5458. MONOPOLY, Tobacco.—[further continued]
Of these eighty millions
[of American exports to Europe], thirty are
constituted by the single article of tobacco.
Could the whole of this be brought into the
ports of France, to satisfy its own demands,
and the residue to be revended to other nations,
it would be a powerful link of commercial
connection. But we are far from this.
Even her own consumption, supposed to be
nine millions, under the administration of the
monopoly to which it is farmed, enters little,
as an article of exchange, into the commerce
of the two nations. When this article was first
put into Farm, perhaps it did not injure the
commercial interests of the kingdom; because
nothing but British manufactures were then allowed
to be given in return for American tobaccos.
The laying the trade open, then, to
all the subjects of France, would not have
relieved her from a payment in money. Circumstances
are changed; yet the old institution
remains.—
To Count de Montmorin. Washington ed. ii, 186.
(P.
1787)
