would be willing to pay the whole rent, profit,
and wages, necessary for preparing and
bringing them thither, according to the ordinary
rate, or according to the rate at which they
are paid in common vineyards. The whole
quantity, therefore, can be disposed of to those
who are willing to pay more, which necessarily
raises their price above that of common
wine. The difference is greater or less, according
as the fashionableness and scarcity of
the wine render the competition of the buyers
more or less eager. Whatever it be, the greater
part of it goes to the rent of the landlord.
For though such vineyards are in general
more carefully cultivated than most others,
the high price of the wine seems to be, not so
much the effect, as the cause of this careful
cultivation. In so valuable a produce, the
loss occasioned by negligence is so great, as
to force even the most careless to attention.
A small part of this high price, therefore, is
sufficient to pay the wages of the extraordinary
labour bestowed upon their cultivation,
and the profits of the extraordinary stock
which puts that labour into motion.
The sugar colonies possessed by the European
nations in the West Indies may be compared
to those precious vineyards. Their whole
produce falls short of the effectual demand of
Europe, and can be disposed of to those who
are willing to give more than what is sufficient
to pay the whole rent, profit, and wages,
necessary for preparing and bringing it to
market, according to the rate at which they
are commonly paid by any other produce. In
Cochin China, the finest white sugar generally
sells for three piastres the quintal, about
thirteen shillings and sixpence of our money,
as we are told by Mr Poivre[14], a very careful
observer of the agriculture of that country.
What is there called the quintal, weighs from
a hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris
pounds, or a hundred and seventy-five Paris
pounds at a medium, which reduces the price
of the hundred weight English to about eight
shillings sterling; not a fourth part of what
is commonly paid for the brown or muscovada
sugars imported from our colonies, and
not a sixth part of what is paid for the finest
white sugar. The greater part of the cultivated
lands in Cochin China are employed in
producing corn and rice, the food of the great
body of the people. The respective prices of
corn, rice, and sugar, are there probably in
the natural proportion, or in that which naturally
takes place in the different crops of the
greater part of cultivated land, and which recompenses
the landlord and farmer, as nearly
as can be computed, according to what is
usually the original expense of improvement,
and the annual expense of cultivation. But
in our sugar colonies, the price of sugar bears
no such proportion to that of the produce of
a rice or corn field either in Europe or America.
It is commonly said that a sugar planter
expects that the rum and the molasses should
defray the whole expense of his cultivation,
and that his sugar should be all clear profit.
If this be true, for I pretend not to affirm it,
it is as if a corn farmer expected to defray
the expense of his cultivation with the chaff
and the straw, and that the grain should be
all clear profit. We see frequently societies
of merchants in London, and other trading
towns, purchase waste lands in our sugar colonies,
which they expect to improve and cultivate
with profit, by means of factors and agents,
notwithstanding the great distance and
the uncertain returns, from the defective administration
of justice in those countries. Nobody
will attempt to improve and cultivate in
the same manner the most fertile lands of
Scotland, Ireland, or the corn provinces of
North America, though, from the more exact
administration of justice in these countries,
more regular returns might be expected.
In Virginia and Maryland, the cultivation
of tobacco is preferred, as most profitable, to
that of corn. Tobacco might be cultivated
with advantage through the greater part of
Europe; but, in almost every part of Europe,
it has become a principal subject of taxation;
and to collect a tax from every different farm
in the country where this plant might happen
to be cultivated, would be more difficult, it
has been supposed, than to levy one upon its
importation at the custom-house. The cultivation
of tobacco has, upon this account, been
most absurdly prohibited through the greater
part of Europe, which necessarily gives a sort
of monopoly to the countries where it is allowed;
and as Virginia and Maryland produce the
greatest quantity of it, they share largely,
though with some competitors, in the advantage
of this monopoly. The cultivation of tobacco,
however, seems not to be so advantageous
as that of sugar. I have never even
heard of any tobacco plantation that was improved
and cultivated by the capital of merchants
who resided in Great Britain; and our
tobacco colonies send us home no such wealthy
planters as we see frequently arrive from
our sugar islands. Though, from the preference
given in those colonies to the cultivation
of tobacco above that of corn, it would appear
that the effectual demand of Europe for tobacco
is not completely supplied, it probably
is more nearly so than that for sugar; and
though the present price of tobacco is probably
more than sufficient to pay the whole rent,
wages, and profit, necessary for preparing and
bringing it to market, according to the rate at
which they are commonly paid in corn land,
it must not be so much more as the present
price of sugar. Our tobacco planters, accordingly,
have shewn the same fear of the
superabundance of tobacco, which the proprietors
of the old vineyards in France have of