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[Page 4]
where they were suffered to die. A Loss justly regretted by Mr. Watson; and a Loss which Great Britain potent as it is, may regret!
These facts demonstrate that the Cinnamon Tree, might not only be kept alive, but preserved in a vigorous State in a voyage from Ceylon to Jamaica.
Such a design was thought so important and so promising and so promising by a late Great Man, famous for his Skill in Botany, and will as in affairs of State, that he been known to say, he would give a hundred Guineas for a dozen of fresh seeds of the Cinnamon Tree in order to send them to the West Indies.
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Piper Nigrum. Linn. Black Pepper.
This Plant is chiefly cultivated by the Dutch in Java and Sumatra, by whom the Sale of this Commodity has always been much engrossed.
The coast of Malabar however from Goa to Cape Comorin, affords Piper which is accounted a better quality than that of these Islands, and from thence it ought to be translated to Jamaica, which lies under the same parallel of North Latitude.
The 17 species, of which Linnæus's genus of Piper consists, are all Inhabitants of the Torrid Zone. Of these so far as is known 4 are peculiar to the East Indies, 12 to the West, and 1. common to both. In quality they do all nearly agree, especially in the hot Aromatic Nature of their Fruit. The Piper Amalago. Linn. or the small grain'd Black Pepper, which is a native of Jamaica, differs only in Size from the Black Pepper of they East Indies. The Taste and Flavour of both are the same, and both Plants are exactly similar in their fructification.
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Caryophyllus Aromaticus. Linn. - The Clove Tree.
This Tree is not known to grow any where except in the five Moluccas -