WEST INDIES. 
CHAP'. HI.] 
*39 
of the very exact, comprehensive, and valuable 
statement of the returns of that year, as prepared 
by the inspector general of the exports and im¬ 
ports,. with the marketable prices of each article,, 
and annexed by the committee of the privy council 
to their report on the slave trade; but I choose ra¬ 
ther to look to the year 1788; chiefly,, because the 
exports of any one year are set properly against the 
imports of the succeeding one; it being usual, in 
most articles of British export to the West Indies, 
to give twelve or sixteen months credit. 
The imports into Great Britain from the British- 
sugar islands in 1788, and the value thereof, will 
appear in the following table. The quantities are 
taken from the inspector general’s return ;* but 
that officer has not, in this case, as in the account 
©f the former year, affixed the marketable prices.] 
These therefore are collected from the opinions of 
respectable brokers, on a low average of the year; 
the miscellaneous articles excepted, which stand as’ 
stated by the inspector general with the addition of 
one-third, being the usual disproportion between 
the actual prices current, and those in the custom¬ 
house books. 
* Report of the privy council, part iv. 
f The marketable prices are the current prices after the duties have 
been cleared, and these are paid on importation, except as to the duties 
and excise on rum, which is permitted to be bonded. jThe latte* 
theiel ore cannot be said to be paid by the planter in the litst instance, 
as in the former case they certainly are, and nine times out of ten ate 
not refunded by the consumer, as will hereafter be demonstrated. 
