8KTQAH OR SLATE COLONIES. 263 



that the importations of the whole island (lawful and 

 contraband), estimated at the real price of the articles, the 

 merchandize and the slaves, amount at present to 15,000,000 

 or 16,000,000 piastres, of which scarcely 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 

 are re-exported. The Havannah purchases from abroad far 

 beyond its own wants, and exchanges its colonial articles for 

 the productions of the manufactures of Europe, to sell a part 

 of them at Vera Cruz, Truxillo, Guayra, and Carthagena. 



On comparing, in the commercial tables of the Havannah, 

 the great value of merchandise imported, with the little 

 value of merchandise re-exported, one is surprised at the 

 vnst internal consumption of a country containing only 

 325,000 whites and 130,000 free men of colour. We find, 

 in estimating the different articles, according to the real 

 current prices: in cotton and linen (bretafias, platillas, 

 lienzos y hilo), two and a halt to three millions of piastres ; 

 in tissues of cotton (zarazas musulinas), one million of 

 piastres; in silk (rasos ygeneros de seda), 400,000 piastres; 

 and in linen and woollen tissues, 220,000 piastres. The 

 wants of the island, in European tissues, registered as 

 exported to the port of the Havannah only, consequently 

 exceeded, in these latter years, from four millions to lour 

 and a half millions of piastres. To these importations of 

 the Havannah we must add : hardware and furniture, more 

 than half a million of piastres ; iron and steel, 380,000 

 piastres ; planks and great timber, 400,000 piastres ; Castile 

 soap, 300,000 piastres. With respect to the importation oi 

 provisions and drinks to the Havannah, it appears to me to 

 be well worthy the attention of those who would know the 

 real state of those societies which are called sugar or slave 

 colonies. Such is the composition of those societies esta- 

 blished on the most fruitful soil which nature can furnish 

 for the nourishment of man, such the direction of agricul- 

 tural labours and industry in the West Indies, that, in the 

 best climate ol* the equinoctial region, the population would 

 want subsistence but for the freedom and activity of ex- 

 ternal commerce. I do not speak of the introduction of 

 wines at the port of the Havannah, which amounted 

 (according to the registers of the custom-house), in 1803, 

 to 40,000 barrels; in 1823, to 15,000 pipas and 17,000 

 barrels, to the value of 1,200,000 piastres ; nor of the iutro- 





