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African Memoranda. 383 Mr. Edwards in his estimate of the expence and return of a Expence and coffee plantation of 300 acres in Jamaica, makes the total ex- phnutio^of pence amount to ^€15,059,* in the currency of that island, ,. tlie which is 4()/>er cent, vtovse than sterling. And the return on the 4th year (there being none the first three) amounts to about 7-' per cent, on the whole; the 5th and subsequent years pro duce a clear profit of 24± per cent. Now a similar plantation cultivated by free natives, on the coast of Africa, would make Double what much greater returns for the capital so employed, because one-j,^^ bc of the chief articles of expence in the West Indian statement is that of purchasing 100 negro slaves, and the compound interest thereon for three years; amounting, both together, to more than one halt of the whole expence ; therefore, a coffee plantation of equal extent with this of Jamaica, might be put in cultivation, on the coast of Africa, for -£7500, which there requires ^15,000; and the African returns would be, instead of 244, rather more than 50 per cent; for there are other items which might be diminished if it were necessary so to do. Considering that the French part of the island of St. Do mingo in the year 1792, exported nearly 80 millions t of pounds of coffee, which I should suppose was now reduced to less than one-eighth of that quantity, it is reasonable to suppose that the cultivation of this berry, on the coast of Africa, notwithstanding the increased quantity raised at Jamaica, since that period, would find a ready market in Europe, and add largely to the revenues of this country. Tobacco is the 4th staple of the proposed colony; but what Tobacco, quantity, and to what value, this country might take of it, I nsibiil Je 1 tuo of Iriaibm * Edwards’s West Indies, vol. II, p. 296. + Idem, p. 299.