Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/239

229. With regard to the utility of tobacco, little can be ſaid; and, with regard to ſugar, how much more meritorious would it be to ſacrifice the momentary pleaſure which we receive from drinking it once or twice a-day in our tea, than to encourage the numberleſs cruelties that are continually exerciſed in order to procure it us? A celebrated French moraliſt ſaid, that, when he conſidered the wars which we foment in Africa to get negroes, the great number who of courſe periſh in theſe wars, the multitude of thoſe wretches who die in their paſſage, by diſeaſe, bad air, and bad proviſions; and laſtly, how many periſh by the cruel treatment they meet with in a ſtate of ſlavery; when he ſaw a bit of ſugar, he could not help imagining it to be covered with, ſpots of human blood. But, had he added to theſe conſiderations the wars which we carry on againſt one another, to take and retake the iſlands that produce this commodity, he would not have ſeen the ſugar ſimply ſpotted with blood, he would have beheld it entirely tinged with it.

Theſe wars make the maritime powers of Europe, and the inhabitants of Paris and London, pay much dearer for their ſugar than thoſe of Vienna, though they are almoſt three hundred leagues diſtant from the ſea. A pound of ſugar, indeed, coſts the former not only the price which they give for it, but alſo what they pay in taxes, neceſſary to ſupport thoſe fleets and armies which ſerve to defend and protect the countries that produce it.