France and Portugal. The Clarets of the London market, are principally
prepared for the purpose, and, in the transit, lose much of the pure
nature of the original production: and the quantity of adulterated
Port that is sold in England is almost incredible. It is also a well
known fact, that there is more Tokay[2] sold on the Continent and in
England, in one year, than the limited space where it is grown, on the
mountains of Hungary, could produce in twenty years.

But there is also, independently of this vitiation to which the wines
are liable, another cause for the inferior quality of those wines
which are really the produce of the islands. A few Englishmen, and
other foreigners, of a grade very different from that of the
respectable English merchants who have been long established here, hit
upon the expedient of exporting wines instead of attending to the
business which they had originally established on the island. They
thought it would turn out profitable to buy up cheap, and, of course,
inferior wines, for the purpose of sending them to the European
markets, under the impression that any thing would sell that was known
to be the genuine production of Madeira. By this method of enlarging
their business, the worst description of the native produce got
abroad, and was substituted in place of the best. There are, of
course, a great variety of qualities; but there is not a greater
quantity of the first quality than is required to flavour their
inferior wines; and it is only by appropriating it to that purpose,
that they could be enabled to furnish a sufficient quantity for the
immense demand in the various markets which they have to supply.

It will be seen from the following account of the exportation of wine
from Madeira, that the demand was rapidly decreasing in 1825, 6, and
7, owing to the causes above mentioned.