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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A81274 The case of His Majesties sugar plantations. 1677 (1677) Wing C919A; ESTC R173523 2,259 4

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THE CASE OF HIS MAJESTIES Sugar Plantations BEfore England had any Sugar Plantations of its own Portugal had about Four Hundred Thousand Pounds per Annum for Sugar from England to the great Inriching of Portugal and Impoverishing of England The Portugeeze having set High Customs upon their Sugars and letting none Trade at Brasil but themselves gave the English Encouragement to Adventure upon Planting it who have so increased that they not only Supply England with all the Sugar it wants whereby 400000 l. paid Portugal formerly for Sugar is saved but great Quantities of Sugars have been Transported to Foreign Markets to the vast increase of the Wealth of the Kingdom and by consequence the value of the Lands of England In the Trade to the English Sugar Plantations about 400 Sail of English Ships and 8000 Seamen are annually Employed All the Ships that go from England are Loaden with Manufactures and Provisions for the Supply of the Plantations with Cloaths Tools and Utensils and Victual which all pay Custom to the King outward and on which many Families in England do subsist The Planters have at their Cost brought above 100000 Negroes from Affrica whereby so many New Subjects are added to the Crown The French King taking Notice of the great Wealth and Strength the Sugar Plantations bring to the Kingdom of England and also of the difficulties the English Plantations are under by reason of the Acts of Trade and Navigation which enjoyning all the Sugars of the English Plantations to be brought home to England and there to be Landed and pay the King a Custom before it can be Transported to any Forreign Markets which is a great Charge hath thought it feazible and with great Application hath set himself to become Master of that Trade and the Dutch have done the same and granting more ease to their Planters in producing and disposing of their Sugars than the English have the French are so far increased that their Sugar Plantations which are Martinico Guadeloupe Marigalant Grenados St. Christophers Kayan and part of Hispaniola do already find an Employment for Two hundred Sail of Ships and Seamen proportionable andare increasing daily And the Dutch have already many Ships annually Loaden with Sugar from Surinam which they make a Business of State to Improve This Increase of the Sugar Trade of the French and Dutch hath brought those Sugars that were worth between 5 and 6 l. the Hundred Weight when the last Book of Rates was made to be worth now not above 35 s. out of which the Planter pays 5 s. Custom and 4½ per Hundred to the King in the Plantations insomuch that an Estate that was formerly worth 2000 l. per Annum in the Plantations is not now worth 600 l. per Annum and if any further Imposition be laid will yield little or nothing to the undoing many Thousand English Families many of which reside in England for which Reason the Planters intended to have Address'd to this Parliament for reducing the Book of Rates to the present Value of Sugars This low Value of the Commodity causes the Inhabitants of the English Colonies to forsake them and remove to other places whilst the King of France useth all Imaginable Industry to strengthen and fill his Plantations some of which are in sight of ours with Inhabitants having made Dunkirk a Free Port for his own Sugars where no Customs are paid in or out by reason of which the Markets of Flanders and Holland c. are furnished with French Sugars at 2 s. 6 d. per Hundred cheaper than the English can by reason of the Acts of Trade and Navigation This Increase of the Strength of the French Plantations and decrease of the English hath made many of the Planters consider of with-drawing their Stocks for fear if a War should happen with France all would be lost The English Sugar Trade being apparently decaying under the present Impositions upon Sugar can by no means bear more and subsist and it is of great advantage to France to have our Plantations ruined by more Impositions on their Sugars for should the French gain the Sugar Trade from the English England would lose the Imployment of 400 Sail of Ships and 8000 Seamen and France would gain it which would differ the present Ballance of Seamen 16000 besides the loss of a Native Commodity that hath brought so much Wealth to the Kingdom and would also be the loss of the Trade of Africa for Negro's It hath been ever the Practice and Policy of Trading Nations to set the Publick Taxes on Foreign Commodities and not those of their own growth In the time of the Usurper Cromwell when all things were raked into to find a Revenue to support his Usurpation no Excise was put on Sugars of the growth of the English Plantations England is an Island whose Wealth and Strength consists in Trade which cannot be preserved but by being Master at Sea and the Plantation Trade is near one half of the Navigation of England and whether it be so convenient to hazard the loss of it by over-burthening it since an Imposition may be set on Commodities of Foreign growth that will be equivalent is humbly submitted And whereas some seem to be of Opinion that an Imposition will fall upon the Buyer only and not hurt the Planter it is a Mistake for the Reasons following For it was found by Experience in the time of the late Rebellion when there was an Excise imposed the Buyer refused to buy Commodities of the Importer unless he would clear the Excise so that the Importer came generally to pay the Excise as well as the Customs And it is well known that all Commodities are in Value as there is a greater or lesser quantity of them at the Market If the Imposition doth not lessen the quantity of Sugar imported it cannot raise the price and then by consequence the Imposition must be born wholly by the Planter If it doth lessen the quantity of Sugar imported it lessens the Imployment of our Shipping and Seamen and the Kings Revenue and will constrain those Planters who are forced to leave Making Sugar to forsake the Plantations as having no Imployment there which will so weaken them of Defendants as they will be in hazard to become a prey to the French or their own Negro's which will be a total loss of that Trade to this Kingdom and be the ruin of many Thousand English Families vvho in England and the Plantations subsisted by that Trade of making Sugar or by furnishing Cloaths Tools and Utensils FINIS