e saw with a
jealous appreciation which he intended to act upon his own countrymen.
The island, according to him, was running over with wealth, and was very
imperfectly fortified. The jewellers' and silversmiths' shops in
Bridgetown were brilliant as on the Paris boulevards. The port was full
of ships, the wharves and warehouses crammed with merchandise from all
parts of the globe. The streets were handsome, and thronged with men of
business, who were piling up fortunes. To the Father these sumptuous
gentlemen were all most civil. The governor, an English milor, asked him
to dinner, and talked such excellent French that Labat forgave him his
nationality. The governor, he said, resided in a fine palace. He had a
well-furnished library, was dignified, courteous, intelligent, and
lived in state like a prince. A review was held for the French priest's
special entertainment, of the Bridgetown cavalry. Five hundred gentlemen
turned out from this one district admirably mounted and armed.
Altogether in the island he says that there were 3,000 horse and 2,000
foot, every one of them of course white and English. The officers struck
him particularly. He met one who had been five years a prisoner in the
Bastille, and had spent his time there in learning mathematics. The
planters opened their houses to him. Dinners then as now were the
received form of English hospitality. They lived well, Labat says. They
had all the luxuries of the tropics, and they had imported the
partridges which they were so fond of from England. They had the
costliest and choicest wines, and knew how to enjoy them. They dined at
two o'clock, and their dinner lasted four hours. Their mansions were
superbly furnished, and gold and silver plate, he observed with an eye
to business, was so abundant that the plunder of it would pay the cost
of an expedition for the reduction of the island.

There was another side to all this magnificence which also might be
turned to account by an enterprising enemy. There were some thousands of
wretched Irish, who had been transplanted thither after the last
rebellion, and were bound under articles to labour. These might be
counted on to rise if an invading force appeared; and there were 60,000
slaves, who would rebel also if they saw a hope of success. They were
ill fed and hard driven. On the least symptom of insubordination they
were killed without mercy: sometimes they were burnt alive, or were hung
up in iron cages to die.[3