The decline in the produce of coffee in the British West India possessions has been very great. In 1838, we imported from the West India Islands and British Guiana 17½ million pounds of coffee, in 1850 we only received 4¼ million pounds from thence. The shipments from Jamaica have decreased from about 15 million pounds in 1836, to 4 million pounds in 1850; Berbice and Demerara, from 5 million pounds in 1837, to about 8,000 pounds in 1850.
Production of coffee in the Brazils.—Forty-two years ago the annual crop of coffee in Brazil did not exceed 30,000 bags, and even in 1820 it only reached 100,000 bags. About that time the high price of coffee in England, superadded to the diminished production in Cuba, stimulated the Brazilian planters to extend its cultivation, and in 1830 they sent to market 400,000 bags, or 64,090,000 lbs., and in 1847, the enormous quantity of 300,000,000 lbs.
It would seem from the annexed figures that the production of coffee in Brazil doubled every five years, up to 1840, since when it has increased eighty per cent. The increase since 1835 has been upwards of two hundred millions of pounds, and of that increase the United States have taken one half.
| lbs. | |
| 1820 | 15,312,000 |
| 1825 | 29,201,600 |
| 1830 | 62,685,600 |
| 1835 | 100,346,400 |
| 1840 | 170,208,800 |
| 1850 | 303,556,960 |
The sources from whence the United States derives its supplies of coffee are shown in the following table:—
| Years. | Brazil. | Cuba. | St. Domingo. | Java. | Total |
| 1835 | 35,774,876 | 29,373,675 | 19,276,290 | 4,728,890 | 103,199,577 |
| 1840 | 47,412,756 | 25,331,888 | 9,153,524 | 4,343,254 | 94,996,095 |
| 1845 | 78,553,616 | 1,157,794 | 13,090,359 | 3,925,716 | 108,133,369 |
| 1850 | 90,319,511 | 3,740,803 | 19,440,985 | 5,146,961 | 144,986,895 |
| 1851 | 107,578,257 | 3,009,084 | 13,205,766 | 2,423,968 | 152,453,617 |
Coffee, up to 1830, paid a duty in the United States of five cents a pound. Since 1832 it has been free.
The population of the United States in 1840 was, in round numbers, seventeen millions; the average consumption of coffee for the three years ending 1841, 98½ millions of pounds, which gave a consumption of 5¾ lbs. per head. The average for the three years ending 1850, was 143 millions of pounds, and the population was twenty-three millions, which gave a consumption of 6¼ lbs. per head. In 1830 the consumption was only 3 lbs. per head; but the price ruled nearly double what it was in the three years preceding 1850.
In 1821 the consumption per head, to the inhabitants of the United States, was 1 lb. 4 oz. In 1830, the proportion had increased to 3 lbs. per head, the foreign price having fallen fifty per cent. The importation in the year 1831 doubled, in consequence of the reduced duty; and the consumption per head for the four years ending with 1842, averaged 6 lb. per head, having quadrupled to each inhabitant since 1821. From 1820 to 1840, the Brazilian product increased 1,100 per cent, or 155 million pounds. In the same time the consumption in the United States increased 137 million pounds; leaving an increase of eighteen million pounds of Rio coffee, besides the enhanced products of all countries, to supply the increased consumption of England and Europe.
The consequence of the duty in England is, that while the United States, with a population of seventeen millions, consumed, in 1844, 149,711,820 lbs. of coffee, Great Britain, with a population of twenty-seven millions, consumed 31,934,000 lbs. only, or less than one-fourth the consumption of the United States. In 1851 the figures remained nearly the same, viz., 148,920,000 lbs. in the United States, and 32,564,000 lbs. for Great Britain.