eHAP. v.] WEST INDIES. 323 
commodity from him, without giving any price for 
it,—what is it, hut an act of the same nature, differ¬ 
ing only in degrees of violence?—The plea of ne¬ 
cessity is not applicable to the case; the object not 
being, as in the case of corn, a necessary but a 
luxury of life ; and the colonists, to whom it belongs, 
have no share in the power of regulating, if regula¬ 
tions are to be made concerning it. 
If it be urged that foreigners have otherwise the 
advantage of sometimes buying British plantation 
sugar on cheaper terms than the people of Great 
Britain, it is answered, that this is a circumstance 
for which the planter is no way responsible, and in 
truth it is in itself but little to be regarded; since 
whenever it happens, the national gain is so much 
the greater; because the kingdom profits much 
more by the quantity purchased, and paid for in 
money by foreigners, than it would have done, if 
the same quantity had been consumed at home.—• 
Government has no means in this case of taxing the 
consumption of foreign nations, for if the duty be 
added to the price of the commodity, the foreign 
demand is at an end.* 
* Since the foregoing was written, an act of the British legislatin'® 
has passed, intituled, “ An act for regulating the allowanceof the draw- 
i( back, and payment of the bounty on the exportation of sugar, and 
i( for permitting the importation of sugar and coffee into the Bahama 
“ and Bermuda islands in foreign ships." Concerning the latter part 
of the act, as the foreign sugar and coffee are not to be consumed in 
Great Britain, but put en depot in warehouses until re-exported, the 
planters of the British West Indies have no right to object to its pro* 
