East-India sugar. Papers respecting the culture and manufacture of sugar in British India: also notices of the cultivation of sugar in other parts of Asia. With miscellaneous information respecting sugar.

  • East India Company
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: East-India sugar. Papers respecting the culture and manufacture of sugar in British India: also notices of the cultivation of sugar in other parts of Asia. With miscellaneous information respecting sugar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of produce, is capable of being carried to any extent for which a demand can be found. The consumption, also, in this country and on the Continent, is at present immense*, and your Committee are of opinion it is capable of being carried still much further, were the article supplied at a less burthensome rate of cost. Upon inspecting into the prices at the London market for a series preceding, they were found on an average to have been as follow, viz. of years s. d. 1774 — 36 4 1775 — 34 0 1770 — 33 3 1777 — 38 3 177s — 51 3 1779 — — 51 6 1780 56 2 1781 54 9 ) 1782 66 4 1783 51 0 /■w 1784 43 1 1785 41 2 1786 42 0 O 1787 — 50 0 17SS — 47 6^ The hundred-weight. Less for exportation by the whole of the duty paid on importation. In order to enable the Company to meet these prices with any degree of success, two very powerful obstacles presented themselves, to be overcome, namely, the high rates of duty and freight: but as your Committee were not without hopes of the Court being able eventually to procure a reduction on both these points, your Committee determined upon an essay, by way of experiment ; and accordingly, in the month of April 1789, they submitted to the Court some heads of instrustions to be sent to the Government of Bengal, directing, among other articles, that a quantity of sugar should be sent home upon trial. The Court were pleased to approve of these Instructions]-, and they were transmitted accordingly. It was the intention of your Committee to have waited the issue of this first concern before they proceeded further in the business; but in the month of February 1791, Lieutenant John Paterson, of the Bengal Establishment, having, in a Memorial addressed to the Court, stated that sugar could be cultivated in Bengal with many superior advantages, and at a much less expense than in the West-Indies, and also submitted some ideas on the eligibility of the Company engaging in this branch of commerce ; and the Court having referred the said Memorial to your Committee to examine and report their opinion thereon, your Committee lost no time in giving the subject every degree of consideration it appeared to merit. They accordingly had several interviews with Lieutenant Paterson, from whom they obtained much satisfactory information on the several particulars stated in his Memorial. Your Committee, however, at the same time wishing to proceed with the greatest caution and circumspection, judged it right to consult with some of the most experienced of the Company’s Ser¬ vants lately returned from Bengal];, on whose integrity your Committee placed great reliance, and who, from their local knowledge, were enabled to assist your Committee in forming a right judgment on many points which came before them ; and upon the whole, your Committee, as the result of a mature inves¬ tigation, were of opinion, That although there was every reason to think that sugar might be rendered an advantageous article of traffic, yet they did not think it expedient that the Company themselves should engage as the imme¬ diate planters and manufacturers. On, this being made known to Lieutenant Paterson, he offered to undertake a plantation on his own account, provided the Report of Committee of Warehouses, 29 Feb. 1792. j * In Great-Britain alone, the annual consumption is computed to be but little short of two hun¬ dred millions of pounds w eight. f Vide Par. 57 of General Letter to Bengal in Commercial Department, 8th April 1789. Paper No. 1, annexed to this Report. j Vide Minute Committee Warehouses, 16th Feb. 1791, containing the sentiments of Charles Grant and Richard Johnson, Esqrs. on the propriety of the Company undertaking sugar plantations.