not only for all present purposes but for enlarging the building for more
objects of charity as their funds increase. I had the honour to be shown
by his excellency this asylum (Hospicio they call it) where there
appeared in every countenance the utmost cheerfulness and content. The
decency and neatness of the dress of the young females, with the order in
which they were arranged at their spinning-wheels and looms in an
extensive airy apartment, was admirable. A governess inspected and
regulated all their works, which were the manufacturing of ribbons of all
colours, coarse linens, and tapes; all which were managed and brought to
perfection by themselves from the silk and flax in their first state;
even the dying of the colours is performed by them. These girls are
received for five years, at the end of which they are at liberty to
marry, and have for their portions their wheel and loom, with a sum of
money proportioned to the state of the fund, which is assisted by the
produce of their labour, and at this time was estimated at two thousand
dollars per annum.

The men and boys are not less attended to: they are employed in coarser
work, blanketing and all kinds of common woollens: if they become infirm
they spend the remainder of their days here comfortably and under a
watchful inspector who attends them in the same manner as the governess
does the girls. They are all visited every day by the governor, and a
clergyman attends them every evening. By this humane institution a number
of people are rendered useful and industrious in a country where the
poor, from the indulgence of the climate, are too apt to prefer a life of
inactivity, though attended with wretchedness, to obtaining the comforts
of life by industry and labour.

The number of inhabitants in the island I was informed were estimated at
between eighty and one hundred thousand. Their annual export of wine is