HISTORY
356 BOOK III.
OF
THE
length the people that remained took the administration of justice into their own hands ; by seizing on the person of the governor, and bringing him to a public trial. The criminal was condemned to be hanged; but he pleaded noble birth, and demanded the honour of decollation. His request would have been granted, but unluckily an expert executioner in the. business of beheading could not readily be found ; the judges therefore compounded the matter with his excellency, by consenting that he should be shot, and he suffered in that mode with great composure. years after this, Monsieur de Cerillac, the proprietor, receiving, as it may be supposed, but little profit from his capital, conveyed all his rights and interest in Grenada, &c. to the French West-Indian company ; whose charter being abolished in 1674, the island from thenceforward became vested in the crown of France. SOME
the various revolutions and calamities which had thus attended this unfortunate plantation, it may well be imagined that cultivation had made but little progress in it ; but although order and submission were at length introduced by the establishment of the royal authority, various causes concurred to keep the colony in a state of poverty and depression for many years afterwards. Even so late as 1700, if Raynal has been rightly informed, the island contained no more than 251 whites and 525 blacks ; who were employed on 3 plantations of sugar, and 52 of indigo. UNDER
ยง
AFTER