port-town of Pegu, in the further India, situated on the west side of the bay of Bengal: E. lon. 92° 30', N. lat. 17°.

Negril Point, the most westerly promontory of the island of Jamaica.

Negroes, properly the inhabitants of Nigritia in Africa, also called blacks and moors; but this name is now given to all the blacks.

The origin of the negroes, and the cause of this remarkable difference from the rest of the human species, has much perplexed the naturalists. Mr. Boyle has observed, that it cannot be produced by the heat of the climate: for though the heat of the sun may darken the colour of the skin, yet experience does not shew that it is sufficient to produce a new blackness, like that of the negroes.

In Africa itself, many nations of Ethiopia are not black, nor were there any blacks originally in the West Indies. In many parts of Asia, under the same parallel with the African region, inhabited by blacks, the people are but tawny. He adds, that there are negroes in Africa, beyond the southern tropic; and that a river sometimes parts nations, one of which is black and the other only tawny. Dr Barriere alleges that the gall of negroes is black, and being mixed with their blood is deposited between their skin and scarf-skin. However, Dr Mitchel of Virginia, in the philosophical transactions, no 476, has endeavoured by many learned arguments to prove, that the influence of the sun in hot countries, and the manner of life of their inhabitants, are the remote causes of the colour of negroes, indians, &c. and indeed it would be a strong confirmation of his doctrine, if we would see any people, originally white, become black and woolly by transplantation, or vice versa.

Negroes are brought from Guinea, and other coasts of Africa, and sent into the colonies in America, to cultivate tobacco, sugar, indigo, &c. and in Mexico and Peru, to dig in the mines; and this commerce, which is scarce defensible on the foot either of religion or humanity, is now carried on by all the nations that have settlements in the West Indies. Those negroes make the best slaves who are brought from Angola, Senegal, Cape Verd, the river Gambia, the kingdoms of Joloffes, Daniel, Galland, &c.

There are various ways of procuring them: some, to avoid famine, sell themselves, their wives and children, to their princes, or other great men; others are made prisoners of war; and great numbers are seized in excursions made for that very purpose by the petty princes upon one another's territories, in which it is usual to sweep away all without distinction of age or sex.