his majesty's subjects, very large quantities of fish and lumber would be thereby furnished by them for the supply of the British West India islands, the present ruinous contraband trade greatly interrupted, and a very beneficial carrying trade in the article of plaster of Paris in a great measure secured. Or if the Americans were dispossessed of these islands, there is no other situation in that neighbourhood which could give them the advantages and opportunities to injure the trade of this province which they now enjoy. To these considerations it may be added, that in case of hostilities at any time in the United States, or countenance given by them to hostile attacks from any other country, the province, by the possession of these islands, would, in that quarter, be rendered more secure from attack and capable of defence. Impressed with the importance of the foregoing considerations, We indulge the hope, that the transmission of this address by your honour to his majesty's ministers may be productive of important benefits to the interests and welfare of his majesty's subjects in this province. (Signed) G. D. Ludlow, Speaker of the Council. Presented in March, 1807. I No. VIII. REPORT of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Commercial State of the West India Islands. THE COMMITTEE, who were appointed to take into Consideration the Commercial State of the WEST INDIA COLONIES, and to report their Proceedings from Time to Time, to the House; and who were empowered to report the MINUTES of EVIDENCE taken before them; and to whom all Minutes of Evidence which were taken before the Committee in the last Session of Parliament, on the West India Planters' Petitions, together with their Proceedings, were referred ; HAVE, pursuant to the Order of the House, examined the Matter to them referred; and have agreed to the following REPORT. YOUR committee have thought it their duty, in the first place, to inquire into the situation of the West India planters at the present moment, and for several years preceding; and have examined va rious respectable witnesses, proprietors of estates, who have resided many years in the West Indies, and who have had the properties of several absentees under their management; and also many merchants intimately acquainted with the expences and profits of a great variety of estates, and generally conversant with the West India commerce. From their testimony it appears, that since the year 1799, there has taken place a progressive deterioration in the situation of the planters, resulting from a progressive diminution of the price of sugar, although at the same time the duty, and all the expences attending the cultivation, have been increasing, till at length the depression of the market has become such, that the prices obtained for the last year's crop will not pay the expence of cultivation, except upon estates on a very great scale, making sugar of a very superior quality, or enjoying other extraordinary advantages.-Calculations have been laid before your committee, from the accounts of estates both in Jamaica and the other islands; by which it appears, that the British supplies and island expences amount to 20s. 10d. in the former, and to Appen- 195. 6d. in the latter, on the cwt. of sugar, after accounting and giving credit for the amount received for the sale of rum. As these calculations are formed upon an average of years, and upon estates of the ordinary scale, and in no respects unusually circumstanced, it appears to your committee, that these sums per cwt. of sugar may be taken as the average expence of cultivation, independent, of interest upon the capital; and your committee are confirmed in this opinion by finding a similar calculation in the report made by the sugar distillery committee, in the last parliament. To this must be added an expence of from 15s. 6d. to 16s. per cwt. necessarily in dix. 1 curred for freight, insurance, and other mercantile charges, between the shipping the goods in the colonies, and their being offered to market in this kingdom, forming together an amount of from 355. to 36s. which appears, upon this evidence, to be the absolute cost to the planter per cwt. of sugar, before any return of capital can attach.-Upon a reference to the average prices published in the Gazette for the last eight months, which vary from 36s. to 315. giving a mean price of 33s. 6d., it appears evident that the planters must have cultivated their estates at a loss. The intereft which has been stated to your committee as what fhould be the fair profit upon a capital of fuch a nature as that of a fugar eftate, confisting not merely of land and negroes, but of buildings of great extent and coft, neceffary for the carrying on of fuch a manufacture, and subject to various and peculiar risks and viciffitudes, is not less than 10 per-cent. During the period of profperity previous to 1800, it is ftated, that in general the profits did not exceed that fum; and that, from that period, they have gradually diminished to 22 and 1 per cent. till, at the prefent moment, there is no return of interest whatever. It may perhaps be right to notice one exception, namely, of an eftate moft favourably circumftanced in every respect, where the profits are stated to have amounted, during the four years 1795, 1796, 1797, and 1798, to 12 per cent.; but they appear alfo to have declined ever fince; in 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804, to have been re- Appen duced to about 6 per-cent. and in 1805, to about 3 per-cent., and dix. fubfequently to have fuffered a ftill further reduction. In the course of their investigation of the fituation of the planters, your committee thought it right to ascertain whether it might not be in their own power, in many inftances, to remedy the evils of their fituation, by converting their sugar eftates to other more profitable cultivation; but the evidence on that point fhews, that fuch a converfion must be attended with fo great a facrifice of capital, as to be out of the queftion as a measure of relief. 1 With a view to the prospect for the future, they have obtained a return of the quantity of fugar at present in the Weft India Docks; from which, and from other evidence, it appears, that the quantity now on hand is unufually great for the time of year. The crop of the last year is alfo on the point of coming into the market. It fhould not be omitted further to ftate, that for many years paft the islands have almost entirely escaped the natural calamities (of hurricanes, &c.) which have occafionally proved deftructive to the property in those countries. In inveftigating the causes of that depreffion of the market, from whence the whole of the planter's distress appears to originate, the firft object which strikes your committee, is that extraordinary fituation in which he is placed, which prevents him alone (in exception to every other fimilar cafe) from indemnifying himself for the increase of duty, and of other expences attending his cultivation, by an equivalent increase of price to the confumer. For it appears, that fince the year 1799, the duty on fugar has been raised from 20s. to 275. and contingently to 30s. per cwt.; the expences of the eftates are. calculated to have arifen, in many articles 50, and in others above 12 100 per-cent.; and the price has fallen from 695. to 335. 6d. per cwt. the average of the laft 8 months. As it appears obvious, from the above statement, that the duty is heavier than the article can bear at its prefent price, it is fuggefted that it might be expedient, for the relief of the home market, to extend the principle which has been adopted on the contingent increafe of duty from 275. to 30s.; fo that from the maximum of duty then fixed, on a grofs price of 80s. affording 305. duty, and 50s. to the planter, the duty fhould be thrown back on a fimilar scale in proportion to the depreffion of the market, till the price arrives at 60s. grofs, leaving 20s. (the original duty) to government, and 40s. to the planter; or, in other words, a reduction of 15. of duty on a reduction of 25. grofs price, from the average then fixed for the impofition of the new duty, as far as 20s. An increase of the bounty on the export has been also recommended; and your committee are of opinion, that it would afford great relief if given as an accompaniment to measures of restriction upon neutrals, fo as to render the expences on British and foreign produce equal in the foreign market. A confiderable depreciation in the price of rum having alfo taken place, it has been fuggested, that the encouragement of the consumption of that article would be a confiderable advantage to the planter. Your committee are aware that fuch encouragement has been given to a certain extent, but if it were found practicable to carry that affiftance further, by an increafed confumption in the army and navy, uch a measure would, in their opinion, have very beneficial effects; or a reduction of duty on rum might afford effential relief to the planter, without loss to the revenue, which would be indemnified by an increased consumption of that spirit. Great, however, as are the evils of the decrease of price and increase of charges, it does not appear to your committee, that they are the original caufes of the diftrefs of the planter, by applying to which alone any practicable remedy he could be more than partially relieved; but that the main evil, and that to which thefe are ultimately to be referred, is the very unfavourable state of the foreign market, in which formerly the British merchant enjoyed nearly a monopoly, but where he cannot at present enter into competition with the planters, not only of the neutral, but of the hoftile colo nies. The refult of all their inquiries on this most important part of the fubject have brought before their eyes one grand and primary evil, from which all the others are easily to be deduced; namely, the facility of intercourfe between the hoftile colonies and Europe, under the American neutral flag, by means of which not only the whole of their produce is carried to a market, but at charges little exceeding thofe of peace; while the British planter is burthened with all the inconvenience, risk, and expence, refulting from a ftate of war. The advantages, which the hoftile colonies derive from the relaxation ofat principle, which prohibited any trade from being carried on with the enemy's colonies by neutrals during war, which the enemy Appen- himself did not permit to thofe neutrals during peace, may be in part eftimated by reference to a statement of the imports into Amfterdam alone from the United States of America in the year 1806, amount ing to 34,085 hhds. of coffee, and 45,097 hhds. of fugar, conveyed in dix. 211 vessels hereunto annexed; and to a statement, also annexed, of the amount of Weft India produce, exported from the United States of America, between the 1ft October 1805 and 30th September 1806.-In point of comparative expence, the advantages of the hoftile colonies will be further illuftrated by the evidence of Mr. Marryat, fupported by fatisfactory documents, which fhew the charges of freight and infurance on fugar from the hoftile colonies, through the United States of America, to the ports of Holland and Flanders, and to thofe of the Mediterranean, to be lefs by 8s. 11d. to the former, and by 12s. 6d. to the latter, than those charges on British sugars to the fame ports. Your committee cannot omit to ftate, alfo, another important advantage enjoyed by the French colonies, arifing from the fale of nearly the whole French mercantile marine to neutrals, under the ftipulation of each veffel being returned into French ports, in order to be navigated as French fhips, within twelve months after peace, and with the enjoyment, during war, of the fame privileges in the ports of France as if they were actually French; for inftance, to import fugar at a duty of 45. per cwt. lefs than the duty imposed on fugar imported in neutral veffels. In order to counterbalance, in fome degree, the advantages thus enjoyed by the hoftile colonies, to the detriment of the British planter, it has been recommended, that a blockade of the ports of the enemy's fettlements should be reforted to: fuch a measure, if it could be frictly enforced, would undoubtedly afford relief to our export trade. But a measure of more permanent and certain advantage would be the enforcement of thofe reftrictions on the trade between neutrals and the enemy's colonies, which were formerly maintained by Great Britain, and from the relaxation of which, the enemy's colonies obtain indirectly, during war, all the advantages of peace; while our own colonies, in the intercourfe with whom that fyftem of monopoly which has been held effential to the commercial and military navy of this country is rigorously enforced, are deprived of the advantages under which, in former wars, they carried their produce to the foreign markets, and which in the prefent war, by means of our decided naval fuperiority, would have amounted to the exclufive fupply of the whole of Europe; and when thofe extraordinary measures are taken into confideration which have been adopted to exclude the British colonial produce from the European market, it appears to your committee to be a matter of evident and imperious neceffity to refort to fuch a fyftem, as by impeding and reftricting, and, as far as poffible, preventing the export of the produce of the enemy's colonies from the places of its growth, fhall compel the continent to have recourse to the only fource of fupply, which, in that event, would be open to it. As it may be apprehended, that from the adoption of fuch measures, difficulties might arife in that intercourfe, from which the Weft Indies at present derive a confiderable proportion of fome of their fupplies, your committee have thought it their duty to make inquiry into the refources in that refpect to which recourse might be had in such an event. During the only period which affords an example |