SUGAR. 



807 



historical correctness of the idea, that Sicily was 

 resorted to at that time for sugar-canes. He de- 

 clares positively, that they were carried to the 

 Africo- Atlantic islands " from Granada, where they 

 had been planted by the Moors." 



It has been a subject of much dispute, whether 

 the sugar-cane was introduced into America from 

 Europe, Asia, or Africa, or whether it is indigen- 

 ous there. The former is the opinion of all the 

 historians of the old world, the latter of all the 

 explorers of the new. Edwards reconciles them 

 by supposing that both are true, which seems to 

 be the most reasonable conclusion. It would be as 

 absurd to suppose, that the early European settlers 

 of America would fail to carry that plant, with 

 whose great value and agreeable uses they had just 

 become well acquainted, to their new abode, espe- 

 cially when they were growing and were worked 

 up in great quantities in the Canaries, whence all 

 the adventurers were accustomed to take their 

 departure, as it would to question the authority of 

 the writers, who positively affirm this fact. On 

 the other hand, it. would be an extravagant stretch 

 of incredulity to doubt the clear testimony of the 

 many eye-witnesses, who declare, that they found 

 native sugar-canes in Guadaloupe, St Vincent, 

 Brazil, on the La Plata, and on the Mississippi; 

 or the demonstration of Cook and Bourgainville, 

 who brought a native and valuable variety from 

 the Friendly Islands to the British and French 

 West Indies. 



It is asserted by some, that the plant was car- 

 ried from Brazil to St Domingo, having been pre- 

 viously brought to the former from the Portuguese 

 kingdom of Angola, where it is still cultivated, or 

 from the Portuguese possessions in Asia, where 

 Vasco de Gama and his successors, the conquerors 

 of a great part of India, found sugar in abundance. 

 Whencesoever the sugar-cane came to St Domingo, 

 or whether it came at all, it is certain, that a com- 

 pany of sugar makers were carried from Palm 

 Island, one of the Canaries, to establish the manu- 

 facture in that oldest, except Brazil, of the Ameri- 

 can settlements. 



It is an interesting fact, that the art of sugar 

 making, propagated, we must conclude, both east 

 and west from Asia, now completed, in opposite 

 directions, the circumnavigation of the globe; for, 

 a few years after this establishment in St Domingo, 

 Cortez found, that both sirup and sugar were 

 made from the stalks of maize, by the natives of 

 Mexico, and sold in their markets. The aborigines 

 of Virginia, and probably of all North America, 

 had the knowledge of making sugar from the juice 

 of the maple. From them the Anglo-American 

 settlers undoubtedly derived it. 



In 1643, the English began the sugar-business 

 in Barbadoes, 'and, in 1648, the French, in Guada- 

 loupe. The Dutch, expelled from Brazil, where 

 they manufactured sugar in the sixteenth century, 

 took refuge in Cura9oa, St Eustatia, and other 

 islands, and finally, upon the exchange of New 

 Amsterdam for English Guiana, in Surinam. To 

 all these they transferred a branch of industry, 

 which they had learned to practise, and knew how 

 to appreciate. 



It is not known at what time the use of sugar 

 began in England. It was probably as late as the 

 fourteenth century. At that time it begins to 

 take, in trope and verse, the place which honey 

 had occupied, without a rival, since Moses and 

 Homer. Chaucer uses the epithet " sugreed over." 



The chamberlain of Scotland, in 1329, speaks of 

 loaves of sugar sold in that country at one ounce 

 of silver, or about eighteen shillings per pound. 

 In 1333, white sugar appears among the household 

 expenses of Humbert, a nobleman of Vienne, and 

 it is mentioned by Eustace Deschamps as among 

 the heaviest expences of housekeeping. George 

 Peale tells us, that sugar with wine was a common 

 drink in the sixteenth century, [t did not become 

 an article of ordinary consumption until the begin- 

 ning of the seventeenth century. At that period, 

 the Venetians imported it from Sicily and Egypt, 

 and probably produced it in Cyprus, Crete, and 

 the Morea. One of their countrymen, about two 

 centuries before, had invented the art of refining, 

 for which he received the sum of 100, QUO ducats, 

 equal to three or 400,000 dollars at the present 

 time. Previously to this they had pursued the 

 Chinese method, and made candy only. This 

 inventor adopted the cones from the Arabians, and 

 probably obtained from their manner of clarifica- 

 tion the idea, upon which he so far improved as 1o 

 effect at last the complete purification of his pro- 

 duct. It \vasfromthe Venetian refineries, that France 

 and England procured their small and high priced 

 supplies in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 



By the creation of sugar plantations in the Por- 

 tuguese and Spanish islands of Madeira, St 

 Thomas, and the Canaries, the stock was considera- 

 bly increased. We begin then, for the first time, 

 to have accounts of the number of sugar mills, and 

 the quantities manufactured. Thus we are told, 

 that in the island of St Thomas there were, in 

 1524, seventy mills, making on an average 66,428 

 Ibs. each, and upwards of 2000 tons in all. It was 

 from those islands, that Europe was for half a cen- 

 tury mair.'ly supplied. But the rapid exhaustion of 

 the soil seems inseparable from the cultivation of 

 the cane with the labour of slaves and serfs. It 

 is reasonable to suppose, that this was the great 

 cause of the successive migrations of this business 

 westward, and its early decline in Sicily, Spain, 

 and the Africo-Atlantic islands. 



In St Domingo there were, in 1518, twenty- 

 eight sugar presses. In about half a century, this 

 island succeeded to the inheritance of the markets 

 of Europe, which it monopolized and enlarged 

 during a century and a half, exporting 65,000 tons 

 in one year, being about 100,000,000 Ibs. surplus, 

 after supplying the demand of the mother country. 

 In any possible situation of that island, it could 

 not have maintained until this time that monopoly, 

 and that rate of production. At the beginning of 

 the present century, the entire exportation from 

 the West Indies and American settlements of 

 every description, was 44'->,800,000 Ibs ; now it is 

 400,000,000 Ibs. from the British West Indies 

 alone, and 700,000,000 Ibs. more from Brazil and 

 the Spanish, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies. 

 In 1750,only80,000,0001bs. were exported fromthe 

 British West Indies, one fifth of the present ex- 

 port. 



Of course the consumption of sugar has greatly 

 increased during the last half century ; and it seems 

 destined to an indefinite extension. It is so nutri- 

 tive, wholesome, and agreeable, that there can 

 never be a limit to its use except in a prohibition 

 or an inability to buy it. Men and nations differ 

 widely in their tastes and habits in respect to most 

 kinds of food, sauce, and drinks. Neither wheat, 

 rice, flesh, nor potatoes can command unanimous 

 favour. No aiiicle of house keeping, save sugar, 



