THE production and consumption of colonial products increased considerably during the eighteenth century in the economies of France and the rest of Western Europe. Ernest Labrousse emphasized this in his thesis:

Ce n'est ni le blé, ni le vin, ni le drap ni la toile qui soutiennent la fortune de notre pavilion mais le sucre et le café.

The statistics in money terms of French foreign trade between 1716 and 1772 corroborate such a view, as Table 1, produced by Bruyard, head of the Balance of Trade Office between 1756 and 1781, clearly shows. Exports to the French colonies of America, as well as those of the slave trade, increased faster than other products in foreign trade. The goods coming from the colonies exceeded net imports, but above all – something contemporaries failed to notice – the French export trade to a large extent consisted in reexporting colonial products. Oriented by the mercantilist theory, the statistics of French foreign trade show a credit balance – but can we trust such estimates?

Ernest Labrousse and later Ruggiero Romano pointed out how important such statistical studies, begun in 1713, were. All French merchants had to declare the goods they were exporting or importing at the offices of the fermes (customs). Such declarations were made in terms of volume. The collectors of customs and their clerks in each big harbor drew up a yearly detailed account in volume for each product and each foreign country. The directors of the Chambers of Commerce then indicated the yearly average price of each commodity.