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A 
 
 STATEMENT 
 
 OF THE CLAIMS OF THE 
 
 WEST INDIA COLONIES 
 
 TO A PROTECTING DUTY AGAINST 
 
 EAST INDIA SUGAR. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY WHITMORE AND FENN, 
 
 OnARING-CROSS. 
 
 1823. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 I'KINTED By THOJIAS DAVISON, WIIITEFRIABS. 
 
HR6C 
 
 S6 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM MANNING, ESQ. M. P. 
 
 THIS STATEMENT 
 OF THE CLAIMS OF THE 
 
 WEST INDIA COLONIES 
 
 TO 
 
 A PROTECTING DUTY ON SUGAR, 
 
 IS DEDICATED 
 
 WITH SENTIMENTS OF AFFECTION AND REGAUD, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 r -^no 
 
 2f;f^ 
 
STATEMENT, 
 Sec, 
 
 The writer of a late pamphlet, entitled ' A 
 Refutation of the Claims of the West India Co- 
 lonists to a protecting Duty on East India 
 Sugar,' adverts to the silence of the West India 
 body on this important question, and reminds 
 them that * they have put on record no regular 
 defence of these claims.* The observation is, in 
 some measure, correct, and the colonists are 
 sensible of having relied too confidently on the 
 mere justice of their case: they ought, perhaps, 
 to have anticipated the possible consequences 
 of that ' tide of prejudice (to use the words of 
 the East India Directors on another occasion), 
 
 * of popular clamour, of most extravagant ex- 
 *pectation, and unbounded pretension, which 
 
 * have been more industriously than fairly ex- 
 ' cited ;' and should, at once, have endeavoured 
 to expose the nature of the appeals, which 
 have been lately made to the prejudices of the 
 
public, and the erroneous statements, by which 
 many have been misled in the consideration of 
 the subject. 
 
 They have, however, reason to thank the 
 author for his timely suggestion : — it is not 
 lost upon them, and it will be seen, upon a com- 
 parative estimate of these conflicting interests, 
 that the silence of the West India body has 
 not proceeded from insufficient grounds of 
 argument, to establish the priority of their 
 claims, over those of the East Indian cul- 
 tivator. 
 
 The real fact is, that the colonists have not, 
 hitherto, felt themselves impelled to enter the 
 lists of controversy with a few writers, per- 
 sonally interested in the equalization of the duties 
 on sugar. They have viewed with an indiffer- 
 ence, not, perhaps, suited to the times, the ef- 
 forts of these individuals, whose zeal, quickened 
 by the hope of turning to their own advan- 
 tage the ruin of our West India settlements, 
 would pervert every fact, and reconcile all con- 
 tradictions in their own favour : they have felt 
 a confident assurance that ' erroneous assump- 
 * tions*, and, of late, extensive combinations, 
 
 * See resolutions adopted at a general court of Pro- 
 prietors of the East India Company, 5th May, 1812. 
 Printed papers, p. 158. 
 
3 
 
 * and unfair canvass,' would defeat the end, for"^ 
 which they have been so improperly resorted to. 
 
 Nor did they regard the stale, and often re- 
 futed calumnies, by which it has been industri- 
 ously attempted to pervert the judgment of the 
 public, with respect to the internal administra- 
 tion of the colonies: these but served, indeed, to 
 prove the weakness of their opponents* argu- 
 ments ; when, in the futile hope of convincing us 
 that we should eat sugar, manufactured by hea- 
 thenish slaves, in preference to that, from which 
 the christian negro derives his only means of sub- 
 sistence and increasing civilization, they were 
 compelled to have recourse to the vulgar expe- 
 dients of personal abuse and invective. Their 
 real motive was too apparent through the veil, 
 which they endeavoured to throw around it, 
 and the West India body were justified in the 
 belief that intelligent and dispassionate rea- 
 soners would form a correct estimate of these 
 representations. 
 
 The Report, however, of the East India 
 Company, on the culture and manufacture of 
 sugar in India, affords the colonists an opportu- 
 nity of meeting the question on the great con- 
 stitutional principles, by which, after all, it must 
 be decided, — namely, of justice and policy. It 
 is a voluminous statement of facts and opinions, 
 generally free from all offensive matter against 
 
 B 2 
 
the respectable communities of our West Indian 
 islands, though it seeks to establish for the 
 Hindoo cultivator a participation in the privi- 
 leges they enjoy. Emanating from so respect- 
 able a quarter, it forcibly demands consideration, 
 and at the same time that it exposes the weak- 
 ness of the arguments of East Indians in support 
 of their pretensions, it affords us this advantage 
 also, that it will lead to a more mature consider- 
 ation of the whole principle, on which the rights 
 of the respective parties are dependent. We do 
 not venture to anticipate the answer which abler 
 hands will prepare to that document, but con- 
 tent ourselves with reverting to the facts and 
 deductions in the pamphlet, which more im- 
 mediately engages our attention. 
 
 We shall, for the present, abstain from in- 
 cumbering the subject with any answer to the 
 abuse, which the writer so liberally deals out 
 asainst all the institutions of our West India 
 settlements : to say the least, it is in very ill 
 taste, and wholly foreign from the great ob- 
 ject at which he professes his desire to arrive. 
 If time or inclination permitted us to expose 
 his various mistatements respecting the nature 
 of the colonial system, he would meet us upon 
 unequal terms in the discussion of the other 
 points. We are, indeed, willing to hope that 
 they have been made upon hearsay, or a partial 
 perusal of the kte controversies on that branch 
 
of the subject ; and we bhall descend from the 
 vantage ground he has given us, in the con- 
 viction that it will not be difficult to prove the 
 arguments of the * Refutation* as untenable, 
 as the flicts are unfounded. 
 
 As our object is to avoid any superfluous 
 matter which might embarrass the course oi 
 our reasoning, and to be as concise as the im- 
 portant nature of the discussion will permit, we 
 proceed at once to principles. 
 
 The propositions we hope to establish are, 
 
 1st, That the West India colonists are pos- 
 sessed of vested rights, in common with everj 
 other class of British subjects, and that, the jus- 
 tice of the mother country being pledged to the 
 protection of their property, they are entitled 
 to the same restrictive duties on foreign pro- 
 duce, as other British agriculturists and manu- 
 facturers enjoy, and without which, their se- 
 curity, and very existence as thriving commu- 
 nities, must be put at risk. 
 
 2nd, That the advantages, accruing to the 
 mother country from her political and commer- 
 cial relations with the West Indies, being greater 
 than those derived from her settlements in the 
 East, it is manifestly inexpedient to hazard the 
 prosperity of the former, upon the speculative 
 hope of uncertain and distant advantage. 
 
5rd, That the hope of benefits to arise to 
 the public in a cheaper supply of sugar, and an 
 extended consumption of British manufactures 
 in India, upon an equalization of duties on 
 the produce of the East and West, is neither 
 justified by any experience of the past, or rea- 
 sonable expectations of the future. 
 
 The circumstances, under which the British 
 West India colonies were originally established, 
 differ, in manyrespects, from the colonial settle- 
 ments of other European nations. The English 
 colonists did not acquire their possessions by 
 violently exterminating the native tribes ; — their 
 rights were neither founded upon aggression, 
 cruelty, injustice, or fraud : — they were, as British 
 born subjects, attracted by the proclamation of 
 the sovereign to transfer themselves and their 
 property from England, and to settle in his 
 newly acquired territories : various privileges 
 w^ere promised and secured to those, who should 
 accept the invitation ; upon the faith of which 
 many wealthy individuals were induced to risk 
 the dangers and hardships of a new settlement, 
 in an unhealthy climate, and to invest their ca- 
 pital at a distance from all those ties which 
 sweeten life and animate our exertions. 
 
 Such, indeed, was the encouragement held 
 out by the government to these new settlers, 
 that it had become fiishionable, in the reign of 
 
King James, for men of high rank and di- 
 stinction to engage in these adventures, pro- 
 claiming themselves the patrons of colonization 
 and foreign commerce. In the list of those 
 who contributed to the British settlements in 
 Virginia, New England, the Bermuda Islands, 
 and other places in tlie new world, may be 
 found the names of many of the principal no- 
 bility and gentry of the kingdom*. 
 
 The immunities granted at their establish- 
 ment have been since extended and ratified, as 
 circumstances made expedient: the settlers and 
 their descendants were publicly declared to be 
 British subjects : their liberties were recognized, 
 constitutions were granted to them on the model 
 of that system, which has secured to the mother 
 country the admiration of the world, and the 
 prosperity and happiness of her own people ; and 
 their rights have been at all times considered as 
 those of integral members of the same political 
 body,varyingonlyinthepeculiar advantages and 
 disadvantages, naturally arising out of the pro- 
 ducts of their soil, or their more remote position. 
 
 Upon these principles, which have been up- 
 held by all writers on political economy, and by 
 each successive government for nearly two cen- 
 turies, the number of our subjects engaged in 
 colonial agriculture and commerce has progres- 
 
 * Edwards's History of the West Indies. 
 
sively increased, and, in proportion to the en- 
 couragement afforded by the parent country, 
 has British capital been extensively invested ; 
 till, at the present moment, the various and com- 
 plicated interests, involved in its successful ap- 
 plication, almost exceed the ordinary means of 
 estimate. 
 
 We should have thought that no one, ac- 
 quainted with the laws and constitution of 
 England, could ever have hazarded a doubt as 
 to the title of our West India colonists to the 
 protection and preference of natural-born sub- 
 jects; but since it has been lately called in 
 question, and that we may not be supposed to 
 speak without precise authority, we beg to 
 refer to a few public documents, which, to the 
 great body of general observers, may serve to 
 place this preliminary point beyond dispute. 
 
 King Charles the First having granted a 
 patent to the Earl of Carlisle for the islands of 
 Barbadoes, St. Vincent, Dominica, and many 
 others, dated 12nd June, 1G27, his majesty au- 
 thorises him, 
 
 ' For the good and happy government of the said 
 
 * province, whether for the public security of the said 
 ' province or the private utility of every man, with the 
 
 * consent, assent, and approbation of the free inha- 
 
 * bitants of the said province, or the greater part of them 
 
 * thereunto to be called, to make such laws as he or 
 ' they, in his or their discretion, shall think fit and best. 
 
 And these laws nlust all men, for the time being, that 
 
9 
 
 * do live within the limits of the said province, observe, 
 
 * whether they be bound to sea, or thence returning to 
 
 * E?igland or any other our dominions. — And we will 
 
 * also, (it proceeds) of our princely grace, for us, our 
 
 * heirs and successors, straightly charge, make, and or- 
 
 * dain, that the said province be of our allegiance, and 
 ' that all and every subject and liege people of us, our 
 
 * heirs, 4-c. brought or to be brought, and their children^ 
 
 * whethei- then born or afterwards to be born, become na- 
 
 * tmes and subjects of us, our heirs, ^c. and be as free as 
 
 * they that were born in England, a?id so their inheritance 
 
 * within our kingdom of England or other our dominions, 
 
 * to seek, receive, hold, buy, and possess, and use, and 
 
 * enjoy them as their own, and give, sell, alter, and be- 
 ' queath them at their pleasure, and also freely, quietly, 
 
 * and peaceably, to have and possess all the liberties, fran- 
 ' chises, and privileges of this kitigdom, and them to use 
 ' and enjoy as liege people of Eyigland, whether born or to 
 ' be born, without impediment, molestation, vexation, in- 
 ' jury, or trouble of us, our heirs and successors, any 
 
 * statute, act, ordinance, or proviso to the contrary 
 ' notwithstanding.' 
 
 Again, Charles the Second, in 166^, in his 
 proclamation 'for encouraging of planters in his 
 Majesty's island of Jamaica in the West Indies,* 
 recognises the same rights — 
 
 ' We, being fully satisfied that our island of Jamaica 
 ' bein«T a pleasant and most fertile soil, and situate com- 
 
 * modiously for trade and commerce, is likely, through 
 
 * God's blessing, to be a great benefit and advantage 
 
 * to this and othei' our Jdngdoms and dominions, have 
 
 * thought fit,y6r encouraging of our subjects as "well such 
 
10 
 
 * ai are aheadij upofi the said island, as all others that 
 
 * shall transport themselves thither, and reside and plant 
 ' there, and declai'e and publish, &c. And again, — We 
 ' do further publish and declare that all children of our 
 
 * natural horn subjects of England to he horn in Jamaica, 
 
 * shall from their respective births be reputed to be, and 
 ' shall be, free denizens of England, and shall have the 
 
 * same privileges, to all intents and pujposes, as our free 
 ' born subjects of England,^ S^c. S^c*. 
 
 Again, in the 7th article of the treaty be- 
 tween England and Spain, in June, I67O, it is 
 provided, that, 
 
 ' The King of Great Britain, his heirs, and successors, 
 
 * shall have, hold, and possess for ever, with full right 
 
 * of sovereign dominion, property, and possession, all 
 
 * lands, countries, islands, colonies, and dominions what- 
 ' ever, situated in the West Indies or any part of Ame- 
 ' rica, 'which the said King of Great Britain and his sub- 
 ^jects do at this present hold and possessf.' 
 
 In the subsequent contests between the mi- 
 nisters of Charles the Second and Jamaica, on the 
 question of the political rights of the latter, it 
 was admitted that the English had carried with 
 them to the island, as their birth-right, the law 
 of England, as it then stood. And at length, in 
 1728, the assembly of Jamaica consented to 
 settle on the Crown, a standing irrevocable re- 
 venue of 8000 W per annum, on certain condi- 
 
 * Edwards, Vol. 1. p. 217. 
 t Ibid. p. 219. X Ibid. Vol, I. p. 226. 
 
11 
 
 tioiis, to which the crown agreed : — one of 
 these was, 
 
 * That the body of their laws should receive the royal 
 
 * assent, and that all such laws and statutes of England 
 
 * as had been at any time esteemed, introduced, used, 
 
 * accepted, or received as laws in the island, should be 
 ' and continue laws of Jamaica for ever*.' 
 
 Among other of the Jamaica statutes, one 
 passed in 1664, * declaring the laws of England 
 in force in this island,' is particularly import- 
 ant, as a recognition of the principle we are 
 contending for. It is in these words, — 
 
 * Be it declared by the governor, council, and assem- 
 
 * bly, and by the authority of the same, that all the laws 
 ' and statutes heretofore made in our native country, 
 
 * the kingdom of England, for the public weal of the 
 ' same, and all the liberties, privileges, i?nmunities, and 
 ^freedoms, contained therein, have always heen of force, 
 
 * and arc belonging to his majesty s liege people within 
 
 * this island as their birth-right, and that the same ever 
 
 * were, note are, and ever shall be deemed good and effectual 
 
 * in the law, and that the same shall be accepted, used, 
 ' and executed, within this his majesty's island of 
 ' Jamaica, in all points and at all times requisite, ac- 
 
 * cording to the tenor and true meaning of themf.'' 
 
 We could enumerate various acts of Parlia- 
 ment, declaratory both of the rights of his ma- 
 jesty's subjects in the West India settlements 
 to protection and encouragement, and of their 
 
 * Edwards, Vol. 1, p. 224. 
 
 + Chalmers' Opinions, Vol. 1, p. 213. 
 
12 
 
 importance to the trade and commerce of these 
 realms. If it were necessary, we could multiply 
 authorities to this point, from numerous reports 
 of law cases, and from solemn declarations of the 
 legislature; but the preceding are sufficient to 
 show that the constitution of the West India co- 
 lonies, with reference to the parent state, is 
 founded upon unalterable principles, which se- 
 cure to every British subject, under the charters 
 of his rights, the possession of his property, and 
 the parental care of the government. And 
 even supposing it to have so happened, that the 
 early proprietors and settlers of these distant 
 provinces, either from local attachment, or 
 any other influences, had never visited the 
 mother country ; — and that the present inha- 
 bitants were deduced from a line so continuing 
 in the islands, till, by the natural progress of 
 time and industry, they had reached their pre- 
 sent numbers and influence, — yet these rights 
 would have remained inalienably the same. 
 
 The highlander of Scotland, residing on his pa- 
 ternal property, — whose ancestors, perhaps, for 
 ages, have never been further from their native 
 village than the nearest market-town, claims 
 the same privileges with the noble and wealthy 
 attendant of the court. His distance from the seat 
 of government forms no bar to his franchises, 
 and,possessingthe rights of a natural-born subject 
 
13 
 
 of England, liis life, property and freedom are 
 as dear, in the sight of the law, as those of any 
 prince of the blood. 
 
 No less so are the immunities of the West 
 India proprietor, who must of necessity be re- 
 cognized as a natural-born subject of England; — 
 nor, because he occupies a distant portion in the 
 empire, has he less claim to the protection of the 
 government, which is instituted but for the 
 common good of all. This very circumstance, 
 indeed, seems to give him a stronger claim to its 
 parental care: — the name of a Roman citizen 
 was a protection to its possessor in the most 
 remote corner of the empire ; and such ought 
 to be, and is, the generous watchfulness of our 
 constitution, that it views with equal jealousy 
 any wrong committed on the least of its free- 
 men. 
 
 Nay, further — let us suppose this highlander 
 of Scotland, even at this day, to be a zealous 
 adlierent of the Stuart line, whose father, 
 perhaps, may have fought and bled for the young 
 Pretender, — who secretly cherishes the tradi- 
 tionary histories of the Rebellion, and yet lives 
 in the vain hope of, what he terms, the * rightful 
 possession' — and to yield only an unwilhng 
 obedience to the existing laws; yet, so long as 
 he does obey them, he is in possession of equal 
 privileges with the descendants of the nobles, 
 who combined to drive that family from the 
 
14 
 
 throne. So the colonist, were he born on the 
 other side the Atlantic, — bound only in affec- 
 tion to the interests of Jamaica, — with no com- 
 mon sentiment of an Englishman, and no di- 
 stinctive marks of his English origin, but of 
 feature and language, who should inwardly 
 complain of the illiberal policy of the mother 
 country, to which he belongs, and yearn for 
 the transfer of his allegiance to the United 
 States of America, or any other maritime na- 
 tion — yet, if he conformed himself to the 
 institutions established for his governance, he 
 v/ould be entitled to all the privileges of his 
 birthright. 
 
 We put this imaginary case, that we may 
 bring the abstract principle of right to the 
 test : — we are satisfied that Parliament would 
 not be disposed to waive an iota of this principle, 
 did it but affect the meanest subject of the land ; 
 for surely a prejudice done to an individual, 
 is a common wrong to all ; and a wound in- 
 flicted on the least of its members, may be 
 made a precedent for any future attack on 
 the whole constitution. It is therefore, that 
 we have ventured this extreme hypothesis, 
 by way of illustration : — and can there he a more 
 ea:treme case? Can any thing be more directly 
 the converse of all we have supposed, than the 
 loyalty and patriotism which have ever di- 
 stinguished tlie British West Indies? The 
 
15 
 
 examination is deeply important at a moment 
 when the very existence of their great in- 
 terests is at stake ; when, with a dangerous 
 spirit of innovation, it is gravely proposed to 
 hazard all the resources which have so long 
 contributed to the prosperity of this country; 
 and which, as we shall hereafter prove, are so 
 essentially interwoven with its best interests, 
 that, to deteriorate the one, must be a clear 
 compromise of the other. 
 
 It were an useless task to travel back throudi 
 the detailed history of our early establishments 
 in those colonies : — the fact is indisputable — ■ 
 that the first settlers were English. The spirit 
 of enterprise which animated their exertions, 
 and which is one of the great characteristics 
 of our nation, soon led to the most favourable 
 results. These, and the constitutional rights, 
 secured to them, as we have before explained, by 
 the repeated declarations of the sovereign and 
 of Parliament, and inherent in their character 
 of British-born subjects, induced a rapid suc- 
 cession of adventurers, till the increasing im- 
 portance of our colonial relations, in that quarter 
 of the world, opened the brightest prospects of 
 national ao^o-randizement and wealth. Lar^-er 
 capitals were invested, as that investment be- 
 came more secure, and the settlers increased 
 in number, as the difficulties of their establish- 
 
10 
 
 ment diminished ; — whilst many who had ac- 
 quired sufficient means of affluence, returned 
 to England to enjoy their well-earned reward, 
 and to enrich their native country with the pro- 
 duce of their industrious exertions. 
 
 The planters, who thus succeeded their more 
 enterprising countrymen, having, themselves, 
 received their education in Europe, and being 
 desirous to secure to their children the same ad- 
 vantage, usually sent them to pass their youth 
 in England ; these, again returning to the co- 
 lonies, with tastes and habits purely English, 
 introduced comparative refinement, which in 
 time became generally prevalent, and had a 
 most powerful and beneficial influence on the 
 different West India communities. 
 
 In this interchange of society, the sentiment 
 of devotion to the parent state becomes in- 
 delibly fixed in the minds of the colonists : — ■ 
 born or educated in England, they look with 
 fond regret to those scenes of early happiness, 
 which no change or circumstance can ob- 
 literate. The day of their return is the ani- 
 mating object of all their hopes; and they 
 limit their absence only to the period, when the 
 acquisition of adequate fortunes enables them 
 to live in the country that gave birth to their 
 ancestors or themselves. 
 
 The mutual relations between Great Britain 
 
17 
 
 and her West India colonies, in a commercial 
 point of view, will be more particularly dis- 
 cussed under the second head of our subject ; 
 but we may here appropriately advert to this 
 moral and political union, which binds them to 
 each other, and which, as it promotes their mutual 
 interests, inspires in both an entire community 
 of affection. 
 
 An eminent political writer,* who has been 
 ever distinguished as a zealous opponent of the 
 "West India colonies, and pourtrays them in no 
 very flattering colours, but who, nevertheless, 
 considers them as integral provinces, possessing 
 equal claims to protection and encouragement 
 with the nearer portions of the empire, thus de- 
 scribes the nature and effect of this union. 
 
 ' The constant, regular, and extensive intercourse, 
 
 * arising from the circulation of inhabitants, tends, more 
 
 * than any thing, to preserve the connexion of the dif- 
 
 * ferent component parts of a great and scattered em- 
 ' pire, and to cement the whole mass. It is by no means 
 ' regulated by the respective distances of the parts from 
 
 * each other ; but depends upon a variety of cir- 
 
 * cumstances in their situation. It has always been, 
 
 * and is likely to continue, much more rapid and con- 
 ' stant between the West Indian settlements and the 
 ' European states, than between any of the continental 
 ' possessions and their mother country. In like manner 
 
 * Brougham's Colonial Policy, Vol. I. p. 50. 
 
18 
 
 there can be no doubt that the mutual exchanges of 
 population between London, Liverpool, and Bristol, 
 and the British West Indies, are much more frequent 
 than between the same towns and the counties of 
 Cornwall and Caithness.' 
 
 ' The natural ties, which tend constantly to maintain 
 and strengthen the connexion between the different 
 parts of the empire, next to the circulation of inha- 
 bitants, formerly discussed, are, chiefly, the four fol- 
 lowing : — the circulation of capital ; the intercourse of 
 commerce; the weakness of the remoter parts; and 
 the relations of a common origin, similarity of customs, 
 and identity of language*.' 
 
 * Besides the influence of these important cir- 
 cumstances, in promoting the interchange of inha- 
 bitants, the circulation of capital and the relations of 
 commerce, they have a direct effect in uniting together 
 the two societies, or parts of the same community, and 
 in rendering both equally averse to a civil war. There 
 is a sentiment of affection, which may, with the greatest 
 propriety, be termed filial, from the colony towards 
 the parent state. In ancient times, it formed, with a 
 few exceptions, the only link that united them.' 
 
 ' The names, by which such a relationship has been 
 denoted, are all founded upon ideas of the same en- 
 dearing and tender connexion. Without any com- 
 pulsion, colonies have generally followed the fortunes 
 of their mother country in those wars which mani- 
 festly endangered their own interestsf.' 
 
 * Brougham's Colonial Policy, Vol. I. p. 192. 
 t Ibid. Vol. I. p. 101. 
 
19 
 
 This filial attachment has been eminently dis- 
 played by the British West India colonies through 
 a long course of eventful times ; and no classes 
 of his majesty's subjects have testified greater 
 zeal in the common cause, or more largely con- 
 tributed to the support of the public burthens, by 
 direct and indirect taxation. We are not called 
 upon to calculate very minutely the great amount 
 of British capital embarked in these possessions. 
 The estimates have varied from seventy to one 
 hundred millions sterling ; and when we here- 
 after come to show, from official returns, the 
 produce and revenue derived from this invest- 
 ment, it will appear that the latter sum is pro- 
 bably the more correct. If, however, it were 
 but a tythe of this amount, the principle for 
 which we contend would still be unaltered ; and 
 at present we only wish to draw this inference 
 from the preceding account of the nature of 
 our colonial establishments in the West Indies, 
 that if the law secures to every individual mem- 
 ber of the constitution the immemorial riglits of 
 Englishmen, no circumstances can justify the 
 sacrifice of extensive vested, we might say char- 
 tered, interests of whole communities; and less 
 than ever should this sacrifice be made in the 
 imaginary prospect of distant benefit to some 
 other class. 
 
 However desirous such politicians as the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 writer of the ' Refutation' may be to consider 
 our West India colonies, rather in the light of 
 foreign possessions, than as provinces of the 
 mother country, and an essential portion of our 
 extended empire ; yet we hope it has been satis- 
 factorily shown that they are part of the do- 
 minions of England, provinces of the king's 
 allegiance ; inhabited by his * subjects and liege 
 
 * people of him, his heirs, and successors,' who 
 have and possess * all the liberties, franchises, 
 ' and privileges of this kingdom as liege people 
 
 * of England, without impediment, molestation, 
 
 * vexation, injury, or trouble, notwithstanding 
 
 * any statute, act, &c. to the contrary.* Still, it 
 is said, they are distant provinces, and this di- 
 stance is a bar to their claim. We ask, in 
 reply, what constitutes distance ? Where is the 
 definable hmit, on either side of which the 
 subjects and liege people of this kingdom shall 
 or shall not possess all the liberties, franchises, 
 and privileges of our dominions? Are the 
 farthest provinces of Ireland, where the people 
 speak a foreign language, profess a different re- 
 ligion, and often live in open hostility to the con- 
 stituted authorities, excluded from the privileges 
 of the capital? And shall not their franchises 
 be as sacred as those of the county of York? 
 Or suppose the territory of England were ex- 
 tensive as that of Russia, where then should 
 
21 
 
 be fixed the line of demarcation — at Kams- 
 chatca — Odessa ? or where begin the oflice 
 of proscription ? Once admit the principle of 
 distance to qualify the franchises of natural 
 born subjects, and an endless field of confusion 
 is presented to us. 
 
 If it be urged, as a last resource, that the 
 distinction lies in the West Indies being trans- 
 marine possessions, separated from us by the 
 ocean, the argument again refers to the matter 
 of distance ; for is not Ireland liable to the same 
 objection? but say, this is an exception ; — what, 
 then, of the isles of Mull, Anglesea, and nume- 
 rous others ? all at present constituent parts of 
 our happy and flourishing empire ; but whose 
 inhabitants are neither more undoubted, or 
 more loyal subjects than those of the West 
 India colonies, and whose whole territory were 
 dearly purchased at half a year's taxation 
 on the produce of Jamaica ? 
 
 But, it is triumphantly asked, where are the 
 
 * vested rights of the colonist? — where are his 
 
 * muniments deposited?' To this it is answered, 
 as a yeoman of Devon would answer, ' suffice to 
 ' say, I am an Englishman, a liege subject of 
 
 * the king ; my vested privileges are recorded 
 ' in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights; and 
 
 * for my muniments, there are the title deeds 
 
 * to my estate ; I neither know nor want any 
 
22 
 
 * others.* In short, upon whatever principle the 
 question is discussed, no sophistry can cheat the 
 colonies of their acknowledged franchise ; and 
 justice demands, that as the capital invested 
 in them cannot be converted to any other source 
 of agricultural or commercial profit, their staple 
 products should have the same protection as 
 those of other subjects. They are, as Dr. Franklin 
 said, * a kind of political children, and as such 
 
 * contribute to the honour, safety and riches of 
 
 * their parents, if those parents are not wanting 
 
 * to themselves.* 
 
 The ' Refutation' inquires * for what part 
 
 * of the West Indies this plea is advanced ?' 
 We answer, for all, including the whole of the 
 ceded colonies, down to 1814. They are all 
 British subjects — have one common interest; 
 and though the claims of the new settlements 
 must necessarily be less imperative, on the 
 ground of long and faithful attachment to the 
 mother country, and of having borne (as our 
 ancient colonies have done to a greater degree 
 than any other class of Englishmen) the heat 
 and burden of the day of trial, yet the children, 
 adopted in the eleventh hour, have been ad- 
 mitted, by the very treaties which secured them 
 to Great Britain, to the full participation of 
 colonial rights. Indeed all the circumstances, 
 under which she took to herself this acquired 
 
territory, make strongly for our case ; for the 
 old colonies opposed the introduction of the 
 new produce on the same terms with their 
 own ; but the Government would not listen to 
 their remonstrance, and may, therefore, be con- 
 sidered responsible for the superabundance of 
 sugar, which is the operative cause of their dis- 
 tress. And what did Great Britain mean in 1814, 
 by the acquisition of these possessions, unless it 
 were that she pledged herself to extend to them 
 the fostering protection which the peculiar na- 
 ture of their establishments required ? What did 
 she mean by permitting her own subjects to settle 
 in, and cultivate them by the investment of im- 
 mense capital, unless it were that, in her desire 
 to give greater outlets to the increasing wealth 
 of Great Britain, and to prevent the rivalship 
 of other countries in colonial possessions, she 
 was ready to maintain her acquisitions upon 
 the recognised principles of her West Indian 
 
 policy ? 
 
 We can understand the jealousy of East India 
 traders at this accession to our western do- 
 minions, as it at once evinces the importance 
 which the nation attaches to the security of 
 our power in that quarter, mid-way, as it were, 
 between Great Britain and America, and in- 
 creases the influence, as it has extensively dis- 
 tributed the capital, of the colonists. 
 
24 
 
 ' What,' continues the writer of the ' Refuta- 
 tion/ * was their inducement for laying out 
 
 * (additional) capital on West India estates ? 
 ' Was it their opinion of the permanence of that 
 
 * species of property? Was it the assurance of 
 
 * a protecting duty? This will hardly be affirmed.' 
 But it is affirmed, and broadly maintained, that 
 they have done so upon that sole ground. And 
 indeed, w^ere they not justified in that con- 
 fidence of the permanent nature of a property, 
 which had been secured to their predecessors 
 by uninterrupted, unquestioned protection for 
 two centuries? What, if 'the market for West 
 
 * Indian sugar has been undergoing very great 
 
 * fluctuations for the last thirty years ?' so have 
 the markets for British produce and manu- 
 factures ; and yet, we believe, it will scarcely 
 be said that, for this reason, the manufacturer, 
 whose looms have been established within the 
 last ten years, upon the faith of regulations and 
 legislative enactments, which have raised that 
 branch of the national resources to an unpre- 
 cedentedheight, and which alone induced him to 
 make such an investment of his capital, is less 
 entitled to protection than the older establish- 
 ments? And who but the shallowest politician 
 would ground upon the mere uncertainty of the 
 markets for corn, iron, woollens, cotton, &c. 
 (than which nothing can have been more flue- 
 
25 
 
 tuating) an argument for making them a worth- 
 less drug by the introduction of foreign pro- 
 ducts? Be it rather said, this very sensitiveness of 
 the market (if we may use the expression) points 
 the necessity of an increased vigilance on the 
 part of government, lest any measures should 
 create an unnatural and ruinous depression. 
 
 If, then, the right of the West India colonies 
 to all the privileges of British subjects be esta- 
 blished, what is the plain and natural inference? 
 Surely it is that they have a just claim to an 
 equal protection with the manufacturer and 
 agriculturist of the more central provinces. 
 The writer of the ' Refutation,' however, makes 
 various attempts at an eloquent, pathetic appeal 
 to the feelings of the British community, to 
 rouse them to a sense of the deep injury they 
 are sustaining by the present policy. * Can the 
 
 * West Indians,' he asks, * exhibit proof of a 
 
 * vested right to be paid by the people of this 
 
 * country, already'groaning under their burthens, 
 *a million and a half* more for their sugar 
 ' than it is worth* ? 
 
 This is a fertile theme of declamation, on which 
 all the writers on the side of ' Refutation' love 
 to dwell. Abstractedly it is a weighty argument, 
 
 * We beg the reader to mark ' a million and a half^ 
 because we shall have occasion to bring this assertion 
 to the proof. 
 
26 
 
 and comes home to the case of every reader, 
 whether acquainted with the subject or not, 
 when he is told that he will ' have sugar a 
 penny a pound cheaper*' by the introduction 
 of East India produce to the supply of the home 
 market. Tliere are, no doubt, many persons, 
 who, believing this fact, would think it quite 
 sufficient ground for a legislative enactment. 
 Many members of Parliament, who may readily 
 be supposed unwilling to enter very minutely 
 into the whole question of East and West India 
 sugar, but thinking it their duty to protect the 
 consumer on general principles, — particularly 
 at the present moment of agricultural depres- 
 sion, might be led to adopt the equalization of 
 duties, upon the faith of this assertion, so boldly 
 advanced. But we hope shortly to prove the 
 incorrectness of the statement, and the fallacy 
 of the arguments which are grounded upon it. 
 
 Upon the same principle, how eloquently 
 might we not declaim against the oppressive 
 monopoly of each branch of our manufactures 
 — even of our landed interest. The clothiers of 
 Yorkshire give us broad cloth for 30s. a yard, 
 the coarser cloths for Ids: — if we were to permit 
 the impmlation of foreign wool, duty free, they 
 could be purchased at 50 per cent. less. What ! 
 
 * ' Refutation,' p. 102. 
 
27 
 
 (it might be said) the poor shepherd, who is ex- 
 posed to the inclemency of the weather, as he 
 tends the very flocks that give the material of 
 the manufacture, — the labourer, the traveller — 
 the West Indian negro — the rice-eating Hindoo 
 slave — the one-hundred millions of heathens 
 in India ! — shall it be said that all these must 
 be compelled to pay 405. for their great coat 
 or their mantle, when the admission of foreign 
 wool would give it to them for a pound? and all 
 for the protection of a few great agriculturists ? 
 The lace-makers of Buckinghamshire, the 
 plate-glass manufacturers, the glovers, the 
 hatters, and shoe-makers of London, the tan- 
 ners, the silk weavers, the Irish linen manufac- 
 turers, the curer of butter, and a hundred 
 other equally ' unjust monopolists,' are at this 
 moment, according to the * Refutation,' over- 
 whelming the people of England with intolerable 
 burthens. Why should we pay millions upon mil- 
 lions ' more for their products than they are 
 worth ?' We can get beautiful lace from Valen- 
 ciennes for half the price of English ; magnificent 
 French plate glass for comparatively nothing; 
 gloves — who does not know the cheapness and 
 quality of French kid gloves ? — silks, and all the 
 other etccetera may be had for half price. Are 
 the agriculturists, the fuudholders, and others 
 ' aware how effectually they are counteracted 
 ' by the protecting duties' on all these articles of 
 
28 
 
 necessity and luxury*? When these monopolists 
 ' talk of the rights they have acquired, and of 
 
 * the Justice that is due to them, it is very dif- 
 
 * ficult to affix any meaning to the terms' — 
 where are their vested rights ? — let them show 
 their muniments. 
 
 Where would all this reasoning lead, but to 
 the indiscriminate competition of foreigners with 
 all our productions, and to the consequent 
 destruction of the British manufacturers? for 
 we repeat, that they have no greater right to 
 prohibitory duties than our subjects in the West 
 India colonies. And if the East India grower 
 of sugar be permitted to displace the industry 
 of the British settlements, surely, by the same 
 rule, we must admit the Indian muslins and 
 other piece goods, the shawls, the manufactured 
 silks, and other articles, against the Scotch and 
 Manchester weavers, and the silk mills and 
 artisans throughout the kingdom. If we really 
 must enrich the population of India at the 
 expense of our own subjects, let the principle 
 be consistently followed up, and let the teak- 
 built ships of that country be admitted to 
 registry in exclusion of British shipping; in 
 short, give the full benefit of free denization 
 to Mahomedan zemindars and ryots, whatever 
 
 * ' Refutation,' p. 26. 
 
29 
 
 be the consequence, whatever the detriment to 
 the subjects of England. 
 
 We have hitherto considered the rischts of 
 the West India colonies only in respect of their 
 constitutional identity with the general interests 
 of the empire : it seems a natural consequence 
 to inquire what are the peculiar benefits derived 
 by the mother country from her accession of 
 these distant provinces ; in what manner they 
 contribute to her resources, and whether they 
 adequately repay the care and protection which 
 she extends to them. 
 
 We propose, therefore, to examine the di- 
 stinct points in which this branch of our subject 
 is to be viewed ; viz. the political advantages, 
 arising from their peculiar situation and the 
 nature of their wants, and the commercial 
 activity and enterprise they inspire by the 
 encouragement of our trade and manufactures; 
 in doing which, it will also be our object to con- 
 trast the value of their possession to England 
 with the benefits arising from the territories of 
 the East India Company. 
 
 The increasing maritime power of America 
 necessarily induces us to look with some jealousy 
 at any acquisition she may make, contributory 
 to the purposes of her naval aggrandizement. 
 The importance to her of all insular possessions, 
 
30 
 
 which may give employment to her commercial 
 shipping ; of safe and commodious harbours for 
 her vessels of war j of maritime stations, which 
 would, in a great measure, give her the com- 
 mand over some of the most extensive branches 
 of the trade of Europe; of colonies, from whence 
 she might draw that species of produce, now 
 inadequately supplied by her own southern pro- 
 vinces, and to which she might export her own 
 manufactures, is so apparent, that it were a 
 waste of time to do more than allude to it. 
 The truth, however, is not the less important 
 because it is obvious; nor are the inferences 
 to be drawn from it less deserving the attention 
 of our legislators because they are self-evident. 
 
 In this view, it is desirable to consider the 
 relative position of the West Indies, between 
 the United States and Great Britain, and be- 
 tween this latter and the continent of South 
 America. We need only look at the map to be 
 convinced that there is scarcely a spot in the 
 world, where the establishment of an American 
 power would be more critical to this country 
 than our colonies in the Atlantic, none whose 
 possession, with reference to a future war, can 
 be more essential to the interests of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 If England, inferior in the natural resources 
 of her soil and the extent of her population to 
 
31 
 
 many of the continental monarchies, successfully 
 maintained herself against the most formidable 
 combination which modern history records, and 
 still continues to exercise a powerful influence 
 in the policy of Europe, to what is this to be 
 attributed but to her maritimeascendancy, which 
 gave her not only the command over any naval 
 expeditions of the enemy, and the almost entire 
 possession of the commerce of the w^orld, but 
 the extraordinary resources necessary for the 
 prosecution of the war ? This naval power and 
 supremacy are become so naturally our chief 
 dependence and our hope, that EngHshmen are 
 apt to associate exclusive commerce, and the 
 exclusive right of way on the high seas, as their 
 natural prerogative ; but should England sacri- 
 fice her colonies, on which this so mainly de- 
 pends, it would not be long before she would 
 have cause to lament the consequences of her 
 fatuity : — and sacrifice them she must, if she is 
 determined to deprive the inhabitants of all 
 fruit of their exertions, on the pretence of 
 aggrandizing the distant Gentoo and Mahom- 
 medan nations of the East. 
 
 But to return : placed, as it were, at almost 
 equal distances between the two countries, they 
 may be considered important fortresses, either 
 of defence against the attack of an enemy, or. 
 
32 
 
 on any particular emergency, as a means of 
 reinforcement of our navy. The comparatively 
 infant state of America has not, hitherto, placed 
 her in a situation to meet us on our own seas ; 
 but who does not foresee many contingencies 
 that might arise to permit this at some future 
 day? However this may be, the late war 
 afforded many instances in proof of the facility, 
 with which drafts can be made from the ships 
 on the West India station, to strengthen the 
 naval force on the enemy's coast. Their insular 
 position, the near neighbourhood in which they 
 are placed to each other, the attachment of the 
 inhabitants to the mother country, all contri- 
 bute to her secure possession of them ; and so 
 long as Great Britain continues to cherish this 
 attachment, by affording them the immunities, 
 under which they have hitherto flourished, so 
 long will they remain a natural and impreg- 
 nable outwork to her defence. 
 
 We are far from wishing to depreciate the 
 value of our East India possessions ; but, there 
 are many circumstances which render them less 
 effectual to the purposes of defence than the 
 West Indian islands : their position, — in a di- 
 stant quarter of the globe, out of the way, as it 
 were, of those European and American rela- 
 tions in which our policy is more obviously 
 
33 
 
 involved ; the extraordinary amount of forces 
 required for their defence, and the consequent 
 drain upon our means of raising an army for 
 our own purposes nearer home ; the dispropor- 
 tionate extent of dominions and population, 
 when compared with the country that holds 
 them in subjection, and governed as they are 
 upon an anomalous system, by a Court of 
 Directors residing 10,000 miles from the scene 
 of action ; the uncertain tenure, by which we 
 hold these ancient and powerful monarchies, 
 whose jealousy and hatred of their conquerors, 
 though lulled in an apparent tranquillity, are 
 far from being extinguished, and whose popu- 
 lation can only be restrained by the presence 
 of an overwhelming army*. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that this danger of 
 
 * An official return, dated 22d March, 1819, of all 
 the military forces serving in India. 
 
 Regular King's troops, 22,550 
 
 Company's (European) 7,703 
 
 Total English troops, 30,253 
 Native regular troops, 152,585 
 
 Ditto irregular, 24,741 
 
 Total Native troops, 177,326 
 
 207,579 
 Invalids and pensioners, 5,875 
 
 213,454 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 losing India is an imaginary one ; we found 
 our opinion, not only on the convictions, natu- 
 rally suggested by the distance, extent, and 
 nature of our institutions there, — and on the 
 experience of past events, which have lost to 
 England, Spain, and Portugal their great pos- 
 sessions in the two continents of America, — but 
 principally on the declarations of persons long 
 resident in India, of the East India Directors 
 themselves, and their servants. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm, who was thirty-two years 
 in the Company's service, and was employed in 
 thirteen distinct missions to the provinces of 
 India, is of opinion, that 
 
 ' The task of conquering India has been a very light 
 
 * one, in comparison with that of preserving that vast 
 
 * empire. As foreign danger has been removed, our 
 
 * danger from revolt and insurrections, and other 
 ' domestic concerns, has no doubt been proportionably 
 
 * increased ; this danger has gradually augmented with 
 
 * the increase of our territories. Any attempt, or even 
 
 * an impression among the inhabitants that such an 
 
 * attempt would be made, to introduce the Christian 
 ' religion, would be attended with the most dangerous 
 ' consequences*.' 
 
 And again. Sir Charles Malet, who was 
 twenty-eight years in different parts of India, 
 
 * Minutes of evidence before the House of Lords on 
 the East India Company's affairs in 1812, p. 2ii. 
 
:35 
 
 and one of the Council of Bombav, considers 
 that 
 
 ' The whole of India, that may be commonly called 
 
 * our empire, is by no means in a state of absolute 
 ' government by us ; it is in a state of control and 
 
 * coercion ; it may be called alliance, but it is alliance of 
 
 * coercion and ascendancy on our side*.' 
 
 Hear also the opinion of the whole Court of 
 East India proprietors, expressed in a petition 
 to the Legislature, so late as the year 1813. 
 
 ' Notwithstanding the ameliorated condition of the 
 ' natives of India under the government of your peti- 
 
 * tioners, to which they have been accustomed, yet the 
 
 * tranquillity of the country is not maintained by a 
 
 * physical force, but chiefly by moral influence, and in 
 
 * a great degree over their jnejudice ; any change would 
 
 * alarm them, and their submission to British authority 
 
 * would be greatly endangered by an unrestrained resort 
 
 * of Europeans, in search of wealth, either hy commerce 
 « or' other means, at distances from the principal seats 
 
 * of government, or in such numbers in those seats as 
 
 * to be beyond the controul of the governors f,'&c. 
 
 Thus the very advantages, which the advo- 
 cates of East India sugar hold out, as the cer- 
 tain result of an equalization of duty, * the 
 « search of wealth, either by commerce or other 
 ' means, would greatly endanger' the tranquil- 
 
 * Ibid. p. 182. 
 
 f Papers printed by order of the Court of East India 
 Proprietors, p. 263. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 lity of the country. So slight, indeed, is the 
 security of our system there, that Mr. Hastings, 
 recording his deUberate judgment on ' the state 
 of Bengal,' says, 
 
 * I much fear that it is not understood as it ought to 
 ' be, how near the Company's existence in India has, 
 
 * on many occasions, vibrated to the edge of perdition, 
 ' and that it has been at all times suspended by a thread, 
 
 * so fine, that the touch of chance might break, or the 
 ' breath of opinion dissolve it ; and instantaneous v/ill 
 ' be its fall whenever it shall happen." 
 
 * It is well known' (says a respectable servant of the 
 Company, who confirms these statements throughout) 
 ' that there is a class of politicians in this country, 
 
 * who treat these dangers as phantoms, proper only to 
 ' impose upon the weak and alarm the timid, and who 
 ' are so little afraid of innovation, as seriously to recom- 
 ' mend the encouragement of colonization in India, 
 
 * instead of preventing its commencement and checking 
 ' its progress.' 
 
 And he quotes the opinion of Lord Cornwallis, 
 expressed in a letter to the Government at 
 home, in 1794, confirmatory of this danger. 
 
 ' I am strongly impressed' (says that venerable noble- 
 man) ' that it will be of essential importance to the 
 ' interest of Britain, that Europeans should be dis- 
 ' couraged and prevented, as much as possible, from 
 ' colonizing and settling in our possessions in India.' 
 
 Amongst other points of comparison between 
 our West India colonies and the East Indies, 
 one of the most obvious, and, it will scarcely be 
 
37 
 
 denied, one of the most important considera- 
 tions, in the value of distant possessions to a 
 naval and commercial country, is the encourage- 
 ment they afford to ships and seamen. 
 
 It is in this view, perhaps, over all others, 
 that our colonial settlements have proved so 
 essential an object of attention to the mother 
 country ; nay, for this has she shackled them 
 with restrictive laws, which established her 
 monopoly, not only over their staple produce, 
 but on the very means of their sending it to 
 her, and of receiving the supplies necessary for 
 their subsistence. Upon a comparison of the 
 official returns of tonnacje enffas^ed in the re- 
 spective commerce of the East and West, 
 Average of the last two years, 1821 aiid 1822. 
 
 British West Indies. To India, exclusive of China *. 
 
 Inwards, 228,375 49,777 
 
 Outwards, 211,559 59,059 
 
 the result is so favourable to our colonial set- 
 tlements that, we venture to say, no minister of 
 a maritime nation like this, with such docu- 
 ments before him, would venture the responsi- 
 bility of adopting any measures vitally affecting 
 their nearest interests, — even thoiigli the com- 
 mercial exports and imports preponderated 
 largely in the other scale. 
 
 Independently of the numerical dispropor- 
 
 * The China ti-ade is carried on by eighteen ships a 
 year of about 1200 tons each, equal to 21,000 tons. 
 
38 
 
 tion in favour of the West India colonies, the 
 shipping employed in their trade affords the 
 additional advantage, that, being always nearer 
 to home, and making more frequent return 
 voyages, the mariners are within reach for the 
 purposes of a sudden war. We have often found 
 it necessary to equip six or eight sail of the 
 line at a few weeks' notice j and we might wait, 
 perhaps, till the war were ended and forgotten, 
 before we could make one of our seamen in the 
 East Indies available to the occasion : whereas, 
 if it should even happen that the greater por- 
 tion of our West India ships were on the other 
 side the water, that station, as we have said, is 
 so nearly in the direct course to America, that 
 we might send a fleet for reinforcements of sea- 
 men from the Islands, almost in its w^ay to the 
 enemy's coast, and with scarcely any loss of time. 
 But the geographical situation and other cir- 
 cumstances before referred to as giving such 
 value to these possessions, together with the 
 amount of tonnage employed between them 
 and Great Britain, are by no means the full 
 measure of the maritime advantages they afford. 
 We must also take into calculation the trade 
 they carry on with the British North American 
 colonies: — this amounted, in 1817, to 
 
 Ships. Tonnage. 
 331 49,209 inwards, 
 
 394 56,689 outwards, 
 
39 
 
 which, of itself, an incidental branch, is nearly 
 equal to the whole tonnage trading with India : 
 — all British shipping, all British seamen, and 
 of the most useful class, employed in those seas, 
 which may probably hereafter be the scene of 
 events momentous to the fate of England. 
 
 This trade with our North American Colonies 
 opens a new field of inquiry, namely, the exten- 
 sive benefits arising to the British fisheries from 
 our possession of the West India settlements. 
 In the 10th vol. of Parliamentary Reports will 
 be found a great mass of important and interest- 
 ing information, with reference to the encou- 
 ragement afforded to the British fisheries by 
 the consumption of their produce throughout 
 all the islands. The committee of the House 
 of Commons in their first report, 
 
 ' Impressed with a just sense of the great national im- 
 
 * portance of this object, and recommending it to the 
 
 * serious notice of the House, think it their duty briefly 
 
 * to state the general heads of their inquiry, and the 
 ' result of concurrent testimony, which induces them 
 
 * thus particularly to call the attention of the House to 
 
 * such parts of the evidence, as elucidate the subject of 
 
 * its various branches. 
 
 * As a fishery and nursery of seamen : 
 
 * As a raw material : 
 
 ' As consuming many articles of British manufactures: 
 
 * As connected with the important trade of salt and 
 
 * other articles : 
 
40 
 
 ' As an indispensable article of home consumption : 
 
 * As an article of exportation : and 
 
 ' As collaterally affecting extensive imports to the 
 
 * Mediterranean, &c. 
 
 * On the subject of the progressive improvement of 
 
 * the Herring fishery, for forty years past, Mr. Ii'ving * 
 
 * was examined by the Committee ; and the question put 
 
 * to him, with the answer, merits particular notice. 
 
 * Have you ever formed any opinion as to the quan- 
 
 * tity of herrings which the British West Indies would 
 ' take off, provided they could be supplied with fish of 
 
 * a good quality, and at a reasonable rate ? 
 
 * Any answer to this question must be founded merely 
 
 * upon opinion. It is an indisputable fact that the slaves 
 
 * of the West Indies prefer British herrings to any 
 
 * other species of provisions usually served out to them. 
 
 * Their chief support is a vegetable diet, such as Indian 
 ' corn, peas, beans, potatoes, yams, &;c. Beef and pork, 
 ' though occasionally allowed, are too expensive a food. 
 
 ' I have had frequent conversations with some of the 
 
 * best informed planters, and others long resident in 
 ' the West Indies, on the subject of feeding the slaves, 
 ' and the general opinion seemed to be that, if good 
 
 * sound herrings could be procured, at a reasonable 
 
 * price, the demand would at least exceedjbu?- times the 
 
 * quantity usually exported to the West Indies from this 
 
 * country and from Ireland. The annual medium ex- 
 
 * portation, on an average of the six years preceding 
 
 * Inspector General of Exports and Imports, and whose 
 testimony, from his honourable character, and extensive 
 information, is particularly valuable. 
 
41 
 
 ' 179T, from Great Britain, to the British West India 
 ' islands, anioiinted to 41,035 barrels. 
 
 ' I will take the liberty of concluding my answer to 
 ' this question by an observation, which, though perhaps 
 
 * foreign to the immediate object of the question, I feel 
 
 * myself influenced by humanity to offer. However 
 
 * desirous the planters may be to render their slaves 
 
 * more comfortable by allowing them a plentiful supply 
 
 * of fish, their good intentions must be frustrated, whilst 
 ' the state of the herring fisheries of this kingdom is so 
 
 * unequal to the demand.' 
 
 ' To the same import is the evidence of Mr. John 
 
 * Mackenzie, who says, the most successful year of the 
 
 * herring fisheries in Scotland, for forty years past, has 
 
 * never equalled a quarter part of the demand for the 
 ' West Indies.' 
 
 We are surely entitled to consider such evi- 
 dence as this, as powerfully confirming the supe- 
 rior claims of the West Indies ; more particularly 
 because the exportation here mentioned, of 
 41,035 barrels, was so early as the year 1798, 
 since which time there has been a rapid increase 
 both of the export of herrings from this country 
 to the West Indies, and of the trade they carry 
 on with the North American colonies, who, in 
 1820, exported to that market : 
 
 barrels, quintals, casks, boxes, 
 
 8,288, . . 295,651, . . 22,156, 1775, of fish; 
 whilst their whole export to other parts of the 
 world were, 
 
 . . 744,589, . . 11,236, 12,564. 
 
42 
 
 Thus the West India colonies, in 1820, con- 
 sumed one third of the whole produce of the 
 North American fisheries. In the same year 
 the official value of fish, which they took from 
 Great Britain, was 123,6^3/. 145. \0d. thus con- 
 firming the anticipations made twenty years 
 ago. And if the number of vessels and seamen, 
 employed in taking the fish, both on the Bri- 
 tish and North American coasts, were added to 
 the statement of tonnage before given, we have 
 little doubt that this single branch of shipping 
 would be found as far beyond that of the whole 
 East India trade, in actual amount, as the nature 
 of the fishing service is more important than 
 Asiatic voyages, for all the purposes of forming 
 an active, hardy, and enterprising race of sea- 
 men. 
 
 We know not what the North American 
 colonies would think and say to the equalization 
 of East India and West India sugar, which 
 should deprive the planters of the means of 
 taking their fish, and other articles of export; 
 and thus leave them bereft of a market, which 
 they have hitherto enjoyed, for one third of the 
 produce of their industry — merely to please 
 a few Indian traders, of whom they never heard 
 as customers — who scarcely take from them a 
 quintal offish, a cargo of wood, or have ever, di- 
 rectly or indirectly, employed one of their ves- 
 
43 
 
 sels. We know not if they would consider this ei- 
 ther a wise or a parental act, on the part of Great 
 Britain, who must be aware that the interests of 
 her subjects in the North American and West 
 Indian Colonies are intimately united, and that 
 an injury done to one is a palpable wrong to the 
 other. What any other body of men would say 
 and do, if thus nearly touched in their interests, 
 may be left to the reader to judge ; the manu- 
 facturing classes, for instance — if any measures 
 of Government should put at risk twenty out of 
 sixty millions of our exported goods, — or the 
 agriculturists, if they were told that certain mea- 
 sures, proposed for the benefit of the Hindoo 
 casts in India, would deprive them of a market 
 for one third of their crops, in the speculative 
 hope that, some twenty years hence, the com- 
 munity would be great gainers by the increased 
 consumption of cotton and woollen goods in 
 
 Bengal. 
 
 In considering the commercial benefits arising 
 from the two sources of our East and West India 
 possessions, we shall first direct our attention to 
 the exports— and here Mr. Marryatt's pamphlet 
 is just delivered to us, distinguished, as his other 
 writings are, for clear and forcible reasoning : — 
 we have only to refer to his enumeration of the 
 various articles of British produce, consumed by 
 the Colonies, to show that they depend entirely 
 
44 
 
 upon the supplies from home, and that, so long- 
 as they have the means of buying, they offer a 
 lasting, and, what is equally important, a secure 
 market for our home manufactures. 
 
 The following is the annual official value of 
 British commodities and products exported in 
 five years to the 
 
 East Indies, ex- 
 British West Indies, elusive of China *. 
 
 
 [1818, 
 
 ^6,384,441 
 
 1,662,947 
 
 
 1819, 
 
 . 5,516,817 
 
 1,883,2£1 
 
 Ending 5th 
 
 1820, 
 
 . 4,197,976 
 
 1,198,601 
 
 January, 
 
 1821, 
 
 . 4,043,693 
 
 2,178,451 
 
 
 1822, 
 
 . 4,705,035 
 
 2,855,005 
 
 
 1823, 
 
 . 3,906,730 
 
 2,769,325 
 
 Annual average, 4,792,448 2,091,258 
 
 Here is evidence that in the last three years 
 the amount exported to the West Indies has 
 been materially lessened, that of the year end- 
 ing 5th January 1823, being 2,477,711/. less than 
 that ending 5th January 1818, which is surely 
 a striking illustration of our argument, since 
 our manufacturer has been injured in five years 
 to the extent of 9,551,955/. in consequence 
 of the extreme depression of the West India 
 planter, whose dimunition of revenue has not 
 
 * There is no official return of the exports to China 
 for each year of this period, and we, therefore, take 
 800,000^. as the average; 830,673/. having been the 
 average of three years, ending 5th January, 1821 : we 
 mention this in order that, if we have made any error, 
 it may be the more easily discovered. 
 
45 
 
 only compelled him to forego many of the 
 juxuries to which his habits and education had 
 accustomed him, but, in many cases, has de- 
 prived him of the ordinary means of expenditure 
 and rational enjoyment, &c. What stronger 
 proof can we have that the demand of the Colo- 
 nies for British products is proportioned to the 
 means they possess of taking them, and that any 
 diminution of their profits has a direct tendency 
 to impede the home market? 
 
 It is to be remembered that the West India 
 colonies have no one rival art or vocation, to 
 compete with the British manufacturer. — 
 Throuohout the whole extent of their settle- 
 ments, from Barbadoes to the farthest headland 
 of Jamaica, not a yard of woollen cloth, of cotton 
 twist, not a brick or a hat, scarcely even any 
 sugar, their own staple commodity, in a refined 
 state, is produced by the labour of their popu- 
 lation. All their wants are supplied by the 
 English manufacturer, who finds in the West 
 Indies a never failing source of profitable in- 
 vestment; he does not depend upon the low price 
 of his commodity for the disposal of it, he need 
 not strive, as in the case of his exports to other 
 countries, to undersell at all risks, and often at 
 a ruinous loss, the rival manufacturer who fre- 
 quents the same market : his trade is regular, 
 lucrative, and safe : — the population must be 
 
46 
 
 clothed, housed, supported, — must be so by him, 
 and by no other, — his returns are quick, and the 
 same conveyance that gives him payment, brings 
 him his annual order for a new supply. How 
 different the case of his exports to India! We 
 need not stay to inquire into the amount of loss 
 incurred in this branch of the manufacturer's 
 trade — the fact is admitted that, notwithstanding 
 the unprecedented low price of the raw article, 
 which can be but temporary, of low freights, 
 existing only in peace, of the moderate pre- 
 miums of insurance, which, within the last 
 few months have been nearly doubled, on the 
 mere rumour of war — notwithstanding all this, 
 there has been a great loss upon the export 
 to India of British manufactured goods; and 
 hence we may judge how much reliance is to 
 be placed on the hope that the distant popu- 
 lation of India will afford a permanent source 
 of profitable export. 
 
 ' The East India Company,' (says the author of ' Con- 
 siderations* on the India Trade') ' have been indefa- 
 ' tiffable throughout the whole course of their commer- 
 ' cial and political history, in their endeavours to intro- 
 ' duce and diffuse European commodities amongst the 
 * natives of India, Persia, and Arabia ; and with how 
 ' httle success, their records will abundantly attest. 
 ' Even the private British merchants, who are already 
 
 * Paae 137. 
 
47 
 
 ' engaged in the trade, and possess all the advantage of 
 ' a personal knowledge both of the most respectable 
 ' tradesmen in this country, and of the parties abroad, 
 ' through whose hands their shipments are likely to 
 
 * pass, together with large capitals, enabling them to 
 ' buy at the best markets, and to sell upon long credits, 
 
 * have already diminished, and, in some instances, en- 
 
 * tirely given up, the exportation of goods to India.' 
 
 The cause of this want of demand is that 
 the * labouring class of the community, almost 
 ' all over India, wear hardly any clothes at all,' 
 and what they do wear is manufactured on the 
 spot: the price of a woollen garment would, 
 speaking generally of that class, take the 
 amount of a man's earnings for several months 
 to purchase. 
 
 We shall, by and by, more particularly con- 
 sider the loss on the export trade ; but this 
 slight reference to the principal heads of the in- 
 quiry may be sufficient, for the present, to justify 
 
 ' The experience' (we use the words, which the court 
 of East India Directors themselves afford us) * of all 
 ' the nations of Europe for 300 years, and the testimony 
 
 * of ancient history, which prove that the British ex- 
 ' porter will always have to contend with the chmate, 
 
 * the nature, the lisages, tastes, prejudices, religions, and 
 ' political institutions of the eastern people.' 
 
 * There seems to be,' say the Directors,* * a general 
 ' and deplorable delusion respecting the practicability 
 
 * Printed papers, p. 214. 
 
48 
 
 * of a vast extension of the sale of the manuftictures of 
 
 * this country in India. But the committee may con- 
 ' fidently say that the company, in a long course of 
 
 * years, made numerous and costly experiments, in at- 
 ' tempting to push the vent of British commodities, 
 
 * particularly woollens and metals, in the east. The 
 ' correspondence of the company with their servants 
 
 * abroad at different periods on this interesting concern 
 
 * would Jill volumes. In the period of near 40 years, the 
 ' endeavours of all Europe and America have made no 
 ' discovery of that immense market for European ma- 
 
 * nufactures, that were said to be offered by the East 
 
 * Indies.' 
 
 With respect to the imports. — The average 
 for three years to 1821 from the British West 
 Indies, w*as, c;^ 8,498,310 3 
 
 From India, (independently 
 
 of China,) 4,163,485 7 
 
 Annual balance, i- 4,4,824 16 
 
 in favour of the M^est Indies. 
 
 The revenue derived by Great Britain from 
 the West India imports is considerably above 
 six millions j — that upon the East India im- 
 ports less than one million. But, say the 
 advocates of East India produce, the mono- 
 poly of the sugar trade by the West Indies 
 is the occasion of this disparity; repeal the 
 prohibitory duties, and you will soon see 
 the balance more equally poised. Do, then, 
 the East Indians admit, at this time of day. 
 
49 
 
 that their imports so mainly depend upon 
 the culture of sugar, which, a few years ago, was 
 scarcely thought of? What has the Com})any 
 been about since the iirst establishment of its 
 charter, if the vaunted population throughout 
 the territories of India have been permitted to 
 live in such listless indolence, that they are 
 not able to give us silk, indigo, cotton, hemp, 
 spices, and the various other rich products of 
 a fertile soil, to an amount, equal at least to 
 the single article of sugar produced by our 
 colonies in the Atlantic? We shall have oc- 
 casion to answ-er this question in the course 
 of our subsequent reasoning, and to show by 
 analogy that the growtli of sugar in India is 
 not likely to increase in any thing like the ratio, 
 anticipated by the advocates of an equalized 
 duty, and that, upon an average of years, it 
 cannot be brought from thence at a lower price 
 than from the West Indies. Let us, however, 
 grant, at present, for the sake of argument, 
 that the imports from the East could be brought 
 to a parity, — nay, double or three-fold the 
 amount of those from the West Indies, — to 
 whom would the profits return, and where 
 be spent ? Surely to the native princes, whose 
 power is already sufficiently formidable ; brought, 
 indeed, under a temporary subjection, but 
 destined hereafter, to overturn the unnatural 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 empire of foreigners, whom they can only re- 
 gard as the unjust invaders of their ancient do- 
 minions : — they must circulate to enrich a 
 population, who have no interests, no feelings, 
 or affections, in community with ourselves ; — 
 a population, debased by the most barbarous 
 superstition, yet so tenacious of their habits, 
 customs, and prejudices, that to attempt con- 
 version, * w^ould change in an instant the lowest, 
 ' the most timid, and most servile Indian, into 
 ' a ferocious barbarian*;' — a population whose 
 very religion forbids them to visit the country 
 now called upon to sacrifice, in their favour, the 
 property and the undoubted privileges of its 
 own subjects ; — a race of Gentoos, who believe 
 that they cannot cross the sea that divides them 
 from Europe without impiously polluting this sa- 
 cred elemenfj"; in whose estimation the shadow 
 of a Christian, passing by, taints the very food 
 that is raised to their lipst; who prostrate them- 
 selves before the gods of their idolatry in the 
 fanatical belief that, by permitting themselves 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence before the House of Lords, 
 1812. 
 
 f Seventh Report of the Secret Committee in 1773, 
 p. 334. 
 
 I Evidence before the House of Commons, 1813, 
 p. 447. 
 
51 
 
 to be crushed beneath the wheels of the holy 
 car*, as it passes in procession, they secure a 
 certain entrance into paradise ! 
 
 For such, and no others, are we to enrich the 
 East, at the expense of our Western establisli- 
 ments ; for such are we to adopt a new code of 
 commercial and colonial law, and a new prin- 
 ciple of international justice and consistency! 
 It is a mere abuse of terms to call that justice 
 or consistency, which is to deprive the liege 
 subjects of the king of all the immunities and 
 privileges secured to them by the Constitution 
 of England, and to transfer them to the peo- 
 ple whom we have just described. And we 
 appeal to any rational man, whether the wealth 
 which circulates in a territory giving birth to 
 such a race, can weigh in the scale against the 
 claims of the British colonists, the diffusion of 
 whose wealth through every ramification of our 
 system becomes a fertile source of advantage to 
 the parent state? For is it not undeniable, that 
 the mass of West India proprietors either return 
 to England after the acquirement of their for- 
 tunes, or have always resided in this country, 
 contributing to the circulation of capital by a 
 liberal expenditure of their income, and by all 
 
 * Evidence, House of Commons, 181.3, p. 67 and 77. 
 
 E 'J. 
 
52 
 
 those investments, which, however difficult to 
 analyze in detail, give the most pow^erful impulse 
 to national enterprise and wealth? 
 
 Mr. Brougham has described, with liis usual 
 ability, the benefits which this country derives 
 irom the return of the planters, enriched in the 
 colonics, and by the residence of a great num* 
 her of West India proprietors, who always live 
 in England, and 
 
 * continually draw from tlieir estates the funds of 
 ' dieir subsistence, or the stock which they may choose 
 
 * to employ in speculations of agriculture, manufacture, 
 ' or trade ; while the management of their property 
 
 * gives employment to a succession of their poorer 
 ' countrymen, who by degi'ees accumulate a compe- 
 ' tency, and return home, or promote the improvement 
 ' of the colonies. 
 
 ' There is not, perhaps, so much as one thousand 
 ' pounds per annum drawn by British subjects in rents 
 ' from the continent of Europe*'. But the rents of 
 ' West Indian proprietors, who have never in their lives 
 ' been across the Atlantic, maj/ xvithout any exaggeration, 
 
 * he comptited by milUons. 
 
 « Foi- ' Europe' we may safely read ' Asia,' as there 
 are no British agriculturists or proprietors of land in 
 India ; indeed any attempt of this nature is contrary to 
 the rules of the Company, for it appears, that coloniza- 
 tion there would be dangerous to our empire. 
 
53 
 
 * Although this nou-rcsidencc is certainly huvU'ul to 
 the colonies, as the residence of lanel-holdcrs in tlie 
 metropolis is hurtful to the contiguous pi'ovinces ; yet 
 it increases the resources of the empire more imme- 
 diately, by bringing a large portion of the colonial 
 wealth under the immediate power of that government 
 which defends the wliole, ajid by nourishing the in- 
 dustry of that part of the system which, during the 
 infancy of the distant settlements, bears the largest 
 share of the imperial burthens. In order to form a 
 distinct notion of the advantages which a state draws 
 from the wealth of its colonies, and from the riches 
 accumulated by a temporary residence in those parts, 
 let us only consider the case of a great West Indian 
 proprietor residing in Europe. The possessor of an 
 estate in Barbadoes, for example, living in London, 
 pays taxes for his slaves, houses, &c. to support tlic 
 government for the defence of the island. This m-oss 
 produce is then diminished by about a twenty- third- 
 part*, which goes to the imperial treasui'y. Out of 
 the neat produce which he receives, he pays all man- 
 ner of British taxes, and perhaps forms one of the 
 monied interest, who support government by loans or 
 contributions, in the various emergencies of public 
 affairs."' 
 
 This is a true delineation of the benciits 
 arising from tlie diffusion of colonial profits 
 
 * The 4^ per cent duty levied in the island. — This 
 tax was granted by the inhabitants to the crown in 
 1663, and in their present situation, is a grievous bur- 
 den to those colonies who pay it. 
 
54 
 
 in Great Britain; and it is to be hoped, that 
 whilst theWest Indian proprietors contribute, by 
 direct taxation, four* milHons out of about ten 
 railUons, which is the whole amount of Custom- 
 house duties collectedin England, independently 
 of two millions of excise t; and again, by indi- 
 rect taxation, to every branch of the revenue, — 
 both through the medium of the expenditure 
 just alluded to, and by the consumption of five 
 millions of manufactures, and the employment 
 of nearly three hundred thousand tons of British 
 shipping, all of which are most productive 
 sources of public income, — it is to be hoped that 
 the nation will steadily adhere to the obvious 
 policy of encouraging these possessions, not 
 merely by the present, but, if necessary, by 
 additional restrictive duties on their foreign and 
 more distant rivals. If this is not done, we 
 
 * Revenue of customs on West India sugar, imported 
 
 into England, 1822, .... 3,579,412 
 
 Ireland, 1821, . . • . 572,424 
 
 .£4,151,836 
 
 •f Revenue on West India coffee and rum imported 
 
 into England, 1,990,222 
 
 Ireland, . , . . . 26,968 
 
 ^^2,017,190 
 
55 
 
 conscientiously believe the West Indies will 
 cease to flourish under our dominion, and in 
 time cease altogether to be British. 
 
 We had intended further to pursue this in- 
 quiry of tlie comparative advantages, derived 
 from our East and West India settlements by 
 considering the different effects of employing a 
 large investment in a foreign or home trade ; and 
 to contrast the greater risk attending the former, 
 and the participation in its profits by aliens, with 
 the double advantages of the latter in the mu- 
 tual reaction of two capitals, both virtually Bri- 
 tish, one in the colonies, creating a demand for 
 British products, the other at home creating a 
 demand for colonial products ; but our limits 
 compel us to leave this point untouched, and 
 rather hasten to the concluding proposition, 
 which we were desirous to establish. 
 
 If we have, in any degree satisfactorily, proved 
 the constitutional riglit, or even an equitable 
 claim of the West India colonists, to an effectual 
 protection against East India produce, or have 
 established the superiority of the advantages 
 they confer upon the empire, we hope equally to 
 show that the benefits, anticipated from the new 
 system of duties, are altogether hypothetical 
 and imaginary. These benefits may be all com- 
 prised under two heads — the immense field 
 
56 
 
 which, it is said, would be presented to the ma- 
 nufacturers of Great Britain for the supply of 
 100 millions of population in India— and such 
 a reduction in the price of sugar, as would save 
 to * the people, already groaning under their 
 ' burthens, a million and a half in the whole 
 ' consumption.' 
 
 We have already said that the export trade 
 to India is unprofitable : — to establish this fact 
 it mio'ht be sufficient to revert to the trade car- 
 ried on by the East India Company previous to 
 the year 1812. Up to this time they enjoyed 
 an almost exclusive monopoly of the India 
 markets ; which, if any thing could do so, might 
 be supposed to secure to them a large profit 
 from the demand of their extensive dominions. 
 In the minutes of evidence, however, before 
 the House of Lords in 18] 2, we find a table, 
 furnished by the Company, and showing the 
 result of their exports for nineteen years, from 
 1793 to 1811 inclusive. According to which, the 
 prime cost of their investment in goods to India 
 amounted to an annual average of 1,322,877/.; 
 and the average profit upon tlie sales was 
 55,634/. or less than 4^ per cent. But Mr. Cart- 
 wright, tlie Accountant-General, upon whose 
 authority our figures rest, adds, ' it is neces- 
 * sary I should inform the Committee that this 
 ' is without reckoning interest on the capital 
 •' employed J* so that if we calculate interest at 5 
 
57 
 
 per cent., as in all other commercial specula- 
 tions, we have a loss of ^ per cent. This, how- 
 ever, is not all : — the Company have an esta- 
 blished rule of never protecting their shipments 
 by insurance ; and Mr. Cartwright informs us, 
 ' that the losses by sea upon the India trade, in 
 ' the vv'hole period of nineteen years, appear to 
 
 * be 5l. \'2s. Id. per cent, upon the whole in- 
 
 * vestment;' which, added to the other -f per 
 cent, leaves an actual loss upon the whole export 
 trade of above 6^ per cent. This, too, at 
 a time when the free trade was not opened ; 
 when the Directors, by keeping the supply of 
 their commodities in just proportion to the 
 demand, had, as it were, the regulation of the 
 market, by v.iuch they were secured against 
 any excessive loss, and which, in any other 
 country than India, would have opened to them 
 the source of incalculable profit. 
 
 Nor can it, in this case, be said, that the trans- 
 actions of a great trading company are con- 
 ducted with less scrupulous attention to eco- 
 nomy, than is exercised by individuals more 
 immediately interested in the result ; because, 
 so far from this being the case, they have, in the 
 general management of their commerce, a great 
 advantage over private adventurers, ecpial to 
 15 per cent, in the relative value of their im- 
 ports, as appears by the evidence of a respect- 
 able merchant, who lived thirty years in Bengal, 
 
58 
 
 given before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons in 1809, 
 
 ' The Company, from their greater capital, and ge- 
 
 * nerally speaking, from the better intelligence and skill 
 
 * of their servants, are able to carry on the trade with 
 ' India with more advantage to themselves, and to the 
 
 * country, than individuals The Company's goods 
 
 * have a character for excellence, which the goods of 
 ' private persons do not attain. This gives the Com- 
 
 * pany a considerable advantage in the European mar- 
 
 * ket, &;c. When engaged on my own account, in cor- 
 ' respondence to this country from Bengal, I considered 
 ' the diiference to be equal to 15 per cent, on piece 
 
 * goods.' 
 
 If, with these and other facilities, the Com- 
 pany incurred so great a loss on the sale of their 
 commodities, we may naturally conclude that 
 individuals must also have found the trade an 
 unprofitable one ; and this was satisfactorily 
 proved to be the case before a Committee of 
 the House of Lords in 1812; where it was stated 
 by Mr. Fairlie, Mr. Davies, and other mer- 
 chants, trading extensively with that country, 
 that, almost im'wersally, a loss was left upon 
 the goods imported into India. No wonder, 
 therefore, that of 3000 tons of shipping, annu- 
 ally provided by the Company (before their 
 exclusive privileges were taken away) for the 
 private trade, according to the Act of Par- 
 liament, ' not more than one-fourth part has 
 ' been applied for:'— no wonder that * the Com- 
 
 * pany's printed notices (circulated generally 
 
59 
 
 * througlioLit the trading interests of the com- 
 
 * munity) produced no effect, and that, not- 
 ' withstanding such additional stimulus and en- 
 
 * couragement, experience has proved that the 
 
 * India market is trifling in its demand*, and 
 
 * already abundantly supplied, and very fre- 
 
 * quently to the great loss and serious injury of 
 
 * those who have engaged in such private ex- 
 ' port trade.' 
 
 Nor will this excite any surprise, when we 
 consider the charges on sending out an invest- 
 ment to Bengal (which is considered the best 
 market), as given in an apparently oflScial cal- 
 culation of one of the Company's confidential 
 servants t who appears to have unrestricted 
 access to their records ; 
 
 * Freight, insurance, duties, and land- 
 
 * ing, charges in India, short delivery, 
 
 ' agency on the sales, remittances, &c. 35 per cent. 
 
 * Loss on calculating the payments at 
 
 * 2s, 3d, the current rupee, and only 
 
 * prime cost on packages and charges, 3 
 
 * And if the proceeds are remitted in 
 
 ' bills for exchange at 2s. 6d. the sicca 
 ' rupee, twelve months after sight, or 
 
 * eighteen months after date, 7~ 
 
 c£ 451 per cent. 
 
 * Papers printed by order of the Court of Directors, 
 t Considerations on the India Trade, p. 139. 
 
60 
 
 But are these high rates of ciiarge tlie only 
 impediments tluit our manufactures meet in 
 India ? Far from it ; they \vdve to compete with 
 the long established, skilful manufacturers of 
 the East, where labour is cheap, where the raw 
 material grows at their door, where they are 
 burthened with comparatively no taxes, and 
 where the precise nature of the articles in de- 
 mand is intimately understood. Indeed the ma- 
 chinery and arts of Europe, until lately unknown 
 to them, have begun to be extensively adopted 
 by the natives, to the exclusion of many of our 
 commodities. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm is of opinion, 
 ' That the facility of intercourse with India which has 
 ' followed the repeal of the Company's exclusive privi- 
 ' leges, by leading to the establishment in that country 
 ' of a great number of European artisans and mechanics, 
 ' will occasion a diminution of the exports of a great 
 ' number of European articles. The manufacture of 
 ' leather, lately established in Madras, has already not 
 ' only furnished European accoutrements, but all species 
 ' of articles, down to ladies' gloves. Carriages and other 
 ' conveyances are made by European artisans at Cal- 
 ' cutta ; all kinds of furniture, all kinds of ribbon work, 
 ' and in short every thing they can*.' 
 
 This is confirmed by William Fairlie, Esq. 
 who says, 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, House of Lords, p. 26. 
 
61 
 
 * There are a great many articles now manufactureil 
 
 * in Calcutta, that supply the place of those formerly 
 
 * imported from this country ; all kinds of leather, car- 
 ' penters work of every description, furniture, plate, 
 
 * and a variety of articles in copper and brass ; carriages 
 
 * are made there, many of them made entirely there ; 
 ' others from materials imported from this country, few 
 ' carriages that are imported from this country are 
 ' completely finished here.'' 
 
 But above all other circumstances, which 
 oppose the increased consumption of British 
 commodities in India, are the rooted habits and 
 customs of the natives. Our readers will see 
 that we here indulge in no rhetorical descriptions 
 of the prejudices, the unalterable attachment to 
 their religion, the unchangeable customs and 
 habits of the Indian population. We have never 
 visited that country, and we profess to know 
 only what is communicated to us in the pu- 
 blished opinions of those, who have residedthere 
 the greater part of their lives, and had unlimited 
 means of information : but it is impossible to 
 read the great mass of respectable and concur- 
 ring testimony to this point, without being con- 
 vinced that there is something inherent in the 
 character of the people, which renders it ex- 
 tremely probable that the expectation of a rapid 
 or extensive demand for our manufactures, even 
 if they could afford to purchase them, will be 
 greatly disappointed. We do not wish to make 
 unreasonable deductions in thvoiu' of oin- ar^u- 
 
nieiit. We are not prepared, nor are we called 
 upon, to deny the possibility of an increasing 
 demand in India : under peculiar circumstances, 
 such as the present, great exports may be made, 
 at prices so low as to force a temporary con- 
 sumption, at whatever risk to the speculator ; 
 but it is contrary to all experience, and to all 
 reasoning, to imagine that any class of men, 
 whether manufacturers or others, will continue 
 an unprofitable trade ; and as we are desired to 
 establish a new regulation for the East and West 
 India commerce, which, it is admitted, will 
 injure the one party, we are justiiied in saying 
 that, unless it will secure a commensurate bene- 
 fit from the other, both as respects this country 
 and India, the experiment would be hazardous 
 to the best interests of the state. 
 
 Lord Teignmouth, Governor of Bengal, says 
 
 * the general mass of the population of India live 
 
 * in straw huts; their furniture consists of a few 
 
 * articles of the country, mats, and a few earthen 
 ' pots for dressing their victuals ; their food in 
 *2-eneral is rice; their dress is a very small 
 
 * portion of cotton cloth, the produce of the 
 
 * country*.* 
 
 This opinion is confirmed by the East India 
 
 Directors, who 
 
 ' Call the attention of the manufacturers of woollens, 
 
 * Evidence, p. 82. 
 
63 
 
 ' metals, cotton fabrics, potteries, to the habits of the 
 
 * Indian people, the bulk of whom live all their days on 
 ' rice, and go only half covered with a slight cotton cloth; 
 ' the rice and cotton both produced by their own soil. 
 
 * The earnings of the common labouring classes, and 
 ' consequently their expenses, may be estimated, on an 
 ' average, not to exceed 41. lOs. a man per annum, about 
 
 * 2d. a day ; (so that the price of a woollen garment 
 ' would take several months entire pay.) They are in- 
 ' dolent by nature, frugal by habit, under manifold 
 
 * religious restrictions. What demand of the manu- 
 ' factures from Europe is to be expected from these ? 
 ' Of the better classes few are rich, unless those con- 
 ' nected with Europeans, and even these, during a 
 
 * COURSE OF NEAR THREE CENTURIES, in Vv'hich they have 
 ' lived in European settlements, have adopted none of 
 ' our tastes or fashions, unless perhaps in a few articles 
 ' of jewellery and hardware, looking glasses and car- 
 ' riages, with the use of a mantle of broad cloth in the 
 ' cold season*. 
 
 Lord Teignmouth says, that 
 ' Even in Calcutta, the capital, as it were, of our 
 ' dominions in India, where there is a population of 
 
 * 800,000 personsf , British manufactures are only in 
 
 * general use by the Europeans, and possibly some 
 ' of the Portuguese, who have been born in India, 
 
 * not by the natives generally ; there may be instances 
 
 * Report of the Committee of Correspondence, Feb. 
 9, 1813 ; printed papers, p. 234. 
 
 •f- Sir John IMalcolm says he has heard it stated at 
 from 4 to 600,000 ; but he knows only by report. 
 
64 
 
 ' of a few, say three or four ! who may use lustres in 
 
 * their houses, but does not recollect any other articles 
 ' of European manufacture or produce in general use 
 ' by the natives of Calcutta.' 
 
 x\nd lastly, .that we may not burthen the 
 reader with authorities, which could be indefi- 
 nitely multiplied, the Directors assure us that 
 
 ' The persons who imagine that region to present a 
 
 * great field for commerce, have no conception of the 
 ' difficulty of carrying goods there from the sea, the 
 ' delay, expense, and insecurity that must be experi- 
 
 * enced when the boundaries of the Company's govern- 
 ' ment are passed ; and in finding and bringing back 
 
 * returns, if the European commodities could be disposed 
 ' of. And that after all the knowledge which succes- 
 ' sive ages have afforded upon this subject, men of 
 ' general intelligence and cultivation should, in oppo- 
 ' sition to the usual course of human affairs, adopt the 
 ' fond idea of entering at once into the enjoyment of a 
 
 * new world of commerce, is a most striking instance of 
 
 * credulity, and of the power which interest and imagi- 
 
 * nation united have, to impose upon the under- 
 
 * standing*.' 
 
 It will scarcely be objected to us that all 
 these testimonies are accumulated to no pur- 
 pose, and in support of no essential point in 
 argument; it is the main point of all — and 
 calm dispassionate persons, who are biassed 
 by no particular interest to either side, and 
 look only to the common advantage of the 
 
 * Printed Papers, p. S3f2, 233. 
 
G5 - 
 
 public, can scarcely imagine the incredible 
 pains taken by particular individuals, to give a 
 colouring to this part of the question. The 
 Directors of the East India Company are too 
 consistent, and too honourable to lend them- 
 selves to such a system : — they seek the admis- 
 sion of East India sugar, upon the ground of 
 their own advantage, as a trading company; but 
 they are far above any recourse to delusive state- 
 ments. We have reason to know that they dis- 
 claim any expectation of the markets of India 
 affording an unbounded field for the con- 
 sumption of British commodities ; and we 
 beg it may be understood, in all our quotations 
 of their sentiments, which we make with every 
 feeling of respect for them, both collectively and 
 individually, that we are far from implying any 
 inconsistency on their part: — we make use of 
 their statements, because we cannot have a 
 higher authority than the opinions of such a 
 body of gentlemen, intimately acquainted with 
 the real nature of their own institutions, and the 
 capability of India both as to production and 
 consumption. But we must, nevertheless, claim 
 the advantasre to be derived from their declara- 
 tions ; and if we can, upon their own showing, 
 establish our position that the East India trader's 
 pretensions to an equalization of duties are un- 
 tenable J and can prove that such a measure, 
 
 F 
 
60 
 
 wliilst it might deeply injure the West India 
 planters, could be productive of no advantage 
 to the British manufacturer, in any degree 
 commensurate with the loss he would sustain, 
 and has already sustained^ by their diminished 
 capacity to purchase his commodities, the di- 
 rectors must forego an advantage, to be ob- 
 tained only at the expense of more productive 
 and more important interests than their own. 
 
 Though unwilling to charge the author of 
 the ' refutation' either with ignorance of the 
 subject on which he writes, or with any inten- 
 tion of mis-stating his case, yet, when we con- 
 sider the unprovoked and general abuse of the 
 character of West India proprietors, which oc- 
 cupies two thirds of his pamphlet, we might be 
 justified in regarding it as the united result of 
 one and the other; for, can it be believed, that 
 any sensible, well informed, disinterested person 
 would, in the face of all that has been adduced, 
 commit himself to such passages as the following? 
 
 ' The injury done to our manufactures is still more 
 ' serious. It may be considered, as a point established 
 
 * beyond question, that the only limit at present to the 
 
 * growing demand of India for ovu* manufactures is the 
 
 * power of obtaining adequate returns. It is scarcely 
 
 * possible to calculate the effect, M'hich may be produced 
 ' on the looms and workshops of this country by an 
 ' impulse, however small, being given to the demand for 
 
67 
 
 * their fabrics, by a population of one hundred millions 
 ' of our own subjects. And for what is it that we are 
 
 * called upon to sacrifice this brilliant prospect, this 
 ' certainty of a continually growing demand for the pro- 
 ' ductions of our national industry. We are called upon 
 ' to sacrifice it for the sake of a market limited to much 
 « less than a hundredth part of our East Indian popu- 
 ' lation, and the "whole amount ofxchose* consumptwn does 
 
 * 7iot equal the amount forced out of the jjockets qfthepeo- 
 
 * pie to maintain our West Indian establishments, and 
 ' to enable the planters to go on extracting from their 
 ' miserable slaves by the power of the cart-whip, the 
 
 * sugar which we have afterwards to buy at so costly a 
 ' rate.' 
 
 This invective, it is true, scarcely deserves an an- 
 swer, but unfortunately such writings have their 
 effect: the times in which we live are fraught 
 with delusion ; — there is a certain hypocritical 
 cant abroad which even those who despise it 
 dare not manfully oppose : — it is clothed in the 
 demure garb of piety, which is as foreign from 
 the interested motives it would conceal, as the 
 divine humility, inculcated by our religion, is 
 opposed to the self righteousness of the worldly; 
 
 * The value of this 'consumption' is declared in the offi- 
 cial returns to Parliament to be about fourmilhons; and 
 this writer has himself stated, that the amount, ' thus 
 forced out of the pockets of the people,' is one million 
 and a half. This inconsistency may serve as a crite- 
 rion, by which to judge of many other statements in 
 
 bis pamphlet, equally erroneous. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 philanthropy is its watch word — ^but its purpose 
 unjust aggression on the property and character 
 of others. These writings, we say, have their 
 effect ; — a powerful effect, not only on the ig- 
 norant and thoughtless, but on those, who, from 
 want of leisure or inclination, are unaccustomed 
 to close analysis and examination of details; and 
 as comparatively few take sufficient interest in 
 the question patiently to investigate its merits, 
 the impression is extensive and forcible in the 
 exact measure of hardihood and confidence, by 
 which it is sought to be established. We shall 
 not, however, permit ourselves to be seduced 
 from our purpose by the feelings which, we 
 confess, such aspersions are calculated to ex- 
 cite ; — we are, at present, engaged in a calm 
 inquiry into facts, the result of figures, and 
 founded on official documents, and by these 
 must the truth be established. 
 
 If our readers are not quite surfeited with de- 
 tails of exports, we must request their patience 
 for a few moments longer, whilst we offer yet 
 other proofs in support of our proposition. It 
 may, perhaps, be answered to the reasoning al- 
 ready adduced that it is little to the point, 
 when opposed to the actual increase of the ex- 
 ports to India; that the Directors, and their ser- 
 vants, the Governors, the Councils of the 
 Presidencies, the old residents, are no autho- 
 
69 
 
 rity, so long as their opinions are at variance 
 witli facts ; and that if we cannot otherwise ex- 
 plain the cause, we are bound to confess that 
 it is occasioned by the growing consumption of 
 the natives. 
 
 We are ready to admit the fact of increase, 
 but we deny the inference; indeed the very 
 extent and rapidity of this increase are an ar- 
 gument to show that it does not arise from the 
 demand of native consumers, but is occasioned 
 by the rash speculations of merchants, unac- 
 quainted with the real nature of the markets in 
 India : for no one, however sanguine in his ex- 
 pectations of the future consumption of British 
 commodities there, will suppose that any 
 change in those habits of life, to which the In- 
 dians have adhered with such singular predi- 
 lection, can have been so immediate as to call 
 for this sudden and extraordinary supply. The 
 ruinous consequences of the present state of the 
 trade are, even now, severely felt by the adven- 
 turers; and there can be no doubt, when the re- 
 turns are made upon the later shipments, which 
 have occasioned an excessive glut of the 
 markets throughout India, that they will be 
 found to have realized little more than half the 
 original investment. 
 
 There is, moreover, one other important con- 
 sideration, with reference to these exports, which 
 must also be taken into the account, viz. the ac- 
 
70 
 
 cumulated and increasing number of Europeans, 
 and of the Company's servants, in the different 
 estabHshments under their dominion : and we 
 are justified in the assertion that the greater 
 part of our manufactures, which have usually 
 met a profitable market, and which alone can be 
 considered permanent, has been supplied for 
 their consumption, and not for the Indian cul- 
 tivators. 
 
 In support of this, we have, amongst many 
 others, the evidence of Mr. Fairlie, who was 
 thirty years resident in Bengal, and who in- 
 forms us 
 
 ' That there is a very small consumption for the na- 
 
 * tives, they are chiefly for the Europeans in the Com- 
 
 * pany's service, in the army and civil service, and others 
 
 * that are settled in the country, out of the Company's 
 
 * service*, and that the increase in the export of Euro- 
 ' pean articles and manufactures, is chiefly owing to the 
 ' increased number of Europeans, now in the service of 
 ' the Company; the Company's military and civil service 
 ' have greatly increased, the King's regiments are greatly 
 ' increased, and the number of Europeans is twenty or 
 
 * thirty to one as compared to the time he went, thirty 
 
 * years agof .' 
 
 Geneial Kyd, who was thirty-nine years in 
 the Company's service, and had perhaps better 
 opportunities of marking the progressive influx 
 
 * Evidence, House of Commons, p. ] 86. 
 f Evidence, House of Lords, p. 1 56. 
 
71 
 
 of European population into India than almost 
 
 any other person, says 
 
 * The export of European manufactures certainly, 
 ' within these thirty years, has very much increased ; but 
 
 * this appears to have arisen from the very great increase 
 
 < of our army in India. Thirty years ago there were 
 « only one or two king's regiments in the service, at pre- 
 
 * sent there are thirty ; our own militaiy establishments 
 
 < have at least doubled ; the civil service upon the three 
 
 * establishments has also nearly doubled. This increase 
 
 * of European population appears to me fully to account 
 
 * for the increase of the exports, during that time; from 
 ' which I conclude that the exports have principally been 
 ' for the use of Europeans*.' 
 
 The East India Directors put this fact, and 
 the obvious reasoning upon it, beyond all possible 
 question in the following remarkable words : 
 
 * To explain the increase in the private trade between 
 
 * Europe and India, it is to be remembered, first, that, 
 
 * as already stated, the commanders and officers of the 
 « Company's ships are, in a manner, obliged to be 
 
 * traders, and that they have greatly increased in num- 
 
 * ber since 1793; they are forced to carry out goods, and 
 ' therefore to bring goods back, because, in general, 
 « specie would be a losing remittance. Secondly, that 
 « the number of Europeans in India has been very 
 
 * greatly increased since 1793. Every class has in- 
 ' creased ; the civil, military, and medical servants of the 
 ' Company ; the King s troops, from a few regiments to 
 
 * Evidence, House of Lords, p. 46. 
 
72 
 
 * twenty thousand men ; the naval servants of the crown; 
 ' ladies, lawyers, free merchants, free mariners, and the 
 
 * mixed race of European descent, now become a great 
 
 * multitude, who imitate, as far as they can, the fashions 
 
 * of their fathers. For all these descriptions of persons, 
 
 * every thing required for use or luxury is sent from this 
 
 * country; thus the exports are necessarily enhanced*.' 
 
 Lord Teignmouth in 1812 calculated, that, in 
 the Company's territories, the comparative 
 number of Europeans was as 1000 to two mil- 
 lions of natives f: if, therefore, the population 
 now amounts to 100 millions, we may consider 
 the European settlers, including the Company's 
 civil servants, to be about 50,000 
 
 Add the military establishment of 
 
 British and native troops, 213,454 
 
 And we have 263,454 
 
 We do not stop to inquire if the European 
 settlers are not far more than 50,000;— the 
 present number are quite sufficient for our pur- 
 pose, and we wish only to make the most fair 
 and reasonable calculations. What then may be 
 considered a moderate estimate of British pro- 
 ducts, consumed by these persons; — the civil, 
 military, and medical servants, — the King's 
 
 * Printed Papers, p. 238. 
 + Evidence, House of Lords, p. 33. 
 
73 
 
 troops, ladies, &c.-— in regimentals, muskets, 
 caps, accoutrements, military stores, furniture, 
 carriages, books, pictures, — the various articles 
 ofnecessary consumption, ofdress,andof luxury? 
 Surely five or six pounds sterling a year for each 
 person cannot be thought an unreasonable cal- 
 culation in a luxurious and expensive country ? 
 — we ask no more ; — allow us but five or six 
 pounds each for their whole expenditure, and 
 out of the annual consumption of British ar- 
 ticles, we have 1,500,000 taken by our own 
 countrymen and dependents, leaving but a com- 
 paratively small part for tlie supply of the na- 
 tives : whether, therefore, we reason by ana- 
 logy, or on the evidence of those who have 
 been long resident in India, or on the convic- 
 tions of common sense, the whole enigma of the 
 accumulated exports is at once explained j the 
 fancied outlet for British commodities, among 
 the hundred millions of natives, suddenly dis- 
 appears from our vision ; — and the most san- 
 guine advocate of the cause will be compelled to 
 admit that the increased activity of the Hindoo 
 cultivators will neither make them Christians, 
 nor give them Christian habits — that their de- 
 mand for British manufactures would not be 
 advanced by any increase in the cultivation 
 of sugar, opposed, as it would be, to the 
 v/hole frame of their society : in short, they 
 will, in all consistency, be called upon to adopt 
 
74 
 
 the conclusion, which the East India Directors 
 consider to be established by the account of 
 the trade since 1793, namely ; — that 
 
 ' In all the period of nearly twenty years, from that 
 < time to the present, in which, undoubtedly, facilities, 
 '• and enlargements never enjoyed before, have been 
 ' given for private enterprise and adventure, in which 
 ' the private trade has considerably increased, and on 
 
 * the whole a very ample experiment has been made, not 
 
 * one new article for the consicmptioJi of the natives of 
 
 * India has been exported*, and little perceivable differ- 
 
 * ence in the few articles of metals and woollens, of which 
 
 * they participated before. This is a very remarkable 
 
 * fact, and ought to make a deep impression on all per- 
 ' sons, who, in anyway, interest themselves in this subject. 
 
 On the whole, then, this may be pronounced a decisive 
 
 * experiment : a decisive proof that there is no opening, 
 ' nor any material opening to be expected, for the sale of 
 
 * European articles for the use of the natives of Indiaf .' 
 
 In considering the advantages held out to the 
 English consumer from the increased importa- 
 tion of sugar, and the consequently lower price 
 at which the Indian trader promises to sup- 
 ply him, it will be necessary to examine 
 the statement in the * refutation,' to which we 
 
 * Printed in the Company's Report, in Italics. 
 t Printed Papers, 1812, p. 239. 
 
75 
 
 have already referred, that * one million and a 
 ' half is extorted from the pockets of the people 
 ' by the present restrictive duties.* We presume 
 the writer founds this declaration on the quan- 
 tity of West India sugar imported into this 
 country, equal to about 3,300,000 cwt. which 
 at 105. per cwt , the difference of duty charge- 
 able upon East and West India produce, would 
 in figures be equal to a million and a half! 
 
 But the real fact is, that of this importa- 
 tion, only about 2,500,000 cwt., was consumed 
 in England, upon which the whole profit of the 
 West India planter was but 5s. per cwt., as will 
 appear by the following statement. — The ex- 
 pense of culture, according to different esti- 
 mates, varies from l6s. to 20^. per cwt. We take 
 the lowest, as the least favourable to our argu- 
 ment: say, then, expenses of cultivation 16^. 
 Freight and other charges 8.9. 
 
 Making together per cwt. 24j". 
 
 The average price of sugar last year was within 
 a fraction of 295. exclusive of duty; leaving a 
 profit to the planter of 5s. per cwt. or equal to 
 .^570,000 on the whole quantity consumed in 
 Great Britain ; so that, if it were possible to 
 allow that every shilling, which goes into the 
 planter's pocket, by way of interest (and a very 
 
76 
 
 inadequate interest it is at all times) upon his 
 capital, is taken out of the pocket of the con- 
 sumer, the most perverse reasoner could only 
 bring it to £ 570,000. But we confidently ask 
 if this is too much to give, in return for all the 
 advantages derived by the parent state from her 
 colonial possessions ? And surely it would be a 
 new and extraordinary principle in political 
 economy to say, because the British agricul- 
 turist realizes <^ 3 a load upon his crop of 
 wheat, after deducting expenses, that this profit 
 is liable to the obnoxious construction of being 
 wrung from the consumer's pocket ! What rea- 
 sonable man but admits, that it is onlya just com- 
 pensation for the labour, expense, and risk, in- 
 curred in producing it, and a fair interest on 
 the capital he has embarked in his pursuit ? 
 
 But the proposition that, because 209,961 
 cwt. (which is the whole import of East India 
 sugar) is liable to an additional charge of 10*. 
 per cwt. therefore the whole of the 2,500,000 
 cwt. of West India produce is afforded to the 
 consumer at the additional rate of 105. involves 
 an absurdity so palpable to common under- 
 standings, that it were a waste of time to offer 
 any arguments in contradiction. 
 
 We proceed, then, to consider the general 
 question of supplying this country with sugar 
 
77 
 
 fi'om Asia, and upon what ground tlie East In- 
 dians rest their expectation of its inexhaustible 
 resources to meet the demand of the English 
 market. The principal topic of their declama- 
 tion is, that the low price of labour and mode- 
 rate rent of land, together with the simple and 
 unexpensive machinery employed by the na- 
 tives in the manufacture, enable them to pro- 
 duce sugar at an infinitely lower rate than our 
 West India colonies. So inconsistent are the 
 various writers on this side the question, that 
 whilst some promise a reduction of one penny*" 
 a pound, on the equalization of duties, others 
 are extravagant enough to anticipate * that we 
 
 * may obtain sugar from India •]• in any quantity, 
 
 * so as to sell the coarse qualities from 'ihd. to 
 
 * 3d. a pound:' and others again assert that * the 
 
 * sugar plantations in Bengal could supply even 
 ' the West Indies with their own grand staple 
 
 * of sugar, at half the price it costs the planter 
 
 * to raise it in those islands!!' If either the one 
 or the other of these be true, the East India 
 Directors must surely be guided by such views 
 of unprecedented munificence and liberality, in 
 
 * ' Refutation,' p. 102. 
 f Report of the Liverpool Committee, p. 45. 
 X Third Appendix to the East India Company's Re- 
 port on the Sugar Trade, p. 56. 
 
78 
 
 the encouragement they afford to the manu- 
 factures and products of their Eastern subjects, 
 as cannot be paralleled in the history of modern 
 days — certainly not in the history of their 
 own government of India. Such munificence, 
 indeed, as might excite some little jealousy on 
 the part of the proprietors of East India stock, 
 and justify their claim, that in any future in- 
 dulgence to the distant cultivators of India the 
 amount of their dividend should also be taken 
 into consideration. If it be true that sugar in 
 Asia can be manufactured for one half the ex- 
 pense of West India produce, the company's 
 commercial affairs must be conducted on very 
 different principles from those of any other 
 trading company or individuals: — for it appears 
 by their return to Parliament, dated less than a 
 month back, that in thirty years, from 1790 
 down to 1821 (' the latest period to which the 
 * same can be made up'), that they have pur- 
 chased 1,579,908 cwt. of sugar, for which they 
 have paid, at prime cost, 1,987,723/., equal to 
 9,5s. \^d. per cwt. ; now — the highest estimate 
 of expense in our West India colonies has been, 
 on an average of Jamaica and other colonies, 
 9,0s. per cwt ! 
 
 Let it not be imagined that this extraordinary 
 liberality was exercised only in the earlier part 
 
79 
 
 of the thirty years referred to, and that the 
 company lias managed better since, — or that 
 the extended cidtivation of the sugar cane in 
 India, and the more successful application of 
 art and labour to its production (from all which 
 such rapid improvements have been foretold to 
 us ever since the year 1794), have, of late years, 
 created a redundancy of stock, and a con- 
 sequent reduction in the price : far from all 
 this we find, in the parliamentary return, that 
 in the year 1821 the company paid 285. 7-\d. 
 for every cwt. of sugar put on board their ships 
 in India! prime cost, be it observed, — no India 
 charges, no duty, no convoy, no insurance, no 
 freight or mercantile expenses ; but the prime 
 cost of every cwt. of sugar purchased by the 
 East India company, purchased of their own 
 subjects, — in their own territory, — almost on 
 the very spot of its production, — was 285. 71^. ! 
 A truce, then, to all the high sounding pro- 
 mises of a cheaper commodity for the English 
 consumer ; and let us not be induced to risk 
 the prosperity of our West India colonies by 
 the deceitful prospect of advantages which, 
 however auspicious at a distance, prove wholly 
 illusive upon a nearer examination. 
 
 If this fact of the company's purchases be 
 not demonstrative of the high price of sugar in 
 India, hear what is said by the East India 
 
80 
 
 committee in Liverpool. They admit that the 
 
 * pj'ime cost' of sugar in Bengal, 
 
 s. cl 
 
 * In May 1822, was . . . 24 2 
 
 ' Add charges at Calcutta . .21 
 
 ' Cost in India . 26 1 
 ' Freight, insurance, and wastage . . 8 11 
 
 ' Cost in London .33 
 
 which is 75. per cwt. more than the highest 
 present estimate of the cost of bringing West 
 India sugar to market. 
 
 The committee further state, that the present 
 loss upon importation of East India sugar is 
 9>s, lOd. per cwt.*, but they add, if the 105. 
 additional duty were repealed, the Indian 
 grower would make a profit of 7-^' ^d. per cwt. ! 
 It will be shown that the first cost, here stated, 
 is considerably lower than the general average 
 paid by such unfortunate traders, as have made 
 investments in sugar, for the purposes of re- 
 mittance ; and it is a fact, that the greater 
 number of them have incurred a far more 
 serious loss than 9.S. lOd. per cwt. We do 
 not, however, lay any stress on the mere question 
 of the amount of this loss ; it must, of course, 
 vary according to the state of the markets in 
 both countries, and does not materially affect 
 the main point at issue : we admit, for the pre- 
 sent, the figures afforded by the committee, viz. 
 
81 
 
 25. lOd. as the loss now sustained on the im- 
 portation of East India sugar, and 7^. ^d. 
 as the supposed gain upon the repeal of tlie 
 10s. duty. We have already shown that about 
 5s. per cwt. may be considered tlie profit of 
 the West India planter ; so that, in the event 
 of an equalization of duty, the whole difference 
 between the two would, by their own state- 
 ment, be Qs. '2d. per cwt. ; this, however, is 
 in a period of peace, with freights and in- 
 surance at an unprecedented low rate ; but if 
 we consider the necessary increase of the former 
 in a time of war to at least 12^. per cwt., and 
 of the latter to twelve guineas per cent., it will 
 not appear too much to say, that the difference 
 between a commodity brought 10,000 miles, 
 and one subject to a transit of only 4000, must 
 preponderate more largely in favour of the 
 shorter voyage than Qs. 9>d. per cwt. 
 
 If it should, however, be doubted whether 
 the prime cost of sugar in India, and the in- 
 creased war charges on its conveyance to this 
 country preclude the permanent supply of a 
 cheaper commodity from the East than from the 
 West, a reference to the Company's late report 
 on the sugar trade will be quite conclusive on 
 this point: we there have a statement of the 
 expenses on Ganjam sugar in 1796*, viz. 
 
 * Second Appendix, p. 22. 
 
 G 
 
8^ 
 
 s. d. 
 Prime cost per cwt. . 25 3 
 
 Charges in India . . 117 
 
 -36 10 
 
 Freight ... 24 5 
 
 Insurance (not included) 
 Charges of merchandize in 
 
 England . . 3 9 
 
 65 per cwt. 
 admitted by the Company as the charges against 
 sugar brought from India in that year. It 
 appears also by an extract from the proceed- 
 ings of the Madras board of revenue*, given in 
 the same document, that the prices of Ganjam 
 sugar were, for the first sort, 305. 8jc?., second 
 sort, ^5s. 7d., third sort, 205. 5\d. ; but the 
 board * consider these to be high prices, as they 
 
 * understand that Bengal, China, Manilla, Ba- 
 ' tavia, and even Ganjam sugars, have been pur- 
 
 * chased in Madras at mtes 7iot much higher^ and 
 
 * sometimes lower; indeed' (they very rationally 
 add) ' unless they can be reduced, they appre- 
 ' hend this sugar will not answer for the Eu- 
 
 * ropean markets in time of peace .' 
 
 The board, too, * conclude, unless the freight 
 
 * can be lowered, that 195. 8^^. per cwt. is the 
 ' highest price the trade will bear in the time of 
 
 * peace ; in which case the cost to the Company 
 
 * in England, when brought to sale, would be 
 
 * as follows! : 
 
 * First Appendix, p. 250. f Ibid. p. 251. 
 
s. 
 
 ti 
 
 19 
 
 Si- 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 21- 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 H^ 
 
 * Prime cost . . . 
 ' India charges on tliat sent liome 
 
 amounted to lis. ld.\ say they can 
 
 be reduced to . . . 
 
 ' Freight 
 
 ' Charges of merchandize in England 
 
 53 lOi per cwt. 
 
 * e.vchisive of interest of money, insurance, and 
 
 * rvastafj^e.' 
 
 We perfectly agree with the Board, that * iin- 
 
 * less the prices in India can be reduced, the 
 
 * sugar will not answer for the European mar- 
 
 * ket,' and that, * unless the freight can be low- 
 
 * ered, 19^. S^d. is the highest price the trade 
 
 * will bear in the time of peace:' but, as tlie 
 prices of Ganjam sugar were, on an average, 
 Qos. per cwt. in 179^? so do the accounts of 
 every private trader, of the Liverpool com- 
 mittee, of the East India Company, equally 
 prove that any expectation of purchasing sugar 
 at 19^. S^d. prime cost, must be wholly ground- 
 less. To put this beyond all possible dispute, 
 and to show that the statement, made by the 
 Liverpool committee, of the first cost in India, 
 is below the general standard, the Directors 
 have favoured us with a table* of the prices of 
 sugar in the Calcutta market for ten years, from 
 
 * Fourth Appendix, pp. 35 and S6. 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 181^2 to 1821, inclusive ; by this it is shown that 
 they have generally been, for the first sort, 
 above 305. per cwt. often as high as 355'. and 
 sometimes even 37^. and 386. per cwt. purchased 
 at the place of shipment, before any of the nu- 
 merous expenses, attending the transport to 
 this country begin to operate. We claim par- 
 ticular attention to the table at the end of this 
 pamphlet, and confidently leave it to our readers 
 to determine, whether, or not, we are justified 
 in affirming, upon these authorities, and upon 
 the experience of thirty years, that the West 
 India planter is able to bring his produce to the 
 place of shipment at a less expense than the 
 East India trader. 
 
 Granting, however, for the sake of argument, 
 that all our deductions were fallacious j that, 
 contrary to all reasonable estimate. East India 
 produce could be supplied upon equal terms 
 with that from the West ; nay, grant that it 
 could be brousrht to us for less — are the East 
 India traders prepared to say that, in their de- 
 sire to furnish the British consumer with a 
 cheap commodity, to save him a penny a pound 
 in the price of sugar, they would consent to 
 forego the profit of 7<^« ^d. which they say 
 would arise from the repeal of the 10^. duty? 
 Mr. Marryatt supplies us with the answer, and 
 ably exposes the emptiness of their preten- 
 
S5 
 
 ^ions to a patriotic feelin^j for the ' burthens 
 * of the people.' He convicts them, from 
 their own statements, of their desire to put 
 this 7s. '2d. — not into the pockets of the com- 
 munity at large, but into their own*: and 
 here is the key to the whole question — here 
 the evidence that they hope to find room 
 for their own commodity, which is foreign 
 in every sense of the word, by displacing so 
 much of the produce of British colonists: — for 
 they do not attempt to affirm that the home 
 market is inadequately supplied ; they admit, 
 on the contrary, that neither themselves, nor 
 the West India proprietors, make an adequate 
 profit upon their importation ; and therefore it 
 follows, according to the recognised principle 
 of the relative supply and demand regulat- 
 ing the profit or loss upon any particular 
 commodity brought to market, that there is 
 already a superabundance in the quantity pro- 
 duced. They even admit that the measure 
 they advocate must be attended with ruin to 
 the West India grower ; and some speak of the 
 just claim he might have to a compensation 
 for the loss of capital, consequent upon its 
 adoption. 
 
 Without inquiring how far this country may 
 be in a position to compensate the West Indian 
 
 * Reply to the Arguments, &c. p. 11 and 12. 
 
86 
 
 proprietors for the deterioration of from 70 to 
 100 millions of capital, we may consider it an 
 undoubted fact, that, upon a recurrence of war, 
 the importation of East India sugar will be at- 
 tended with a greater loss than at present ; and 
 that, as an object of commerce, it could never 
 answer to the East India trader to bring it to 
 this country, unless to the extent of ' dead 
 ' weight,' or ballast required for his shipping. 
 
 This is by no means an unimportant considera- 
 tion ; because, if it be shown that the expecta- 
 tion of an unlimited and regular supply of sugar 
 from India, which is promised to us as the 
 certain result of the equaUzation of duty, is 
 altogether a fallacy, the principal argument on 
 which the East Indians depend (namely, the 
 certainty of a cheaper commodity to the British 
 consumer) falls to the ground : and that it is a 
 fallacy may be further proved by the result of 
 the Company's endeavours to extend the culture 
 of other products in India, which seem to de- 
 mand less labour, or are, perhaps, less adverse 
 to the usual habits of the natives. 
 
 After all we have heard of the immense 
 resources which India would afford to us under 
 the encouragement of the English markets, w^ 
 misrht have expected that some collateral evi- 
 dence would have been adduced to prove the 
 fact ; that the comparative import of silk, indigo, 
 hemp, &c. would have been stated in detail. 
 
87 
 
 to enable the public to form an estimate of the 
 
 general progress of the natives in agricultural 
 
 pursuits; and to judge for themselves to what 
 
 extent the productive power of labour, * un- 
 
 * shackled by fiscal regulations, unoppressed with 
 
 ' taxes, cheap beyond all precedent, and directed 
 
 ' to the cultivation of a fertile soil,' had wrought 
 
 these promising effects : but there is a very 
 
 sufficient reason why we should hear nothing 
 
 of the other staple commodities of the East ; 
 
 and those who may have followed our general 
 
 reasonings will cease to be surprised at the 
 
 silence of the advocates of East India sugar 
 
 on so obvious and natural a topic, when they 
 
 perceive how singular a refutation of their 
 
 arsjuments the result affords. 
 
 We are informed by the confidential servant 
 of the East India Directors, that 
 
 ' In 1779 the Company endeavoured to renew the 
 ' cultivation of indigo in their Indian territories, and in 
 
 * the course of a few years expended about 80,000/. in 
 
 * the prosecution of that object. Having applied this 
 
 * powerful stimulus to its cultivation, the Company not 
 
 * only resigned the trade to their own civil servants, and 
 ' to the free merchants, who with their permission had 
 « settled in India, but supported them under the dif- 
 
 * Acuities in which they were subsequently involved, by 
 
 * pecuniary advances, to the extent of near a miUion 
 « sterhng, upon the security of their produce: so that 
 
 * under the Company's fostering care, the value of the 
 
88 
 
 ' indigo disposed of at the home sales has of late years 
 
 * (previous to 1813, when this statement was published) 
 
 * considerably exceeded a million sterling annually *.' 
 
 Yet what is the result of all this * fostering 
 care,' this expenditure of '80,000/.,' this * power- 
 
 * ful stimulus to its cultivation,' this * pecuniary 
 
 * advance of near a million sterlino?' Our 
 readers will no doubt anticipate that in such a 
 country, where (as we are informed with so 
 much triumph) no expensive works, nor com- 
 plicated machinery are required, and where, 
 consequently, little or no capital is necessary 
 beyond the support of the cultivator, that the 
 increase of product might have been limited 
 only by the demand existing in foreign markets ; 
 but so different is the result from all this, that 
 the annual import of indigo, which upon an 
 average of five years, from 1814 to 1818 both 
 inclusive, was 5,983, Syylbs. weight, has rapidly 
 diminished, and in the last year amounted only 
 to 2,483,482lbs., or less than one half. 
 
 It appears, upon the same authority, that the 
 Company have made still greater sacrifices for 
 the encouragement of the production of silk in 
 India. 
 
 « Previously to the year 1776 the British manufacturers 
 
 * drew their supply of raw silk almost entirely from the 
 
 * southern countries of Europe. The soil and climate of 
 ' Bengal being exceedingly well adapted to the cultiva- 
 
 * Consideraaons, p. 155. 
 
89 
 
 ' tion of the mulberry-tree, and to the rearing of the 
 
 * silk-worm, the Company have been unceasing in their 
 
 * exertions for the last thirty-six years, to render the 
 ' British silk-weavers independent of foreign nations for 
 ' a supply of the raw material of their manufacture, 
 ' Although for the ten years, from 1776 to 1785, the 
 
 * Company sustained a loss of 884,744/. upon their silk 
 
 * sales, they steadily persevered under many difficulties 
 
 * in continuing and extending this important branch of 
 
 * commerce. The natives of India have been instructed 
 
 * in the Italian method of winding the silk, and die peo- 
 
 * pie occupied in the throw-mills of this country have 
 
 * been employed by the Company in organizing it*."" 
 
 It appears, however, unfortunately for those 
 calculators, who picture to themselves an inex- 
 haustible source of wealth to this country from 
 the accumulated products of the East, that not- 
 withstanding the climate and soil of Bengal are 
 peculiarly zvell adapted to the cultivation of the 
 mulhery^y-tree, and the rearing of the silk-iicorm, 
 notwithstanding * the Company's exertions for 
 
 * thirty-six years, and their perseverance under 
 
 * a lossof 884,744/.,* and although *the natives of 
 ' India have been instructed in the Italian me- 
 
 * thod of winding the silk &c.', and the Govern- 
 ment of this country have offered a further en- 
 couragement by remitting Is. 6d. per lb. of the 
 duty on importation: — we say it unfortunately 
 happens — so far from the supply of India silk 
 
 * Considerations, page 156. 
 
90 
 
 being correspondent with these facilities and 
 this encouragement, that of ten years, elapsed 
 since the renewal of the Charter in 1812, the 
 average of the last five only exceeded the average 
 of the five preceding years by 159,294 lbs. whilst 
 the importation of the year 1822 was consider- 
 ably lower than the years 1812*, 1814, and 1815, 
 and less than tlie years 1820 and 1821 by nearly 
 200,000 lbs. 
 
 So also with regard to hemp : an expectation 
 was held out that we should shortly be quite in- 
 dependent of Russia for our supply of this com- 
 modity. And what might not be expected from 
 the productive labour of a hundred millions of 
 intelligent people, cultivating a fertile soil, un- 
 der a genial climate? This, indeed, as well as the 
 production of silk, would have been a legitimate 
 object of exertion for the population of India ; 
 to supply us with an article so essential to a 
 maritime people as hemp, and one so important 
 to a manufacturing country as raw silk, would 
 have been worthy of the great objects of civili- 
 zation, and of the responsible character in which 
 the Company stand in regard to India. 
 
 We must, however, do them the justice to say 
 that, 
 
 * The records of the Custom House for 1813 having 
 been destroyed by fire, we are unable to state the pro- 
 duce of that year. 
 
91 
 
 ' If Great Britain still remains to a certain degree de- 
 
 * pendent upon foreign Europe for a supply of hemp, it is 
 
 * not owing to any remissness on the part of the Company 
 
 * to render available one of the most useful productions 
 
 * of their Indian territories as a substitute. In the year 
 
 * 1796, they commenced the importation of Sunn hemp, 
 
 * which grows in vast abundance in the Island of Salsette 
 
 * and in several districts of Bengal. They at Jirst sold 
 
 * it 'witJioiit ally view to gain, and even gave it aiioay to the 
 
 * rope-makers in this country, for the purpose of inducing 
 ' than to make experiments of its strenglJi and durability 
 
 * in different sorts of cordage. And in 1803, his Majesty's 
 
 * Ministers having urged the Court of Directors to pro- 
 
 * mote the cultivation and importation of Sunn, for the 
 
 * supply of the navy, immediate instructions were de- 
 
 * spatched by the Court to the Bengal Government, to 
 ' spare neither trouble nor expense in procuring an 
 
 * ample supply of an article, from which great public 
 
 * benefit was likely to be derived ; and hemp-dressers were 
 
 * at the same time sent out to India to teach the natives the 
 
 * best method of preparing it. But before the cargoes 
 
 * arrived, an unexpected fluctuation in the politics of 
 
 * Europe had removed the obstruction to the acquisition 
 
 * of Russia hemp, and the Sunn was disposed of by the 
 
 * Company at a loss of 45,000/. In 1807 the Directors 
 ' proposed to Government to import for the use of the 
 
 * navy, and to deliver into His Majesty's storehouses, 
 
 * "without a profit, as much Sunn as might be required, 
 ' and the offer having been accepted, the importation 
 
 * has been continued upon this footing ever since*.' 
 
 * Considerations, page 157. 
 
92 
 
 It is now twelve years since this ' brilliant pro- 
 spect' was presented to us; and our readers will 
 no doubt be prepared to hear, notwithstanding 
 the inaptitude, or, what is worse, the uncon- 
 querable aversion of the natives to any new 
 habits, that the Company's liberality in pur- 
 chasing their hemp to give it away to the rope- 
 makers of this country, and to supply our navy 
 with as much as was required ^ mthout profit ,' 
 has been richly rewarded in the abundant re- 
 turns of this valuable commodity: they will ex- 
 pect to find that the * hemp-dressers, sent out 
 
 * to India, to teach the natives the best means 
 
 * of preparing it,' have found apt and intelligent 
 artificers, to profit by their instructions, and 
 that all these laudable exertions have been per- 
 manently effectual to secure a beneficial com- 
 merce to Great Britain, and make her indepen- 
 dent of her foreign supply of hemp j and, in- 
 deed, so singularly felicitous has the result 
 been, that if it were not recorded in the official 
 returns of the Custom House, we could scarcely 
 have given credit to the fact, that the importa- 
 tion, which in 1812 was .^,607 tons, should 
 amount in 1821 to four tons! and what may 
 we not expect, when it is stated that in the 
 subsequent year of 1822, a new * impulse' was 
 given to the exertions of the natives, — and 
 the Indian population of one hundred millions 
 
93 
 
 succeeded in producing twenty-six tons of 
 native hemo. However beneficial such a com- 
 petition with rival nations would be towards the 
 supply of our navy, it will not, perhaps, be 
 thought very probable that, in any future emer- 
 gencies of a maritime war, the East India Com- 
 pany will have it in their power ' to deliver 
 
 * into His Majesty's Storehouses, ivitJioiit a 
 
 * profit, as much Sunn as may be required' for 
 the public service. 
 
 But, we would ask, are we not justified, upon 
 such facts, in assuming that the growth of sugar 
 in India must be equally inadequate to the 
 consumption of Great Britain? — a product 
 which it is admitted has, even in a time of peace, 
 proved so unprofitable to the speculators ; and 
 which, upon a recurrence of war, must be wholly 
 excluded as an article of merchandize:— a pro- 
 duct, which the Board of Revenue in Madras 
 declare to be ' a comparatively expensive cul- 
 
 * tivation, requiring a greater capital than the 
 
 * ryotts in general possess^ and which must 
 always be liable to very heavy charges. It is 
 in vain for those, who desire us to make the 
 experiment, at whatever hazard, to ring the 
 changes upon the ' immense impulse' to be 
 given by the population of India, and to hold 
 out the expectation of incalculable benefits to 
 the British consumer, whilst their own case 
 
94 
 
 affords such repeated testimony of the diffi- 
 culties that oppose the realization of the pro- 
 ject. 
 
 That we may not, however, appear to put a 
 forced construction upon this failure of other 
 products in the East, or to draw an unfair con- 
 clusion with respect to sugar, we have been in- 
 duced cursorily to examine the Company's late 
 Report on this branch of their trade, with a 
 view to ascertain by what means they hope to 
 supersede the industry, and to displace the 
 capital of our West India possessions : whether 
 by the encouragement of the Hindoo cultivator 
 simply in affording him the English market for 
 his crops, or by any other forced and unnatural 
 means; and we find that, unless British capitalis 
 advanced to give a stimulus to his ea^ertions — not 
 even the * liberal policy' of the Company, 
 which, we are told, has rendered ' Bengal one 
 
 * of the freest countries in the world from fiscal 
 
 * impositions,' nor the innumerable advantages 
 which he is said to possess over the West Indian 
 planter, can enable the system of the ' eastern 
 hemisphere' to rival that of the western. 
 
 One of the documents, which most forcibly 
 illustrates this position, is the letter of a Bengal 
 Planter in the third Appendix to the Report on 
 the Sugar Trade. This gentleman, after de- 
 tailing the simple requisites, and the moderate 
 
95 
 
 expense of a sugar plantation in Bengal, from 
 which he could even ' supply the West Indies 
 
 * with their own grand staple of sugar at half 
 ' the price it costs the planter to raise it in 
 
 * those islands!' affords so satisfactory a refu- 
 tation of his own theory, that perhaps, no argu- 
 ments of the West India body could carry with 
 them equal conviction. 
 
 * Nothing,' he says, ' seems to oppose an immediate 
 
 * and great increase of sugar here, but the disinclination 
 ' of the ryotts to speculate vpon future contingencies^ 
 ' which they cannot comprehend^ and their individual 
 
 * poverty, zohich forbids them to imdertake what they can- 
 
 * 720^ accomplish. These obstacles, I conceive, govern- 
 
 * ment might remove, with advantage to the prosperity 
 
 * of the country, and to the increase of the land revenue, 
 
 * hy making advances, in the nature qftacavy, to every 
 
 * ryott inclined to undertake the cidtivation of sugar-cane : 
 
 * the advances to be proportioned to the extent of each 
 ' ryotf s abihty to cultivate, which would be ascertained 
 ' by the number of his family and dependents, or the 
 
 * facility with which labour can be hired in the district ; 
 < and to be repaid at his option, either in money or 
 ' produce, at the market price of the day, after the crop 
 « is manufactured, with interest at the rate of 8 per 
 ' cent, per annum. Such a measure would not be at- 
 
 * tended with more risk than the advances made by the 
 
 * commercial agents of the Company for the provision 
 « of the investment ; and independently of every other 
 
 * advantage, would, so far as its infuence extended, re- 
 
96 
 
 ' lieve the most useful class of the Company's subjects 
 
 * from the excessive impositions to which they are liable 
 
 * from their native creditors, who exact returns for 
 ' loans made on the crops, which are almost incre- 
 ' dible. 
 
 ' A mahagen, or shroof, advancing vipon a sugar 
 
 * crop, receives, in most parts of the country, an in- 
 
 * terest of one anna monthly for every rupee advanced, 
 ' which is equal to 75 per cent, per annum, and never 
 
 * less than 6 pice, or 37i per cent. A renter, unable to 
 ' make good his kists, is frequently under the necessity 
 ' of borrowing at the enormous interest of one per cent. 
 
 * per diem, which rate is known generally by the term 
 
 * of schootah, and properly so called, although no odium 
 ' attaches itself to the lender *.' 
 
 In quoting this singular statement, we 
 
 cannot refrain from asking if it be possible to 
 
 imagine that, in such a state of society as this, 
 
 the native grower of sugar will ever be capable 
 
 of a successful competition with our West India 
 
 colonies? We are first informed, that the ryotts 
 
 cannot cultivate sugar without a greater capital 
 
 than they in general possess ; next, that the ma- 
 
 hagan or shroof, supplying the necessary means 
 
 of production, exacts an interest equal to J5 per 
 
 cent, per annum; and last, that in the event of a 
 
 renter being in arrear for his ' kists,' (which we 
 
 * Third Appendix to the Report on the Sugar 
 Trade, page 57. 
 
97 
 
 should imagine no very uncommon occurrence) 
 he is obliged to pay 365 per cent, per annum ! 
 We notice this passage with more particularity, 
 because such symptoms of manners, which are 
 occasionally, and, as it were unconsciously, ex- 
 hibited in the course of inquiry, afford a micro- 
 scopic view of the inconsistencies by wliich 
 theorists endeavour to support their positions ; 
 — they disclose to us the anatomy of the system 
 that prevails in India, and lead us to wonder 
 that men's better reason should be so perverted 
 by motives of self-interest, as to make them 
 imagine that even * the West India planters 
 
 * themselves might import East India sugar on 
 
 * nuich easier terms than they can afford to sell 
 
 * it in the curing-houses on their own planta- 
 ' tions*.' 
 
 Thus, after all that has been said of natixe 
 labour and intelligence, and of the luxuriance 
 and fertility of the soil, which, we are told, 
 
 * are amplij competent to siipplij all Europe,' we 
 find that the ryotts are ' disinclined to specu- 
 
 * late on future contingencies, which they can- 
 
 * not comprehend, and that their individual 
 
 * poverty forbids them to undertake what they 
 ' cannot accomplish ;' no doubt it does, and 
 we may venture to add, that even the ' tacavy 
 
 * Fii-st Appendix to the Coiupany's Report, page 211. 
 
 II 
 
98 
 
 * advances,' to whatever amount tlie East 
 India Company may be disposed to risk them, 
 would end in the same result that followed 
 their * advance of nearly a million sterling' 
 for the culture of indigo : — nay, more, v/e be- 
 lieve, that if the Company's endeavours to en- 
 courage the growth of sugar were equal to the 
 exertions which they made to increase the pro- 
 duction of silk, that the loss they sustained in 
 that case of 884,744/. would be more than 
 equalled in the proposed scheme ; particularly 
 if the advances are to be repaid ' at the option 
 
 * of the ryotty and the Company is to allow him 
 for his sugar 28*. 7^i« per cwt. the price at 
 which they purchased in 1821. 
 
 This notable plan affords us a direct insight 
 into the nature of the speculations, by which 
 the cultivators of the East are to take prece- 
 dence of the established colonies : it is by these 
 tacavy advances, and by these only, that such of 
 the ryotts, * as may be inclined to undertake* 
 the cultivation of the sugar cane, are to dis- 
 place the capital of the West Indies j indeed we 
 are favoured in detail with the amount requi- 
 site to effect this object, namely, 1,240,656/. 
 sterling annually, which, it appears, is a trifling 
 sum, in this gentleman's estimation, to risk for 
 the effectuation of the ruin of the colonies, and 
 
 * in my humble opinion,' says he, * no con- 
 
99 
 
 * sideration for West Indian property ought to 
 
 * crush this progress of improvement in India.* 
 
 But however he may anticipate the removal 
 of the obstacles which oppose the growth of 
 sugar in India, by an annual advance of 
 1,240,656/. the East India Directors do not 
 appear to entertain the same sanguine expec- 
 tations of the result ; for, in their despatch to 
 the Government of Bombay, 1795, they say, 
 
 * We are aware how litde the natives of India are 
 
 * disposed to take the lead in any jntrsuits qfcnicrprhe^ 
 ' aiid that if ever mnj very important change in the state 
 
 * of' the agriculture, arts, manvfactures, or commerce of 
 
 * that country he accomplished, it must he brought about 
 
 * by the industry and ingenvity of Europeans*.'' 
 
 The Bengal planter, too, notwithstanding his 
 opinion of the natural resources of that pro- 
 vince, seems to admit, that the Directors have 
 formed a just estimate of the native population ; 
 
 for, he says, 
 
 * It may be objected, that the obstinate adherence to 
 
 * old customs, tohieh so p)CCuUarly distinguishes the natives 
 ^ of Bengal, would limit the progress of any improve- 
 
 * ment to the practice of such Europeans as may be pcr- 
 
 * mitted to become sugar planters. Admitting that the 
 
 * Beno-ally is, perhaps, the most tenacious and vntracl able 
 
 * of his species, the influence of example, combined with 
 
 * the conviction that it is his interest to follow it, will, 
 
 * Second Appendix to the Report on the Sugar 
 Trade. 
 
 h2 
 
TOO 
 
 ' though slowly, yet most certainly in time, work every 
 ' good effect that can arise from change, as many recent 
 ' instances, which might he pointed out, will confirm *.' 
 If words have any meaning, or evidence such 
 as this be not wholly worthless, we know not 
 what other conclusions can be drawn from them 
 than, that the expectations, held out to the 
 manufacturer, of immeasurable benefits in the 
 demand of the Indian populations, and to the 
 consumer of sugar of an unbounded supply, at 
 a lower price than he now pays, are equally un- 
 founded : That, independent of the inability of 
 the great bulk of the people (whose individual la- 
 bour produces, according to the highest esti- 
 mate, about £6 sterling a year) to purchase Bri- 
 tish manufacturers, or to make investments of 
 capital, adequate to the growth of an expensive 
 product like sugar, — there are other and more 
 powerful causes, interwoven in the very con- 
 struction of their society, which are wholly ad- 
 verse to their becoming either extensive con- 
 sumers or successful cultivators : That their 
 singular pertinacity to the costume, manners, 
 and all the habits of life, which have prevailed 
 amongst them from the earliest period of their 
 history ; their very prejudices, and the institu- 
 tions of their religion, the moderation of their 
 wants, the different nature of their pleasures, 
 
 * Third Appendix, page 61. 
 
101 
 
 and the objects of ostentation, in which they 
 would be Ukelj to expend any superfluous 
 wealth ; the preference they naturally feel for 
 their own cheaper and national manufactures, 
 
 * their disinclination to speculate upon fu- 
 
 * ture contingencies,* their ignorance which 
 makes ' them the most tenacious and un- 
 
 * tractable of their species,' — all operate in 
 combination against their adoption of European 
 fashions or laborious pursuits. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be objected to what we have 
 endeavoured to establish, that if there be such 
 impediments to the successful rivalship of the 
 East with our colonial produce, there is no ne- 
 cessity for the opposition of the West India 
 body, to the proposed equalization of duty. 
 If the proofs adduced of the high price in 
 India, the greater charges of transport, and tlie 
 inaptitude of the people to its extended cultiva- 
 tion be conclusive, why so strenuous in our 
 exertions to keep out of the market the present 
 limited importation ? We answer, because this 
 quantity, small as it is, would have an effect 
 adverse to the colonial interests : — the whole 
 supply of sugar brought from the West Indies 
 is already more than the demand, and as the 
 price must, in a great measure, be reguhitcd 
 by the extent of this surplus— the addition of 
 
102 
 
 209,964 cwt., or even of a smaller quantity, 
 would always preclude the hope of a remune- 
 rating price to the British grower, except under 
 temporary and particular circumstances. 
 
 But the West India body oppose the intro- 
 duction of Bengal sugar upon a higher prin- 
 ciple ; and whether the injurious effect of it 
 would be extensive or limited, immediate or 
 remote, they are immoveable in their resolution 
 to claim from the government of this country 
 an unqualified protection, so long as other 
 classes of British subjects enjoy a decided pre- 
 ference over the other products of India. 
 
 It would be no argument to the English agri- 
 culturist and manufacturer to tell them that 
 the introduction of Indian wheat, of piece 
 goods, silk, &c. could not be extensive enough 
 to injure them, forming as it would, but a 
 small amount, in comparison of their own im- 
 mense production ; and that the expenses at- 
 tending the transit from India being so great 
 as to secure to them the power of underselling 
 the Hindoo proprietor in the home market, it 
 would be but reasonable to admit him to a partici- 
 pation in any advantage it may afford : the British 
 grower or weaver would answer ; this mayor may 
 not be ; you have said so much about the pro- 
 ductive power of a population of 100 millions, the 
 
103 
 
 cheapness of labour, and other advantages of 
 India, that we are compelled, contrary to our 
 own convictions, to fear the consequences of 
 yielding up any part of our privileges ; — but 
 even if this apprehension be unfounded, upon 
 what principle do you claim that the na- 
 tives of the East should be admitted to the 
 rights of English subjects ? Tliat the ancient 
 laws of English trade and commerce should be 
 broken down in favour of conquered provinces, 
 peopled, as they are, by a mixed race, who re- 
 cognize neither the laws or religion of this 
 country. It does not lie with us to prove the 
 extent to which we should be injured by their 
 admission to equal privileges with ourselves : it 
 is sufficient to say that the long established re- 
 gulations, under which we have invested our 
 capital in the present object of our pursuits, 
 have essentially promoted the general interests 
 of Great Britain, whilst they have afforded to 
 us a moderate, if not a secure return ; — and we 
 are not disposed to hazard the competition of a 
 numerous population, who do not participate 
 with us the burthen of taxation, in support of 
 the honor and safety of these dominions, nor 
 contribute, as we do, to the general resources of 
 the empire by the diffusion of the wealth, ac- 
 quired in our respective caUings. 
 
 Such would be the answer of tlie landed, 
 commercial and manufacturing interests, to any 
 
104 
 
 application in flivour of other East Indian com- 
 modities ; — snch the answer of our builders to 
 the ship owners of India, who claim a British 
 registry ; and such is the answer of the West 
 India body to the growers of Bengal sugar; 
 nor are they disposed to be the first in admitting 
 a precedent, which, if once established, would 
 lead to other and more dangerous innovations 
 on their vested rights* 
 
 The East Indian trader advocates the equali- 
 zation of the sugar duties upon another ground, 
 not yet discussed, but which is equally un- 
 tenable with his other arguments. He con- 
 tends that it is a great hardship to the English 
 ship owner to prevent the vessels engaged in 
 the commerce with India, which bring home 
 light cargoes of cotton, silk, &c. from securing 
 to themselves a profitable commodity for the 
 purposes of * dead weight' : that the length of 
 the voyage, the risk, and expense, attending 
 all speculations to so distant a country, demand 
 indulgence in this respect ; and that it operates 
 as a great discouragement to British shipping to 
 impose a heavy tax on East India sugar, which 
 performs the useful oflice of ballast. 
 
 To this branch of the question, which, it is to 
 be observed, purely regards the shipping in- 
 terests, we may be allowed to give a brief con- 
 
105 
 
 sideration, not only because our opponents lay 
 much stress upon it, but because we believe the 
 same argument has been used even by sensible 
 and dispassionate persons, before they had 
 viewed it in all its bearincjs. 
 
 None can be more desirous than ourselves, 
 that every privilege should be granted to so 
 important a class of men as the British ship- 
 owners, who afford us not only the means of 
 carrying on a successful commerce, but con- 
 tribute so mainly to our national security and 
 power ; but we cannot admit that Go,000 tons of 
 shipping from the East Indies are entitled to pri- 
 vileges denied to above 1,500,000 tons* which 
 are employed in other branches of commerce. If 
 the ship-owner who brings to us the cotton of 
 
 * An account of die tonnage of British ships that 
 entered inwards and cleared outwards, at the several 
 ports of the United Kingdom, during the last five 
 years : 
 
 
 Inwards. 
 
 Outwards. 
 
 Years. 
 1818 
 
 Ships. 
 
 13,006 
 
 Tons. 
 1,886,394 
 
 Ships. 
 11,442 
 
 Tons. 
 1,715,566 
 
 1819 
 
 11,974 
 
 1,809,128 
 
 10,250 
 
 1,562,802 
 
 1820 
 
 11,285 
 
 1,668,060 
 
 10,102 
 
 1,549,508 
 
 1821 
 
 10,805 
 
 1,599,423 
 
 9,797 
 
 1,488,644 
 
 1822 
 
 11,087 
 
 1,663,627 
 
 10,023 
 
 l,539,a60 
 
 Avcra. 
 
 11,631 
 
 1,725,326 
 
 10j323 
 
 1,571,156 
 
 This is exclusive of the intercourse between Great 
 Britain and Ireland. 
 
108 
 
 the Hindoos of India must be allowed to ballast 
 with sugar, surely he who carries for us the 
 cotton of South America is entitled to an equal 
 jirotection, and should be equally permitted to 
 ballast his cargo with sugar. It would, in 
 either case, be an injustice to the British growers 
 to allow this to enter into competition with 
 their produce in the home market ; but if the 
 principle be admitted for one, it must be re- 
 cognized in favour of the other ; and so long as 
 we impose the present high duties on foreign 
 iron, tallow, &c. with which British ships trading 
 to the Baltic and other places, are obliged to 
 ballast their cargoes, it would be an obvious 
 inconsistency to release East Indian vessels from 
 similar prohibitions. It is no answer to say, 
 that the conquered provinces of India being 
 entitled to greater consideration at our hands 
 than South America and Russia, the case 
 does not apply ; for, as we have before said, 
 the argument immediately under discussion 
 relates purely to the shipping interests ; and it 
 may be confidently affirmed that, in either case, 
 the British ship-owner, as ship-ownei\ may claim 
 an equal privilege. 
 
 But to illustrate our position by a still more 
 analagous case ; — East Indian iron is nov/ 
 liable to a duty of 20 per cent, ad valorem: 
 upon the system of reasoning adopted by the 
 opponents of the West India colonies, how 
 
107 
 
 strong an appeal might he made to the feel- 
 ings of the public against this prohibitory duty! 
 It might be taken for granted that there can- 
 not be a more effectual or convenient ballast 
 than iron ; being ten times heavier than sugar, 
 it would occupy one tenth the space in the 
 ship's hold, and leave so much more room for 
 cotton, hemp, silk, piece goods, and other light 
 articles. It might be said, that vessels coming 
 from India are entitled to the favourable con- 
 sideration of the government ; the length of 
 voyage, the risk, expense, a losing trade, both 
 in the export of manufactured goods, and in 
 the import of Indian sugar, indigo, saltpetre, 
 and the other heavy articles fit for ballast ; all 
 seem to point out the justice and policy of per- 
 mitting them to import sufficient iron for their 
 ballast, free of duty. Moreover, what an im- 
 pulse might be given by such a measure to 
 our iron foundries, to our Birmingham manu- 
 factories ; think of the beneficial effects of 
 making steam-engines at half price ; of reducing 
 the expense of iron railways, by which the 
 interchange of our national products between 
 one province and another would be so greatly 
 facilitated ; of giving the agriculturist his 
 ploughs, harrows, and all the implements of his 
 daily labour, at 50 per cent, under their present 
 cost J millions might be saved to the country 
 
108 
 
 in the expenses of her agriculturists, the price 
 of corn reduced, and the poor man have his 
 loaf at a cheaper rate : think, too, of the im- 
 mense advantage of encouraging an Indian po- 
 pulation of one hundred millions, whose con- 
 sumption of British manufactures is limited 
 only by their means of purchasing ; think of 
 the injustice of depressing the native exer- 
 tions of the Hindoos, * British subjects who 
 
 * are entitled to all the pivileges of English- 
 
 * men/ by imposing prohibitory duties on so 
 important an article of their products as iron. 
 
 * Are our statesmen aware of the deep injury they are 
 ' inflicting on the nation at large (including the agri- 
 
 * cultural interests) by the present policy? or are the 
 
 * people of this country aware of the deep injury they 
 
 * are sustaining from it*?' 
 
 ' And, after all, for whom are we called upon to sacri- 
 
 * fice this brilliant prospect, this certainty of a continually 
 ' growing demand for the productions of our national 
 
 * industry ?' 
 
 Truly for a few aristocratical proprietors of 
 mines, ' the whole amount of whose consumption 
 ' does not nearly equal the amount forced out 
 
 * of the pockets of the people* to maintain their 
 monopoly of the supply of iron. 
 
 All this, and much more to the same purpose, 
 might be urged for the purpose of exciting a 
 
 * ' Refutation,' p. 102. 
 
109 
 
 clamour against the duty on East Indian iron, 
 sd wisely imposed for the protection of our own 
 miners, and of the British landed interest. The 
 same declamation, with the mere exchange of 
 terms, would equally apply to the duty on any 
 other of the Indian products ; and we might, 
 by a recognition of the principles to which it 
 points, displace the whole capital and resources 
 of the empire. But would the proprietors of" 
 our mines, the grower of wool, of corn, or any 
 other class of British subjects, yield to C0,000 
 tons of East India shipping the right (which is 
 denied to the general shipping interest of the 
 kingdom) of introducing the rival products of 
 other countries, for the mere purpose of forcing 
 theindustry of the natives of India into compe- 
 tition with themselves ? Certainly not. Then 
 upon what principle of justice can the West India 
 proprietors be called upon to make a sacrifice, to 
 which none others are ready to submit ? and to 
 allow the sugar of Bengal to a participation of 
 the privileges, which have been so justly and so 
 permanently secured in favour of their own? 
 
 The fact is, that in every branch of com- 
 merce, some even at a greater distance thaji 
 India, and in none more frequently than in the 
 West India trade, ships are compelled to take 
 in a large proportion of unproductive ballast : 
 it is one of those disabilities necessarily attacli- 
 ing to all ship-ownery ; and if this country. 
 
110 
 
 upon the plea of the necessity of ' dead weight/ 
 were to permit the indiscriminate admission of 
 all the various commodities of foreign nations 
 in rivalry with her own products, her merchant 
 vessels, instead of being her great mean of 
 wealth, would become an intolerable burthen 
 upon all the sources of her prosperity. 
 
 The admission of India sugar to home con- 
 sumption in England is further advocated on 
 the ground of compensation to that country for 
 having unjustly displaced her manufactures by 
 the introduction of our own cotton and woollen 
 goods. 
 
 ' The mantifacUires of India/ says the * Refutation/ 
 
 * have been sufFerinfj under the most cruel discourage- 
 
 rs o 
 
 * mcnts. While they are either entirely prohibited in 
 
 * this country, or loaded with duties, which are, in fact, 
 
 * prohibitory, our manufactures are admitted into India 
 ' at a duty of 2| per cent, ad valorem : from the sii- 
 ' periority of our machinery, at a rate which enables 
 
 * them to undersell theirs *.' 
 
 Yet so inconsistent is this writer that, not- 
 withstanding the injustice of this * cruel dis- 
 
 * couragement,* he urges, in the very next page, 
 the * brilliant prospect' held out to the Britisli 
 artizans in the still larger consumption of their 
 goods, and the consequent displacement of those 
 
 * < 
 
 Refutation/ p. 97. 
 
Ill 
 
 of India, as the principal ground lor our ad- 
 mission of Bengal su2;ar. 
 
 ' It is scarcely possible to calculate the effect which 
 
 * may bo produced on the looms and workshops of this 
 
 * country by an impulse, however small, being given to 
 
 * the demand for their fabrics by a population of one 
 ' hundred millions of their own subjects*.' * It may be 
 
 * considered,' he says, ' as a point estahlislied hcjjond 
 
 * question^ that the only limit, at present, to the growing 
 
 * demand of India for our manufactures, is the power of 
 
 * obtaining adequate returns.' 
 
 In one breath he complains of the injury done 
 to the native weaver ; in the next, he desires this 
 injury to be redoubled, and proposes, by way 
 of compensation for his wrongs, to encourage 
 the native agriculturist ; — as if one class in that 
 society would not (as in our own) protest 
 against all their means of subsistence being 
 sacrificed for the benefit of another class ; and 
 as if it were consistent with sound policy to 
 annihilate the arts, which have so long flourished 
 in the provinces of India, for the purpose of 
 forcing their industry into a more expensive and 
 laborious channel, less suited to the means and 
 habits of the population, and which, we are told, 
 cannot be successfully followed up except by 
 an annual advance of l,210,6oG/. sterling! and 
 
 * Refutation,' p. 99. 
 
112 
 
 all fbr what ? merely that the West India colo- 
 nies may be thrown out of cultivation ! although 
 it is admitted that they afford an adequate supply 
 of sugar, both for home consumption, and for our 
 export trade ; and although the growth of this 
 product has, as it were, become so natural to 
 them, as to be almost their only occupation, and 
 the capital of which, it is equally admitted, can- 
 not be converted to any other profitable invest- 
 ment. 
 
 Our limits will scarcely permit us to add 
 more at present ; though, in whatever liglit the 
 subject is viewed, many other arguments pre- 
 sent themselves against the measure which is 
 proposed for our adoption. But w'e trust 
 enough may have been said to show that it 
 would be fraught wnth injustice to the British 
 colonies, and lead to no practical benefits cither 
 to the general interests of India, or Great Britain. 
 
 The question is not whether we sliall make 
 an experiment for the introduction of a new 
 species of merchandize, wdiich, if it should fail^ 
 would only create a loss on the resale of the 
 commodity ; not whether we shall attempt to 
 establish commercial relations with a distant 
 country, in which, if we were disappointed, our 
 national character and resources would not be 
 compromised; but whether, for an imaginary 
 benefit to the British consumer, to which 
 
113 
 
 all experience is adverse, we shall render the ca- 
 pital of the British West Indies unproductive, 
 for the purpose of giving an impulse to the ca- 
 pital of others ; — whether we shall inflict a deep 
 wound on the prosperity of our ancient colonial 
 establishments, in which our own success, as a 
 commercial and maritime nation, is so closely 
 interwoven, in order to try the productive 
 power of conquered provinces ; — whether we 
 shall refuse to the British grower of sugar the 
 same protection we afford to the British manu- 
 facturer and agriculturist, against the rival pro- 
 ducts of other nations; — and whether we shall 
 admit to the privileged rights of native subjects 
 of the realm, the Mahomedan and Gentoo 
 casts of the East, who differ from us in all the 
 essential characteristics of intellectual man. 
 
 For our part we have no fear of the result 
 of this inquiry ; — we do not entertain the 
 slightest apprehension that the justice, good 
 sense, and reflection of the country, and of Par- 
 liament, would so compromise the principles of 
 jurisprudence and of constitutional right, which 
 secure to every British subject the possession 
 and protection of his property, as to admit the 
 competition of foreigners with our West India 
 proprietors ; so long, at least, as they recognize 
 the necessity of guarding the other sources of 
 national wealth against such interference. In- 
 
114 
 
 dependently, too, of this higher moral conside- 
 ration of national equity, we believe that the 
 more generally the question is discussed, the 
 more evident will be the policy which the in- 
 terests of Great Britain mark out for her adop- 
 tion — and that when the advantages she derives 
 from these settlements come to be more fully 
 understood and appreciated, the claim of the 
 West India colonists to all their privileges 
 and to still further relief, under their pre- 
 sent difficulties, whether in the shape of an 
 increased protecting duty against East India 
 produce, or a 'reduction in that, with which 
 their own is now chargeable, will be generally 
 admitted. 
 
 With these impressions we are not averse to 
 a parliamentary committee, unless upon the 
 same principle that the silk, cotton, and 
 woollen manufacturer in this country, or any 
 other of the numerous branches of national en- 
 terprise and wealth, would oppose the East 
 India merchants, who should demand a com- 
 mittee of inquiry as to whether Indian silks, 
 Indian piece goods, woollens, shawls, &c. &c. 
 should not be admitted to a competition with 
 them in the home market. Surely their answer 
 to such a request would be, as is that of the 
 West India proprietor, they must first make out 
 their right to an inquiry, before they can demand 
 
115 
 
 that Committees of Parliament should sit for a 
 month to hear evidence, which, if it were all 
 true, could alter no one principle of political 
 justice : we are not afraid of inquiry, but we 
 cannot be called upon unnecessarily to submit 
 to it, and to risk the possible efFectof public pre- 
 judice, misrepresentation, and more active mea- 
 sures on their part, and even unfair canvass, 
 in all which the very confidence we repose in 
 the justice of our claims would make us less 
 zealous and persevering than themselves, and so 
 far give them the advantage. 
 
 This would be the reasoning of the manu- 
 facturer and the English grower of corn upon 
 a demand for a Committee of inquiry as to *the 
 
 * capability of India to supply them with their 
 
 * own staple commodity at half price, ^ — and it is 
 equally the reasoning of the British colonist. 
 But, further, if it should be proved before the 
 Committee that the great bulk of sugar from 
 Bengal undergoes a process, which is equal in 
 effect to that of * claying^"* would the East Indian 
 trader be content to pay the additional duty of 
 clayed sugar ? It is not our intention to enter 
 into any details, but there is little doubt that 
 the result of an inquiry into the nature of the 
 Bengal manufacture would be, to. show that the 
 greater part of the East India sugar, now con- 
 sumed in England, as raw or muscovado, has 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 undergone this process of refinement, and is 
 consequently liable to the extra duty. 
 
 This, however, is not so much to our present 
 purpose, — ^we have only endeavoured to advo- 
 cate the leading principles on which the colo- 
 nists rest their claim to preference ; and if, in a 
 constitutional view, they are entitled to the im- 
 munities of British subjects — if, in their political 
 relation to the mother country, they amply 
 repay her protection, by the naval, commer- 
 cial, financial, and other benefits she derives 
 from their possession, — then is she bound in 
 justice to guard with jealous watchfulness 
 against every attempt to injure them : and if 
 there be any reasonable ground to doubt either 
 the power or the disposition of the natives of 
 India to adopt those habits, which may secure 
 a great outlet for British commodities, and 
 afford an adequate, regular, and cheap supply of 
 sugar, it would surely be the height of impolicy 
 to hazard, for so remote and uncertain an ad- 
 vantage, if not the possession, certainly the 
 prosperity, of so valuable a branch of national 
 wealth as our settlements in the West Indies, 
 
117 
 
 Calcutta Market price of the best sort of Cheenee 
 Sugar, calculated in sterling money, at 2s. per 
 current rupee, 
 
 1812. s. d. s. d. 
 
 5 January 21 9 to 23 4 per cwt. 
 
 5 February 22 2 22 1 1 
 1 March 22 2 23 9 
 
 6 April 23 9 24 6 
 17 May 27 8 28 6 
 
 1 June 27 8 29 3 
 4 July 26 1 26 11 
 
 2 August 25 4 26 1 
 6 September 25 4 26 1 
 4 October 24 6 25 4 
 
 1 November 28 6 29 3 
 
 6 December 29 3 30 1 
 1813. 
 
 3 January 26 1 26 11 
 
 7 February 30 10 31 8 
 7 March 30 10 31 8 
 
 4 April 30 1 30 10 
 
 2 May 29 3 30 1 
 6 June 28 6 29 3 
 
 4 July 27 8 28 6 
 1 August 26 1 26 1 1 
 
 5 September 26 11 27 8 
 10 October 30 10 31 8 
 14 November 28 6 29 3 
 5 December 28 6 29 3 
 
118 
 
 J814. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 5. 
 
 d. 
 
 2 January 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 to 28 
 
 per cwt 
 
 6 February 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 6 March 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 3 April 
 
 
 
 nil 
 
 
 8 May 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 8 
 
 5 June 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 3 July 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 7 August 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 30 
 
 I 
 
 4 September 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 2 October 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 6 November 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 4 December 
 
 26 
 
 11 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 1815. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 January 
 
 26 
 
 1 
 
 26 
 
 11 
 
 5 February 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 5 March 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 2 April 
 
 26 
 
 1 
 
 26 
 
 11 
 
 21 May 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 1 1 June 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 8 
 
 2 July 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 8 
 
 August 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 3 September 
 
 31 
 
 8 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 1 October 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 5 November 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 3 December 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 1816. 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 January 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 10 
 
 4 February 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 34- 
 
 
 
 3 March 
 
 31 
 
 8 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 7 April 
 
 34 
 
 10 
 
 35 
 
 7 
 
 5 May 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 16 June 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 7 July 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 3^ 
 
 10 
 
 4 August 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 15 September 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
119 
 
 1816, s. d. s. d. per cwt. 
 
 6 October 32 5 to 33 3 
 
 3 November 32 5 33 3 
 
 1 December 32 5 33 3 
 1817, 
 
 5 January 31 8 32 5 
 
 2 February 32 5 33 3 
 
 2 March 34 34 10 
 13 April 34 34 10 
 
 4 May 35 7 36 5 
 22 June 35 7 36 5 
 13 July 33 3 34 
 
 3 August 33 3 34 
 7 September 32 5 33 3 
 
 5 October 32 5 33 3 
 2 November 32 5 53 3 
 7 December 31 8 32 5 
 
 1818. 
 
 4 January 30 10 31 8 
 
 1 Feburary 34 34 10 
 
 1 March 34 34 10 
 19 April 37 2 38 
 
 3 May 37 2 38 
 7 June 34 34 16 
 
 5 July 32 5 33 3 
 
 2 August 32 5 33 3 
 
 6 September 30 1 30 10 
 
 4 October 30 10 31 8 
 1 November 30 10 31 8 
 6 December 32 5 33 3 
 
 1810. 
 3 January 
 
 34 34 10 
 
 7 February 34 34 10 
 
 7 March 34 34 10 
 
 4 April 37 2 38 O 
 
 2 May 3t 34 10 
 
V20 
 
 1819. 
 
 6 June 
 
 4 July 
 
 1 August 
 
 5 September 
 17 October 
 
 7 November 
 
 5 December 
 1820. 
 
 2 January 
 
 6 February 
 
 5 March 
 2 April 
 
 7 May 
 
 4 June 
 
 2 July 
 
 6 August 
 
 3 September 
 1 October 
 
 5 November 
 
 3 December 
 1821. 
 
 7 January 
 
 4 February 
 
 4 March 
 1 April 
 
 6 May 
 
 3 June 
 
 1 July 
 
 5 August 
 
 2 September 
 
 7 October 
 
 4 November 
 2 December 
 
 s. d. s. d. per cvvt, 
 
 32 5 to 33 3 
 
 33 3 34 
 32 5 33 3 
 
 34 34 10 
 34 34 10 
 34 lO 35 7 
 38 9 39 7 
 
 35 7 
 
 30 10 
 
 20 10 
 
 26 1 
 
 34 
 
 32 5 
 
 32 5 
 
 30 10 
 
 34 
 
 32 5 
 
 30 10 
 
 32 5 
 
 34 
 
 34 O 
 
 34 
 
 34 
 
 31 
 32 
 32 
 32 
 32 
 32 
 32 
 32 
 
 8 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 
 36 5 
 31 8 
 31 8 
 26 11 
 34 10 
 33 3 
 
 33 3 
 31 8 
 
 34 10 
 
 33 3 
 
 31 8 
 ^S 3 
 
 34 10 
 34 10 
 34 10 
 34 10 
 
 32 5 
 
 S3 
 33 
 33 
 33 
 33 
 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 
 33 3 
 
 33 3 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
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