67 



prices varied from six to eighteen piastres per 

 quintal. At the Havannah it has sunk as low as 

 three piastres ; but at this period, so disastrous for 

 the planters, in 1810 and 1812, more than two 

 millions of quintals of coffee, amounting' in value 

 to ten millions sterling, were accumulated in the 

 warehouses of England *. 



The extreme predilection entertained in this 

 province for the culture of the coffee-tree is 

 partly founded on the circumstance, that the 

 berry can be preserved during a great num- 

 ber of years ; whereas, notwithstanding every 

 possible care, cacao spoils in the warehouses 

 after ten or twelve months. During the long 

 dissensions of the European powers, at a time 

 when the metropolis was too weak to protect 

 the commerce of the colonies, industry was 

 directed in preference toward productions, of 

 which the sale was less urgent, and could wait the 

 chances of political, and commercial events. I 

 remarked, that, in the coffee-plantations, the nur- 

 series are formed not so much by collecting to- 

 gether those young plants, which accidentally rise 

 under trees that haveyielded a crop,as byexposing 



Exportation of 1789 233 quintals, eachlOOlbs of Castille. 



1792 1489 



1794 3646 



1796 4847 



1797- — 3095 



* Colquhoun on the Wealth of the British Empire, 1814, p. 332. 



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