WEST INDIES. 
CHAP. V.] 
329 
rest, was, as I have elsewhere observed, commercial 
monopoly .—The word monopoly, in this ease, ad¬ 
mitted a very extensive interpretation. It com¬ 
prehended the monopoly of supply, the monopoly 
of colonial produce, and the monopoly of manufac¬ 
ture. By the first, the colonists were prohibited 
from resorting to foreign markets for the supply of 
their wants; by the second, they were compelled 
to bring their chief staple commodities to the mo¬ 
ther country alone; and by the third, to bring them 
to her in a raw or unmanufactured state, that her 
own manufactures might secure to themselves all 
the advantages arising from their further improve¬ 
ment. This latter principle was carried so far in 
the colonial system of Great Britain, as to induce the 
late Earl of Chatham to declare in parliament, that 
To the foregoing authorities might likewise be added those of the 
honest and intelligent Joshua Gee, and the learned and accurate Doc¬ 
tor John Campbell ; but perhaps, to a common understanding, the 
conclusion is too clear and self-evident to require illustration or au¬ 
thority; namely, that the export from Great Britain to foreign markets 
ef her colonial products is just as beneficial to the British trade, as the 
export of corn, or any other production of the mother-country, and 
equally increases the balance of trade in her favour. I shall therefore 
only observe further, that the export of sugar alone from this king¬ 
dom for the supply of the foreign European markets duiing the years 
1790 and 1791, was 277,656 cwt. of raw, and 278,391 cwt. of re¬ 
fined, which, at the rate of 4 $s. per cwt. for the raw, and of 90/. 
per cwt. for the refined, added .£.1,600,000 sterling to the balance of 
trade in favour of the mother country, and enabled her to pay more 
than one-half the sum which is annually drawn out of the kingdom 
for the interest or dividends of money lodged by foreigners in the Bri¬ 
tish -funds. 
Vol. III. T t 
