第433页 / 共2651页

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.