a factitious substance, first brought from America about the beginning of the year 1600. Some dissolve the substance in water, others in milk, and others in wine; but water seems to be the best vehicle for it, as the most proper to distribute its nutritive parts, and promote digestion. The consumption of chocolate makes it chiefly proper for persons of cold constitutions, for old people, for those who have their strength impaired by repeated watchings, and for those who travel in cold mornings. As it is of an oily and tenacious nature, Dr. Cheyne thinks it should not be used by the weak and infirm either as an aliment or a medicine; but he grants that it may produce all the effects of a salutary food in vigorous and strong constitutions.

It is confirmed by the experience of many physicians, that in hectic, scorbutic, and catarrhous disorders, chocolate is a wonderful remedy, having wrought a cure after all other means had proved ineffectual. Hoffman affirms, that chocolate prepared with water contributes much to the cure of melancholic disorders arising from a too weak and lax state of the nerves, especially if we add to it a few drops of essence of amber. Dr. Stubbs, in the Philosophical Transactions, affirms (and Dr. James is of the same opinion), that well prepared chocolate is an excellent diet for those who are scorbutic, afflicted with the stone or arthritic pains, and to prevent convulsions; yet some of the best physicians have observed, that drinking chocolate to excess contributes to the formation of stones, especially in the gall-bladder: It is, however, agreed, that a man in perfect health may drink as much chocolate as he has appetite for, provided he finds himself refreshed, and his stomach not overloaded. In hot and sanguine constitutions the immoderate use of this liquor, by

G

inspissating the blood, and rendering it less fit for circulation, produces inflammations of the viscera, fevers, and apoplexies. On account of the quantity of sugar that enters the composition of chocolate, it ought to be avoided by those who are subject to hypocondriac flatulencies; and the disadvantages arising from the immoderate use of this drink, considered as prepared with warm water, must be plain to every one who reflects that the frequent use of warm water relaxes the organs of digestion, and the solids in general, and must consequently prove pernicious. It is said that in New Spain there is such a quantity of chocolate made as to use annually twelve millions of pounds of sugar*.

Believe me, very sincerely,

Yours, &c.

* Beauties of Nature and Art Displayed, in a Tour through the

World.

LETTER IV.

Wonderful interposition of Providence in procrastinate ing the Author's Life-Estimate of the Arable Lands in Trinidad-Exports for the Years 1799, 1800, and 1801-Reason why so diminutive-The Natural Histories of the Cotton and Coffee Trees, with their Medicinal Virtues.

Head-Quarters, PUERTO DE ESPANÀ, Feb. 1803.
BUT let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,

That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

DEAR SIR,

GOLDSMITH.

THAT excellent Divine, Dr. BLAIR, has somewhere observed, that if we believe in Gop at all as the Governor of the Universe, we must believe that without his Providence nothing happens on earth-that there is not a day of our life, nor an event in that day, but was foreseen by HIM, who brings forward every thing that happens in its due order and place. To elucidate this I must stoop to egotism; but really in this instance I cannot resist the temptation, as it will teach me in future not to repine at whatever afflictions Providence may inflict on me. To do this I must recur a few months back.

In a prior letter I informed you with what regret I left the shades of solitude near Perth-Amboy,

O blest retirement, friend of life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine.
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast!

GOLDSMITH.

It was about the beginning of October last when I arrived at New York to find a vessel bound to Barbadoes or this Island, and happily met with an old acquaintance, Captain John Graham, of the brig Admiral Duncan, bound hither, with whom I engaged my passage and began to prepare for the voyage. In the midst of these preparations I was violently attacked with an intermitting fever, of the semitertian kind, which Galen said was compounded of a continual, quotidian, and intermitting tertian. This fever confined me to my bed for twenty-one days, during which time my much lamented friend, Graham, was getting his vessel ready. Being in a convalescent state, though almost totally deprived of the use of memory, so firmly was my resolution of coming to this place imprinted on my mind, that I should have embarked, but my situation suggested to Captain Graham and others a different idea. He sailed about the latter end of the same month. God, I hope, will forgive me, but I lamented, in silent sorrow, my hard fate, as opportunities seldom occurred for the place of my destination, and I blamed Providence for depriving me of this one. I had now been a peregrinator in the western and northern hemisphere nearly four years. In that time I had surmounted incredible hardships, exposed to every malignant blast that blew, and was thus made wretched at a time when I had taken the greatest

care of my health, and when a few months more would in all probability have put an end to my travels; the little reflection I had was employed in repining

Why was I born, or why do I survive;
To be made wretched only, kept alive?
Fate is too cruel in the harsh decree,
That I must live, yet live in misery.

POMFRET.

Nothing contributed more to renovate my shattered frame, and to resuscitate my spirits, than the soothing friendship of the amiable young ladies I have already mentioned, who came to New York as soon as they heard I was ill, which I communicated in a note I wrote upon my knees in bed, in the early stage of the fever, to Miss F.-nor did they leave me until I was so far recovered as to be able to walk about. (Ah! indeed,) my friend, such disinterested friendship to a poor lonely stranger, is rarely to be found-it will never be obliterated from my bosom.

Begone noisy pleasure, I hate thy intrusion,

Leave my soul to brood over the sad pleasing strain;
To recal those soft moments of dulcet illusion,

Which have fled like a dream, and left, me to complain."

When I was at Barbadoes, I enquired respecting Captain Graham, and was told he had not touched there; but looking over my journal I found the name of his Consignee in this place (Mr. Hall); I therefore called to learn if he had ever arrived: Mrs. Hall, when I mentioned his name, burst into tears: Then, Madam, I presume my friend, Graham, is lost-Yes, Sir, said she, Mr. Hall has given him over. I also dropt a tributary tear, and was about to depart, when this excellent woman (for such she really is) invited me to dinner.