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employing 24,000 sailors.
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And it accounted for 11 million pounds of the French total of 17
-
million pounds of exports.
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Its trade was the foundation of the wealth of port cities,
-
like Nantes, Bordeaux and Marseilles,
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its cotton, a basis for the French textile mills in
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Normandy, and the growth was exponential.
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Between 1783 and 1789, production doubled,
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and with it the importation of slaves:
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10,000 a year in 1764;
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15,000 in 1771;
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27,000 in 1786;