26 CULTURE OF THE SUGAR BEET. 



sugars and indigoes of the two Indies. Chemistry has made such progress in this 

 country, that it will possibly produce as great a change in our commercial relations 

 as that produced by the discovery of the compass. I do not say, gentlemen, that I 

 do not wish for maritime commerce or colonies, but it is proper to abandon them for 

 the present, and until England shall return to just and reasonable principles, or until 

 I can dictate to her the terms of peace. 



******* 



I know the English have better admirals, and that is a great advantage, but by often 



fighting them we shall learn to conquer. 



******* 



The vent of colonial produce upon the Continent being once firmly shut, the English 

 will be obliged to throw into the Thames the sugars and indigoes for which they have 

 exchanged objects of their industry, and which have afforded them such resources. 



It is stated that about this time a caricature was exhibited in Paris, 

 in which the Emperor and the King of Rome were the most prominent 

 characters. The Emperor was represented as sitting in the nursery with 

 a cup of coffee before him, into which he was squeezing a beet root. 

 Near him was seated the King of Rome voraciously sucking the beet- 

 root, while the nurse, standing near and steadfastly observing, is made 

 to say to the youthful monarch, u Suclc, dear, stick; your father says it is 

 sugar ! " 



But as the doubt and ridicule here indicated gave way to a large ex- 

 tent in France before the development of the industry, that expressed 

 in the English journals also gave place to an undercurrent of anxious 

 inquiry as to the possible fate of the English colonial commerce, and the 

 probable extent of the development of the new industries that were 

 being so ardently fostered by Napoleon ; and it is related by the Prince 

 Louis Napoleon that the English Government even made anonymous 

 offers to Achard, first of the sum of $40,000, and later on of $100,000, 

 if he would publish a work declaring that he had been carried away 

 by his enthusiasm in his former publications, and that the results he 

 then made public had by no means been confirmed by his later work. 

 Failing in effecting in this way the result desired, it is said the govern- 

 ment induced Sir Humphrey Davy to write a brochure, in which he de- 

 clared that, while sugar could be produced from the beet, the product 

 was too bitter for consumption. 



But the impotency of these attacks upon the new industry is fully 

 illustrated in its subsequent history. Napoleon, in his wisdom, contin- 

 ued his substantial encouragement of this and other agricultural and 

 manufacturing industries in France by the appropriation of several mil- 

 lions of francs in their support at a time when the total revenue of his 

 empire did not exceed 999,000,000 of francs (less than $200,000,000) and 

 he was maintaining large armies in Spain and Portugal, and a very 

 formidable navy on the high seas. 



But if the industry Napoleon had fostered and established fell with 

 his downfall, its value had been demonstrated, and was even admitted 

 in the first report of the Abbe" de Montesquieu, minister of the interior 

 under Louis XVIII, a report filled with the bitterest criticisms of the 



