do. For this purpose he visited all the West Indian
islands, both English and French, in about two years. He became during
this time a planter, though he did not continue long in this situation;
and he superintended also Messrs. Bosanquets' and J. Fatio's
sugar-plantation in their partners' absence. Finding at length the
unprofitable way in which the West Indian planters conducted their
concerns, he returned to the East Indies in 1776, and established
sugar-works at Bencoolen on his own account. Being in London in the year
1789, when a committee of privy council was sitting to examine into the
question of the slave trade, he delivered a paper to the board on the
mode of cultivating a sugar plantation in the East Indies; and this
paper being thought of great importance, he was summoned afterwards in
1791 by a committee of the House of Commons to be examined personally
upon it.

It is very remarkable that the very first sentence in this paper
announced the fact at once, that "sugar, better and _cheaper_ than that
in the West Indian islands, was produced _by free men_."

Mr. Botham then explained the simple process of making sugar in the
East. "A proprietor, generally a Dutchman, used to let his estate, say
300 acres or more, with proper buildings upon it, to a Chinese, who
lived upon it and superintended it, and who re-let it to free men in
parcels of 50 or 60 acres on condition that they should plant it in
canes for so much for every pecul, 133 lbs., of sugar produced. This
superintendant hired people from the adjacent villages to take off his
crop. One lot of task-men with their carts and buffaloes cut the canes,
carried them to the mill, and ground them. A second set boiled them, and
a third clayed and basketed them for market at so much per pecul. Thus
the renter knew with certainty what every pecul would cost him, and he
incurred no unnecessary expense; for, when the crop was over, the
task-men returned home. By dividing the labour in this manner, it was
better and cheaper done."

Mr. Botham detailed next the improved method of making sugar in Batavia,
which we have not room to insert here. We may just state, however, that
the persons concerned in it never made spirits on the sugar estates. The
molasses and skimmings were sent for, sale to Batavia, where one
distillery might buy the produce of a hundred estates. Here, again, was
a vast saving, says Mr. Botham, "there was not, as in the West Indies, a
_distillery_