CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE DIVISION OF THE ISLAND INTO PARISHES AND TOWNS, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF ITS CAPITAL, THE PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS, FORTIFICATIONS, AND HARBOUR; TOGETHER WITH OBSERVATIONS ON PRINCE RUPERT’S BAY, AND THE GRAND SAVANNAH IN THAT ISLAND.

Dominica is divided into ten parishes, viz. Saint Mark’s, Saint Luke’s, Saint Paul’s, Saint Peter’s, Saint John’s, Saint George’s, Saint Andrew’s, Saint David’s, Saint Patrick’s, and Saint Joseph’s. In each of these parishes a spot of land is marked out for building a town on, which was appropriated to that purpose by the Commissioners on the first cession of the country to England; but few of them have more than two or three small mean houses on them, and therefore do not deserve further notice.

The town of Roseau is at present the capital of the island, and is situated in the parish of Saint George, being about seven leagues from Prince Rupert’s Bay. It is on a point of land on the S. W. side of the island, which point of land forms two bays, viz. Woodbridge’s Bay to the north, and Charlotte-ville Bay to the southward.

Roseau is about half a mile in length, from Charlotte-ville to Roseau river, and two furlongs in breadth, but less in some parts, being of a very irregular figure. It contains not more than five hundred houses, exclusive of a number of small wooden buildings, occupied by negros, which give it rather an unpleasing appearance from the sea.

The streets of this town are also very irregular, not one of them being in a straight line; but the whole of them form very acute angles, which face nearly the entrance of each other, and appear very incommodious and unsightly. They are, however, mostly well paved, are in general from forty to fifty feet wide, and the town is very pleasantly situated.

Previous to the capture of the island by the French, this town contained upwards of one thousand good houses; but the fire which happened there, as before-mentioned, consumed the major part of them; and the ruins still remain, as a memorial of that unfortunate event.

The public buildings in Roseau are, the Government-house, Court-house, Secretary’s, Register’s, and Provost Marshal’s offices, the church, market-house, and gaol.

The Government-house is situated in Charlotte-ville, which joins to Roseau, or is rather the upper part of it, being included in the map of that town. It is a large building of wood, built after the French manner in the West Indies, two stories high, with galleries all round, and joiced. It stands in the middle of a large lot of ground, surrounded with a low stone wall, has a very fine garden at the back of it, and in front a long gravelly walk, very prettily ornamented on each side with cocoa-nut and other trees, which gives it a very rural appearance from the sea-side.

The Court-house is a neat wooden building, on the next lot of land to the Government-house to the southward. This building is two stories high, has a neat portico on pillars in front, and large open gallery backwards, the windows of it joiced. In the upper apartments are a large council-chamber, rooms for the juries, and a gallery for the spectators, or others having business at the courts. In the lower apartments are raised seats for the judges, a place enclosed for the lawyers and officers of the courts, jury boxes, and a bar for the prisoners. In this building all causes, civil and criminal, are tried; and all public business of the colony is there transacted by the Governor, Council, and Assembly of the island.

The public Secretary’s, Register’s, and Provost Marshal’s offices, are two low stone buildings in the yard of the Court-house, and are covered with tiles. These buildings are in no other respect remarkable, than being very badly contrived, and no ways adapted to the purposes for which they were intended; the tiles being frequently blown off in the hurricane seasons, renders them damp, and an improper place for keeping public records.

The church is a large lofty building of wood, but it is at present much out of repair. It has a neat pulpit, reading desk, and a few pews; but neither altar-piece, hangings, baptismal font, belfry, nor bell. This, the only Protestant church in the island, is built on a large lot of ground, has a good churchyard of very deep and excellent black mould; but the yard is not enclosed. Adjoining to it is a fine lot of land, which was laid out in the plan of the town, and reserved by the Commissioners, for the purpose of building thereon a public school; but it is at present appropriated to a quite different use.

The market-house has been erected since the restoration of the island to the English, and is of wood, built on pillars of stone, between which are apartments for the butchers and fishermen, and the public stocks for confinement of disorderly white people and negros; and the middle passage is for the loaded fish canoes, that they may be drawn up out of the heat of the sun while the fish is selling. The upper part of this building is divided into two apartments, one for the Clerk of the market, and the other for the use of the Town Wardens of Roseau, who hold their meetings there when they transact the public business. It is also used as a guard-room for the militia, during the three days and nights of Christmas holidays (a useless piece of ceremony, only putting people to unnecessary trouble and expence) and in times of actual need, as fire, or any danger which threatens that town.

It may not be improper here to take some notice of the market-place, and market of Roseau. The former is a large open square, nearly in the centre of the town, on the bay; it is paved, and well adapted to the purpose for which it was designed; but the market is very poorly supplied in general with butchers meat. This is partly owing to the scarcity of horned cattle, few being killed, unless they are brought from North America, which, however, has, of late years, been seldom the case, on account of the difficulties to which American vessels are subject in their trading with this island, several of them having been repeatedly refused admittance into the port with only that loading.

This has often greatly distressed the inhabitants of Dominica, who having few cattle of their own, and these few being necessary for the service of their plantations, it would have been highly imprudent to have used them for the purpose of supplying the market; as it would have impoverished their estates of those useful animals, without the least probability of getting them replaced by purchasing others: for the Americans, from having been so often refused admittance to dispose of their cargos of cattle, took so great a disgust against the inhabitants of the country, that even when they have had permission to trade thither, they have actually refused.

Nor is the market of Roseau, in general, well supplied with poultry, owing to the very blameable neglect of the generality of the planters, in not raising a sufficient quantity of feathered stock on their estates, of which they are so very capable. It is, however, well supplied with excellent fish of most kinds peculiar to the West Indies; vegetables and fruit of almost every description are to be had there, in great abundance, much cheaper and better than in most of the other islands.

Sunday is the chief market day there, as it is in all the West Indies; on this day the market is like a large fair, the negros from the plantations, within eight miles of Roseau, come thither in great numbers, each one bringing something or other to dispose of for himself, often to the amount of three or four dollars; and many of them, who bring kids, pigs, or fowls, seldom return home without fifty or sixty shillings, the produce of their articles.

The price of butchers meat is there very high, being as follows, viz.

There is no established price there for poultry, which, though sometimes tolerably plenty, especially on the plantations of the French inhabitants, who chiefly send that article to market, is still excessive dear. A full-grown turky will cost from 16s. 6d. to 24s. 9d. and often 30s. a goose at the same rate; a duck from 6s. to 9s. and a dunghill fowl at the same extravagant price.

The wild game of the woods, as pigeons, doves, and partridges, which, though at times, in the seasons for killing them, are very plentiful, yet bear a most extravagant price; a wild pigeon will cost 3s. a dove or partridge 1s. 6d. and other small birds of the country are at a very high rate. This is entirely owing to the want of laws for regulating the prices of those necessary articles in the island; as those who make a trade of them have the liberty of fixing what price they please; thereby being guilty of great extortion, to the sensible inconvenience of the inhabitants.

Eggs and milk are tolerably reasonable, and the latter is in general very good; but those who chiefly supply the market with it, adulterate it.

Notwithstanding fish of all sorts are caught in great plenty in all the bays of the island, yet that article bears a much higher price in Dominica, than in most other English settlements. This is also owing to the want of proper regulations in the fish market; for though there is an act for obliging every fisherman, who catches fish within a certain distance from Roseau, to bring it there for sale, yet the major part of the inhabitants, who are Roman Catholics, fast the greatest part of the week upon fish; and the fishermen, being all of the same religion, they contrive to evade this act, by sending the best part of their fish to their friends, and bring only what they cannot otherways dispose of to the market. By this means that article is often scarce, as well as dear; and on particular fast days, in Lent especially, the English inhabitants are frequently obliged to fast without fish.

It has often been wondered at, that in Dominica there are no English fishermen; and that a business, which is known to be so very advantageous, should be entirely carried on only by the French inhabitants. This neglect of the English is the more remarkable, from the great inconveniences they labour under, from not having a fishery of their own; but though a thing of the kind was attempted by Mr. Beves, a respectable English inhabitant, in the time of the French government of the island, it failed, through the malice of some of the French inhabitants; and that no other Englishman, since the return of the country to its former government, has thought it worth while to repeat the trial, is a matter of much surprize.

The present price of fish in the market of Roseau is as follows, viz.

This is certainly a very high price for that commodity; a pound of river fish, at 1s. 6d. current money, is 10d. sterling per pound, at eighty per cent, the present rate of exchange of money in that island; and hook and line fish, at 1s. is 6d. sterling and a fraction per pound, at the same rate of exchange, a price which greatly exceeds that of the same commodity in England, where it is not to be had in such great plenty as in Dominica, and by no means in so great perfection, especially in the city of London.The public gaol in Roseau has been erected since the restoration of the island to Great Britain, but it is not yet quite finished. It is of fine stone, erected in a very healthy situation, on a large lot of land, and the building on a large scale, is commodious, and well adapted to the design.

The expences of purchasing the land, and building a part of this gaol, were defrayed out of the money humanely contributed by several worthy persons in England, for the relief of the unfortunate sufferers by the fire in Roseau, in the year 1781, before noticed; but which money, after it was sent out to Dominica, could not be distributed to the persons for whom it was intended, owing to the deaths of some, and the removal of others from the island soon after that heavy calamity; the rest consented with the Governor, Council, and Assembly, to its being appropriated in that manner.

This building will be a lasting monument of the generous and praise-worthy endeavours of Englishmen, to alleviate the distresses of their fellow-subjects, in a country so far distant from themselves.

The road of Roseau, for it cannot properly be called an harbour, it being rather an open bay, is very capacious; and from Woodridge’s bay, which joins it to the northward, to the bay of Charlotte-ville, contained the French and Spanish fleets, consisting of upwards of four hundred sail of men of war and transport ships, which lay at anchor for several days previous to their sailing on their intended attack of Jamaica last war, in 1782. This road is often dangerous in the hurricane months, and has frequently proved fatal to vessels, whose Commanders were so imprudent as to keep them there at anchor, from the end of August to October; during which time, almost every year, the sea very often tumbles into this road from the southward in a very frightful manner.

A very dreadful circumstance of this kind happened the last day of September, 1780; at which time the sea arose to the amazing height of twenty-one feet perpendicular above its usual surface, and its billows broke upwards of one hundred yards from the common shore. It destroyed several houses in front of the beach, drove several small vessels from their anchors, and carried them up into the town; other vessels foundered, or were dashed to pieces in the night-time; the dead bodies of the crews, with the pieces of the vessels, were driven on shore, and the morning of next day exhibited the most shocking spectacle of its unbounded fury.

The fortifications of Roseau are, Young’s Fort, Melville’s Battery, Bruce’s Hill Batteries, and Fort Demoullin.

Young’s Fort is just opposite the Government-house, from the front wall of which it is separated only by the highway. It is well mounted with cannon, has a powder magazine, an arsenal for small arms, and commodious barracks for the officers and soldiers; but owing to its bad construction, only two or three of the cannon in it will bear on any particular object; and it is, besides, entirely under command of all the other batteries of the town on the hills above it.

Melville’s Battery, as before observed, was the principal place from whence the most material service was done, in preventing the French from entering Roseau on the 7th of September, 1778. This battery has some very heavy cannon on it, but the works of it are all gone to decay, and it is at present wholly neglected.

Bruce’s Hill, which is just above Roseau, has several fine batteries, with one for mortars, commodious barracks, and several blockhouses. It had a fine stone cistern in the time of the French, but which, being built by them, they thought proper to destroy and blew it up, a few days before they evacuated the island, thereby rendering it useless. However, the aqueduct, by which it was supplied with water, has been since discovered, and is of great use to that fortification, which is, upon the whole, well calculated for the defence of the town, when attacked only from the sea; but being under the command of other heights above it, it would soon be rendered untenable, was it to be attacked on the land-side, as was the case the last war.

Demoullen’s Hill fort is also well mounted with cannon, and is otherways well provided for the defence of the town; but it is subject to the same inconveniences as the other fortifications, being under the command of the heights above it.

These are the chief fortifications in Dominica at present, except that at Cashacrou, which is rather a signal post; the other batteries on the sea-coasts, at a distance from Roseau, being of small importance for the defence of the island, save only the works now raising at Prince Rupert’s Bay.

This last is in the parish of Saint John, on the north-west part of the island, distant about seven leagues from the town of Roseau. The bay is three miles across, and one and a half deep, that is to say, from the extremity of each point, to the shore of the land laid out for a town. In this bay the whole of the British navy may safely ride at anchor all seasons of the year, and be well supplied with necessaries not be found at English harbours in Antigua, or any other part of the English West Indies, the rendezvous of the British fleet. It is surrounded by two high mountains, called the Cabrittes; the inner of which is about five hundred, and the outer six hundred feet perpendicular; both of them are out of the reach of other heights.

At the bottom of these mountains, between the inner one and the main land, is a large piece of swampy ground, upwards of one hundred acres in extent; which, if well drained, would pasture many cattle, sheep, and other stock, for the use of the garrison; and the stock, feeding under the muzzles of the guns, would be secure from being pillaged, or destroyed by the enemy.

Soon after the arrival of Colonel Andrew Fraser, his Majesty’s chief Engineer for that island, the Legislature of Dominica, wishing to testify their readiness to co-operate with government, in the important work of fortifying Prince Rupert’s Bay, well knowing that it would be the only effectual means of preserving the sovereignty of the country to Great Britain, they passed an act, granting to his Majesty the labour of one hundred negros, for three years, to be paid for by the colony.

The work was accordingly began, by cutting down the trees on the Cabrittes, tracing roads to the tops of them, and draining the swamps; from which, in a few months, fifteen inches of water was carried off, and it was found that they could be effectually drained; whereby the healthiness of fort Shirley, which lays between the two Cabrittes, was established. But on the rumour of a fresh war, expected between England and France in 1787, the negros so granted by the colony were withdrawn from Prince Rupert’s Bay by Governor Orde, who employed them on the fortifications of Roseau, particularly on Demoullen’s Hill, the works of which were then first began. However, the fortifying the Cabrittes has since been re-commenced; and when completed, there is no doubt but that they will be nearly as formidable as the rock of Gibraltar.

At the distance of about twelve miles from Roseau, and nine miles from Prince Rupert’s Bay, is the grand Savanna, which also might be well fortified, and rendered of great service, for the defence of the island. The Savanna is a fine extensive plain, upwards of a mile in extent; is on a tolerable height above the sea-shore, and at a great distance from the mountains above it.

The occupying this place by the English, was strongly recommended to the then English Ministry by General Robert Melville, on the commencement of the last war with France; when, had it been adopted, there is every reason to believe, that Dominica would never have been attempted by the French; and it is probable, the reduction of all our other settlements, in that part of the world, would, by this means, have been prevented.

In the Savanna are large quarries of excellent free-stone, fit for every purpose of building. Of these, great quantities were sent by the French, while the island was in their possession, to their other settlements; to that of Guadeloup in particular, where some of their churches, and other capital structures, are wholly built of those stones.