d for its importance.

The sea has hollowed out from its coast an excellent harbour, in
which fifty ships may ride with security. This advantage
attracted both the English and French Buccaneers, who were
desirous of exempting their booty from the duties they were
subject to pay in the settlements belonging to their own nations.
Whenever they had taken their prizes in the lower latitudes, from
which they could not make the Windward Islands, they put into
that of St. Thomas to dispose of them. It was also the asylum of
all merchant-ships which frequented it as a neutral port in time
of war. It was the mart, where the neighbouring colonies bartered
their respective commodities which they could not do elsewhere
with so much ease and safety. It was the port from which were
continually dispatched vessels richly laden to carry on a
clandestine trade with the Spanish coasts; in return for which,
they brought back considerable quantities of metal and
merchandise of great value. In a word, St. Thomas was a market of
very great consequence.

Denmark, however, reaped no advantage from the rapid circulation.
The persons who enriched themselves were foreigners, who carried
their wealth to other situations. The mother-country had no other
communication with its colony than by a single ship, sent out
annually to Africa to purchase slaves, which being sold in
America, the ship returned home laden with the productions of
that country. In 1719 their traffic increased by the clearing of
the island of St. John, which is adjacent to St. Thomas, but not
half so large. These slender beginnings would have required the
addition of Crab Island, or Bourriquen, where it had been
attempted to form a settlement two years before.

This island, which is from eight to ten leagues in circumference,
has a considerable number of hills; but they are neither barren,
steep, nor very high. The soil of the plains and valleys, which
run between them, seems to be very fruitful; and is watered by a
number of springs, the water of which is said to be excellent.
Nature, at the same time that she has denied it a harbour, has
made it amends by a multitude of the finest bays that can be
conceived. At every step some remains of plantations, rows of
orange and lemon trees, are still fou