The testimony of Henry Botham, Esq. will be quite
sufficient for this point. That gentleman resided for some time in the
East Indies, where he became acquainted with the business of a sugar
estate. In the year 1770 he quitted the East for the West. His object
was to settle in the latter part of the world, if it should be found
desirable so to 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.
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