Six Months in the West Indies, in 1825

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1826. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... TRINIDAD. After about seven weeks residence in Barbados, I had the pleasure of accompanying the new bishop in his first visitation of his diocese. We were accommodated in the most comfortable manner by Captain Lawrence of H. M. S. Eden, sloop of war, and set sail for the south on Tuesday evening the 22d of March. We sighted Tobago on the larboard beam on the 24th, and were so baffled by light heading winds that we. did not make the land of Trinidad till the afternoon of the 25th. The full moon was shooting a wild and lustrous glare through the crevices of a black mass of clouds, which hung halfway down the mountains of the Main, when we sailed with a fresh breeze through the Boca Grande into the beautiful gulf of Paria. This passage is about four or five miles wide, and as I gazed with intense interest for the first time upon the shores of South America, I could not help thinking that the fitful glare and the dark atmosphere formed together an impressive emblem of the present state of that mighty continent. May thy darkness, I murmured, thy moral and religious darkness pass away from thee, and light, and truth, and freedom, shine around thee hereafter in pure and unbroken splendor. The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion. We anchored that night at a little distance from the mouth of Chaguaramus Bay, memorable as the scene of the capture of the island by Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Hereupon they tell the following story in Port of Spain. Admiral Apodaca, having with great gallantry burnt all his own ships except one 74, rode off to the town as fast as his horse would carry him, and himself announced the event to the astonished governor Chacon. Only one ship has fallen into the enemy's hands! I have burnt the rest, said the admir...