I5CBEASE OP PUBLIC "WEALTH. 



cultivation of cochineal in Mexico, of indigo in Guatiitials, > 

 and of cacao in Venezuela. A free, intelligent, and agri- 

 cultural population, will progressively succeed a slave popu- 

 lation, destitute of foresight and industry. Already the 

 capital -which the commerce of the Havannah has placed 

 within the last twenty-five years in the hands of cultivators, 

 has began to change the face of the country ; and to that 

 power, of which the action is constantly increasing, another 

 will be necessarily joined, inseparable from the progress of 

 industry and national wealth, the development of human 

 intelligence. On these united powers depend the future 

 destinies of the metropolis of the West Indies. 



In reference to what has been said respecting external 

 commerce, I may quote the author of a memoir which I have 

 often mentioned, and who describes the real situation of 

 the island. " At the Havannah, the effects of accumulated 

 wealth begin to be felt ; the price of provisions has been 

 doubled in a small number of years. Labour is so dear, 

 that a bozal negro, recently brought from the coast of 

 Africa, gains by the labour of his hands (without having 

 learned any trade), from four to five reals (two francs thir- 

 teen sous to three francs five sous) a day. The negroes 

 who follow mechanical trades, however common, gain from 

 five to six francs. The patrician families remain fixed to 

 the soil : a man who has enriched himself, does not return 

 to Europe taking with him his capital. Some families are so 

 opulent, that Don Matheo de Pedroso, who died lately, left 

 in landed property above two millions of piastres. Several 

 commercial houses of the Havaunah purchase, annually, 

 from ten to twelve thousand cases of sugar, for which they 

 pay at the rate of from 350,000 to 420,000 piastres." (De 

 la situacion presente de Cuba, in MS.) Such was the 

 Btate of public wealth at the end of 1800. Twenty-five 

 years of increasing prosperity have elapsed since that 

 period, and the population of the island is nearly doubled. 

 The exportation of registered sugar had not, in any year 

 before 1800, attained the extent of 170,000 cases (31,280,000 

 kilogrammes) ; in these latter times it has constantly sur- 

 passed 200,000 cases, and even attained 250,000 and 300,000 

 cases (forty-six to fifty-five millions of kilogrammes). A 

 new branch of industry nas sprung up (that of plantation! 



