276 



TRINIDAD. 



Pitch or bitumen is also prepared for various purposes : it is 

 particularly used in flooring stores. 



Commerce. The commercial movement consists mainly, if not 

 entirely, of imports and exports. In the year 1783, the whole 

 trade of the island was carried on in a vessel of 150 tons, a little 

 cacao and indigo being bartered for some coarse clothes and other 

 necessaries. In 1797, fourteen years after the granting of the 

 second cedula, the colony exported 7,800 hogsheads of sugar, 

 330,000poundsofcoffee,96,000poundsofcacao,and224,000 pounds 

 of cotton the produce of 159 large sugar plantations, 130 coffee, 

 6 cacao, and 103 cotton farms. In 1802, the number of sugar 

 plantations had increased to 192 : quantity of sugar manufactured, 

 15,461 hogsheads; quantity of coffee, 358,000 pounds ; of cacao, 

 97,000 pounds ; of cotton, 263,000 pounds ; tonnage, 15,000. In 

 1809, the exports had increased to 18,235 hogsheads of sugar, 460 

 gallons of rum, and 100,000 gallons of molasses ; in addition to 

 which had been produced, 500,000 pounds of coffee, 355,000 

 pounds of cacao, and 800,000 pounds of cotton. 



The articles of export are chiefly sugar, cacao, molasses, and 

 rum ; to which may be added coffee, cotton, coco-nuts, coco-nut 

 oil, &c. 



