barley fetches a fair price, and when sugar sells below prime cost? The If the landed interest are averse to any permanent law in favour of the use of sugar in the distillery, let them grant at least a temporary relief. West Indian demands no continued preference-he calls for aid only in the hour of his adversity. He will relinquish his claim when sugar shall have risen to a fair price; or he will relinquish it, were barley, from whatever cause, to fall to that rate, which may place the profits of the farmer and the planter on an equal footing. But, if the landholder considers the prohibition of distillation from malt as detrimental to his interest, let him procure the repeal of the law which limits the exportation of provisions to the West Indies. The intention of this law is to keep down the price of provisions at home; and its abrogation cannot be demanded by the landed interest, unless that demand be accompanied by a concession on their part. The patriotic colonist will gladly receive from his fellow-subjects, that supply which he now obtains from America. To adopt the words of the author of a work, to which I have already alluded *. Surely a regulation which would at once attain. all these objects, is highly desirable; and as it would * Concessions to America, page 20. E not throw corn out of consumption, as is generally supposed, but merely throw the consumption of it into a new channel, and establish an additional intercourse mutually advantageous between the West India colonies and the mother country, it is well worthy the serious attention of the legislature. When it is further recollected, that during the thirteen years ending in 1804, Great Britain, according to documents laid before parliament, paid more than thirty millions of money for foreign corn; her supply of which now depends on her enemy, who holds those countries under his controul from which four-fifths of it were received, it becomes expedient as a measure of general policy, independent of any particular consideration due to the interests of the West India Planter, to use timely precaution against that deficiency of this indispensable necessary of life, which judging of the future by the past, we must expect again to experience." 11. The next expedient proposed for the relief of our West-India Colonies, is to interrupt the intercourse at present carried on with Europe, by the French and Spanish Colonies, through the medium of neutral flags. The French colonial laws, like our's, restrict the trade of their colonies to the mother country. So far back as 1717, the exportation of the produce of the * See Appendix D. French West-India islands, elsewhere than to France, was positively prohibited, or to use their own language, très expressément defendu. All the subsequent regulations during the old monarchy, were to the same effect. And even in the zenith of revolutionary enthusiasm, the national Convention passed an Act, dated 21st of September, 1793, "confirming these restrictive laws in all their tenor."+ Soon after this Act, the French West-India colonies were taken possession of by us, but no sooner were they restored by the peace of Amiens, than the monopoly was again rigorously enforced, by a decree dated 16th of May, 1802. In a twelvemonth afterwards the war was renewed. France was then in possession of her colonies; but she had no means of monopolizing their commerce. England covered the seas with her ships, while not a single French vessel durst appear on the ocean. Talleyrand, more profound than his republican predecessors, suggested to his master the policy of permitting America to carry on that traffic with the colonies, of which France was incapable. His advice was immediately adopted, and sanctioned by a decree of the 19th of June, 1803. Never was there a bargain more advantageous to both contracting parties. The West-Indies afford America a market for her corn, her flour, her beef, her fish, her lumber. They repay these stores in sugar, coffee, rum, and other articles, the produce * Concessions to America, page 26. of a tropical climate. All the importations of America from the West-Indies are useful for foreign trade, or domestic consumption; and none of them interfere with the produce of her own soil. The advantages to France were still more conspicuous. Unable herself to send out stores for the cultivation of her colonies, it was important that she should find another country to undertake the supply. The accommodation was doubled, if this power could also bring home the produce to the mother country. The injury which would be caused to the British colonies, by the cheap conveyance of French and Spanish produce to the European market, could not escape the penetrating mind of Talleyrand. All that the French government could have predicted or have hoped, has followed from this measure. Their own colonies are cultivated and improved by American stores; the same vessels carry back their produce to America, whence it is shipped to Europe; France and her dependencies are supplied with as much ease as if they were at peace; and what is infinitely more pernicious to us, the produce of the British colonies is excluded from the Continent by the cheapness of the produce of our enemies,-a cheapness caused by its conveyance under neutral flags, which cross the ocean at peace charges, while our own navigation is subject to all the burdens of war. Of the extent to which the American traffic with Europe, in the produce of the French and Spanish 5 colonies, is carried, some idea may be formed by the following facts. Last year, 211 sail of American vessels entered the port of Amsterdam alone with cargoes amounting to 34,000 hogsheads of coffee, and 45,000 hogsheads of sugar.* It has been acknowledged in the Senate of the United States, that the amount of West India produce annually re-exported, was seven millions sterling. The probability is, that it much exceeds this sum, for it would appear from their official returns, that the proportion of West India produce exported by their three great maritime States alone, (Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania,) scarcely falls short of the amount assigned to the whole. No wonder that the produce of the British colonies imported under all the disadvantages of war, should be unable to face so formidable a competition in the Continental markets. The author of the Inquiry into the State of the Nation, has endeavoured to show the impolicy of interrupting this trade, but before proceeding to maintain that side of the question, he gives a statement of the arguments alledged in favour of its interruption. This statement is as follows. "It is in vain, (the supporters of the belligerent rights contend,) that England conquers the French Report of the West-India Committee in July, 1807, page 14. + Concessions to America, page 8. 1bid. page 39. Inquiry into the State of the Nation, page 182. |