ABSTRACT
The lands of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands were almost entirely cultivated and, except for Jamaica, practically no virgin soil remained in the British West Indies. Three tendencies unfavorable to the British West Indies grew out of the situation: freight rates increased, Northern supplies became more expensive, and the total loss of the North American market for English sugar, molasses, and rum became imminent. The royal revenues were being cheated to an untold extent by the non-payment of export duty in the West Indies, of enumeration dues on intercolonial trade in sugar and molasses, and of the duty on foreign sugar entering England. The excessively heavy duties on the export trade of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands must have been an additional temptation to many a shipper to smuggle in the cheaper French sugar. The occupation of all the land for sugar culture had seriously diminished the raising of provisions and meat.
