3,510,4152,672,621|

63 2047

JAMES GREENFIELD, Naval Officer,

List of Slaves, Stock, and Acres of Land, Amount of Land-Tax and Poll-Tax Rolls, in the Island of Jamaica, for the Year 1816.

An Account of the Receits of Cash for the four Quarters, ending the 30th

of September, 1816.

Poll-tax, 1816

Land-tax, 1816

Deficiency, 1816

Arrears of taxes, 1815 -
Arrears of former years
American duties
Arms and gunpowder -
Surplus of the revenue
Loan at 6 per cent
Rum duty

Additional duties

Tax upon tonnage

Transient poor's tax

Duty upon tea

Stamp duties

Tax upon transient traders

Fees on private bills

4,161 19 1

2,272 3 0

25,238 13 8

482 17 5

160 0 0

Public provisions on hand, rum-butts, &c. 7,301 17 8

Trustees of Manning's Free-school

200 0 0

272,089 5 5

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.

AFRICAN FORTS.

Report from the Select Committee on Papers relating to the African Forts. Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 26 June 1816. THE Committee to whom the several papers which were presented to the House upon the 9th day of this instant May, from the Committee of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, were referred, to examine the matter thereof, and report the same, with their observations thereupon, to the House; and to whom the petition of the Committee of the Company of Merchants trading to Africa, and the Copy of the Report of the Commissioners sent out by His Majesty's Government, to investigate the state of the Settlements and Forts on the Coast of Africa, were also referred; and who were empowered to report the Minutes of Evidence taken before them to the House;—Have, pursuant to the order of the House, examined the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following Report.

Your Committee regret, that the late period of the Session at which they were appointed has precluded them from entering into the detailed examination, without which they feel it impossible to make any Report on the subject referred to them, which can be satisfactory to themselves or the House.

They, however, cannot conclude without expressing the hope, that the House will, early in the next session, re-appoint a Committee to inquire more in detail into the subject.

26 June 1816.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mercurii, 12° die Junii, 1816.

Earl Compton in the Chair.

Simon Cock, Esq. called in, and examined.

THE Committee observe, that the grant of parliament for the maintenance of the forts on the Gold Coast is invested in the African Company here, upon goods which are sent out to the coast; the Committee would be glad to know at what rate, or upon what terms, these goods are issued upon the coast, and in what manner they are there disposed of?-They are issued at what is termed a Company's price, which upon an average is about 50 per cent. dearer than they cost in England, but they are subject to the expense of freight, insurance, and different charges, which may amount to about 12 per cent. so that the public gain by the manner of issuing about 37 per cent.; they are distributed in the payment of the salaries of the several persons in the Company's service on the coast, but certain parts are used for

repairing the forts and defending them, such as gunpowder, bricks, mortar, stone, and so on.

Then, in consequence of this mode of transacting the business, the grant of parliament becomes more productive than it would be, if the supplies wanted for the ports were bought on the coast, and bills drawn for the amount?-In what degree it is more profitable on the Gold Coast I cannot say, because we have never had but one practice; but I have seen accounts of goods bought at Sierra Leone, which appear to me (indeed I have copies of these accounts by me) to have cost the public, upon an average, more than 100 per cent. beyond what similar goods cost the public as supplied by the African Company.

How had you an opportunity of seeing those accounts?—A letter was received from Mr. Whalley, of the Accountant's Office, to which office the Sierra Leone accounts had been referred, requiring the African Committee to state the prices at which they had shipped goods of a certain description at a period therein named; the letter referred to is a document I have already given in.

What document is that?-A copy of my letter in answer to Mr. Whalley; upon that occasion, I requested the gentleman who came from the Accountant's Office, to let me see the Sierra Leone accounts, in order that I might select for him articles of the same description as those which we had shipped at a corresponding period. Being very much struck with the prices as therein charged, I desired my clerks to take copies of the accounts in question; I have brought them with me, and they are now here; but as they are very complicated, I have made an abstract of them.

[The Witness delivered in the Abstract.] Comparative Statement of the prices of Goods shipped by the African Committee for the supply of the settlements on the Gold Coast; and of the like articles bought at Sierra Leone for the supply of that settlement. SIERRA LEONE.