England, London.
Ten Downing Street.
"...Therefore, this year, India has produced a total of 400,000 hundredweights of cane sugar." The British East India Company's trade representative, Harry Odell, glanced at the report in his hand and concluded, "The price of this batch of sugar is over 70% lower than Paris', and will reduce sugar prices in our domestic market by nearly 20%."
Here, he spoke in British hundredweights—400,000 hundredweights is about 21,000 tons.
At once, joy appeared on the faces of Grenville and the other senior Cabinet members, who nodded to each other in congratulations.
Finance Minister Henry Petty even took the lead in applauding.
Currently, England consumes about 2 million hundredweights of cane sugar each year—that is, around 105,000 tons—which requires a government subsidy of 2.4 million British Pounds.
