improvement and the
advantages the mother country derived from them. In conformity with this
plan, we may mention that sugar plantations were first formed in Barbadoes
in 1641: this, as Mr. Anderson, in his History of Commerce, justly
observes, "greatly hastened the improvement of our other islands, which
soon afterwards followed it in planting sugar to very great advantage. And,
as it was impossible to manage the planting of that commodity by white
people in so hot a climate, so neither could sufficient numbers of such be
had at any rate. Necessity, therefore, and the example of Portugal gave
birth to the negro slave trade to the coast of Guinea and it is almost
needless to add, that such great numbers of slaves, and also the increase
of white people in those islands, soon created a vast demand for all
necessaries from England, and also a new and considerable trade to Madeira
for wines to supply those islands." The immediate consequence of the spread
of the sugar culture in our West India islands was, that the ports of
London and Bristol became the great magazines for this commodity, and
supplied all the north and middle parts of Europe; and the price of the
Portuguese-Brazil sugars was reduced from 8_l_. to 2_l_. 10_s_. per cwt.

The rapid growth of the English colonies on the continent and in the
islands of America, during the seventeenth century, is justly ascribed by
Sir Josiah Child, to the emigration thither, occasioned by the persecution
of the Puritans by James I. and Charles I.; to the defeat of the Royalists
and Scotch by Cromwell; and, lastly, to the Restoration, and the consequent
disbanding of the army, and fears of the partizans of Cromwell. It may be
added, that most of the men who were driven to America from these causes,
were admirably fitted to form new settlements, being of industrious habits,
and accustomed to plain fare and hard work.

The American plantations, as they were called, increased so rapidly in
commerce that, according to the last author referred to, they did, even in
the year 1670, employ nearly two-thirds of all our English shipping, "and
therefore gave constant sustenance, it may be, to 200,000 persons here at
home." At this period New England seems to have directed its chief
attention and industry to the cod and mackerel fisheries, which had
increased their ships and seamen so much as to excite the jealousy of Sir
Josiah Child, who, however, admits that what that colony took from Engl