The sugar-cane: a poem in four books with notes / [James Grainger].

  • James Grainger
Date:
1766
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sugar-cane: a poem in four books with notes / [James Grainger]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Could brook their {corn; wait feven long years at court, 100 A felfith, fullen, dilatory court; Yet never from thy purpos’d plan decline ? No God, no Hero, of poetic times, : In Truth’s fair annals, may compare with thee! Each paffion, weaknefs of mankind, thou ; knew’ ft, . 105 Thine own concealing ; firmeft bafe of power: Rich in expedients ; what moft adverfe feem’d, And leaft expe@ed, moft advanc’d thine aim. What ftorms, what monfters, what new forms of death, : . In a vaft ocean, never cut by keel. 110 And where the magnet firft its aid declin’d ; . Alone, Ver. 111. and where the magnet] The declenfion of the needle was difcovered, A.D. 1492, by Columbus, in his firft © voyage to America; and would have been highly alarming to any, but one of his undaunted and philofophical turn of - mind. This century will always make a diftinguifhed figure in the hiftory of pas Rae mind ; for, during that period, printing was invented, Greek-learning took refuge in Italy, the Reformation began, and America was difcovered. Ne 4 The ifland of Jamaica was beftowed on Columbus, as fome ccompenfation for his difcovery of the new world; accordingly his fon James fettled, and planted it, early [A. D. 1509] the tee ing century.. What improvéments the Spaniards made therein 3s no where mentioned; but, had their induftry been equal to their opportunity, their improvements would have been confide- rable; for they continued in the undifturbed poffeffion of it till the year 1596, when Sir Anthony Shirley, with a fingle man of war, took and plundered St. Jago dela Vega, which then con- fifted of 2000 houfes, In the year 1635, St. Jago de la Vega was a fecond time plundered by 500 Englifh from the Leeward Iflands, though that capital, and the fort, (which they alfo took) wére defended by four times theiy number of Spaniards. 2 kta ae One
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