Jamaica was the most profitable British possession in the New World. Its most valuable commodity was sugar; it was more valuable to the British economy than the thirteen American colonies combined. In a letter from King George III to Lord Sandwich he declared that he would risk protecting Britain's important Caribbean islands at the risk of Britain herself, and this was strategy implemented in 1779.[75] Sugar made up 20% of all British imports and was worth five times as much as tobacco.[76] As well as the gradual expulsion of the British from the West Indies by the French and Spanish, the conquest was to force a massive blow on the British economy.[77] The invasion itself though was perceived in the courts at Paris and Madrid as an alternative to the Spanish and French attempts to take Gibraltar which for two years had been a costly disaster.[78]