70 



If the troubles of St. Domingo, the augmen- 

 tation for a time of the price of colonial pro- 

 duce, and the emigration of French planters, 

 were the first causes of the establishment of 

 coffee-plantations on the continent of America, 

 in the island of Cuba, and in Jamaica ; their 

 produce has far more than compensated the 

 deficiency of the exportation from the French 

 West India Islands. This produce has aug- 

 mented in proportion to the population, the 

 change of customs, and the increasing luxury 

 of the nations of Europe. The island of St. 

 Domingo exported in 1780, in the time of Mr. 

 Necker, near seventy-six millions of pounds* of 

 coffee. The exportation in 1812 and the three 

 preceding years still amounted, according to the 

 researches of Mr. Colquhoun, to thirty-six mih 



the coffee-tree slightly moistened, and placed in a vial with 

 a glass stopple filled with air, contains alcohol in suspension : 

 nearly as the foul air, which is formed in our cellars during 

 the fermentation of must. On agitating the gas in contact 

 with water, the latter acquires a decidedly alcoholic flavour. 

 How many substances are perhaps contained in a state of 

 suspension in those mixtures of carbonic acid and hydrogen, 

 which are called deleterious miasmata, and which rise every 

 where under the tropics, in marshy grounds, on the shores of 

 the sea, in the forests where the soil is strewed with dead 

 leaves, rotten fruits, and putrefying insects ! 



* Always French pounds, containing 9216 grains. 112 

 English pounds f± 105 French pounds j and 110 Spanish 

 pounds £z 93 French pounds. 



