to the difference of expence in bringing brandy and rum to market; and even were it equal, a further protection in the peculiar circumstances of this case, is still due to British produce. Of how little conse quence is it to the country, whether the sum annually expended by the Victualling Board be £20,000, more or less; and of how great consequence is it, both. to the country and to Government, that the West India planter should not be ruined! The object of Government should therefore be, to fix such a difference as shall afford a decided protection to rum over brandy. Perhaps the limitation of a shilling per gallon, has been dictated by an apprehension on the part of Government, that if the preference were greater, the rum merchants might combine to raise the terms of their tenders. The man of business who knows the impossibility of these combinations, in so extensive a field of commerce as Great Britain, will not of himself suspect that Government could give credit to the reality of their existence. But he will soon think otherwise, when he has perused the questions which are put to mercantile men in their examinations before Committees of our Legislature. In referring to the minutes of the Distillery Committee,* in January last, at a time when the West India Docks were loaded with above 80,000 hogsheads of sugar, he will find it asked of Mr. Craven, an eminent sugar refiner,

Whether the holders of sugar, are withholding it from the market?

* Page 12.

Answer. Certainly not; they hold it merely because they cannot sell it.

Again in the next page, we read in the questions to Mr. Cole and Mr. Kemble;

Ques. Do you conceive the sugars are withheld from the market?

Ans. By no means, I can vouch for that; if we had been able to sell any, we should have done it.

It is fair to conclude, that the Chairman put such questions as these, more from a deference to popular prejudice than from the result of any impression on his own mind. Little indeed must he know of the state of the sugar market, who conceives that any combination either does or can take place among the West-India Merchants. Their number is too great to admit of it, and it is much less their interest than superficial observers may imagine. In nine cases out of ten, the merchant is not the proprietor of the sugar he sells; his only object is to obtain the fair market price for his friend in the West-Indies, and to earn his own commission by doing justice to the interest of that friend. The planter is almost always in want of quick returns. Sugar is of no value to the merchant, except as the means of meeting the planter's wants-he converts it accordingly into money, as soon as he can do it without any improper sacrifice; and no man was ever known to keep sugar and refuse money when satisfied that the price offered was a fair one.

D 2

Exactly the same reasoning applies to rum. As to Government contracts, we may be assured that while they continue to be paid for in so short a time as ninety days, they will be served at the smallest possible profit; and that no man who is able to supply rum, will be withheld from tendering it on the very lowest terms at which he can afford it.

The consumption of rum in the Navy is important, because the Navy is of itself extensive. But it is still more important as conducive to promote the use of rum in preference to brandy in the wide sphere, throughout which the example of our Navy would gradually diffuse this preference.

The encouragement we have demanded for rum on the score of national profit is sanctioned by the yet more important consideration of national health. Our rum is mellowed by its long passage, and is now generally admitted to be the most wholesome of spirits. The Revenue also would gain largely by the substitution of rum for home made spirits, because the smuggling which is said to take place in regard to the latter, is impracticable in respect to the former.

Let us briefly compare the respective advantages to the country of a voyage to import rum, and of one to import brandy.

The importer of brandy charters a neutral vessel, which proceeds with simulated papers to Bordeaux

or Charente. She sails in ballast; for if a single article of British produce or manufacture were found on board on her arrival in France, the ship and cargo would be confiscated. She takes in her cargo and returns to Britain. The shipper of the cargo draws bills on the British merchant for its amount, and the master receives his freight in London, and remits it in a bill of exchange to his owners on the Contitinent. Let the reader judge in what degree the British manufacturer is benefited by this transaction. How differently is the national interest affected by a voyage to the West Indies for rum! In this case the ship, the seamen, and the owners are British. Their outward cargo consists of British manufactures, and the rum and sugar with which they return loaded, are also British. The planter abroad, the merchant, the manufacturer, the ship-owner at home, and above all the hardy seaman, respectively share the profits of this intercourse. Why should I waste words in expatiating on these indisputable advantages? The difficulty is not to convince the country of their extent, but to account for that insensibility to their value, which appear so long to have actuated GovernWho will maintain, that the trifling difference of thirteen pence a gallon, ought to induce us to turn our back on our own Colonies, and give the supply of our Navy to France?

ment.

Consequences of the Ruin of the British West Indies.

N so painful a part of my subject as this I shall

endeavour to be brief.

The papers subjoined in the Appendix present a view of the misery of the West-Indies, on which I presume that it would ill correspond with the feelings of my readers, to enlarge. Instead therefore of aggravating the melancholy picture, I shall confine myself to the consideration of the effects which such a combination of circumstances is calculated to produce.

I have already stated (see page 24,) that for the first seven years after 1798, the planter with all his exertions obtained only a small return on his capital; and that during the last two years he has obtained no return whatever.* Nay, while sugar continues as at present, at an average of 60s., the grower of inferior sugar sacrifices not only the interest of his capital, and the labour of himself and

* See an Account Sale of Sugar at present prices in the Appendix.