i 3 o HISTORY OF THE [bookv. 
new cultivation, they cannot supply the deficiency 
occasioned by the troubles in St. Domingo, nor is 
the rest of the West Indies able to make it up; for 
since these troubles, the price has augmented near 
one fourth, viz. from seventy shillings to ninety 
shillings. This advance of price will, if not (as in 
former times) checked by additional duties, be a 
premium to all West India islands where there are 
mountains ; and as cultivation cannot be carried on 
in St. Domingo, for some time, to its former ex¬ 
tent, for various reasons, it is likely to be a pre¬ 
mium of some degree of permanency. Let us 
now turn to Jamaica: the export of coffee from 
thence, before 1783, never exceeded 850,000 lbs, 
notwithstanding the several measures that were 
taken by the assembly to encourage its cultivation. 
The reduction took place in 1783, of the excise, 
to six-pence half-penny per pound, and this seems 
to have had an immediate influence; for at the 
fourth year from this event, "when we should natu¬ 
rally expect the first appearance of an effect, there 
was a considerable increase of export; and in three 
years more, the produce was nearly trebled, it ex¬ 
ceeding 2 -i millions. In this situation we stood 
when the disturbances took place at St. Domingo: 
it is now sixteen months since the commence¬ 
ment of that rebellion, and by the returns just made 
from the several parishes, it appears, that 21,011 
negroes are employed in the cultivation of coffee in 
Jamaica. I will suppose however, that one-fourth 
of these may be engaged in other objects connect¬ 
ed with coffee, still there will remain 15,759 ne-‘ 
