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.

The French planter took his slaves on credit, and sought to discharge
his debt with the crops which they raised. This increased the
consumption of negroes, and he was constantly in debt for fresh ones.
To stimulate the production of sugar, the Government lifted half the
entry-tax from each negro who was destined for that culture.

A table which follows shortly will present the exports for 1775 of the
six chief products of San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne.
But we must say something first about the value of the _livre_.

In the Merovingian times, the right of coining money belonged to many
churches and abbeys,--among others, to St. Martin de Tours. There were
seigniorial and episcopal coins in France till the reign of Philip
Augustus, who endeavored to reduce all the coin in his kingdom to a
uniform type. But he was obliged still to respect the money of Tours,
although he had acquired the old right of coinage that belonged to it.
So that there was a livre of Paris and a livre of Tours, called _livre
tournois_: the latter being worth five deniers less than the livre of
Paris. The tendency of the Crown to absorb all the local moneys of
France was not completely successful till the reign of Louis XIV., who
abolished the Paris livre and made the livre tournois the money of
account. The earliest livre was that of Charlemagne, the silver value of
which is representable by eighty cents. It steadily depreciated, till
it was worth