Per capita consumption of sugar in England rose from about 2 pounds per person in the 1660s to 4 pounds per person by the 1690s and continued to expand in the eighteenth century. By the time of the American Revolution, every man, woman and child in England on average consumed 23 pounds of sugar a year. . . . British colonists on the North American mainland imported less than half as much sugar, about 14 pounds per person in 1770, but made up for it with a much higher consumption of sugar’s by-products, rum and molasses.
