By 1807 British West Indian sugar planters were producing at a loss

Evidence

Bankruptcies were the order of the day. Between 1799 and 1807, 65 plantations in Jamaica were abandoned, 32 were sold for debts, and in 1807 suits were pending against 115 others. Debt, disease and death were the only topics of conversation in the island. A parliamentary committee set up in 1807 discovered that the British West Indian planter was producing at a loss The committee attributed the main evil to the unfavorable state of the foreign market. In 1806 the surplus of sugar in England amounted to six thousand tons. Production had to be curtailed. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 774