Category Archives: Taxes/duties
Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 11 June 1782
11/06/1782
In 1782, Taylor began to speculate about the prospects of the British sugar islands now that peace was to be secured with America. He recognised that the main competition to the sugar produced in the British West Indies came from the cheaper (and better) sugar produced by the French in their colonies, the largest of […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 26 November 1781
26/11/1781
By the end of November 1781, news of the British capitulation at Yorktown had reached Jamaica. In Taylor’s formulation, the failure of British forces in America, combined with the new high duties on sugar, amounted to a catastrophe for Jamaican planters. This war with the whole world must and will involve Britain and her dependencies […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 28 August 1781
28/08/1781
Taylor’s callous disregard for enslaved people as anything other than commodities and units of labour is evident in his reaction to the effects of the storm at Arcedeckne’s Golden Grove estate, which he managed as Arcedeckne’s attorney. The shocking human cost of the hurricane is nevertheless apparent, although Taylor conflates this with a diatribe about […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 26 June 1781
26/06/1781
The increase in the duty on sugar came in the budget of March 1781. A duty that had been a little under 6s 4d per hundredweight in 1776 now rose to over 11s 8d. The Prime Minister, Lord North, explained that the new tax was necessary because of the expenses of the war, which compelled […]
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Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, 8 April 1781
08/04/1781
Taylor’s complaints about British policies towards the colonies began in earnest during 1781. Until that time, his letters had contained little critical commentary on the duties laid by parliament on colonial trade or the attitudes of British government ministers towards the West Indian colonies. This changed as sharp increases to the sugar duties were imposed. […]
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