stretch forth their Hands and to lay them upon us in those remote Parts they having made an Act which is dutifully obeyed That all Sugars that go to the Plantations aforesaid shall pay the said Duty of eighteen pence and sive shillings at the Places from whence they are exported So that now we have no way to avoid any part of the Burden Which also is a grievous Clog to our Commerce with those Plantations The Burden of the Duties paid before Exportation is then most sensible and seems to press hardest upon us when the Goods for which we have paid them are lost at Sea. Which sometimes happens before our faces if the Hurricane catch the Ships before they sail We therefore thought it not unreasonable to expect the same favour that Merchants in the like case have in England and other places to Ship off the like Quantity Custom free And we prepared and pass'd an Act for that purpose which we also transmitted to England humbly hoping that we should sind no difficulty in obtaining the Royal Assent But by it we incurr'd very great displeasure and our Act was not only disallowed whereby it became of no effect but we were commanded expresly to repeal it which we did with Hearts full of Sorrow MOREOVER there are divers things whereby our Condition is made worse than it was in former Times and which make us less able to bear these Impositions Of which Things I shall name some sew Heretofore we could Ship off our Goods at any Port or Bay or Creek and at any time either by day or by night But now since the Kings Restauration we must do it at those Times and Places only at which the Collectors of the Customs please to attend Heretofore we might send our Commodities to any part of the World. But now we must send them to England and to no Place else By which means the whole Trade of Sugars to the Streights to say nothing of other Places is lost both to Us and to the English Nation For by multiplying our Charge others can undersell us We hear of a certain old Law in Scotland Markets before they might Ship them off And surely if they had studied seven years for a Law to destroy their Fishing Trade they could not have found one more effectual In the like manner it may be truly affirmed that the bringing all Sugars to the English Market hath gone a great way in destroying that Trade As for confining the Plantation Trade to English Ships and English Men though it be to our particular Loss for the Dutch were very benesicial to us yet we took it in good part in regard our great and dear Mother of England hath by it such vast Advantages But that English Ships and English Men should not be permitted to trade to their best convenience and profit is a thing we cannot understand The great End and Design of Trade as to the Publick is to get the soreign Money and such means should be used as do most conduce to that End. Heretofore the things we wanted were brought to us from the Places where they might best be had But now we must have them from England and from no other Place Had we been confined to England only for those Things that England doth produce we should have been well contented But that we must fetch from England the Things that are produced elsewhere seems very hard we are sure it makes the Prices excessive to us HERETOFORE we might send to Guiney for Negroes when we wanted them and they stood us in about seven pound a Head. The Account is short and plain For they cost about the value of forty shillings a Head in Guiney and their freight was five pound for every one that was brought alive and could go over the Ship side But now we are shut out of this Trade and a Company is put upon us from whom we must have our Negroes and no other way A Company of London Merchants have got a Patent excluding all others to furnish the Plantations with Negroes some great Men being joyned with them with whom we were not able to contend But those great Men might have had some better Exercise for their Generosity than the pressing too hard upon we must not say oppressing industrious People And now we buy Negroes at the price of an Engross'd Commodity the common Rate of a good Negro on Ship board being twenty pound And we are forced to scramble for them in so shameful a Manner that one of the great Burdens of our Lives is the going to buy Negroes But we must have them we cannot be without them and the best Men in those Countries must in their own Persons submit to the Indignity There never want fair Pretences for the foulest Monopolies But what do they pretend for this They will tell you that to the common Good and Benefit of the English Nation they can deal with the People of Africa to much better advantage by being a Company And so they might if they could shut out other Nations But since the Dutch French Danes Swedes and others trade thither and they can shut out none but the poor English their being a Company as to their dealing with the Natives signifies nothing And it plainly appears that 't is not upon the People of Africa but upon the English Planters in America that they make their advantage They will also tell you of the necessity of Forts and Garrisons and that a Company was therefore necessary But these might have been made and maintain'd without a Company by an Imposition upon Negroes sold or some such Tax to which the Plantations would cheerfully have submitted It may well be imagin'd no it cannot be imagin'd how the Company and their Agents Lord it over us having us thus in their power And if any offer at the Trade beside themselves they make such Examples of them that few dare follow them If they catch us at Guiney they use us downright as Enemies And at home we are drag'd into the Admiralty Courts and condemned in a trice there is not such speedy Justice in all the World. And the word is that we are found Prize or condemn'd as Prize as if we were Forrainers taken in open War. They have got a trick of late to bring Interlopers within the acts of Navigation or Trade which are the severe Acts about Plantations But even in this case we are brought into the Admiralty what ever the Law says to the contrary Nor doth it avail us to plead that all Offences against Statutes must be tryed by Jury The Forfeitures of the Acts before-named which are never less than Ship and Goods are given to the King the Governour and the Informer The Governour in these Matters sits chief Judge of the Court I am sure Dutton did in his time The Company 's Agents who are the Informers or some Servant in their behalf sit with him and as soon as Sentence is given they divide the
Spoyle And what ever becomes of the Kings share we may be sure the Pains takers will not lose theirs But the while the Kings Subjects in those Parts are in a blessed Condition They contemn the Laws against Monopolies and they tell us that the Laws of England are not in force among us in this Matter though they are in all things else save only where our own Special Laws do make some difference Of all the Things we have occasion for Negroes are the most necessary and the most valuable And therefore to have them under a Company and under a Monopoly whereby their prices are more then doubled nay almost trebled cannot but be most grievous to us Many an Estate hath been sunk and many a Family hath been ruin'd by the highprices they give for Negroes One would think that while we were under such a Company there were little need of Impositions to undo us These Duties and these Hardships we have lain under during the Reign of King Charles the Second And we have born them as well as we could But some were not able and sunk under the Weight being put out of all Capacity to pay their Debts and provide for their Families For having so many Pressures beside they could not undergo those Impositions by which a third part of their Estates was lop't off Where a Man had threescore pound a year in all the World and found it little enough and too little it was too hard upon him to pay twenty pound a year out of it Also if a Planter be in debt as most of us are so that not a fourth part of his Estate comes clear to him above the Interest he paies how is he able to pay a third part in Taxes UPON the coming of King James to the Crown a Parliament being called We were preparing a Complaint against the Commissioners of the Customs Who had taken a liberty of late to our grievous prejudice to call that White Sugar which had never been accounted such before and which was far from that Colour And whatever They pleased to call Whites must pay the Duty of five shillings the Hundred But we were soon forced to lay aside these Thoughts to provide against a new Storm that threaten'd For we were told to our great Astonishment that a Project was set on foot to lay more Load upon us no less then seven Groats a Hundred more upon Muscovado and seven shillings upon Sugars fit for Vse for that was now the word We saw this tended plainly to our destruction but the thing was driven on furiously by some Empsons and Dudleys about the late King who did not care how many People they destroyed so they might get Favour and Preferment for themselves Since we were put into the Heard of Forrainers and paid Duties with them we hoped we should fare no worse than other Forrainers did But that the Plantations should be singled out as the hunted Deer and the burden upon their Commodities should be doubled and almost trebled when all others were untoucht was matter of Amazement and Consternation We humbly moved that if the whole Tax must be laid upon Trade it might be laid upon all Commodities alike We said that a small advance upon all the Customs might serve every purpose as well as a great one upon some and that this might be born with some ease there being so many shoulders to bear it But they would hearken to nothing of that kind being resolved and fixt to lay the whole burden upon the Plantations Which could not but seem very strange to us But here lay the Mystery The Projectors consider'd that if other Forrainers were hardly used in England they would carry or send their Commodities to other Places But we poor English Forrainers are compell'd to bring all Hither and therefore they thought they could hold Our Noses to the Grind-stone and make us pay what they pleased However they told us that this new Duty should do us no hurt in regard it was to be paid by the Buyer But this we knew to be a meer Mockery the Mockery seem'd almost as bad as the Cruelty For if an Impost be laid upon the Sugar who ever pays it the Planter is sure to bear it VVhat avails it though the Buyer pays the Duty if the Seller must presently allow it in the price The Brewer hath a certain price for his Beer and he adds the Excise or Duty to his price and the Customer pays it But where the price is uncertain and a bargain is to be driven and a Duty yet to be paid the first word of this bargain will be who must pay the Duty And 't is not not the Appointment of Law but the Agreement of the Parties that must decide the question In Our case the Buyer will naturally be at this lock If you clear the Duty I will give you so much for a Hundred of your White Sugar if I must pay it you must have seven shillings less Which is as broad as long The Buyer they say must pay the Duty but sure the Seller may pay it if he please And he will please to pay it rather then not sell his Sugar If He will not there are enow beside that will. This Duty upon Sugar is the same thing in effect as a Duty of twelve pence a Bushel would be upon Corn. Though it be said that the Buyer shall pay this yet the Seller or the Farmer would be sure to feel it and it would be a heavy Tax upon the Land. These plain things notwithstanding and what ever else we could say the Projectors stood stoutly to it in the Parliament house that the New Tax upon Sugars should not burden the Plantations But this was esteemed such barbarous Nonsense that there was little fear of their prevailing had not the late King to our great unhappiness been so strangely earnest for this Tax Which yet that Parliament who then denied him nothing had never granted but that some Privy Councellors assured them in the Kings name and as by his Order that if the Duty proved grievous to the Plantations it should be taken off and be no longer collected So the Act passed and the Plantations are ruin'd For now we feel what we certainly foresaw that the whole Burden of this new Duty lies upon the Plantations No Chapman will meddle with our Sugars unless we clear the Duty Which when we have done we are so far from being able to advance the price that it is rather lower than ever it was before 'T is not Impositions but Plenty and Scarcity that rules the Market And it is found by constant Experience That where an Impost is laid upon a Commodity in demand there the Buyer may be brought to bear some part of it But if the Market be glutted and the Commodity be a Drug as Ours is and for ever will be in this case the Buyer will bear no part of the Duty but the Seller must pay it all
working merrily for the Plantations And England the while might keep her People at home to pick strawes or for some such other good work though some of them 't is doubt would make the Highway their way of Living And now Scotland would be the Market for Sugar where our Friends of England would be welcome with their Money We should be glad to meet them there and should use them well for old acquaintance But what would be the Effect of these things The Effect would be that in a very few years the value of Lands in England would fall a fourth part if not a third and the Land in Scotland would be more than doubled It were therefore better to acknowledge according to truth that the Plantations are greatly beneficial and to keep the Plantations There is one main advantage by the Plantations which hath not been sufficiently explained and that is that we have now divers good Commodities of our own which before we had not which doth very much conduce to the enriching of England For it is agreed by all that pretend to understand Trade that a Country doth then grow rich and then only when the Commodities exported out of it are more in value then those that are imported into it This proportion between the Importation and the Exportation is called the Balance of Trade and there is no way in the World for a Country to grow rich by Trade but by setting this Balance right and by sending out more than it takes in Some other Tricks and shifts there are which make shew of doing great Matters but they prove idle and frivolous and signifie just nothing A Country in this respect is in the same Condition with a private Man that lives upon his Land. If this Man sells more than he buys he lays up money If he buyes more than he sells he must run in debt or at least spend out of the quick stock And where the Bought and the Sold are equal he hath barely brought both Ends together It is therefore most evident that the increasing of Native Commodities brings in Riches and Money since it makes the Exportation greater or at least the Importation less And it is as evident that the Plantations give England a great increase of Native Commodities Cotton Ginger Indico and Sugar to omit other things are now the Native Commodities of England We may insist a little further upon Sugar as being the most considerable Heretofore we had all our Sugars from Portugall and it is computed that they cost us yearly about four hundred thousand pounds Now that great Leak is stopp'd and we hardly buy any Portugall or Brasile Sugars being plentifully supplied by our own Plantations But moreover beside what we use our selves we export as much Sugar to other Countries as brings us in yearly near the same summe So that the Plantations by this one Commodity do advance near eight hundred thousand pounds a year the one half in getting the other in saving to turn the scale of Trade to the advantage of England WHY should England grudge at the prosperity and wealth of the Plantations since all that is Ours She may account her own Not only because we are really a part of England what ever we may be accounted as it is taken largely but also because all comes to this Kingdom of England properly so called these two and fifty Shires By a kind of Magnetick Force England draws to it all that is good in the Planrations It is the Center to which all things tend Nothing but England can we relish or fancy our Hearts are here where ever our Bodies be If we get a little Money we remit it to England They that are able breed up their Children in England When we are a little easy we desire to live and spend what we have in England And all that we can rap and rend is brought to England What would you have Would you have more of a Cat than her Skin WE have made it out in the former parts of these Papers what Multitudes of People the Plantations employ here in England It is easily said that if there were no such thing as Plantations those People might be otherwise employed And some Men will talk of the Fishing Trade and the Linnen Trade and other projects of the like nature But they would do well to contrive a way how the People imployed in them may make wages For unless they do that they do nothing There is nothing more easy then to find out unprofitable Employments But those that are profitable are already overstock't and people can hardly live one by another And therefore the Plantations ought in reason to be valued since they give profitable Employments to so many thousands of People whereas the Fishing Trade and the Linnen Trade will not turn to profit IT IS now time that we put an end to this sad Discourse Having made it appear that the Plantations are brought to a miserable and ruinous Condition and that they have not deserved this hard Usage considering the many and great Advantages they bring to England We have laid before you such a Series of Calamities as are not easy to be parallell'd And we think our patient Submission under them is almost without Example But we must beg pardon of all good Men if we cannot be in Charity with those cursed Projectors by whom our Livelyhoods which is in effect our Lives have been torn from us with so much Inhumanity But hath our dear Mother no Bowels for her Children that are now at the last Gasp and ly struggling with the pangs of Death Will She do nothing to deliver us from the Jaws of Death We cannot despair but that she will yet look upon us with an Eye of Mercy However we desire it may not be ill taken that we have eased our Minds by recounting our Sorrows Let us not be denied the common liberty and priviledge of Mankind to groan when we dy Let not our Complaints seem troublesome and offensive but be received with Compassion as the Groans of dying Men. FINIS