ར POLITICAL ESSAY ON THE [BOOK IV. Fortunately the introduction of negroes has not augmented in Mexico in the same proportion as the sugar produce. Although in the intendancy of Puebla, near Guautla de las Amilpas, there are plantations (haciendas de cana) which yield annually more than from twenty to thirty thousand arrobas (from 500,000 to 750,000 kilogrammes †) almost all the Mexican sugar is manufactured by Indians, and consequently by free hands. It is easy to foresee that the small West India Islands, notwithstanding their favourable position for trade, will not be long able to sustain a competition with the continental colonies, if the latter continue to give themselves up with the same ardour to the cultivation of sugar, coffee, and cotton. In the physical as well as in the moral world, every thing terminates in a return to the order prescribed by nature; and if small islands, of which the population was exterminated, have hitherto carried on a more active trade with their productions than the neighbouring continent, it is only because the inhabitants of Cumana, Cara *This produce is very considerable, and it is only to be found in a single plantation in the Island of Cuba, of the name of Rio Blanco, belonging to the Marquis del Arcos, between Xaruco and Matanzas, which annually produces 40,000 arrobas of sugar. There are not eight which yield for ten years in succession 35,000. † From 1,103,500 to 1,655,250 lb. avoird. Trans. cas, New Granada, and Mexico began very late to profit by the immense advantages derived by them from nature. But roused from a lethargy of many ages, freed from the shackles which a false policy imposed on the progress of agriculture, the Spanish colonies of the continent will gradually take possession of the different branches of the West India trade. This change, which has been prepared by the events of St. Domingo, will have the most fortunate issue in the diminution of the slave trade; and suffering humanity will owe to the natural progress of things what we had a right to expect from the wisdom of the European governments. Thus the colonists of the Havannah, well informed as to their true interests, have their eyes fixed on the progress of sugar cultivation in Mexico, and the coffee of the Caracas. They have long dreaded the rivalship of the continent, especially since the want of combustibles, and the excessive dearth of provisions, slaves, metallic utensils, and the necessary cattle, have considerably diminished the net revenue of the plantations. New Spain, besides the advantage of its population, has still another very important one in the enormous mass of capitals in the possession of the proprietors of mines, or in the hands of merchants who have retired from comIn order fully to feel the importance of this advantage, we must recollect that in merce. revenue. the island of Cuba, the establishment of a great sugar plantation, worked by 300 negroes, and yielding annually 500,000 kilogrammes * of sugar, requires an advance of two millions of livres tournois †, and that it brings in from 300,000 to 350,000+ livres of The Mexican colonist may choose along the coast, and in the valleys of greater or less depth, the most suitable climate for the sugar-cane; and he has less to fear from frost than the colonist of Louisiana. But the extraordinary configuration of the surface of New Spain throws great obstacles in the way of transporting sugar to Vera Cruz. The plantations now in existence are for the most part very remote from the coast opposite to Europe. The country having yet neither canals nor roads fit for carriage, the mule carriage of the sugar to Vera Cruz increases its price a piastre per arroba, or eight sous per kilogramme.§ These obstacles will be much diminished by the roads now making from Mexico to Vera Cruz by Orizaba and by Xalapa, along the eastern slope of the Cordilleras. It is also probable that the progress of colonial agriculture will contribute to people the shores of New Spain, * 1,103,500 lb. avoird. Trans. + 83,3401. sterling. Trans. From 12,500l. to 14,5817. sterling. Trans. § About 3d. per 2 lb. avoird. Trans. which for ages have remained desert and uncultivated. It is observed in Mexico, that the vezou, or juice expressed from the sugar cane is more or less sugary, according as the plant grows in the plain, or on an elevated table land. The same difference exists in the cane cultivated at Malaga, the Canary Islands, and the Havannah. The elevation of the soil every where produces the same effects on vegetation, as the difference of geographical latitude. The climate has also an influence on the proportion between the quantities of liquid and crystallizable sugar contained in the juice of the cane; for sometimes the vezou has a very sweet savour, and yet crystallizes with great difficulty. The chemical composition of the vezou is not always the same, and the excellent experiments of M. Proust have thrown great light. on the phenomena discoverable in the American sugar works, many of which are to the sugar refiner the cause of great despondency. From the most exact calculations that I could make at the island of Cuba, I find that a given hectare of ground yields for mean term 12 cubic metres of vezou, from which is drawn by the processes hitherto in use, in which much sugary matter is decomposed by fire, at most from ten to twelve per cent. or 1500 kilogrammes of raw sugar. They reckon at * * 3310 lb. avoird. Trans. the Havannah, and in the warm and fertile ¶ France drew from her Colonies in 1788 a total of 872,867 quintals of raw sugar, 768,566 of clayed sugar, and 242,074 of sucre téte.* Of this quantity, according to M. Peuchet, only 434 thousand quintals of refined sugar were consumed in the kingdom. We learn from the lists published during the ministry of M. Chaptal, that the importation of sugar amounted in France in the year 9, to 515,100 quintals. *Sucre téte or sucre de tête is that which is taken from the upper part or head of the conical pot or pan (forme) used in the making of clayed sugar. (Casaux sur l'Art de cultivez la Canner, p. 453.) Trans.. |