I 9 5 
chap, iv.] WEST INDIES. 
by purchase, because, as the lands have become 
impoverished, they have required a greater ex¬ 
pense of labour to make them any way produc¬ 
tive ; but as the returns have not increased in the 
same degree, nothing could have saved the plan¬ 
ters from ruin, but the advanced price of sugar in 
the markets of Europe. 
It appears from authentic accounts laid betore 
parliament, that the import of sugar into Great Bri¬ 
tain from all the British West Indies, (Jamaica ex¬ 
cepted), has decreased in the course of twenty 
years, from 3,762,804 cwt. to 2,563,228 cwt.* 
The difference in value, at a medium price, can¬ 
not be less than £. 400,000 sterling, and it will be 
found to have fallen chiefly on those islands which 
j 
are subject to the duty in question ; to the effects 
of which, therefore, the deficiency must be chiefly 
attributed : for being laid, not on the land, but on 
the produce of the land, it operates as a tax on 
industry, and a penalty which falls heaviest on the 
man who contributes most to augment the wealth, 
commerce, navigation, and revenues ot the mo¬ 
ther-country. It is considered by the planters as 
equal to ten per cent, on the net produce ot their 
estates for ever. Under such a burthen, which 
while it oppresses the colonies, yields a profit of 
no great consideration to the crown, they have 
been unable to stand a competition with the British 
* Being the average of two periods, the first from 177a to 1775, 
the second from 1788 to 1792. 
