The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

THE ISLAND OF CUBA.

The people of this noble island seem to have received with the utmost joy the news of the Revolution in Spain. Their constant intercourse with the English and Americans, the education of many of their youths in the United States, the attention to our concerns, which their proximity naturally induced, and other obvious causes, contributed to dispose their minds towards a liberal system of government, and to make the Constitution of the Cortes even more dear to them than to the patriots of the mother country. It is an edifying thing, to find the soldiery, as in Spain, co-operating with the multitude, in compelling the Royal authorities to imitate at once the example of Ferdinand. We have in our hands some late numbers of a publication, entitled "Memoirs of the Royal Economical Society of Havana," which show that important advances have been made there in several branches of public economy, and that an enlightened attention is given to education and agriculture. The policy of encouraging the settlement and multiplication of whites, founded on the danger from the number of the black population and the neighbourhood of Hayti, is proclaimed in the publication above mentioned, and pursued by various expedients. Don Alexander Ramirez, the present Intendant (an officer of more real authority and efficiency than the Governour) is a man of very liberal ideas and extensive knowledge.—By a minute and ingenious table of the population of the Island, prepared under his direction, and printed last December, it appears that the whole number of inhabitants, permanent and transitory, was, in 1817, 630,980—of whom, 314,202 were people of colour, giving these a majority of 76,606 over the whites. We are informed, from a good source, that these returns were too low, and that the total may be estimated at 800,000, for the present time. The number of free negroes and mulattoes, on the island, is stated in the table at 61,568, a few, full proportion!—the number of blacks imported in 1817, at 25,976; the number of ecclesiastics of every description spread over the Island, at 1034, and the number of military, at 19,430.

Ibid.