world, and that an interchange of the plants of the tropical and
temperate climates, might be made successfully, after they had
been completely naturalized there.
The Portuguese once drew their principal supplies of sugar from
Madeiraf, but when the cane had succeeded in the West Indies8,
f In the fifteenth century, 400 Venetian cantaras of sugar were annually produced
in Madeira, but the relative capacity of this measure cannot now be ascertained.
Collegao de Noticias, p. 10. Sugar is still made in small quantities, but it is never
granulated. The West-India cane .was the only one cultivated until within these few
years, when a variety was introduced from Cayenne, which is evidently the Bourbon
cane, (5. luteum of Tu^tac) from its short joints, and the colour of the bark, which is
of a deep yellow, tinged with red; it is also considerably thicker than the others. The
common green cane (s. officinarum) has longer and smaller joints, occasionally tinged
with a patch of red. The Bourbon yields more sugar, but less juice, than the others,
and the only objection to it is, that the cattle will not eat its leaves, being rough and
prickly. The sugar cane was sent from Madeira to Vicente, on the coast of Brazil,
in 1531.
8 The Portuguese, however, seem first to have transferred the cane to the Island of
St. Thomas, on the African coast, (discovered in 1471-2,) from the curious account
of a Portuguese pilot, who visited that island about 1550, when 150,000 arrobas (about
3000 hogsheads) of sugar were exported annually. The soil yielded a crop of ripe
canes every five months, the rains and cloudy atmosphere of March and September
occurring very seasonably. Several persons were sent from Madeira, to instruct the
Portuguese of St. Thomas in making the sugar whiter and harder. Collegao de
Noticias, p. 98. When the Dutch fleet, under Jol, took possession of St. Thomas
in 1641, those of the islanders who made terras with him, paid 5590 cruzados to preserve
their sugar-works. I notice these evidences of the supplies of sugar which the
Portuguese formerly drew from Western Africa, (throughout the interior of which, the
cane grows spontaneously and abundantly) from the impression that it may at some
future day become a question, whether the most effectual method of bringing about
the entire and positive cessation of the slave-trade, (or, to say the least, to give the
finishing stroke to it) and to forestal the great and growing advantages of Brazil, at
the same time, will not be to cultivate sugar under the protection of our African
settlements, where labour may be commanded at a low rate, to any extent. To encourage
even this view—although it would annihilate a commerce insulting to the
Almighty, and criminal even in the mere toleration, and hasten the tardy civilization
of those, to whom we have yet to atone for ages of cruelty and wr o n g t o encourage
its culture was abandoned for that of the vine (introduced from
Cyprus^), which became more profitable. The number of Scotch
and English families which have since resorted to it, have delighted
in forming beautiful gardens around their country-houses; and
vegetables of every sort have thus been introduced, until it has
become impossible to draw the line between those that are indigenous,
and those that are naturalized. Added to this, the strong
sirocco winds which blow at different periods, must have transported
many seeds from the continent of Africa; and its vicinity
to the Canaries and Azores, has probably enabled birds to bring
many of their vegetable productions, to it. A fourth circumstance,
although by far the least contributive, also adds to this diversity ;
that of vessels from all parts of the world touching, and frequently
clearing out their cargoes, or cleansing their holds in the port: several
seeds have thus been brought, and thrown amdhgst the rubbish
of the shore, which has afterwards been used for manure, and this
Seems to me the most probable way of accounting for those plants
which are at once common to Madeira and America. Was it a
primitive country, we might more decidedly pronounce on indigenous
plants, but as it is entirely volcanic, its vegetation must have
been so progressive, from the lichen to the most stately dicotyledon,
that time must have been given for several of the above causes to
operate, before its completion. Even at the present moment, as
we pass through the country, we see the crustaceous lichens forming
beautiful grayish green patches on the basaltic rocks at the
even this view, at the expense of the West India planter, that is, by imposing a lesser
duty on the African, Would be very unfair; hut if the duty being the same, sugar were
grown at that low rate in Africa, which would enable us to undersell every foreign
colony, or even to supply Great Britain at a lower rate than she is now supplied by
the West Indies, surely a discouragement would be both unjust and unwise. Coffee,
indigo, cotton, and tobacco might be grown to any extent in Africa, the three latter
being indigenous and abundant.
h According to Cadamostb, therefore, before the year 1445.