chap, v.] WEST INDIES. 313 
great scarcity and a low price, can exist at one and 
the same time. That sugar, like other commodi¬ 
ties, is sometimes bought up in Great Britain by- 
engrossers on speculation, may be very possible; 
but this is a traffic in which as neither the planters 
in the West Indies, nor their factors at home, have 
any concern, so neither are they answerable for any 
consequences arising from it. 
It is true that, when providential calamities have 
overtaken the West Indies, the evil has sometimes 
been remotely felt by the inhabitants of Great Bri¬ 
tain. When it pleased the Almighty to lay -waste 
the sugar islands by a succession of tremendous 
hurricanes, it was reasonable to expect that the re¬ 
duced state of their exports, would enhance their 
value in Europe. It might then perhaps be said 
that the consumer of sugar reimbursed in some de¬ 
gree the charges and expenses of its culture and 
transportation, and the duties which had been levied 
upon it. It was the natural and only relief (inade¬ 
quate at the best) which the sugar planters could 
receive; but if, from some occasional increase of 
price on such emergencies, they are made subject 
to permanent burthens, founded on the vain and 
fallacious idea that, because the consumer has re¬ 
placed them once, he will replace them again; the 
devastations of the elements are only the lesser evil. 
Admitting however that the consumer really 
does, in a great many cases, pay the duty, or, in 
other words, that the vender has it very frequently 
Vol. HI. 
r r 
