140 The British Went India Colotnes, [FEB. 



thren of St. Domingo and Mexico, whose present condition we shall 

 shortly have occasion to notice. 



Had the regulations which his Majesty's Government attempted to 

 establish by the provisions of the 3d Geo. IV. cap. 44, the 6th of Geo. 

 IV. cap. 114, and the 7th and 8th Geo. IV. cap. 56, been met on the 

 part of the United States with a corresponding liberality, there can be 

 very little doubt that both parties would have derived many advantages 

 from the contemplated interchange of commodities ; but, unfortunately, 

 the time for promoting an equitable intercourse had been allowed to 

 escape ; and the extravagant pretensions assumed by these new states 

 having put it out of our power to accede to their unreasonable expecta- 

 tions, without materially compromising the national dignity, these 

 enactments, in so far as regards the desired intercourse with the United 

 'States, remain worse than a dead letter. And the colonists affirm, that 

 with all the machinery of free ports, and the aid of new regulations, 

 avowedly framed for their relief, they are now in a worse situation in 

 many respects than they were previous to their enactment. That they 

 are still, by law, obliged to procure that essential article, fish, at the 

 dearest market; that heavy duties are now imposed, by the mother 

 country, upon flour, rice, staves, shingles, timber, and other articles of 

 essential necessity, from the United States, formerly obtained free of duty, 

 in exchange for their rum and molasses ; that 12s. the hundred- weight 

 duty precludes them from applying to the cheapest markets for beef and 

 pork ; and fifteen to thirty per cents, upon negro clothing, and other 

 articles, indispensable in the cultivation of a West India estate. More- 

 over, that the 'new export regulations, the warehousing in bond, and 

 free-port systems, have proved equally nugatory ; and that so far from 

 a great boon having been conferred on the West India planter, the bene- 

 fits expected from these boasted enactments are quite illusory, and have 

 unfortunately failed to give that relief which it was the avowed object 

 of the legislature fully to afford ! 



While these and other adverse circumstances, to be hereafter noticed, 

 have, as it would appear, operated against the prosperity of the Colonies 

 in the West Indies, the planter has been unable to find any counter- 

 vailing advantages in Europe. The monopoly in the British market, 

 which was at one time the equivalent allowed by the mother country 

 for the restrictions imposed on the planter, has been latterly more 

 extensively infringed by the admission of Mauritius sugars, on equal 

 terms, for home consumption, and of foreign sugars, to a small extent, 

 in the refineries ; whilst the high duties continued since the peace have, 

 as is affirmed, tended to check the gradual increase of consumption, and 

 the continental markets have been inundated with sugar, the produce of 

 foreign Colonies, who persist in carrying on the slave trade; and all 

 these circumstances have operated to reduce the price of sugar in the 

 home market, until it is now very considerably under the cost of pro- 

 duction. 



We have seen a representation from the West India body, which is 

 now before his Majesty's Ministers, wherein the subject of the sugar and 

 rum duties is so forcibly stated, that we think we cannot do better than 

 extract what is said regarding the former commodity. 



" It appears that the duty has, at different periods, borne the follow- 

 ing proportion to the price. 



" From 1792 to 1796, the price was 55*. Id. the cwt., and the duty 

 J 5 s. } being in the proportion to the price 27i per cent. 



