THE HAVA>NAH TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH. 253 



of kilogrammes of coarse sugar, that is, a fifty-eighth part 

 of the actual consumption of sugar in France. Those two 

 hundred factories are now reduced to fifteen or twenty, which 

 vic-ld a produce of 300,000 kilog.* The inhabitants of the 

 West Indies, well informed of the affairs of Europe, no 

 longer fear beet-root, grapes, chesnuts, and mushrooms, the 

 coft'ee of Naples, nor the indigo of the south of France. 

 Fortunately, the improvement of the condition of the West 

 India slaves does not depend on the success of these 

 branches of European cultivation. 



Previously to the year 1762 the island of Cuba did not 

 furnish more commercial produce, than the three least indus- 

 trious and most neglected provinces with respect to culti- 

 vation, Yeragua, the isthmus of Panama, and Darien, do at 

 present. A political event which appeared extremely un- 

 fortunate, the taking of the Havannah by the English, 

 roused the public mind. The town was evacuated in 1784, 

 and its subsequent efforts of industry date from that memo- 

 rable period. The construction of new fortifications on a 

 gigantic plant threw a great deal of money suddenly into 

 circulation ; later, the slave-trade became free, and fur- 

 nished hands for the sugar factories. Free trade with all 

 the ports of Spain, and occasionally with neutral states, 

 the si hie administration of Don Luis de Las Casas, the 

 establishment of the Gonsulado and the Patriotic Society , 

 the destruction of the French colony of Saint Domingo,^ 



* Although the actual price of cane-sugar not refined, is 1 fr. 50 cent, 

 the kilogramme, in the ports, the production of beetroot-sugar offers a still 

 greater advantage in certain localities, for instance, in the vicinity of Arras. 

 These establishments would be introduced in many other parts of France, 

 if the price of the sugar of the West Indies rose to 2 francs, or 2 franca 

 25 cents the kilogramme, and if the government laid no tax on the beet- 

 root-sugar, to compensate the loss on the consumption of colonial sugar. 

 The making of beetroot-sugar is especially profitable when combined with 

 a general system of rural economy, with the improvement of the soil, and 

 the nourishment of cattle : it is not a cultivation independent of local 

 circumstances, like that of the sugar-cane in the tropics. 



^ It is affirmed, that the construction of the fort of Cabafla alone, cost 

 fourteen millions of piastres. 



J In three successive attempts, in August J 791, June 1 793, and October 

 1803. Above all, the unfortunate and sanguinary expedition of Generals 

 LtvltTC and Rocharabeau, completed the destruction of the sugar factories 

 of Saint Domingo. 



