Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

I shall now bring into one point of view the several great items that have been enumerated; adding to the British and Irish supply 20 per cent. for the cost of freight and insurance outwards, the charges of shipping, commission to the merchantexporter in some cases, and the profits in others of the merchant-importer in the West Indies; all which contribute to swell the debt of the planters to Great Britain: viz.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Exports to Africa for the purchase of negroes from Madeira and the Azores

United States of America

British America

Total

668,255

30,000

[ocr errors]

720,000

[ocr errors]

100,506

£.3,817,867

Perhaps it were no excess to state the whole amount at this time at four millions of pounds sterling. Hence then appears the vast dependence of the British West Indian colonies on their parent

dies, on an average of five years (1783 to 1787, both inclusivė) having been 80,645 quintals, worth at the ports of delivery about 178. 6d. the quintal.

country, for almost every thing that is useful and ornamental to civilized life; and it was justly observed, by the accurate and intelligent Mr. Glover, that such a market for the vent of our manufactures, furnishes irrefragible proof, that, through whatever channel riches have flowed into those colonies, that influx hath made its passage to the mother country, "not (continued he) like the dash of an oriental torrent, but in salubrious, various, placid, and copious streams; refreshing and augmenting sober industry by additional employment to thousands and ten thousands of families, and lightening the burthen upon rents, by reducing the contributions of parishes to poverty unemployed."

After all, it is not so much by the exports to as by the imports from, the sugar islands, that we are to judge of their value: every article of their products and returns being in fact as truly British property, as the tin which is found in the mines of Cornwall; and their staples are the more valuable, inasmuch as they differ from the commodities produced at home: for they supply the mother country, not only with what she must otherwise purchase from foreigners for her own use, but with a superfluity besides for foreign consumption. Let us now then, as proposed, inquire into the particulars, and estimate the value of their various productions and commodities with which Great Britain and her dependencies are annually supplied. Here too, I might refer to the year 1787, and avail myself, as I have done in the history of each particular island,

of the very exact, comprehensive, and valuable statement of the returns of that year, as prepared by the inspector general of the exports and imports, with the marketable prices of each article, and annexed by the committee of the privy council to their report on the slave trade; but I choose rather to look to the year 1788; chiefly, because the exports of any one year are set properly against the imports of the succeeding one; it being usual, in most articles of British export to the West Indies, to give twelve or sixteen months credit.

The imports into Great Britain from the British sugar islands in 1788, and the value thereof, will appear in the following table. The quantities are taken from the inspector general's return;* but that officer has not, in this case, as in the account of the former year, affixed the marketable prices.t These therefore are collected from the opinions of respectable brokers, on a low average of the year; the miscellaneous articles excepted, which stand as stated by the inspector general with the addition of one-third, being the usual disproportion between the actual prices current, and those in the customhouse books.

* Report of the privy council, part iv.

†The marketable prices are the current prices after the duties have been cleared, and these are paid on importation, except as to the duties and excise on rum, which is permitted to be bonded. The latter therefore cannot be said to be paid by the planter in the first instance, as in the former case they certainly are, and nine times out of ten are not refunded by the consumer, as will hereafter be demonstrated.

[merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]

The amount is £.6,488,319 11s. 4d. and this sum is altogether exclusive of bullion, of which the annual import from these islands into Great Britain is very considerable: it is presumed that, £.320,000 is a moderate average, which being added to the foregoing, gives a total of £.6,808,319 11s. 4d. I will call it six millions eight hundred thousand pounds only; and the calculation is confirmed by the testimony of a merchant of the first character and ability; who, in his evidence before a committee in the house of commons, has fixed on this sum as the amount of the imports into Great Britain from the British West Indies for the same year.

Of the imports into Ireland and America, &c. directly from these islands, in 1788, no account, that I have seen, has been given to the public. I shall therefore adopt, from the authority of the inspector general, those of the year preceding, which stand thus;

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

* See the evidence of George Hibbert, Esquire, merchant in London, before a select committee of the house of commons, appointed to take examinations on the slave trade, 20th March, 1790.

In official accounts before referred to of the Irish exports and imports, and subjoined at length in an appendix to this volume, it apVol. III.

31

« AnteriorContinua »