306 HISTORY OF THE [book. vi. 
tuguese sugar (says this author) before we had plan¬ 
tations of our own, sold for seven and eight pounds 
sterling the quintal or cwt.” and it is a remarkable 
and well known circumstance, after that the culti¬ 
vation of indigo in Jamaica, was suppressed by an 
exorbitant duty of near £.20 the hundred weight, 
Great Britain was compelled to pay to her rivals 
and enemies £. 200,000 annually for this commo¬ 
dity, so essential to a great variety of her most im¬ 
portant manufactures. At length, the duty being 
repealed, and a bounty, some time after, substituted 
in its place, the provinces of Georgia and South 
Carolina entered upon, and succeeding in the cul¬ 
ture of this valuable plant, supplied, at a tar cheap¬ 
er rate than the French and Spaniards, (receiving 
too our manufactures in payment), not only the Bri¬ 
tish consumption, but also enabled Great Britain to 
export a surplus at an advanced price to foreign 
markets. 
If thesg writers then were well informed, and 
the commercial world has thought highly of their 
industry and knowledge, it would be difficult to 
prove (though it is easily said, and as easily denied) 
that the settlement of the British sugar plantations 
was unwise or improvident; nor will it be found 
very easy to point out any other channel in which 
the money which has been expended in their im¬ 
provement, could have been applied to greater na¬ 
tional benefit. Against advantages of such magni¬ 
tude and permanence as I have shewn to result 
