ABSTRACT
The idea, to be sure, had been present in the seventeenth century and had found expression in the preferential duties imposed by England in 1657 on British grown sugar. The desire for more protection was the result of the extensive trade between British subjects and foreign sugar settlements. The alarm among the British planters aronsed by the trade with the foreigners was occasioned as much by the sale of English manufactures for French sugar as by the vending of Northern produce for French molasses. The chapter discusses the trade between British West India merchants and the foreign settlements. The Board of Trade, in 1716, referred the question of the legality of trade with the foreign West Indies to the consideration of the Commissioners of the Customs. The British revenue had been defrauded of the double duty on foreign sugar and the price of sugar in England had been depressed.
