Their field _labourers_, sugar _boilers_, _distillers_, _coopers_, _mill-wrights_, _carpenters_, _masons_, _builders_, _smiths_, and house _servants_, are _blacks_; therefore it is not the number of islands, but the greatest number of the _best Negroes_ that benefit the mother-country, _which sort_ we can make appear, the French since the year 1729, in times of peace, to the commencement of the present war, have been constantly supplied with. That is one of the true causes why they have produced such quantities of sugar, and other plantation-product; that for several years before the war, they were become our rivals at foreign markets, so far as to draw from thence a great annual balance of trade in favour of France.[6] But this _effect_ would have been prevented, if proper measures had been pursued by us for the preservation of the _African_ trade, to that part of _Africa_ where the hardy Negroes, who are inured to labour in their own country, were to be purchased. The French, from the year 1729, to the end of the year 1738, carried from the _Gold Coast_, _Popo_ and _Whydah_, _fifteen_ or _seventeen thousand_ of those valuable people annually; when _four thousand_, in any one year during that period, were not carried to the British plantations; which is the truest reason that can be assigned for the prosperity of the French colonies, and the main spring of the great increase of their product. For they do not understand the cultivation and management of a plantation in any degree equal to the British planters: therefore their advantage and success has been owing, in a great measure, to the good and hardy labourers they have had to till their land, and manufacture the product of it. We doubt not but the merchants trading to Africa will say, they have imported since the year 1729, more Negroes into the _British_ sugar islands, than the _French_ have to theirs in time of peace (to the commencement of the present war). We admit they have, of Negroes from _Gambia_, _Calabar_, _Boney_, _Benin_, the _windward coast_, and _Angola_. But we take upon us to assert, they cannot with truth say, they have imported to the colonies as many Negroes from the _Gold Coast_, _Popo_, and _Whidah_, which are the most valuable for the laborious cultivation of the sugar cane, and other plantation-product, and manufacturing it into sugar and rum, for the following seasons.