Page images
PDF
EPUB

brought to such a state, that the sacrifice of many persons is the only means of reestablishing the general welfare.

The explanation which we have offered of the present distresses, founded on well known facts, and supported by the evidence of the West India body themselves, derives a remarkable confirmation from considering a part of the subject, not discussed in any of their pamphlets or reports. They confine their attention entirely to the state of the sugar trade; and our remarks have hitherto applied chiefly to that branch of the question. It may be asked, therefore, why the same difficulties are not felt by the growers of the other staples? And, in answering this questien, we shall find, that every one of the positions formerly advanced rests upon additional proef.

Before the French revolution, no great supply of coffee was received from the British colonies. Jamaica, and the ceded islands, alone cultivated this staple. In Jamaica, however, the culture was increasing with considerable rapidity, having more than doubled in fifteen years, ending 1789. Dominica had increased somewhat; and Grenada had fallen off greatly. The coffee exported from the British islands had, upon the whole, decreased; so that Great Britain did not import 33,000 cwt. in 1788, while, on an average of five years, ending 1775, she imported 52,000. But the reduction of duty in 1783, so much encouraged the Jamaica planters, that before the year 1792 the whole British importation stood much higher than it had ever done. At all times, coffee has been an article but little used in this country; and more than nineteen twentieths of the quantity imported was destined for the Continental market. During this period, however, the coffee culture was increasing rapidly in the Frenca colonies. St Domingo, which in 1770 did not export above 50,000 cwt., had increased its exportation tenfold in 1786. In 1789 it exported 760,000 cwt.; and the crop of 1792 was expected to be 800,000 cwt. The total average export of coffee from all the French islands, before 1785, was 600,000 cwt.; so that the annual export of coffee from the French colonies, previous to 1792, must be estimated at above 900,000 cwt. The whole remaining export of this article, from all the other colonies, did not probably exceed 150,000 cwt. So rapidly was the supply of this produce augmented, and so great a part of the whole quantity was furnished by St Domingo. The consump

*

L. 3

tion

* Sir W. Young states the exportation of St Domingo, in 1788, at 320,000 cwt. (p. 74) evidently from fome mistake. The above fums are taken from the report of the Committee of Aflembly in Jamaica, 1792; and the remarks of Mr Vaughan, inferted in Bryan Edwards, B. V. c. 4.-The official returns to the Legislative Affembly of France, make the exportation, 1791, above 680,000 cwt., although the rebellion broke out in Auguft of that year.

tion of coffee, however, increased in proportion; and, in 1791, its price stood at 70s. per cwt. The destruction of St Domingo took above seven tenths of the whole supply out of the European market; and the price immediately rose to 90s. The emigration of the French planters, and the new encouragements to speculation offered to our own, by the rise of price, accelerated the increase of this culture in Jamaica. In five years (the time required for the maturity of the coffee plant), the produce of that island had increased sevenfold; and, in 1805, it exported 190,000 cwt. The foreign colonies have been increasing their coffee planting during the same period; but it is manifest, that the blank occasioned by the loss of St Domingo has not yet been filled up; for the average import of this country for 1804 and 1805 was no more than 308,000 cwt., though it included the produce of all the coffee colonies except Martinico, Guadaloupe and Cuba, in which last, the sugar cultivation has very far outstripped that of coffee; and the average importation from the same colonies, in 191, cannot be taken at less than 100,000 cwt.; so that the total increase of coffee in those settlements, where the principal efforts have been made to fill up a blank of 760,000 cwt., does not amount to more than 208,000 cwt. in 1805. * Accordingly, the price of coffee, in that year, was 61. per cwt. in the British market, exclusive of duty. As the supply, however, is rapidly augmenting (Jamaica alone having, it is said, coffee walks suflicient speedily to produce 400,000 cwt.), and as considerable obstacles have lately been thrown in the way of our exportation to the Continent, it is certain that this price is on the decline. Indeed, it has fallen, since 1805, to 90 or 95s.

From these details, it is manifest, that the coffee and sugar planter have suffered so very differently from the excessive progress of West India agriculture, since the destruction of St Domingo, merely because that event diminished the whole supply of those two staples in a very different proportion. It is also obvious, that no other cause exists, for the distresses of the sugar trade, than the glut of the whole market of the world, otherwise the coffee trade would have suffered also, We find, on the contrary, that the exportation of coffee has been increasing rapidly to the present time, notwithstanding a duty not drawn back. Yet the Americans carry coffee to the continental markets + much cheaper than we can do'; and those who ascribe the stoppage of

Our

*In the year ending September 1806, the Americans, according to their official returns, carried to Europe about 420,000 cut. of coffee, Ecing nearly the whole crop of the enemy's iflands. Admitting that half of this was clear increase fince the revolution (which is much above the truth), there remains a deficit of 340,000 cwt.

See laft Note.

our sugar exports to our being undersold by the neutral flags, must be sensible that coffee should, on their principles, be as much a drug as sugar. Further, it is clear, that the abolition of the slave trade having been carried into effect before the coffee market had been in any degree glutted, there is no danger of the coffee planter falling into the same situation with the sugar planter. Finally, as the deficiency in the supply occasioned by the revolution, has not yet been filled up, there is room for employing, in coffee planting, some of the negroes now engaged in sugar plantations; and as a great proportion of the capital vested in West India estates, consists of the value of the slaves, an opportunity' is thus left of obtaining, for this valuable property, something like its fair price.

It is unnecessary to enter into similar details respecting the cotton trade. The demand for manufactures having increased prodigiously while the growth of cotton was making a rapid progress, especially in the Dutch and Portuguese colonies, and in Georgia, the price of the raw article has kept up, until last year, when, from the obstacles thrown in the way of our trade, the cotton manufacture began to experience, in common with the other branches of industry, the practical evils of a general war.

ART. X. Poems. By the Rev. J. Mant, M. A. 8vo. London. 1806.

AMONG the many injuries inflicted on the human intellect by the wits (for in truth they did not deferve the name of poets), who flourished' in the reign of Charles the Second, none was more permanent in its effects, than the total forgetfulnefs of that ftyle of poetry which delineates the beauties of the country, and the enjoyment of rural happinefs. Few of the inferior topics, however, are fo interefting as this; and, to evince how natural it is to love even the plaineft defcription of pleafing and familiar objects, we need only appeal to the popularity fo long enjoyed by that dulleft of all poflible poems, the ingenious Mr Pomfret's Choice.' It is however true, that though all the 'gentlemen who wrote with eafe,' and rhyming perfons of honour' of that and the preceding age, occafionally thought it neceffary to write paftorals, and to exprefs their love of folitude and rural retirement, yet, by far the greater part knew nothing at all of what they profefled to admire; and, when fent by debts into the country, confidered it only as a horrible banifhment among parfons and favages. Their poetical predeceffors had no greater delight than in painting by words, and prefenting to their readers a highly coloured image of thofe fublime natural phenomena which

L 4

which the town-bred bards, whose idea of a mountain was acquired at Richmond, and who knew nothing of rural beauties but a haycock and a fyllabub, had neither enthufiafm to imagine, or fufficient knowledge of the subject to defcribe. Their paftorals, accordingly, are merely imitations of the worst parts of Virgil; and, instead of real nature, are filled with fauns and fatyrs which exift no where, or with love and politics which may be had any where.

They seem never to have fufpected, that a lover might despair in Moorfields as well as in Arcadia; and that the stockjobbers at Garraway's, were at least as hearty as the fwains of Trent, in their regret for King William's death. Nor did those who, like Philips and Gay, were really accurate obfervers of rural manners, at all admire or comprehend what were, properly fpeaking, ru

ral beauties.

The grand and pervading fault, however, of the poets of the early part of the last century, is the indiftinctnefs of their drawing, and the want of picturefque grouping. Milton and Spencer paint the landscapes they defcribe. Their distances are really indiftinct; nor, when Milton defcribes towers and battlements,

'bofom'd high in tufted trees,'

does he defcribe the accurate form, or enter into a detail of their windows and furniture. Pope, on the other hand, and the author of Grongar Hill, (by no means the most feeble in their style of poetry), give rather a dry catalogue of beauties, than a reprefentation of their general effect. Light and fhade are disregarded; and they defcribe alike the foreground and the horizon with all the monotonous glare of a Chinese screen.

Thomson was perhaps the firft who restored the ancient perception of the more ftriking features of nature, and brought back to our island a knowledge of her own beauties. Yet his times had fo much remaining of bad taste and bad habits, that even Thomfon had little opportunity to defcribe the more remote and sublimer landfcape. The country was ftill confidered rather as a threat to difobedient wives, than a defireable refidence; and the defcription of a moor or a waterfall would be little understood or relished by the frequenters of Hampton Court, or thofe who lif tened with fo much delight to the nightingales at Vauxhall. Goldsmith contributed, perhaps, even more than Thomson, to reftore good taste in this inftance; and Cowper, perhaps, poffeffed it more than either., Yet, while we admire his powers of defcription, we must always lament thofe unfortunate circumstances, which doomed the eye of a real poet to reft on the flat and unmeaning paftures of Buckinghamshire. He may, however, be faid to have blown the enchanted horn; and all the ladies of hills, of woods, and of waters, were immediately in motion. Wealthy clergymen

1

clergymen began to walk in their forefts; village curates to gather dandelions; and philofophers to mourn and moralyze, and murmur over ponds three feet long, and two feet wide.' On the whole, we may be perhaps allowed to doubt, whether the advantages of a more accurate obfervation of nature, have not been counterbalanced, as well by the devouring flight of tourists, as by the equally annoying, and, now, equally periodical vifitation of tame or forced, or filly defcriptions of rural scenery, rural manners, or rural enjoyments.

Amid fo much to difguft us, we are difpofed, perhaps, to make large allowances, and to turn with real pleasure to the productions of a man of cultivated tafte and unaffected, who, without the microscopic eye of fome of our poetical Leuenhocks, is ftill an accurate obferver of nature, and who feels what he writes, without profeffing to write from his feeling.

I more fafely like the bee
Who, in pleasant Chamouny,
Roams the piny wood, or kims
Near her hive the liquid ftreams,
Studious of the fcented thyme ;
Weave with care my fimple rhyme.
Simple, yet fweet withal to thefe

Whom most I love, and moft would pleafe.'

Mr Mant's principal fault is an extraordinary occafional feeblenefs, which fometimes entirely fpoils the effect of what would elfe be pleasing description.

[ocr errors]

With fome exceptions of this kind, the Sunday Morning' has great merit as an imitation of the golden age of English poetry. It is painful, however, to have our courfe ftopt in such a poem, by being defired,

Returning home, to mufe

On fweet and folemn views. '

-which may be an extract from a sermon, as the following is undoubtedly from a village epitaph,

I hear a voice which speaks to me,

And burn with zeal to follow thee. '

We were much pleased with the Inscription in an Arbour,' which is remarkably free from that neglect of perspective which we have censured in the works of many superior poets.

But if the thrufh, with warbling clear,

Or whiftling blackbird charm thine ear,-
Or rooks that fail with folemn found
Duly their native pines around,-
Or murmuring bee, or bleating fhrill
Of lambkin, from the fheltering hill.-
If thine eye delight to rove
Q'er hazel copfe, and birchen grove,

Sunny

« PreviousContinue »