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Indiana University Studies 
into the United States from Bermuda, the lumber had to be 
paid for in cash. Even if the British planter turned to the 
British North American provinces in search of lumber, he 
was confronted by the necessity of paying cash, since those 
provinces offered only a limited market for rum and molas- 
ses."^^ This demand for money was an especial burden at a 
time when prices of British West India products were depre- 
ciated. 
These evils were reflected in the depreciation of property 
of the British planters. For instance, two estates in St. Kitt’s 
for which £45,000 had been paid in 1817 were sold at an auc- 
tion in London in June, 1822, for £16,000, a decrease of ap- 
proximately 65 per cent.^® The owners of West India property 
were “threatened with absolute and immediate ruin”.^® Con- 
fronted by this depreciation of property, the mortgagees for 
the West India estates, who were for the most part merchants, 
bankers, and produce brokers, began, with the utmost dili- 
gence, to prosecute the proprietors and their properties to the 
foreclosure and sale of their estates. A vast number of orders 
were sent out early in 1822 to hasten these sales with all pos- 
sible expedition.®® 
Naturally, when faced by these hardships and disasters, 
the British West India colonists did what the Americans had 
hoped they would do: they raised their voices loudly in pro- 
test against the navigation system of Great Britain which was 
the indirect cause of their woes. Petitions and memorials 
poured in to the King and the House of Commons. The Assem- 
bly of Jamaica took the lead in this matter in December, 1821, 
by revealing to the King the wretched condition of that island, 
and informing him that 
A new system of intercourse upon the basis of mutual benefit, permitting 
the importation in American bottoms of the products of the United States 
and the exports of our staple commodities in return, would afford an 
important relief to the distresses of your Majesty’s colonies, and have 
the advantage of opening to British ships a trade from which they are 
now excluded.®’^ 
The legislature of St. Christopher soon added its voice in sup- 
St. Christopher Gazette; and Charibhean Courier, April 5, 1822. 
'‘^Ihid., July 19, 1822. 
Resolution of Committee of West India Planters and Merchants, in St. Christo- 
pher Gazette; and Charibhean Courier, Aug. 2, 1822. 
St. Christopher Advertiser, April 30, 1822. 
Ibid., April 2, 1822. Niles' Register, XXII, 56, 57. 
