Addressing the Royal Geographical Society, Stuart makes a case for an island he thinks Europe has stopped thinking about: large, well placed, once the object of enormous expectation, and in his account now sunk in a poverty that commerce will eventually reverse.

Most of the paper is descriptive. He gives dimensions and coastline, distinguishes three separate mountain systems, works through the lakes and mineral springs, and rates the harbors, singling out Samana Bay and Port-au-Prince as far ahead of the rest. Timber, dye-woods, indigo and coffee get short histories, alongside a sober American assessment of how little gold is really recoverable. He puts the two republics at about seven hundred thousand people on land that could carry ten times as many, and reviews the failed schemes to attract settlers.

The historical pages lean on Oviedo, Las Casas and Charlevoix, reproducing their contemptuous portrait of the island's first inhabitants.