state in 1828; and more recently La Plata has been involved in disputes with both Bolivia, and France. These wars have contributed to retard the march of her prosperity; but with all her accumulated difficulties, La Plata has every appearance of soon becoming a prosperous country.

COLOMBIA.

This is a new state, formed at the close of the year 1819, from the states of Grenada, and Venezuela or Caraccas. It will therefore be necessary to detail the distinct history of these two original states.

Grenada, or as it is called, New Grenada, was discovered by Columbus in his fourth voyage, and taken possession of for the Spanish government. He was followed by others, and especially by Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first who made Europe acquainted with a published account of this part of the New World. The first regular colonists were Ojeda, and Nica Essa, in 1508; the former founded the district called New Andalusia, but with no great success; the latter, Golden Castile, and he also perished. These two districts were united (1514) in one, called Terra Firma, under Avila, who successfully extended the discoveries, and founded the town of Panama. Other additions were subsequently made, and the kingdom of New Grenada was established under a captain-general, in 1547. As it had been established, so did it continue for more than one hundred and fifty years, when in 1718 it became a vice-royalty, which form of government lasted but for six years, when it was supplanted by the original one, which was again superseded in 1740, by the incubus of the vice-royalty. Thus did it continue, till the weakness of the mother country, from the invasion of the French, afforded an opportunity to raise the standard of independence. Many and various have been the events attendant upon the struggle for mastery; but a severe blow was inflicted by their old masters in 1810, who, under Morillo, defeated the colonists with tremendous loss. Three years of renewed subjection followed when the success of the illustrious Bolivar caused the union of Grenada with Venezuela.

Venezuela. This district was discovered somewhat earlier than Grenada, by Columbus, in 1498. After several fruitless attempts to colonize it, the Spanish government disposed of the partially subdued natives to the Weltsers, a German company of merchants. Their management led to a change in 1550, when Venezuela, like Grenada three years before became a supreme government under a captain-general. From that pe riod to 1806, Venezuela was a torpid vassal under the Spanish crown, when a futile attempt for independence was made under General Mirando, a native. Simultaneous with Grenada, Venezuela rallied for liberty, when the mother country was prostrate before the ascendancy of France, in 1810. In the following year a formal proclamation of independence was made, July 6, and success seemed to attend the cause. Then came the dreadful earthquake. Superstition re-nerved the arm of freedom, and the royalist general, Monteverde, discomfited Mirando, and again overran the province. In 1813 Bolivar called independence again into action, and success attended him for three years, when another defeat was sustained, which was followed by another victory. Reverses again recurring, compelled the congress to appoint Bolivar dictator; and in 1819 the union of Venezuela with Grenada was effected under the name of Colombia.

Colombia may therefore date its history as a nation from this union, which was agreed upon December 17, 1819; and the installation of the united congress took place May 6, 1821; which was followed in June 24, by a victory obtained by the president Bolivar over the Spaniards, at the

ebrated battle of Carabobo, in which the royalist army lost above six thousand men, besides their artillery and baggage.

BOLIVIA.

The history of this recently formed state, known before as Upper Peru, partakes of the nature of an episode in the life of the great Bolivar, in whose honour its present name was given, and to whose wise councils it is so much indebted. Previously to the battle of Ayachuco, in 1824, it formed a part of the Spanish viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres; but General Sucre, at the head of the republicans, having then defeated the royalist troops, the independence of the country was effected; and in the following year, at the request of the people, Bolivar drew up a constitution for its governance.

The reader will find in the life of Bolivar the following passage, which is so applicable that we cannot, perhaps, do better than transcribe it. "His renown was now at its height, and every act of his government showed how zealously alive he was to the improvement of the national institutions and the moral elevation of the people over whom he ruled. In 1823 he went to the assistance of the Peruvians, and having succeeded in settling their internal divisions, and establishing their independence, he was proclaimed liberator of Peru, and invested with supreme authority In 1823 he visited Upper Peru, which detached itself from the goverment of Buenos Ayres, and was formed into a new republic, named Bolivia, in honour of the liberator; but domestic factions sprung up, the purity of his motives were called in question, and he was charged with aiming at a perpetual dictatorship; he accordingly declared his intention to resign his power so soon as his numerous enemies were overcome, and to repel the imputations of ambition cast upon him, by retiring to seclusion upon his patrimonial estates. The vice-president, Santander, urged him, in reply, to resume his station as constitutional president; and though he was beset by the jealousy and distrust of rival factions, he continued to exercise the chief authority in Colombia till May, 1830, when, dissatisfied with the aspect of internal affairs, he resigned the presidency, and expressed his determination to leave the country. The people ere long became sensible of their injustice to his merit, and were soliciting him to resume the government, when his death, which happened in December, 1830, prevented the accomplishment of their wishes." The government of Bolivia is in the hands of a president, to which office General Santa Cruz was elected in 1829.

GUIANA.

This is a Britsh possession, comprising the several districts of Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, and Surinam. It is asserted by some that Columbus saw this coast in 1458, and by others that it was discovered by Vasco Nunez, in 1504. It became, however, known to Europe in 1595, when Raleigh sailed up the Orinoco in his chimerical search of El Dorado, a city supposed to be paved with gold. The coast of Guiana then became the resort of buccaneers; and in 1634, a mixed company of these freebooters, English and French, formed the settlements of Surinam for the cultivation of tobacco They were, after twenty years of great hardship and difficulty, taken under the protection of the British, who appointed Lord Willoughby, of Parham, governor, 1662. The Dutch captured the

settlement in 1667, and the possession of it was confirmed by the treat; of Westminster, England receiving the colony of New-York in exchange In 1773, the Dutch settlements on the Essequibo, which had been captured by the British in the American war, were restored to the states general. In 1796, both Berbice and Demerara fell to the English, as also Surinam. in 1799; but again reverted to Holland, at the peace of Amiens, in 1603 fell to the English arms in 1813, and were confirmed by the treaty of Paris, 1814, to Great Britain.

AMAZONIA.

A Country of South America, so called from a martial and powerfu state, in which a body of women, it is said, with arms in their hands, op posed Francisco Orellana in his passage down the river Maragnon. I was first discovered by him, A. D. 1541; when, with fifty soldiers, he was wafted in a vessel down the stream of a smaller river into the channel of the Maragnon, which he also called Amazon.

The origin of the name Amazon is folded in some mystery. It is applied exclusively to females of strong and martial habits, and was first used in reference to a race of them who, whether actually or fabulously is a matter of dispute, founded an empire in Asia Minor, upon the river Thermodoon, along the coast of the Black Sea, as far as the Caspian. They are mentioned by the most ancient Greek writers, as well as by others of a late date; and various are accounts given both of their origin and historv

THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS.

The West Indies consist of a number of islands in the central part of America, extending from the tropic of Cancer southward, to the coast of Terra Firma and Mexico; the principal of which are Cuba, Hayti or St. Domingo, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Trinidad, St. Christopher, (commonly called St. Kitt's,) Antigua, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Barbadoes, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago; for the most part discovered by Columbus, near the close of the fifteenth century. The islands are in possession of various powers.

CUBA.

Cuba, the largest and most westerly island in the West In ies, was discovered by Columbus, 1492; and was first called Juana, in honour of prince John, son of Ferdinand and Isabella; afterward Fernandina; then Santiago and Ave Maria, in deference to the patron saint of Spain and the Virgin. The name of Cuba is that which it was called by the natives at the time of its discovery. It is about eight hundred miles in length, and about one hundred and twenty-five in breadth. The Spaniards made no settlement upon it till 1151, when Diego de Velasquez arrived with four ships, and landed on the eastern point. This district was under the government of a cacique, named Hatney, a native of St. Domingo, who had retired hither to avoid the slavery to which his countrymen were con

demned. Those who could escape the tyranny of the Spaniards had followed him in his retreat.

The Spaniards soon overcame the Indians. Hatney was taken in the woods, and conde.nned to be burned. When he was fastened to the stake, and wailed only for the kindling of the fire, a priest advanced towards him, and proposed the ceremony of baptism as a means of entering the Christian paradise. "Are there," said the cacique, any Spaniards in that happy place!" "Yes," replied the priest. "I will not," replied Hatney, "go to a place where I should be in danger of meeting one of them. Talk to me no more of your religion, but leave me to die."

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Velasquez found no more enemies. All the caciques hastened to do him homage. After the mines had been opened, and it was found that they did not answer, the inhabitants of Cuba, having become useless, were exterminated. A small part only of this island is cleared; there are only some traces of cultivation at St. Jago, and at Matanzas; the fine plantations are all confined to the beautiful plains of the Havana.

Havana, the capital of Cuba, is a fine city, and the harbour one of the safest in the world. The English took it in the year 1762, but it was restored at the peace of 1763, since which time prodigious pains have been taken to render this key to all the Spanish American colonies impregnable

HAYTI, OR ST. DOMINGO.

This island was discovered by Columbus in 1492, and is, next to Cuba, the largest of the West India islands. It is upwards of four hundred miles in length, from east to west, and averages more than one hundred in breadth. Having taken possession of it in the name of Spain, Columbus founded the town of La Isabella on the north coast, and established in it, under his brother Diego, the first settlement of the Spaniards in the New World. It was in high estimation for the quantity of gold it supplied; but this wealth diminished with the inhabitants of the country, whom they compelled to perpetual labour in the mines; and it was entirely lost when those wretched victims were no more. The cruelties of the Spaniards almost exceed belief. It is computed, that considerably more than a million of natives (the number at the time of its discovery) perished in the space of fifty years, by the hands or through the means of the conquerors.

The gold mines have failed for want of hands to dig them. The Span iards thought of procuring slaves from Africa, to re-open them, and numbers were imported: but the mines on the continent having been begun to be worked with good effect, those of St. Domingo were no longer of importance. The settlers then turned their thoughts to agriculture, which was cultivated with success. Sugar, tobacco, cocoa, cassia, ginger and cotton, were among their productions at the close of the sixeenth century. The immense fortunes raised in Mexico, and other parts, duced the inhabitants of St. Domingo to despise their settlements, and they quitted the island in numbers in search of those regions of wealth. This conduct ruined St. Domingo. It had no intercourse with the mother country, but by a single ship, of no great burden, received from thence every third year; and the whole colony, in 1717, consisted of only eigh teen thousand four hundred and ten, including Spaniards, Mestees, Mulattoes and Negroes.

The Spaniards retained possession of the whole istaland till 1665, when the French obtained a footing on its western coast, and laid the foundation of that colony which afterwards became so flourishing. The French settlers increased very fast; and sugar works were erected in great num

bers; the planters became rich, and the negroes became numerous, until the fatal measure of giving liberty to the slaves was adopted, without preparatory means, by the French national convention. At that period the negroes in the French part of St. Domingo were estimated at about five hundred thousand; and while the revolutionary terrorists in France were hourly exhibiting scenes of barbarity, and recommending their actions as worthy of imitation by all other nations, the inhabitants of St. Domingo were precisely in that unsettled situation which seemed to fa vour the commission of similar atrocities, under the pretext of avenging past injuries and redressing present grievances. In October, 1790, James Oge, a free mulatto who had been in Paris, and who is described as an enthusiast for liberty, but otherwise humane, returned from France, and put himself at the head of the insurgent people of colour; but being defeated, in March, 1791, was betrayed by the Spaniards, to whom he had fled for refuge, and, with Mark Chavane, his lieutenant, broke alive on the wheel.

At this time eight thousand troops arrived from France; and Maudit, the new governor, was murdered by his own soldiers, with circumstances of horrid barbarity. By a decree of the national assembly of the 15th of May, 1791, people of colour were declared eligible to seats in the colonial assembly. And on the 11th of September, a concordat, or truce, was signed between the whites and mulattoes. But the operation of this truce was destroyed by an absurd decree of the national assembly repealing the decree of the 15th of May. Open war in all its horrors was now renewed. It was no longer a contest for victory, but a diabolical emulation to outvie each other in barbarous atrocities. On the 23rd of August, 1791, Cape François was burnt; and it was computed that in the space of two months, upwards of two thousand persons perished by these horrible massacres, while not fewer than ten thousand of the mulattoes and negroes died by famine and the sword, besides numbers that suffered by the executioner, Meantime three commissioners arrived from France, accompanied by six thousand of the national guards; and citizen Galbaud was appointed governor. Their attempts, however, to stop these enormities, proved fruitless, though they proclaimed the total abolition of slavery, and a general indemnity.

In October, 1793, a body of British under Colonel Whitelock, landed and took possession of Tiburon, Treves, Jeremie, Leogane, Cape Nicholas Mole, and upwards of ninety miles of the eastern coast, with little opposition. It was, however, a disastrous acquisition to the English, for in less than six months after their arrival, not less than six thousand, of whom one hundred and fifty were officers, fell victims to disease. Leogane was soon after re-taken by the negroes, who now amounted to above one hundred thousand, under their general Touissant L'Ouverture: and Tiburon was taken by the French under General Rigaud. To remedy these disasters another expedition was undertaken by the British, but was attended with vast expense and the loss of many brave troops. Colonels Brisbane and Markham were killed; and at length, in 1793, the British having surrendered Port au Prince and Cape Nicholas Mole to General Hedonville, the island was totally abandoned by them. At this time the name of Port au Prince was changed to Port Republicain; and the Spanish part of the island was taken possession of by L'Ouverture; a man of superior talents and character, whose unremitting exertions were directed to the laudable object of healing the wounds and improving the condition of every class in the island. The beneficial effects of such an administration were soon visible. The wasted colony began to revive; the plantations were agai brought into a fertile state; the ports were opened to foreign vessels; and notwithstanding the ravages of a ten years' war, the commerce of St. Do