This was hardly done before the Government discovered that the
supply of negroes was again diminishing, partly because so extensive a
company could not undertake the peculiar risks and expenses of a traffic
in slaves. So in the matter of negroes alone trade was once more
declared free in 1741, burdened only with a certain tax upon every slave
imported.
At this time the cultivation of sugar alone in the principal French
islands consumed all the slaves who could be procured. The cry for
laborers was loud and exacting, for the French now made as much sugar
as the English, and were naturally desirous that more negroes should
surrender the sweets of liberty to increase its manufacture. In less
than forty years the average annual export of French sugar had reached
80,000 hogsheads. In 1742 it was 122,541 hogsheads, each of 1200 pounds.
The English islands brought into the market for the same year only
65,950 hogsheads, a decrease which the planters attributed to the
freedom enjoyed by the French of carrying their crops directly to
Spanish consumers without taking them first to France. But whatever may
have been the reason, the French were determined to hold and develop
the commercial advantage which this single product gained for them. The
English might import as many slaves and lay fresh acres open to the
culture, but the French sugar was discovered to be of a superior
quality; that of San Domingo, in particular, was the best in the world.
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