Petition Cane Farming

Petition from Nabaclis Villagers (dated November 20, 1882).
The clerk read the following petition:-
The humble petition of the undersigned proprietors of Nabaclis Plantation and being residents of the village thereof, in the Parish of St. Paul, on the East Sea Coast, county of Demerary, in the Colony of British Guiana.
Respectfully Showeth,
1. That your petitioners are, and have been for a long time past, extensive, “Plantain Farmers”, such being in a relative point of local consumption the staple production of the Colony. But they finding the soil becoming more and more improverished and therefore unsuitable, as well as unprofitable to them, continuing to the same extent the cultivation of that commodity.
2. That your petitioners have, after mature consideration, thought it advisable and more conducive to their prosperity, to turn their most attention to the cultivation of the “Sugar Cane”, in the hope of getting the same manufactured into sugar upon some of the neighbouring estates, and share the proceeds upon the principle of the established, “metayer System”, but they have absolutely failed to realise that hope.
3. That your petitioners, amid all their disappointments, cannot overlook their duty of grateful acknowledgments to the Honourable C. L. Bascom, proprietor of Plantation “Cove and John”, for his many acts of kind help to them in times of extremity, but more especially do they feel their obligation to that gentleman for his profitable advices, as well as encouragements in their industrial movements. And they doubt not, he may have extended his help to even the grinding of their canes, but having enlarged his own borders of cultivation renders it impracticable.
4. That your petitioners under the foregone disadvantageous circumstances have been reduced to one alternative of selling their canes, and even doing so to the estates in nearest proximity to their village so as to economise the enormous expenses of transportation, yet in the end they get so little, or rather not so much as to compensate for the planting and nurturing of the canes in their growth. That the Honourable C. L. Bascom, although the nearest to them, yet it does not at all times suit him to purchase their canes, in which case their miseries are increased by too distant transportation.
5. That your petitioners have now between themselves no less than eighty (80) acres established in well cultivated canes estimated by two competent planter-gentlemen to yield 1150 hogsheads, or tons of sugar as per survey made by them and now herewith attached for Your Excellency’s and the Honourable the Court of Policy’s favourable consideration.
6. That your petitioners beg humbly to approach Your Excellency and the Honourable the Court of Policy in their united application to procure for them a “Steam Cane Mill”, capable of making not less than two tons sugar per diem. Also to cause the same to be erected on the Nabaclis Plantation aforesaid, and to furnish the necessary buildings and appointments requisite for the proper manufacture of their crop of canes into good and marketable sugar. And to furnish them with the probable cost thereof. In the meantime, they may mention that a multitubular boiler would be preferable, adding three iron sugar tayches to suit.
7. That your petitioners would rather leave the stipulatious and conditions to be proposed and entered into by the better judgment of Your Excellency and the Honourable the Court of Policy in whom they confide and hope for success. That the estimated crop of 150 tons of sugar with its compound proportion of molasses will very probably give the nett proceeds of about $10,000, more or less, which they respectfully anticipate might in the meantime be considered a guarantee of their faith and good honest intentions.
8. That your petitioners have, almost all of them, by long practical experience acquired that perfect knowledge of cane-growing as well as sugar-making as to now place them in a position to effect considerable savings in the ordinary expenses incidental to sugar-makers.
That in the fortunate event of Your Excellency and the Honourable the Court of Policy answering the prayer of their petition, you will not only enable them for the future to pay their village rates, but also to assist their neighbours in doing so, and further to help themselves and families, to encourage industry, and diffuse the blessings of prosperity far and wide in the district they dwell. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. H. J. Bristol, Joseph Rogers, Thomas Dick, Scipio Tom, John Kingston, Isaiah Benn, Thomas A. Ridley, Daniel Quashie, Neil Thomas, Samuel Williams, Jack Monday, Noel Leander, Brandford Trotman, Joseph Joe, George Jack, Caesar Chester, James Moore, Elids Lindon and others.
Nabaclis, East Coast.
20th November 1882.
In accordance with the request of Messrs. Rogers, and others connected with Nabaclis Village we rode round the cultivation of that place and found about 80 acres planted with canes, all of which were clean and seemed well attended to, which we think should yield about 150 hhds of sugar. T. S. Stoydon, Deputy Manager of Plantation Enmore. Charles Drake, Manager, Cove and John. Plantation Enmore, November 1st, 1882.
The petition was ordered to be on the table.
Source: Petition from Nabaclis Villagers - The Daily Chronicle, Georgetown, British Guiana. Friday, January 12, 1883:page 3 columns 6/7.