chap, iv.] WEST INDIES. 287 
been verified and confirmed by the experience of 
years. I regret, that I am unable to furnish the 
reader with an aceurate account of the actual ex¬ 
ports from those provinces to the West Indies since 
the war, (the report of the committee of council on 
the slave trade, though fraught with information in 
all other cases that relate to the commerce of the 
colonies, being silent on this head), or of the fish 
which they send annually to the sugar islands. The 
quantity of this latter article imported into the Bri¬ 
tish West Indies from Newfoundland, on an ave¬ 
rage of four years (1783 to 1786, both inclusive) 
was 80,645 quintals*. 
The exports, for the year 1787, from the British 
sugar islands to all our remaining American posses¬ 
sions, Newfoundland included, consisted of 9,891 
cwt. of sugar, 874,580 gallons of rum, 81 cwt. of 
* The imports, into Jamaica from Canada, St. John’s, and Nova 
Scotia, between 3d of April, 1783, and the 26th of October 1784, 
have been stated in a report of the assembly of that island. The ne¬ 
gative catalogue is very copious. No flour,—no ship-bread or bis¬ 
cuit, no Indian-corn, or other meal,—no horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, 
or poultry.—The only provisions were, one hundred and eighty 
bushels of potatoes, and 751 hogsheads and about 500 barrels of salted 
fish,—rather a scanty allowance for the maintenance of 30,000 white 
people, and 250,000 blacks, for the space of nineteen months !-Of 
lumber, &c. the quantity was 510,088 feet, 20 bundles of hoops, and 
301,324 shingles.- - Previous to the war, on an average of the five 
years from 1768 to 1772, the whole imports into Jamaica from Ca¬ 
nada, Nova Scotia, and St. John’s, were 33 barrels cf flour, 7 hog¬ 
sheads of fish, 8 barrels of oil, 3 barrels of tar, pitch, and turpentine, 
36,000 shingles and staves, and 27,2.35 feet of lumber. 
