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The first of these four productions, which have 

 become within two or three centuries the prin- 

 cipal objects of commerce and colonial industry, 

 belongs exclusively to America ; the second to 

 Asia. I say exclusively, for the exportation of 

 cacao from the Philippine Isles is yet of as little 

 importance, as the attempts which have been 

 made to cultivate tea in Brazil, the island of 

 Trinidad, and Jamaica. The united provinces 

 of Caraccas furnish nearly two thirds of all the 

 cacao, that is consumed in the western and 

 southern parts of Europe. This result is the 

 more remarkable, as being contrary to what is 

 generally believed ; but the cacao of Caraccas, 

 Maracaybo, and Cumana, is not all of the same 

 quality. We have just seen, that the Count of 

 Casa Valencia estimates the consumption of 

 Spain at only six or seven millions of pounds ; 



from 41. 10 s. to 3/. 10s. the hundred weight ; coffee was, at 

 a mean, 95s. the hundred weight: sugar, from 40s. to bOs. 

 The price of these last two articles has considerably risen 

 since the publication of Mr. Colquhoun's work. It is difficult 

 to fix a general statement for the price of tea, on account of 

 the great difference between the various qualities. In 1817, 

 the importation of sugar from the East Indies into the port of 

 London, was only 50,000 bags, or 5,500,000 pounds. In 

 order to form a more precise idea of the importance of Eu- 

 ropean commerce in sugar, coffee, tea, and cacao # we shall 

 here call to mind, that the value of all the importations of 

 England amounts, from 1805 to 1810, on an average, to 

 1200 millions of francs yearly. 



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