the accident
...of money in the British West Indies. Planters obtained their needs, from machinery and slaves for the plantation down to personal and domestic requirements, from merchants in exchange for their sugar crop. In the British West Indies, particularly in Guiana, the acreage under sugar was increased after the Napoleonic Wars. This increased the supply of sugar which, in turn, depressed the price. The planters were aware of the effect of the limiting acreage to maintain prices, but in the early nineteenth century each territory was competing against the other to maximise its revenue from sugar. With falling prices, the planters should have tried to reduce their production costs by modernisation and mechanisation, thus reducing dependence on labour. But mechanisation needed capital and the merchant-owed banks were not interested in financing developments in an industry which seemed to be facing terrible difficulties. Wild cotton of very good quality with along staple was exported from Barbados from its earliest days. Cotton was placed on the list of enumerated goods in 1660 Navigational Act. By, 1724 Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis and St. Kitts, as well as Barbados, were all recording exports of cotton. West Indies cotton is of fine quality. Rice had been grown in Trinidad by runaw...