twenty feet above the usual rise of water. When taken possession of by the Americans, it contained about 200 houses. Since that period the population has increased daily, and it will probably become a great commercial place, the centre of trade of an immense country, extending to Tennessee and to the frontiers of Georgia. In July 1817 the population was between 1000 and 1500. The houses are of wood, and generally one storey high. Pensacola, however, affords a better road for vessels, as they are sheltered from every wind; and the depth of water on the bar at its entrance, which is never less than twenty-one feet, will admit men-of-war of sixty guns. The port of Mo * bile is the only place in the whole bay which vessels drawing twelve feet water can approach. Those that draw from ten and a half to eleven feet water sail up Spanish river about two leagues, and descend Mobile river to the town, which requires but a few hours. Vessels of greater draught come within one or two leagues of the town, where they discharge and take in their cargoes. A quay is now constructing, at the eastern extremity of which there will be nine feet water at low tide. Between Mobile Bay and Pensacola, a distance of seventy miles, the country is yet a desert. A village has been lately planned, at the mouth of the Tensaw river, on a dry elevated surface, where there are fine springs. St Stephen's, the present seat of government, is situated on the west side of Tombigbee Roberts's Florida, p. 9. river, eighty miles above the town of Mobile, and at the head of sloop navigation; it contains about fifty houses. There is an academy, with sixty or seventy students, a printing-office, and fifteen stores. The situation, which is well fitted for trade, is found to be healthy. In letters from St Stephen's, first published in the Kentucky Monitor, in October 1817, it is stated, that a farmer in an adjoining country, without slaves, sold his crop of cottton of the preceding year for 2000 dollars, and that his crop of maize for market probably would amount to between 500 and 700 bushels. The merchandise sold at this place, during the year 1817, amounted to 500,000 dollars. A steam-boat was to be finished in the autumn of that year, to ply between New Orleans and that place, or Fort Claiborne, in the Alabama branch. To the borders of the Mussel Shoals of the Tennessee river there is at present a great migration; and a place for a town has been already selected on an elevated spot, where there is a fine spring, three miles below the shoals, which are about 100 miles south of Nashville. Ten miles below St Stephen's is the town of Jackson, which is rapidly increasing. The settlement at Fort Claiborne, on an elevated bank of the Alabama, will, it is believed, soon grow into a considerable town. On the western bank of the Mobile, says Colonel Parmentier, a rival to the town of the same name is rising, called Blakelytown, but Chastant's Bluff, twenty-seven miles above Mobile, or Old Fort Stoddart, forty-two miles above it by water, are more favourable positions. The French colony, or French Tombigbee Vine Com pany, have resolved to establish themselves, in a place known by the name of White Bluff, about three quarters of a mile below the junction of the Black Warrior with the Tombigbee river, included in the grant of four townships, made to them by the government of the United States. * Above the confluence of the Tombigbee with the Black Warrior there are frequent shallows in the former, but the latter has none up to its falls, which are 100 miles distant from its mouth. The lands lying between the two rivers, at their confluence, are very rich prairies, and the banks are in general particularly fertile, from Nawnafolia, thirty miles above the confluence, to the falls of the Black Warrior. What is here said of the quality of the land applies equally to the banks of the Cahawba; but the advantages of the latter are greatly inferior, as they do not possess so immediate a communication with the eastern part of Tennessee as the Black Warrior river affords. The middle of the space between these two rivers is occupied by a chain of hills, sloping gradually, and equally rich on both sides. At the foot of this chain, and a little below it, to the westward, near the 33d degree of latitude, there is already a settlement of a dozen of families, called Russel's Settlement. Half a degree higher there is another more considerable, in a valley called Jones' Valley. At the falls there is a third, which increases rapidly, by emigrations from the Tennessee valley. *It appears, from recent accounts in the American papers, that this colony has abandoned the lands given them, and removed to the frontier country, between the United States and Mexico. Agriculture.-The great article of culture is cotton. The average produce, per acre, is about 1000 weight in seed. One person, or field-hand, can cultivate from six to eight acres, besides some maize for family use. The soil is also favourable to the production of wheat, rye, barley, oats, the common potatoe, yams, &c. The produce of Indian corn is about twelve barrels an acre. Rye and barley are cultivated for the purpose of distillation. * Price of Lands.-The lands of Madison county were sold, in 1810, from four to six dollars an acre. The highest price was twenty-four dollars. In the course of the three first months of 1817, the same lands nearly doubled their value. Those situated on the north side of the Tennessee river, extending from Madison county to the Tennessee line of boundary, were then sold from twenty to seventy-five dollars. The town lots of Huntsville sold as high as 1500 dollars. t Indians.-The Creeks, known also by the name of Muscogees, reside chiefly on the waters of the Alabama and Chatahouche; where, before the late war, they counted thirty towns; but, during that period, their number was greatly reduced. It is now about 20,000. History. In 1800, this country (including the present State of Mississippi) was placed under a separate territorial government. In 1813 (April) the country situated to the west of Perdido river, being included in the cession of Louisiana, was taken possession of by the United States; and that portion east of Pearl river was annexed to the Mississippi territory. Lands are now surveying throughout all that part of the country belonging to the United States, and their sales take place from time to time. The lots, in the area of 1320 acres, which incloses the town of St Stephen's, forty-five feet wide by ninety deep, were sold, on the first settlement of the town, at 200 dollars each. The wages of a good workman are two dollars a-day. Commerce. It was stated in the American journals of April 1817, that the importations of the preceding year, at Mobile, from Boston, New York, and New Orleans, chiefly by sea, were estimated at 1,000,000 of dollars; that, during the last six months, 1700 bales of cotton had been shipped there. The trade of Madison county will centre in this place. It is believed, that through the channel of the Mobile, Tombigbee, and Black Warrior rivers, goods can be brought from Europe, New York, or even New Orleans, to Huntsville, on the Tennessee river, in half the time required by any other known route, and with less risk and expence. There is a sloop channel by the Mobile to St Stephen's, on the Tombigbee branch, eighty miles; thence boats ascend to the entrance of the Black Warrior river, eighty miles higher, and by this fine stream, to rocks which obstruct the navigation, at the distance of 500 miles from the head of Mobile bay; to this point boats which do not draw more than three feet water can ascend in all seasons. Thence to Huntsville there is a road, over a surface mostly level, of |