3*6 HISTORY OF THE [book vi. 
where observed, that there is not at this day a single 
cacao plantation, of any extent, from one end of the 
island to the other. 
The cultivation of ginger succeeded that of cacao, 
and met with a similar fate: but perhaps the in¬ 
stance ot coffee will come more immediately home 
to the imagination of ministers, because the proof 
which it affords arises, not from what has been lost 
by impolitic taxation, but from what has been gained 
by a prudent reduction of existing duties. In the 
one case, the lesson it affords is too mortifying to be 
acceptable : the other they will receive as a compli¬ 
ment to their wisdom. Having however stated the 
circumstance in a former part of this work,* it is 
unnecessary to enlarge upon it here. 
Trom the whole of what has been observed on the 
question of duties, this conclusion appears to me to 
be incontrovertible; that in nine cases out of ten, 
the duties which are paid on the products of the 
British plantations, fall chiefly (either immediately 
or eventually) on the colonist in the West Indies, 
who is commonly the importer, and not on the con¬ 
sumer in Great Britain ;—and it is equally certain 
that, in the tenth case, when the consumer pays 
them, he ought to pay them ; inasmuch as all taxes 
should in justice press with equal weight on every 
member of the community, in proportion to his abi¬ 
lity to sustain them ; of which, in the case of tax- 
* Book v, c, iv. p. 123, 
