having sugar plantations on the south-east part of the island, they disposed of the same, together with the negros on them, to some of the English new settlers. Many of the negros so purchased from the Jesuits, either from their attachment to them, or dislike to their new masters, soon after betook themselves to the woods with their wives and children, where they were joined, from time to time, by others from different estates. There they secreted themselves for a number of years, formed companies under different chiefs, built good houses, and planted gardens in the woods, where they raised poultry, hogs, and other small stock, which, with what the sea, rivers, and woods afforded, and what they got from the negros they had intercourse with on the plantations, they lived very comfortably, and were seldom disturbed in their haunts.