Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/210

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208
HISTORY OF

in acknowledgment of the service he had done that province. It is likewise reported that Mr. Dubois, then treasurer of the East India Company, did send to that country a small bag of seed-rice some short time after, from whence it is reasonable enough to suppose come those two sorts of that commodity—the one called red rice, in contradistinction to the white, from the redness of the inner husk or rind of this sort, although they both clean and become white alike." Before the year 1733 the Carolina rice exported to Spain and Portugal had nearly put a stop to the purchase of the article by those two countries from Venice and other parts of Italy. In that year the total exportation of rice from Carolina was 36,584 barrels; besides which the province also exported 2802 barrels of pitch, 848 of turpentine, 60 tons of lignum vitæ, 20 of Brasiletto wood, 27 of sassafras, 8 chests of skins, and a quantity of lumber, pork, peas, beef, and Indian corn. "This colony," adds Anderson, "is continually increasing by the encouragement they give to new comers, both British and foreigners."[1] By the year 1739 we find its exportation of rice raised to 71,484 barrels, and, among various additions to its other exports, above 200,000 feet of pine and cypress timber, and a small quantity of potatoes. The vessels that cleared out from the province this year were 238 of all sorts. The next year its exportation of rice amounted to 91,110 barrels. A few years after this the Carolina planters, finding they were overstocking the European market with their rice, began the cultivation of indigo, which had formerly been extensively grown in Jamaica and the other sugar islands. In 1747 about 200,000 lbs. of indigo was sent from Carolina to England, which had been heretofore wont to pay about 200,000l. a year to France for that article. Parliament the following year granted a bounty of sixpence per cwt. on all indigo raised in any of our American colonies, and imported into Britain directly from the place of its growth; and, aided by this encouragement, the cultivation of the plant continued to be prosecuted in Carolina with considerable success,

  1. Chron. of Com., iii. 201.