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- This document was published in 1691 by a group of sugar refiners who
were complaining that duties on sugar were too high.
- Sugar was the most important crop grown in the West Indies. It made
many of the owners of the plantations very rich indeed. It also brought
in a lot of money to the Crown in taxes and duties.
- They were making the point that the growers of sugar (the plantation
owners) had recently had taxes on their business reduced. However, sugar
refiners still had to pay large taxes.
- Sugar refiners treated the raw sugar to turn it into the types
of sugar that people used for tea, coffee, cooking etc. The high taxes
meant that the sugar refiners had to charge a lot for the sugar once
they had refined it. Some planters were sending their sugar to other
European countries to have it refined.
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