■6So JAMAICA. 



One acre of rlcli foil, well planted, will, with good feafons and 

 proper management, yield two hundred pounds weight [V\ in twelve 

 months; for this plant gives ratoons, or re-produces, affording four 

 or five crops in a year; but muft be rc-planted afterwards. One 

 Negroe's load, of good plants, will produce one pound weight of 

 good indigo; and, fuppofnig a mule-load fix times as much, the 

 latter will be equal to fix pounds weight, A planter, pofl'eiTed of four 

 Negroes, and two mules, with five acres in this cultivation, may 

 therefore be allowed, by prudent management, to make one thoufand 

 pounds weight f>er annum ; which, at 6 J. per pound fterling, is 

 wortli 300/. 



About the year 1620, the trade for indigo flood thus. Three 

 liundred and fifty thoufand pounds weight was fpent in a year in Eu- 

 rope ; which, at 4.J, bd. per pound at Aleppo, coft 755833/. 6j. 8^. ; 

 at I J. 2/ in the Eaft-Indies, cofl: 20,416/. I2J. 4^.. In later times, 

 Great-Britain and Ireland have confumed eight hundred thoufand 

 pounds weight and upwards per annum ; and were computed to pay 

 France 200,000/. annually for what they bought from her. Ja- 

 maica once furnifhed a large fupply ; but, the tax of jj. dd. per 

 pound being injudiciouily impofed by parliament, the planters were 

 obliged to drop it, and went upon other commodities. In confe- 

 quence, until the planters of South-Carolina undertook this article, 

 the French iflands (and principally Hifpaniola) fupplied not only 

 Great-Britain, but the greater part of Europe. About 1747, the 

 Carolinians remitted about two hundred thoufand pounds weight to 

 Britain j which fold well, though of a quality inferior to the French: 

 but they have fince improved it fo, as to be nearly equal. Such 

 were the effects of this high duty ; which loft the nation many thou- 

 fand pounds yearly, and extirpated indigo from Jamaica, to the ruin 

 of feveral induftrious families. A wifer parliament, after the manu- 

 failure began to thrive in Carolina, inftead of laying on duties to pro- 

 hibit, granted a bounty of fix-pence per pound weight on all indigo 

 raifed in the American colonies, and imported into Great-Britain di- 



[/] Thirty to eighty pounds weight is allowed for tolerable yielding in South-Carolina. But it is 

 to be obferved, that thefe lands are poor in comparifon with the frefli-cleared wood-land of Jamaica, 

 which requires to be exhaullcd by this, or fome other vegetable of an impoverifliing nature, before 

 it will make fugar ; and for fuch foils two hundred pounds weight will not appear at all exaggerated; 

 and fifty pounds weight /«• acre, for the midium produce of indifferent foils. 



4 reftly 



