UrCEEASE OE EEBUO 'WEALTH. 
263 
cultivation of cooliineal in Mexico, of indigo in Guatimala, 
and of cacao in Venezuela. A free, intelligent, and agri- 
cultural population, will progressively succeed a slave popu- 
lation, destitute of foresight and industry. Abeady the 
capital -which the commerce of the Havannah has placed 
within the last twenty-live years in the hands of cultivators, 
has began to change the face of the country ; and to that 
po-wer, of which the action is constantly increasing, another 
will he necessarily joined, inseparable from the progress of 
industry and national wealth, — the development ot hnman 
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 tire 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 (rvithout 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, ho-wever 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 c.apital. Some families are so 
opulent, that Don Mathco de Eedroso, who died lately, left 
in landed property above two millions of piastres. Several 
commercial houses of the Havannah purchase, annually, 
from ten to twelve thousand cases of sugai’, for which they 
pay at the rate of from 350,000 to 420,000 piastres. (Do 
la situacion preseute de Cuba, in MS.) Such was the 
state of pubUc wealth at the end of 1800. Twenty-five 
J'ears 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) ; iji 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 
Hew branch of industry has sprung up (that of plantations 
