kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, furnished considerable exportations to Europe by way of Vera Cruz.
In the course of years however, partly owing to the difficulties and expense of land carriage, and partly to the excessive duties imposed by the Spanish government, the cultivation of cocoa was encouraged in Tabasco, Caracas and Guayaquil, places far more convenient for exportation. In addition to this, the repeated incursions of the buccaneers who about the beginning of the seventeenth century devastated the shores of America, not unfrequently destroying the plantations, and massacring the inhabitants, obliged the proprietors, unprovided with any means of defence, to abandon their possessions, and fly from the coast. These circumstances operated so powerfully, that by the end of the last century, the cultivation of cocoa had been neglected to such a degree, that these provinces did not produce a sufficient quantity for home consumption, but were forced to buy of their rivals.
A somewhat similar fate has befallen the plantations in which sugar was formerly cultivated, to a very considerable extent. The mills in which it was prepared now in a great measure exist no longer; and New Spain and Peru, where it was chiefly consumed, gold and silver being imported in exchange, have found other markets.
