PART II. Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies.

The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession either of a waste

country, or of one so thinly inhabited that the natives easily give place

to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than

any other human society.

The colonies carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other

useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its own accord, in the course

of many centuries, among savage and barbarous nations. They carry out with

them, too, the habit of subordination, some notion of the regular

government which takes place in their own country, of the system of laws

which support it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they

naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement. But

among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress of law and

government is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law

and government have been so far established as is necessary for their

protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate.

He has no rent, and scarce any taxes, to pay. No landlord shares with him

in its produce, and, the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle.

He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce which is thus

to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive,

that, with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people

whom he can get to employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth part of

what it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect

labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal

wages. But those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of

land, soon make those labourers leave him, in order to become landlords

themselves, and to reward with equal liberality other labourers, who soon

leave them for the same reason that they left their first master. The

liberal reward of labour encourages marriage. The children, during the

tender years of infancy, are well fed and properly taken care of; and when

they are grown up, the value of their labour greatly overpays their

maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour, and the

low price of land, enable them to establish themselves in the same manner

as their fathers did before them.

In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior

orders of people oppress the inferior one; but in new colonies, the

interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one

with more generosity and humanity, at least where that inferior one is not

in a state of slavery. Waste lands, of the greatest natural fertility, are

to be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the proprietor, who

is always the undertaker, expects from their improvement, constitutes his

profit, which, in these circumstances, is commonly very great; but this

great profit cannot be made, without employing the labour of other people

in clearing and cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the

great extent of the land and the small number of the people, which

commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get

this labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing

to employ labour at any price. The high wages of labour encourage

population. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourage improvement,

and enable the proprietor to pay those high wages. In those wages consists

almost the whole price of the land; and though they are high, considered

as the wages of labour, they are low, considered as the price of what is

so very valuable. What encourages the progress of population and

improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness.

The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and

greatness seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In the course of a

century or two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even to have

surpassed, their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily,

Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear,

by all accounts, to have been at least equal to any of the cities of

ancient Greece. Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the arts

of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, seem to have been

cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them as in any

part of the mother country. The schools of the two oldest Greek

philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were established, it is

remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in an Asiatic, the other in

an Italian colony. All those colonies had established themselves in

countries inhabited by savage and barbarous nations, who easily gave place

to the new settlers. They had plenty of good land; and as they were

altogether independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to manage

their own affairs in the way that they judged was most suitable to their

own interest.

The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant. Some of

them, indeed, such as Florence, have, in the course of many ages, and

after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be considerable states. But

the progress of no one of them seems ever to have been very rapid. They

were all established in conquered provinces, which in most cases had been

fully inhabited before. The quantity of land assigned to each colonist was

seldom very considerable, and, as the colony was not independent, they

were not always at liberty to manage their own affairs in the way that

they judged was most suitable to their own interest.

In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America

and the West Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass, those of ancient

Greece. In their dependency upon the mother state, they resemble those of

ancient Rome; but their great distance from Europe has in all of them

alleviated more or less the effects of this dependency. Their situation

has placed them less in the view, and less in the power of their mother

country. In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has upon

many occasions been overlooked, either because not known or not understood

in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly suffered and

submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficult to restrain it.

Even the violent and arbitrary government of Spain has, upon many

occasions, been obliged to recall or soften the orders which had been

given for the government of her colonies, for fear of a general

insurrection. The progress of all the European colonies in wealth,

population, and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived some

revenue from its colonies from the moment of their first establishment. It

was a revenue, too, of a nature to excite in human avidity the most

extravagant expectation of still greater riches. The Spanish colonies,

therefore, from the moment of their first establishment, attracted very

much the attention of their mother country; while those of the other

European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected. The

former did not, perhaps, thrive the better in consequence of this

attention, nor the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect. In

proportion to the extent of the country which they in some measure

possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less populous and thriving

than those of almost any other European nation. The progress even of the

Spanish colonies, however, in population and improvement, has certainly

been very rapid and very great. The city of Lima, founded since the

conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants

near thirty years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable hamlet of

Indians, is represented by the same author as in his time equally

populous. Gemel i Carreri, a pretended traveller, it is said, indeed, but

who seems everywhere to have written upon extreme good information,

represents the city of Mexico as containing a hundred thousand

inhabitants; a number which, in spite of all the exaggerations of the

Spanish writers, is probably more than five times greater than what it

contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed greatly those of

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities of the

English colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards, there were no

cattle fit for draught, either in Mexico or Peru. The lama was their only

beast of burden, and its strength seems to have been a good deal inferior

to that of a common ass. The plough was unknown among them. They were

ignorant of the use of iron. They had no coined money, nor any established

instrument of commerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on by

barter. A sort of wooden spade was their principal instrument of

agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and hatchets to cut with;

fish bones, and the hard sinews of certain animals, served them with

needles to sew with; and these seem to have been their principal

instruments of trade. In this state of things, it seems impossible that

either of those empires could have been so much improved or so well

cultivated as at present, when they are plentifully furnished with all

sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron, of the plough, and of

many of the arts of Europe, have been introduced among them. But the

populousness of every country must be in proportion to the degree of its

improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of the

natives which followed the conquest, these two great empires are probably

more populous now than they ever were before; and the people are surely

very different; for we must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spanish

creoles are in many respects superior to the ancient Indians.

After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portuguese in Brazil

is the oldest of any European nation in America. But as for a long time

after the first discovery neither gold nor silver mines were found in it,

and as it afforded upon that account little or no revenue to the crown, it

was for a long time in a great measure neglected; and during this state of

neglect, it grew up to be a great and powerful colony. While Portugal was

under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by the Dutch, who got

possession of seven of the fourteen provinces into which it is divided.

They expected soon to conquer the other seven, when Portugal recovered its

independency by the elevation of the family of Braganza to the throne. The

Dutch, then, as enemies to the Spaniards, became friends to the

Portuguese, who were likewise the enemies of the Spaniards. They agreed,

therefore, to leave that part of Brazil which they had not conquered to

the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had

conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about, with such good

allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portuguese

colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms

against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with

the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother

country, drove them out of Brazil. The Dutch, therefore, finding it

impossible to keep any part of the country to themselves, were contented

that it should be entirely restored to the crown of Portugal. In this

colony there are said to be more than six hundred thousand people, either

Portuguese or descended from Portuguese, creoles, mulattoes, and a mixed

race between Portuguese and Brazilians. No one colony in America is

supposed to contain so great a number of people of European extraction.

Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of the

sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were the two great naval powers upon

the ocean; for though the commerce of Venice extended to every part of

Europe, its fleet had scarce ever sailed beyond the Mediterranean. The

Spaniards, in virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as their

own; and though they could not hinder so great a naval power as that of

Portugal from settling in Brazil, such was at that time the terror of

their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were

afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent.

The French, who attempted to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the

Spaniards. But the declension of the naval power of this latter nation, in

consequence of the defeat or miscarriage of what they called their

invincible armada, which happened towards the end of the sixteenth

century, put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements

of the other European nations. In the course of the seventeenth century,

therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, all the great

nations who had any ports upon the ocean, attempted to make some

settlements in the new world.

The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number of Swedish

families still to be found there sufficiently demonstrates, that this

colony was very likely to prosper, had it been protected by the mother

country. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon swallowed up by the

Dutch colony of New York, which again, in 1674, fell under the dominion of

the English.

The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, are the only countries in

the new world that have ever been possessed by the Danes. These little

settlements, too, were under the government of an exclusive company, which

had the sole right, both of purchasing the surplus produce of the

colonies, and of supplying them with such goods of other countries as they

wanted, and which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not

only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do so.

The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst

of all governments for any country whatever. It was not, however, able to

stop altogether the progress of these colonies, though it rendered it more

slow and languid. The late king of Denmark dissolved this company, and

since that time the prosperity of these colonies has been very great.

The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East Indies,

were originally put under the government of an exclusive company. The

progress of some of them, therefore, though it has been considerable in

comparison with that of almost any country that has been long peopled and

established, has been languid and slow in comparison with that of the

greater part of new colonies. The colony of Surinam, though very

considerable, is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar colonies

of the other European nations. The colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into

the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would probably have soon

become considerable too, even though it had remained under the government

of the Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good land are such powerful

causes of prosperity, that the very worst government is scarce capable of

checking altogether the efficacy of their operation. The great distance,

too, from the mother country, would enable the colonists to evade more or

less, by smuggling, the monopoly which the company enjoyed against them.

At present, the company allows all Dutch ships to trade to Surinam, upon

paying two and a-half per cent. upon the value of their cargo for a

license; and only reserves to itself exclusively, the direct trade from

Africa to America, which consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This

relaxation in the exclusive privileges of the company, is probably the

principal cause of that degree of prosperity which that colony at present

enjoys. Curacoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to the

Dutch, are free ports, open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom,

in the midst of better colonies, whose ports are open to those of one

nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity of those two

barren islands.

The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last

century, and some part of the present, under the government of an

exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration, its progress

was necessarily very slow, in comparison with that of other new colonies;

but it became much more rapid when this company was dissolved, after the

fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the English got

possession of this country, they found in it near double the number of

inhabitants which father Charlevoix had assigned to it between twenty and

thirty years before. That jesuit had travelled over the whole country, and

had no inclination to represent it as less inconsiderable than it really

was.

The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and

freebooters, who, for a long time, neither required the protection, nor

acknowledged the authority of France; and when that race of banditti

became so far citizens as to acknowledge this authority, it was for a long

time necessary to exercise it with very great gentleness. During this

period, the population and improvement of this colony increased very fast.

Even the oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was for some

time subjected with all the other colonies of France, though it no doubt

retarded, had not been able to stop its progress altogether. The course of

its prosperity returned as soon as it was relieved from that oppression.

It is now the most important of the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and

its produce is said to be greater than that of all the English sugar

colonies put together. The other sugar colonies of France are in general

all very thriving.

But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than

that of the English in North America.

Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own

way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new

colonies.

In the plenty of good land, the English colonies of North America, though

no doubt very abundantly provided, are, however, inferior to those of the

Spaniards and Portuguese, and not superior to some of those possessed by

the French before the late war. But the political institutions of the

English colonies have been more favourable to the improvement and

cultivation of this land, than those of the other three nations.

First, The engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means been

prevented altogether, has been more restrained in the English colonies

than in any other. The colony law, which imposes upon every proprietor the

obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited time, a certain

proportion of his lands, and which, in case of failure, declares those

neglected lands grantable to any other person; though it has not perhaps

been very strictly executed, has, however, had some effect.

Secondly, In Pennsylvania there is no right of primogeniture, and lands,

like moveables, are divided equally among all the children of the family.

In three of the provinces of New England, the oldest has only a double

share, as in the Mosaical law. Though in those provinces, therefore, too

great a quantity of land should sometimes be engrossed by a particular

individual, it is likely, in the course of a generation or two, to be

sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies, indeed, the

right of primogeniture takes place, as in the law of England: But in all

the English colonies, the tenure of the lands, which are all held by free

soccage, facilitates alienation; and the grantee of an extensive tract of

land generally finds it for his interest to alienate, as fast as he can,

the greater part of it, reserving only a small quit-rent. In the Spanish

and Portuguese colonies, what is called the right of majorazzo takes place

in the succession of all those great estates to which any title of honour

is annexed. Such estates go all to one person, and are in effect entailed

and unalienable. The French colonies, indeed, are subject to the custom of

Paris, which, in the inheritance of land, is much more favourable to the

younger children than the law of England. But, in the French colonies, if

any part of an estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and homage, is

alienated, it is, for a limited time, subject to the right of redemption,

either by the heir of the superior, or by the heir of the family; and all

the largest estates of the country are held by such noble tenures, which

necessarily embarrass alienation. But, in a new colony, a great

uncultivated estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by

alienation than by succession. The plenty and cheapness of good land, it

has already been observed, are the principal causes of the rapid

prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing of land, in effect, destroys

this plenty and cheapness. The engrossing of uncultivated land, besides,

is the greatest obstruction to its improvement; but the labour that is

employed in the improvement and cultivation of land affords the greatest

and most valuable produce to the society. The produce of labour, in this

case, pays not only its own wages and the profit of the stock which

employs it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The

labour of the English colonies, therefore, being more employed in the

improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater and

more valuable produce than that of any of the other three nations, which,

by the engrossing of land, is more or less diverted towards other

employments.

Thirdly, The labour of the English colonists is not only likely to afford

a greater and more valuable produce, but, in consequence of the moderation

of their taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs to

themselves, which they may store up and employ in putting into motion a

still greater quantity of labour. The English colonists have never yet

contributed any thing towards the defence of the mother country, or

towards the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the

contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at the expense of

the mother country; but the expense of fleets and armies is out of all

proportion greater than the necessary expense of civil government. The

expense of their own civil government has always been very moderate. It

has generally been confined to what was necessary for paying competent

salaries to the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of

police, and for maintaining a few of the most useful public works. The

expense of the civil establishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the

commencement of the present disturbances, used to be but about £18;000

a-year; that of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, £3500 each; that of

Connecticut, £4000; that of New York and Pennsylvania, £4500 each; that of

New Jersey, £1200; that of Virginia and South Carolina, £8000 each. The

civil establishments of Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported by an

annual grant of parliament; but Nova Scotia pays, besides, about £7000

a-year towards the public expenses of the colony, and Georgia about £2500

a-year. All the different civil establishments in North America, in short,

exclusive of those of Maryland and North Carolina, of which no exact

account has been got, did not, before the commencement of the present

disturbances, cost the inhabitants above £64,700 a-year; an ever memorable

example, at how small an expense three millions of people may not only be

governed but well governed. The most important part of the expense of

government, indeed, that of defence and protection, has constantly fallen

upon the mother country. The ceremonial, too, of the civil government in

the colonies, upon the reception of a new governor, upon the opening of a

new assembly, etc. though sufficiently decent, is not accompanied with any

expensive pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical government is conducted

upon a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown among them; and their

clergy, who are far from being numerous, are maintained either by moderate

stipends, or by the voluntary contributions of the people. The power of

Spain and Portugal, on the contrary, derives some support from the taxes

levied upon their colonies. France, indeed, has never drawn any

considerable revenue from its colonies, the taxes which it levies upon

them being generally spent among them. But the colony government of all

these three nations is conducted upon a much more extensive plan, and is

accompanied with a much more expensive ceremonial. The sums spent upon the

reception of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have frequently been

enormous. Such ceremonials are not only real taxes paid by the rich

colonists upon those particular occasions, but they serve to introduce

among them the habit of vanity and expense upon all other occasions. They

are not only very grievous occasional taxes, but they contribute to

establish perpetual taxes, of the same kind, still more grievous; the

ruinous taxes of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all

those three nations, too, the ecclesiastical government is extremely

oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with the

utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them, besides, are

oppressed with a numerous race of mendicant friars, whose beggary being

not only licensed but consecrated by religion, is a most grievous tax upon

the poor people, who are most carefully taught that it is a duty to give,

and a very great sin to refuse them their charity. Over and above all

this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and

above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more favoured,

and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of any other

European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured, more or less, to

monopolize to itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account,

has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and has

prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation. But

the manner in which this monopoly has been exercised in different nations,

has been very different.

Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an

exclusive company, of whom the colonists were obliged to buy all such

European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell the

whole of their surplus produce. It was the interest of the company,

therefore, not only to sell the former as dear, and to buy the latter as

cheap as possible, but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low

price, than what they could dispose of for a very high price in Europe. It

was their interest not only to degrade in all cases the value of the

surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep

down the natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that can

well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of a new colony, that of an

exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual. This, however, has

been the policy of Holland, though their company, in the course of the

present century, has given up in many respects the exertion of their

exclusive privilege. This, too, was the policy of Denmark, till the reign

of the late king. It has occasionally been the policy of France; and of

late, since 1755, after it had been abandoned by all other nations on

account of its absurdity, it has become the policy of Portugal, with

regard at least to two of the principal provinces of Brazil, Pernambucco,

and Marannon.

Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined

the whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother

country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet

and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a particular

license, which in most cases was very well paid for. This policy opened,

indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the natives of the mother

country, provided they traded from the proper port, at the proper season,

and in the proper vessels. But as all the different merchants, who joined

their stocks in order to fit out those licensed vessels, would find it for

their interest to act in concert, the trade which was carried on in this

manner would necessarily be conducted very nearly upon the same principles

as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants would be

almost equally exorbitant and oppressive. The colonies would be ill

supplied, and would be obliged both to buy very dear, and to sell very

cheap. This, however, till within these few years, had always been the

policy of Spain; and the price of all European goods, accordingly, is said

to have been enormous in the Spanish West Indies. At Quito, we are told by

Ulloa, a pound of iron sold for about 4s:6d., and a pound of steel for

about 6s:9d. sterling. But it is chiefly in order to purchase European

goods that the colonies part with their own produce. The more, therefore,

they pay for the one, the less they really get for the other, and the

dearness of the one is the same thing with the cheapness of the other. The

policy of Portugal is, in this respect, the same as the ancient policy of

Spain, with regard to all its colonies, except Pernambucco and Marannon;

and with regard to these it has lately adopted a still worse.

Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their

subjects, who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother

country, and who have occasion for no other license than the common

despatches of the custom-house. In this case the number and dispersed

situation of the different traders renders it impossible for them to enter

into any general combination, and their competition is sufficient to

hinder them from making very exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a

policy, the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce, and to

buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price; but since the dissolution

of the Plymouth company, when our colonies were but in their infancy, this

has always been the policy of England. It has generally, too, been that of

France, and has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what in England

is commonly called their Mississippi company. The profits of the trade,

therefore, which France and England carry on with their colonies, though

no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition were free to all other

nations, are, however, by no means exorbitant; and the price of European

goods, accordingly, is not extravagantly high in the greater past of the

colonies of either of those nations.

In the exportation of their own surplus produce, too, it is only with

regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain are

confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having

been enumerated in the act of navigation, and in some other subsequent

acts, have upon that account been called enumerated commodities. The rest

are called non-enumerated, and may be exported directly to other

countries, provided it is in British or plantation ships, of which the

owners and three fourths of the mariners are British subjects.

Among the non-enumerated commodities are some of the most important

productions of America and the West Indies, grain of all sorts, lumber,

salt provisions, fish, sugar, and rum.

Grain is naturally the first and principal object of the culture of all

new colonies. By allowing them a very extensive market for it, the law

encourages them to extend this culture much beyond the consumption of a

thinly inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand an ample

subsistence for a continually increasing population.

In a country quite covered with wood, where timber consequently is of

little or no value, the expense of clearing the ground is the principal

obstacle to improvement. By allowing the colonies a very extensive market

for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate improvement by raising

the price of a commodity which would otherwise be of little value, and

thereby enabling them to make some profit of what would otherwise be mere

expense.

In a country neither half peopled nor half cultivated, cattle naturally

multiply beyond the consumption of the inhabitants, and are often, upon

that account, of little or no value. But it is necessary, it has already

been shown, that the price of cattle should bear a certain proportion to

that of corn, before the greater part of the lands of any country can be

improved. By allowing to American cattle, in all shapes, dead and alive, a

very extensive market, the law endeavours to raise the value of a

commodity, of which the high price is so very essential to improvement.

The good effects of this liberty, however, must be somewhat diminished by

the 4th of Geo. III. c. 15, which puts hides and skins among the

enumerated commodities, and thereby tends to reduce the value of American

cattle.

To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain by the extension

of the fisheries of our colonies, is an object which the legislature seems

to have had almost constantly in view. Those fisheries, upon this account,

have had all the encouragement which freedom can give them, and they have

flourished accordingly. The New England fishery, in particular, was,

before the late disturbances, one of the most important, perhaps, in the

world. The whale fishery which, notwithstanding an extravagant bounty, is

in Great Britain carried on to so little purpose, that in the opinion of

many people ( which I do not, however, pretend to warrant), the whole

produce does not much exceed the value of the bounties which are annually

paid for it, is in New England carried on, without any bounty, to a very

great extent. Fish is one of the principal articles with which the North

Americans trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.

Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity, which could only be exported

to Great Britain; but in 1751, upon a representation of the

sugar-planters, its exportation was permitted to all parts of the world.

The restrictions, however, with which this liberty was granted, joined to

the high price of sugar in Great Britain, have rendered it in a great

measure ineffectual. Great Britain and her colonies still continue to be

almost the sole market for all sugar produced in the British plantations.

Their consumption increases so fast, that, though in consequence of the

increasing improvement of Jamaica, as well as of the ceded islands, the

importation of sugar has increased very greatly within these twenty years,

the exportation to foreign countries is said to be not much greater than

before.

Rum is a very important article in the trade which the Americans carry on

to the coast of Africa, from which they bring back negro slaves in return.

If the whole surplus produce of America, in grain of all sorts, in salt

provisions, and in fish, had been put into the enumeration, and thereby

forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much

with the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably not so

much from any regard to the interest of America, as from a jealousy of

this interference, that those important commodities have not only been

kept out of the enumeration, but that the importation into Great Britain

of all grain, except rice, and of all salt provisions, has, in the

ordinary state of the law, been prohibited.

The non-enumerated commodities could originally be exported to all parts

of the world. Lumber and rice having been once put into the enumeration,

when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to the

European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre. By

the 6th of George III. c. 52, all non-enumerated commodities were

subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south of

Cape Finisterre are not manufacturing countries, and we are less jealous

of the colony ships carrying home from them any manufactures which could

interfere with our own.

The enumerated commodities are of two sorts; first, such as are either the

peculiar produce of America, or as cannot be produced, or at least are not

produced in the mother country. Of this kind are molasses, coffee,

cocoa-nuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whalefins, raw silk, cotton, wool,

beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustick, and other dyeing

woods; secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce of America, but

which are, and may be produced in the mother country, though not in such

quantities as to supply the greater part of her demand, which is

principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval

stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and

bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest

importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the

growth, or interfere with the sale, of any part of the produce of the

mother country. By confining them to the home market, our merchants, it

was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them cheaper in the

plantations, and consequently to sell them with a better profit at home,

but to establish between the plantations and foreign countries an

advantageous carrying trade, of which Great Britain was necessarily to be

the centre or emporium, as the European country into which those

commodities were first to be imported. The importation of commodities of

the second kind might be so managed too, it was supposed, as to interfere,

not with the sale of those of the same kind which were produced at home,

but with that of those which were imported from foreign countries;

because, by means of proper duties, they might be rendered always somewhat

dearer than the former, and yet a good deal cheaper than the latter. By

confining such commodities to the home market, therefore, it was proposed

to discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, but of some foreign

countries with which the balance of trade was believed to be unfavourable

to Great Britain.

The prohibition of exporting from the colonies to any other country but

Great Britain, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine,

naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and

consequently to increase the expense of clearing their lands, the

principal obstacle to their improvement. But about the beginning of the

present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden endeavoured

to raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting

their exportation, except in their own ships, at their own price, and in

such quantities as they thought proper. In order to counteract this

notable piece of mercantile policy, and to render herself as much as

possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of all the other northern

powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the importation of naval stores

from America; and the effect of this bounty was to raise the price of

timber in America much more than the confinement to the home market could

lower it; and as both regulations were enacted at the same time, their

joint effect was rather to encourage than to discourage the clearing of

land in America.

Though pig and bar iron, too, have been put among the enumerated

commodities, yet as, when imported from America, they are exempted from

considerable duties to which they are subject when imported front any

other country, the one part of the regulation contributes more to

encourage the erection of furnaces in America than the other to discourage

it. There is no manufacture which occasions so great a consumption of wood

as a furnace, or which can contribute so much to the clearing of a country

overgrown with it.

The tendency of some of these regulations to raise the value of timber in

America, and thereby to facilitate the clearing of the land, was neither,

perhaps, intended nor understood by the legislature. Though their

beneficial effects, however, have been in this respect accidental, they

have not upon that account been less real.

The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British

colonies of America and the West Indies, both in the enumerated and in the

non-enumerated commodities Those colonies are now become so populous and

thriving, that each of them finds in some of the others a great and

extensive market for every part of its produce. All of them taken

together, they make a great internal market for the produce of one

another.

The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies, has

been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce,

either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of

manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures, even of the

colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain chuse to

reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature to prevent

their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and

sometimes by absolute prohibitions.

While, for example, Muscovado sugars from the British plantations pay,

upon importation, only 6s:4d. the hundred weight, white sugars pay £1:1:1;

and refined, either double or single, in loaves, £4:2:5 ⁸⁄₂₀ths. When

those high duties were imposed, Great Britain was the sole, and she still

continues to be, the principal market, to which the sugars of the British

colonies could be exported. They amounted, therefore, to a prohibition, at

first of claying or refining sugar for any foreign market, and at present

of claying or refining it for the market which takes off, perhaps, more

than nine-tenths of the whole produce. The manufacture of claying or

refining sugar, accordingly, though it has flourished in all the sugar

colonies of France, has been little cultivated in any of those of England,

except for the market of the colonies themselves. While Grenada was in the

hands of the French, there was a refinery of sugar, by claying, at least

upon almost every plantation. Since it fell into those of the English,

almost all works of this kind have been given up; and there are at present

(October 1773), I am assured, not above two or three remaining in the

island. At present, however, by an indulgence of the custom-house, clayed

or refined sugar, if reduced from loaves into powder, is commonly imported

as Muscovado.

While Great Britain encourages in America the manufacturing of pig and bar

iron, by exempting them from duties to which the like commodities are

subject when imported from any other country, she imposes an absolute

prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces and slit-mills in any of

her American plantations. She will not suffer her colonies to work in

those more refined manufactures, even for their own consumption; but

insists upon their purchasing of her merchants and manufacturers all goods

of this kind which they have occasion for.

She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water, and

even the carriage by land upon horseback, or in a cart, of hats, of wools,

and woollen goods, of the produce of America; a regulation which

effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of such

commodities for distant sale, and confines the industry of her colonists

in this way to such coarse and household manufactures as a private family

commonly makes for its own use, or for that of some of its neighbours in

the same province.

To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of

every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and

industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a

manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however,

as such prohibitions may be, they have not hitherto been very hurtful to

the colonies. Land is still so cheap, and, consequently, labour so dear

among them, that they can import from the mother country almost all the

more refined or more advanced manufactures cheaper than they could make

them for themselves. Though they had not, therefore, been prohibited from

establishing such manufactures, yet, in their present state of

improvement, a regard to their own interest would probably have prevented

them from doing so. In their present state of improvement, those

prohibitions, perhaps, without cramping their industry, or restraining it

from any employment to which it would have gone of its own accord, are

only impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any

sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and

manufacturers of the mother country. In a more advanced state, they might

be really oppressive and insupportable.

Great Britain, too, as she confines to her own market some of the most

important productions of the colonies, so, in compensation, she gives to

some of them an advantage in that market, sometimes by imposing higher

duties upon the like productions when imported from other countries, and

sometimes by giving bounties upon their importation from the colonies. In

the first way, she gives an advantage in the home market to the sugar,

tobacco, and iron of her own colonies; and, in the second, to their raw

silk, to their hemp and flax, to their indigo, to their naval stores, and

to their building timber. This second way of encouraging the colony

produce, by bounties upon importation, is, so far as I have been able to

learn, peculiar to Great Britain: the first is not. Portugal does not

content herself with imposing higher duties upon the importation of

tobacco from any other country, but prohibits it under the severest

penalties.

With regard to the importation of goods from Europe, England has likewise

dealt more liberally with her colonies than any other nation.

Great Britain allows a part, almost always the half, generally a larger

portion, and sometimes the whole, of the duty which is paid upon the

importation of foreign goods, to be drawn back upon their exportation to

any foreign country. No independent foreign country, it was easy to

foresee, would receive them, if they came to it loaded with the heavy

duties to which almost all foreign goods are subjected on their

importation into Great Britain. Unless, therefore, some part of those

duties was drawn back upon exportation, there was an end of the carrying

trade; a trade so much favoured by the mercantile system.

Our colonies, however, are by no means independent foreign countries; and

Great Britain having assumed to herself the exclusive right of supplying

them with all goods from Europe, might have forced them (in the same

manner as other countries have done their colonies) to receive such goods

loaded with all the same duties which they paid in the mother country.

But, on the contrary, till 1763, the same drawbacks were paid upon the

exportation of the greater part of foreign goods to our colonies, as to

any independent foreign country. In 1763, indeed, by the 4th of Geo. III.

c. 15, this indulgence was a good deal abated, and it was enacted, “That

no part of the duty called the old subsidy should be drawn back for any

goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe or the East

Indies, which should be exported from this kingdom to any British colony

or plantation in America; wines, white calicoes, and muslins, excepted.”

Before this law, many different sorts of foreign goods might have been

bought cheaper in the plantations than in the mother country, and some may

still.

Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, the

merchants who carry it on, it must be observed, have been the principal

advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in a great part of them,

their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies

or that of the mother country. In their exclusive privilege of supplying

the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and of

purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not interfere

with any of the trades which they themselves carried on at home, the

interest of the colonies was sacrificed to the interest of those

merchants. In allowing the same drawbacks upon the re-exportation of the

greater part of European and East India goods to the colonies, as upon

their re-exportation to any independent country, the interest of the

mother country was sacrificed to it, even according to the mercantile

ideas of that interest. It was for the interest of the merchants to pay as

little as possible for the foreign goods which they sent to the colonies,

and, consequently, to get back as much as possible of the duties which

they advanced upon their importation into Great Britain. They might

thereby be enabled to sell in the colonies, either the same quantity of

goods with a greater profit, or a greater quantity with the same profit,

and, consequently, to gain something either in the one way or the other.

It was likewise for the interest of the colonies to get all such goods as

cheap, and in as great abundance as possible. But this might not always be

for the interest of the mother country. She might frequently suffer, both

in her revenue, by giving back a great part of the duties which had been

paid upon the importation of such goods; and in her manufactures, by being

undersold in the colony market, in consequence of the easy terms upon

which foreign manufactures could be carried thither by means of those

drawbacks. The progress of the linen manufacture of Great Britain, it is

commonly said, has been a good deal retarded by the drawbacks upon the

re-exportation of German linen to the American colonies.

But though the policy of Great Britain, with regard to the trade of her

colonies, has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other

nations, it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and

oppressive than that of any of them.

In every thing except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English

colonists to manage their own affairs their own way, is complete. It is in

every respect equal to that of their fellow-citizens at home, and is

secured in the same manner, by an assembly of the representatives of the

people, who claim the sole right of imposing taxes for the support of the

colony government. The authority of this assembly overawes the executive

power; and neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious colonist, as long as

he obeys the law, has any thing to fear from the resentment, either of the

governor, or of any other civil or military officer in the province. The

colony assemblies, though, like the house of commons in England, they are

not always a very equal representation of the people, yet they approach

more nearly to that character; and as the executive power either has not

the means to corrupt them, or, on account of the support which it receives

from the mother country, is not under the necessity of doing so, they are,

perhaps, in general more influenced by the inclinations of their

constituents. The councils, which, in the colony legislatures, correspond

to the house of lords in Great Britain, are not composed of a hereditary

nobility. In some of the colonies, as in three of the governments of New

England, those councils are not appointed by the king, but chosen by the

representatives of the people. In none of the English colonies is there

any hereditary nobility. In all of them, indeed, as in all other free

countries, the descendant of an old colony family is more respected than

an upstart of equal merit and fortune; but he is only more respected, and

he has no privileges by which he can be troublesome to his neighbours.

Before the commencement of the present disturbances, the colony assemblies

had not only the legislative, but a part of the executive power. In

Connecticut and Rhode Island, they elected the governor. In the other

colonies, they appointed the revenue officers, who collected the taxes

imposed by those respective assemblies, to whom those officers were

immediately responsible. There is more equality, therefore, among the

English colonists than among the inhabitants of the mother country. Their

manners are more re publican; and their governments, those of three of the

provinces of New England in particular, have hitherto been more republican

too.

The absolute governments of Spain, Portugal, and France, on the contrary,

take place in their colonies; and the discretionary powers which such

governments commonly delegate to all their inferior officers are, on

account of the great distance, naturally exercised there with more than

ordinary violence. Under all absolute governments, there is more liberty

in the capital than in any other part of the country. The sovereign

himself can never have either interest or inclination to pervert the order

of justice, or to oppress the great body of the people. In the capital,

his presence overawes, more or less, all his inferior officers, who, in

the remoter provinces, from whence the complaints of the people are less

likely to reach him, can exercise their tyranny with much more safety. But

the European colonies in America are more remote than the most distant

provinces of the greatest empires which had ever been known before. The

government of the English colonies is, perhaps, the only one which, since

the world began, could give perfect security to the inhabitants of so very

distant a province. The administration of the French colonies, however,

has always been conducted with much more gentleness and moderation than

that of the Spanish and Portuguese. This superiority of conduct is

suitable both to the character of the French nation, and to what forms the

character of every nation, the nature of their government, which, though

arbitrary and violent in comparison with that of Great Britain, is legal

and free in comparison with those of Spain and Portugal.

It is in the progress of the North American colonies, however, that the

superiority of the English policy chiefly appears. The progress of the

sugar colonies of France has been at least equal, perhaps superior, to

that of the greater part of those of England; and yet the sugar colonies

of England enjoy a free government, nearly of the same kind with that

which takes place in her colonies of North America. But the sugar colonies

of France are not discouraged, like those of England, from refining their

own sugar; and what is still of greater importance, the genius of their

government naturally introduces a better management of their negro slaves.

In all European colonies, the culture of the sugar-cane is carried on by

negro slaves. The constitution of those who have been born in the

temperate climate of Europe could not, it is supposed, support the labour

of digging the ground under the burning sun of the West Indies; and the

culture of the sugar-cane, as it is managed at present, is all hand

labour; though, in the opinion of many, the drill plough might be

introduced into it with great advantage. But, as the profit and success of

the cultivation which is carried on by means of cattle, depend very much

upon the good management of those cattle; so the profit and success of

that which is carried on by slaves must depend equally upon the good

management of those slaves; and in the good management of their slaves the

French planters, I think it is generally allowed, are superior to the

English. The law, so far as it gives some weak protection to the slave

against the violence of his master, is likely to be better executed in a

colony where the government is in a great measure arbitrary, than in one

where it is altogether free. In every country where the unfortunate law

of slavery is established, the magistrate, when he protects the slave,

intermeddles in some measure in the management of the private property of

the master; and, in a free country, where the master is, perhaps, either a

member of the colony assembly, or an elector of such a member, he dares

not do this but with the greatest caution and circumspection. The respect

which he is obliged to pay to the master, renders it more difficult for

him to protect the slave. But in a country where the government is in a

great measure arbitrary, where it is usual for the magistrate to

intermeddle even in the management of the private property of individuals,

and to send them, perhaps, a lettre de cachet, if they do not manage it

according to his liking, it is much easier for him to give some protection

to the slave; and common humanity naturally disposes him to do so. The

protection of the magistrate renders the slave less contemptible in the

eyes of his master, who is thereby induced to consider him with more

regard, and to treat him with more gentleness. Gentle usage renders the

slave not only more faithful, but more intelligent, and, therefore, upon a

double account, more useful. He approaches more to the condition of a free

servant, and may possess some degree of integrity and attachment to his

master’s interest; virtues which frequently belong to free servants, but

which never can belong to a slave, who is treated as slaves commonly are

in countries where the master is perfectly free and secure.

That the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary than under a

free government, is, I believe, supported by the history of all ages and

nations. In the Roman history, the first time we read of the magistrate

interposing to protect the slave from the violence of his master, is under

the emperors. When Vidius Pollio, in the presence of Augustus, ordered one

of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cut into pieces and

thrown into his fish-pond, in order to feed his fishes, the emperor

commanded him, with indignation, to emancipate immediately, not only that

slave, but all the others that belonged to him. Under the republic no

magistrate could have had authority enough to protect the slave, much less

to punish the master.

The stock, it is to be observed, which has improved the sugar colonies of

France, particularly the great colony of St Domingo, has been raised

almost entirely from the gradual improvement and cultivation of those

colonies. It has been almost altogether the produce of the soil and of the

industry of the colonists, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of

that produce, gradually accumulated by good management, and employed in

raising a still greater produce. But the stock which has improved and

cultivated the sugar colonies of England, has, a great part of it, been

sent out from England, and has by no means been altogether the produce of

the soil and industry of the colonists. The prosperity of the English

sugar colonies has been in a great measure owing to the great riches of

England, of which a part has overflowed, if one may say so, upon these

colonies. But the prosperity of the sugar colonies of France has been

entirely owing to the good conduct of the colonists, which must therefore

have had some superiority over that of the English; and this superiority

has been remarked in nothing so much as in the good management of their

slaves.

Such have been the general outlines of the policy of the different

European nations with regard to their colonies.

The policy of Europe, therefore, has very little to boast of, either in

the original establishment, or, so far as concerns their internal

government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America.

Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided over

and directed the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly

of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice of coveting the

possession of a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever

injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with

every mark of kindness and hospitality.

The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the latter establishments,

joined to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines, other

motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do very

little honour to the policy of Europe.

The English puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America, and

established there the four governments of New England. The English

catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of

Maryland; the quakers, that of Pennsylvania. The Portuguese Jews,

persecuted by the inquisition, stript of their fortunes, and banished to

Brazil, introduced, by their example, some sort of order and industry

among the transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was

originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar-cane. Upon

all these different occasions, it was not the wisdom and policy, but the

disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and

cultivated America.

In effectuation some of the most important of these establishments, the

different governments of Europe had as little merit as in projecting them.

The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of Spain, but

of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit of the bold

adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in spite of every thing which that

governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person, could do to

thwart it. The conquerors of Chili and Peru, and of almost all the other

Spanish settlements upon the continent of America, carried out with them

no other public encouragement, but a general permission to make

settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain. Those

adventures were all at the private risk and expense of the adventurers.

The government of Spain contributed scarce any thing to any of them. That

of England contributed as little towards effectuating the establishment of

some of its most important colonies in North America.

When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so considerable

as to attract the attention of the mother country, the first regulations

which she made with regard to them, had always in view to secure to

herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to

enlarge her own at their expense, and, consequently, rather to damp and

discourage, than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity. In

the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised, consists one

of the most essential differences in the policy of the different European

nations with regard to their colonies. The best of them all, that of

England, is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any

of the rest.

In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the

first establishment, or to the present grandeur of the colonies of

America? In one way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal.

Magna virum mater! It bred and formed the men who were capable of

achieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great an

empire; and there is no other quarter of the world; of which the policy is

capable of forming, or has ever actually, and in fact, formed such men.

The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and great views of

their active and enterprizing founders; and some of the greatest and most

important of them, so far as concerns their internal government, owe to it

scarce anything else.

PART III. Of the Advantages which Europe has derived From the Discovery of

America, and from that of a Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good

Hope.

Such are the advantages which the colonies of America have derived from

the policy of Europe.

What are those which Europe has derived from the discovery and

colonization of America?

Those advantages may be divided, first, into the general advantages which

Europe, considered as one great country, has derived from those great

events; and, secondly, into the particular advantages which each

colonizing country has derived from the colonies which particularly belong

to it, in consequence of the authority or dominion which it exercises over

them.

The general advantages which Europe, considered as one great country, has

derived from the discovery and colonization of America, consist, first, in

the increase of its enjoyments; and, secondly, in the augmentation of its

industry.

The surplus produce of America imported into Europe, furnishes the

inhabitants of this great continent with a variety of commodities which

they could not otherwise have possessed; some for conveniency and use,

some for pleasure, and some for ornament; and thereby contributes to

increase their enjoyments.

The discovery and colonization of America, it will readily be allowed,

have contributed to augment the industry, first, of all the countries

which trade to it directly, such as Spain, Portugal, France, and England;

and, secondly, of all those which, without trading to it directly, send,

through the medium of other countries, goods to it of their own produce,

such as Austrian Flanders, and some provinces of Germany, which, through

the medium of the countries before mentioned, send to it a considerable

quantity of linen and other goods. All such countries have evidently

gained a more extensive market for their surplus produce, and must

consequently have been encouraged to increase its quantity.

But that those great events should likewise have contributed to encourage

the industry of countries such as Hungary and Poland, which may never,

perhaps, have sent a single commodity of their own produce to America, is

not, perhaps, altogether so evident. That those events have done so,

however, cannot be doubted. Some part of the produce of America is

consumed in Hungary and Poland, and there is some demand there for the

sugar, chocolate, and tobacco, of that new quarter of the world. But those

commodities must be purchased with something which is either the produce

of the industry of Hungary and Poland, or with something which had been

purchased with some part of that produce. Those commodities of America are

new values, new equivalents, introduced into Hungary and Poland, to be

exchanged there for the surplus produce of these countries. By being

carried thither, they create a new and more extensive market for that

surplus produce. They raise its value, and thereby contribute to encourage

its increase. Though no part of it may ever be carried to America, it may

be carried to other countries, which purchase it with a part of their

share of the surplus produce of America, and it may find a market by means

of the circulation of that trade which was originally put into motion by

the surplus produce of America.

Those great events may even have contributed to increase the enjoyments,

and to augment the industry, of countries which not only never sent any

commodities to America, but never received any from it. Even such

countries may have received a greater abundance of other commodities from

countries, of which the surplus produce had been augmented by means of the

American trade. This greater abundance, as it must necessarily have

increased their enjoyments, so it must likewise have augmented their

industry. A greater number of new equivalents, of some kind or other, must

have been presented to them to be exchanged for the surplus produce of

that industry. A more extensive market must have been created for that

surplus produce, so as to raise its value, and thereby encourage its

increase. The mass of commodities annually thrown into the great circle of

European commerce, and by its various revolutions annually distributed

among all the different nations comprehended within it, must have been

augmented by the whole surplus produce of America. A greater share of this

greater mass, therefore, is likely to have fallen to each of those

nations, to have increased their enjoyments, and augmented their industry.

The exclusive trade of the mother countries tends to diminish, or at least

to keep down below what they would otherwise rise to, both the enjoyments

and industry of all those nations in general, and of the American colonies

in particular. It is a dead weight upon the action of one of the great

springs which puts into motion a great part of the business of mankind. By

rendering the colony produce dearer in all other countries, it lessens its

consumption, and thereby cramps the industry of the colonies, and both the

enjoyments and the industry of all other countries, which both enjoy less

when they pay more for what they enjoy, and produce less when they get

less for what they produce. By rendering the produce of all other

countries dearer in the colonies, it cramps in the same manner the

industry of all other colonies, and both the enjoyments and the industry

of the colonies. It is a clog which, for the supposed benefit of some

particular countries, embarrasses the pleasures and encumbers the industry

of all other countries, but of the colonies more than of any other. It not

only excludes as much as possible all other countries from one particular

market, but it confines as much as possible the colonies to one particular

market; and the difference is very great between being excluded from one

particular market when all others are open, and being confined to one

particular market when all others are shut up. The surplus produce of the

colonies, however, is the original source of all that increase of

enjoyments and industry which Europe derives from the discovery and

colonization of America, and the exclusive trade of the mother countries

tends to render this source much less abundant than it otherwise would be.

The particular advantages which each colonizing country derives from the

colonies which particularly belong to it, are of two different kinds;

first, those common advantages which every empire derives from the

provinces subject to its dominion; and, secondly, those peculiar

advantages which are supposed to result from provinces of so very peculiar

a nature as the European colonies of America.

The common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces

subject to its dominion consist, first, in the military force which they

furnish for its defence; and, secondly, in the revenue which they furnish

for the support of its civil government. The Roman colonies furnished

occasionally both the one and the other. The Greek colonies sometimes

furnished a military force, but seldom any revenue. They seldom

acknowledged themselves subject to the dominion of the mother city. They

were generally her allies in war, but very seldom her subjects in peace.

The European colonies of America have never yet furnished any military

force for the defence of the mother country. The military force has never

yet been sufficient for their own defence; and in the different wars in

which the mother countries have been engaged, the defence of their

colonies has generally occasioned a very considerable distraction of the

military force of those countries. In this respect, therefore, all the

European colonies have, without exception, been a cause rather of weakness

than of strength to their respective mother countries.

The colonies of Spain and Portugal only have contributed any revenue

towards the defence of the mother country, or the support of her civil

government. The taxes which have been levied upon those of other European

nations, upon those of England in particular, have seldom been equal to

the expense laid out upon them in time of peace, and never sufficient to

defray that which they occasioned in time of war. Such colonies,

therefore, have been a source of expense, and not of revenue, to their

respective mother countries.

The advantages of such colonies to their respective mother countries,

consist altogether in those peculiar advantages which are supposed to

result from provinces of so very peculiar a nature as the European

colonies of America; and the exclusive trade, it is acknowledged, is the

sole source of all those peculiar advantages.

In consequence of this exclusive trade, all that part of the surplus

produce of the English colonies, for example, which consists in what are

called enumerated commodities, can be sent to no other country but

England. Other countries must afterwards buy it of her. It must be

cheaper, therefore, in England than it can be in any other country, and

must contribute more to increase the enjoyments of England than those of

any other country. It must likewise contribute more to encourage her

industry. For all those parts of her own surplus produce which England

exchanges for those enumerated commodities, she must get a better price

than any other countries can get for the like parts of theirs, when they

exchange them for the same commodities. The manufactures of England, for

example, will purchase a greater quantity of the sugar and tobacco of her

own colonies than the like manufactures of other countries can purchase of

that sugar and tobacco. So far, therefore, as the manufactures of England

and those of other countries are both to be exchanged for the sugar and

tobacco of the English colonies, this superiority of price gives an

encouragement to the former beyond what the latter can, in these

circumstances, enjoy. The exclusive trade of the colonies, therefore, as

it diminishes, or at least keeps down below what they would otherwise rise

to, both the enjoyments and the industry of the countries which do not

possess it, so it gives an evident advantage to the countries which do

possess it over those other countries.

This advantage, however, will, perhaps, be found to be rather what may be

called a relative than an absolute advantage, and to give a superiority to

the country which enjoys it, rather by depressing the industry and produce

of other countries, than by raising those of that particular country above

what they would naturally rise to in the case of a free trade.

The tobacco of Maryland and Virginia, for example, by means of the

monopoly which England enjoys of it, certainly comes cheaper to England

than it can do to France to whom England commonly sells a considerable

part of it. But had France and all other European countries been at all

times allowed a free trade to Maryland and Virginia, the tobacco of those

colonies might by this time have come cheaper than it actually does, not

only to all those other countries, but likewise to England. The produce of

tobacco, in consequence of a market so much more extensive than any which

it has hitherto enjoyed, might, and probably would, by this time have been

so much increased as to reduce the profits of a tobacco plantation to

their natural level with those of a corn plantation, which it is supposed

they are still somewhat above. The price of tobacco might, and probably

would, by this time have fallen somewhat lower than it is at present. An

equal quantity of the commodities, either of England or of those other

countries, might have purchased in Maryland and Virginia a greater

quantity of tobacco than it can do at present, and consequently have been

sold there for so much a better price. So far as that weed, therefore,

can, by its cheapness and abundance, increase the enjoyments, or augment

the industry, either of England or of any other country, it would

probably, in the case of a free trade, have produced both these effects in

somewhat a greater degree than it can do at present. England, indeed,

would not, in this case, have had any advantage over other countries. She

might have bought the tobacco of her colonies somewhat cheaper, and

consequently have sold some of her own commodities somewhat dearer, than

she actually does; but she could neither have bought the one cheaper, nor

sold the other dearer, than any other country might have done. She might,

perhaps, have gained an absolute, but she would certainly have lost a

relative advantage.

In order, however, to obtain this relative advantage in the colony trade,

in order to execute the invidious and malignant project of excluding, as

much as possible, other nations from any share in it, England, there are

very probable reasons for believing, has not only sacrificed a part of the

absolute advantage which she, as well as every other nation, might have

derived from that trade, but has subjected herself both to an absolute and

to a relative disadvantage in almost every other branch of trade.

When, by the act of navigation, England assumed to herself the monopoly of

the colony trade, the foreign capitals which had before been employed in

it, were necessarily withdrawn from it. The English capital, which had

before carried on but a part of it, was now to carry on the whole. The

capital which had before supplied the colonies with but a part of the

goods which they wanted from Europe, was now all that was employed to

supply them with the whole. But it could not supply them with the whole;

and the goods with which it did supply them were necessarily sold very

dear. The capital which had before bought but a part of the surplus

produce of the colonies, was now all that was employed to buy the whole.

But it could not buy the whole at any thing near the old price; and

therefore, whatever it did buy, it necessarily bought very cheap. But in

an employment of capital, in which the merchant sold very dear, and bought

very cheap, the profit must have been very great, and much above the

ordinary level of profit in other branches of trade. This superiority of

profit in the colony trade could not fail to draw from other branches of

trade a part of the capital which had before been employed in them. But

this revulsion of capital, as it must have gradually increased the

competition of capitals in the colony trade, so it must have gradually

diminished that competition in all those other branches of trade; as it

must have gradually lowered the profits of the one, so it must have

gradually raised those of the other, till the profits of all came to a new

level, different from, and somewhat higher, than that at which they had

been before.

This double effect of drawing capital from all other trades, and of

raising the rate of profit somewhat higher than it otherwise would have

been in all trades, was not only produced by this monopoly upon its first

establishment, but has continued to be produced by it ever since.

First, This monopoly has been continually drawing capital from all other

trades, to be employed in that of the colonies.

Though the wealth of Great Britain has increased very much since the

establishment of the act of navigation, it certainly has not increased in

the same proportion as that or the colonies. But the foreign trade of

every country naturally increases in proportion to its wealth, its surplus

produce in proportion to its whole produce; and Great Britain having

engrossed to herself almost the whole of what may be called the foreign

trade of the colonies, and her capital not having increased in the same

proportion as the extent of that trade, she could not carry it on without

continually withdrawing from other branches of trade some part of the

capital which had before been employed in them, as well as withholding

from them a great deal more which would otherwise have gone to them. Since

the establishment of the act of navigation, accordingly, the colony trade

has been continually increasing, while many other branches of foreign

trade, particularly of that to other parts of Europe, have been

continually decaying. Our manufactures for foreign sale, instead of being

suited, as before the act of navigation, to the neighbouring market of

Europe, or to the more distant one of the countries which lie round the

Mediterranean sea, have the greater part of them, been accommodated to the

still more distant one of the colonies; to the market in which they have

the monopoly, rather than to that in which they have many competitors. The

causes of decay in other branches of foreign trade, which, by Sir Matthew

Decker and other writers, have been sought for in the excess and improper

mode of taxation, in the high price of labour, in the increase of luxury,

etc. may all be found in the overgrowth of the colony trade. The

mercantile capital of Great Britain, though very great, yet not being

infinite, and though greatly increased since the act of navigation, yet

not being increased in the same proportion as the colony trade, that trade

could not possibly be carried on without withdrawing some part of that

capital from other branches of trade, nor consequently without some decay

of those other branches.

England, it must be observed, was a great trading country, her mercantile

capital was very great, and likely to become still greater and greater

every day, not only before the act of navigation had established the

monopoly of the corn trade, but before that trade was very considerable.

In the Dutch war, during the government of Cromwell, her navy was superior

to that of Holland; and in that which broke out in the beginning of the

reign of Charles II., it was at least equal, perhaps superior to the

united navies of France and Holland. Its superiority, perhaps, would

scarce appear greater in the present times, at least if the Dutch navy

were to bear the same proportion to the Dutch commerce now which it did

then. But this great naval power could not, in either of those wars, be

owing to the act of navigation. During the first of them, the plan of that

act had been but just formed; and though, before the breaking out of the

second, it had been fully enacted by legal authority, yet no part of it

could have had time to produce any considerable effect, and least of all

that part which established the exclusive trade to the colonies. Both the

colonies and their trade were inconsiderable then, in comparison of what

they are how. The island of Jamaica was an unwholesome desert, little

inhabited, and less cultivated. New York and New Jersey were in the

possession of the Dutch, the half of St. Christopher’s in that of the

French. The island of Antigua, the two Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Georgia,

and Nova Scotia, were not planted. Virginia, Maryland, and New England

were planted; and though they were very thriving colonies, yet there was

not perhaps at that time, either in Europe or America, a single person who

foresaw, or even suspected, the rapid progress which they have since made

in wealth, population, and improvement. The island of Barbadoes, in short,

was the only British colony of any consequence, of which the condition at

that time bore any resemblance to what it is at present. The trade of the

colonies, of which England, even for some time after the act of

navigation, enjoyed but a part (for the act of navigation was not very

strictly executed till several years after it was enacted), could not at

that time be the cause of the great trade of England, nor of the great

naval power which was supported by that trade. The trade which at that

time supported that great naval power was the trade of Europe, and of the

countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea. But the share which Great

Britain at present enjoys of that trade could not support any such great

naval power. Had the growing trade of the colonies been left free to all

nations, whatever share of it might have fallen to Great Britain, and a

very considerable share would probably have fallen to her, must have been

all an addition to this great trade of which she was before in possession.

In consequence of the monopoly, the increase of the colony trade has not

so much occasioned an addition to the trade which Great Britain had

before, as a total change in its direction.

Secondly, This monopoly has necessarily contributed to keep up the rate of

profit, in all the different branches of British trade, higher than it

naturally would have been, had all nations been allowed a free trade to

the British colonies.

The monopoly of the colony trade, as it necessarily drew towards that

trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would

have gone to it of its own accord, so, by the expulsion of all foreign

capitals, it necessarily reduced the whole quantity of capital employed in

that trade below what it naturally would have been in the case of a free

trade. But, by lessening the competition of capitals in that branch of

trade, it necessarily raised the rate of profit in that branch. By

lessening, too, the competition of British capitals in all other branches

of trade, it necessarily raised the rate of British profit in all those

other branches. Whatever may have been, at any particular period since the

establishment of the act of navigation, the state or extent of the

mercantile capital of Great Britain, the monopoly of the colony trade

must, during the continuance of that state, have raised the ordinary rate

of British profit higher than it otherwise would have been, both in that

and in all the other branches of British trade. If, since the

establishment of the act of navigation, the ordinary rate of British

profit has fallen considerably, as it certainly has, it must have fallen

still lower, had not the monopoly established by that act contributed to

keep it up.

But whatever raises, in any country, the ordinary rate of profit higher

than it otherwise would be, necessarily subjects that country both to an

absolute, and to a relative disadvantage in every branch of trade of which

she has not the monopoly.

It subjects her to an absolute disadvantage; because, in such branches of

trade, her merchants cannot get this greater profit without selling dearer

than they otherwise would do, both the goods of foreign countries which

they import into their own, and the goods of their own country which they

export to foreign countries. Their own country must both buy dearer and

sell dearer; must both buy less, and sell less; must both enjoy less and

produce less, than she otherwise would do.

It subjects her to a relative disadvantage; because, in such branches of

trade, it sets other countries, which are not subject to the same absolute

disadvantage, either more above her or less below her, than they otherwise

would be. It enables them both to enjoy more and to produce more, in

proportion to what she enjoys and produces. It renders their superiority

greater, or their inferiority less, than it otherwise would be. By raising

the price of her produce above what it otherwise would be, it enables the

merchants of other countries to undersell her in foreign markets, and

thereby to justle her out of almost all those branches of trade, of which

she has not the monopoly.

Our merchants frequently complain of the high wages of British labour, as

the cause of their manufactures being undersold in foreign markets; but

they are silent about the high profits of stock. They complain of the

extravagant gain of other people; but they say nothing of their own. The

high profits of British stock, however, may contribute towards raising the

price of British manufactures, in many cases, as much, and in some perhaps

more, than the high wages of British labour.

It is in this manner that the capital of Great Britain, one may justly

say, has partly been drawn and partly been driven from the greater part of

the different branches of trade of which she has not the monopoly; from

the trade of Europe, in particular, and from that of the countries which

lie round the Mediterranean sea.

It has partly been drawn from those branches of trade, by the attraction

of superior profit in the colony trade, in consequence of the continual

increase of that trade, and of the continual insufficiency of the capital

which had carried it on one year to carry it on the next.

It has partly been driven from them, by the advantage which the high rate

of profit established in Great Britain gives to other countries, in all

the different branches of trade of which Great Britain has not the

monopoly.

As the monopoly of the colony trade has drawn from those other branches a

part of the British capital, which would otherwise have been employed in

them, so it has forced into them many foreign capitals which would never

have gone to them, had they not been expelled from the colony trade. In

those other branches of trade, it has diminished the competition of

British capitals, and thereby raised the rate of British profit higher

than it otherwise would have been. On the contrary, it has increased the

competition of foreign capitals, and thereby sunk the rate of foreign

profit lower than it otherwise would have been. Both in the one way and in

the other, it must evidently have subjected Great Britain to a relative

disadvantage in all those other branches of trade.

The colony trade, however, it may perhaps be said, is more advantageous to

Great Britain than any other; and the monopoly, by forcing into that trade

a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would

otherwise have gone to it, has turned that capital into an employment,

more advantageous to the country than any other which it could have found.

The most advantageous employment of any capital to the country to which it

belongs, is that which maintains there the greatest quantity of productive

labour, and increases the most the annual produce of the land and labour

of that country. But the quantity of productive labour which any capital

employed in the foreign trade of consumption can maintain, is exactly in

proportion, it has been shown in the second book, to the frequency of its

returns. A capital of a thousand pounds, for example, employed in a

foreign trade of consumption, of which the returns are made regularly once

in the year, can keep in constant employment, in the country to which it

belongs, a quantity of productive labour, equal to what a thousand pounds

can maintain there for a year. If the returns are made twice or thrice in

the year, it can keep in constant employment a quantity of productive

labour, equal to what two or three thousand pounds can maintain there for

a year. A foreign trade of consumption carried on with a neighbouring, is,

upon that account, in general, more advantageous than one carried on with

a distant country; and, for the same reason, a direct foreign trade of

consumption, as it has likewise been shown in the second book, is in

general more advantageous than a round-about one.

But the monopoly of the colony trade, so far as it has operated upon the

employment of the capital of Great Britain, has, in all cases, forced some

part of it from a foreign trade of consumption carried on with a

neighbouring, to one carried on with a more distant country, and in many

cases from a direct foreign trade of consumption to a round-about one.

First, The monopoly of the colony trade has, in all cases, forced some

part of the capital of Great Britain from a foreign trade of consumption

carried on with a neighbouring, to one carried on with a more distant

country.

It has, in all cases, forced some part of that capital from the trade with

Europe, and with the countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea, to

that with the more distant regions of America and the West Indies; from

which the returns are necessarily less frequent, not only on account of

the greater distance, but on account of the peculiar circumstances of

those countries. New colonies, it has already been observed, are always

understocked. Their capital is always much less than what they could

employ with great profit and advantage in the improvement and cultivation

of their land. They have a constant demand, therefore, for more capital

than they have of their own; and, in order to supply the deficiency of

their own, they endeavour to borrow as much as they can of the mother

country, to whom they are, therefore, always in debt. The most common way

in which the colonies contract this debt, is not by borrowing upon bond of

the rich people of the mother country, though they sometimes do this too,

but by running as much in arrear to their correspondents, who supply them

with goods from Europe, as those correspondents will allow them. Their

annual returns frequently do not amount to more than a third, and

sometimes not to so great a proportion of what they owe. The whole

capital, therefore, which their correspondents advance to them, is seldom

returned to Britain in less than three, and sometimes not in less than

four or five years. But a British capital of a thousand pounds, for

example, which is returned to Great Britain only once in five years, can

keep in constant employment only one-fifth part of the British industry

which it could maintain, if the whole was returned once in the year; and,

instead of the quantity of industry which a thousand pounds could maintain

for a year, can keep in constant employment the quantity only which two

hundred pounds can maintain for a year. The planter, no doubt, by the high

price which he pays for the goods from Europe, by the interest upon the

bills which he grants at distant dates, and by the commission upon the

renewal of those which he grants at near dates, makes up, and probably

more than makes up, all the loss which his correspondent can sustain by

this delay. But, though he make up the loss of his correspondent, he

cannot make up that of Great Britain. In a trade of which the returns are

very distant, the profit of the merchant may be as great or greater than

in one in which they are very frequent and near; but the advantage of the

country in which he resides, the quantity of productive labour constantly

maintained there, the annual produce of the land and labour, must always

be much less. That the returns of the trade to America, and still more

those of that to the West Indies, are, in general, not only more distant,

but more irregular and more uncertain, too, than those of the trade to any

part of Europe, or even of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean

sea, will readily be allowed, I imagine, by everybody who has any

experience of those different branches of trade.

Secondly, The monopoly of the colony trade, has, in many cases, forced

some part of the capital of Great Britain from a direct foreign trade of

consumption, into a round-about one.

Among the enumerated commodities which can be sent to no other market but

Great Britain, there are several of which the quantity exceeds very much

the consumption of Great Britain, and of which, a part, therefore, must be

exported to other countries. But this cannot be done without forcing some

part of the capital of Great Britain into a round-about foreign trade of

consumption. Maryland, and Virginia, for example, send annually to Great

Britain upwards of ninety-six thousand hogsheads of tobacco, and the

consumption of Great Britain is said not to exceed fourteen thousand.

Upwards of eighty-two thousand hogsheads, therefore, must be exported to

other countries, to France, to Holland, and, to the countries which lie

round the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. But that part of the capital of

Great Britain which brings those eighty-two thousand hogsheads to Great

Britain, which re-exports them from thence to those other countries, and

which brings back from those other countries to Great Britain either goods

or money in return, is employed in a round-about foreign trade of

consumption; and is necessarily forced into this employment, in order to

dispose of this great surplus. If we would compute in how many years the

whole of this capital is likely to come back to Great Britain, we must add

to the distance of the American returns that of the returns from those

other countries. If, in the direct foreign trade of consumption which we

carry on with America, the whole capital employed frequently does not come

back in less than three or four years, the whole capital employed in this

round-about one is not likely to come back in less than four or five. If

the one can keep in constant employment but a third or a fourth part of

the domestic industry which could be maintained by a capital returned once

in the year, the other can keep in constant employment but a fourth or a

fifth part of that industry. At some of the outports a credit is commonly

given to those foreign correspondents to whom they export them tobacco. At

the port of London, indeed, it is commonly sold for ready money: the rule

is Weigh and pay. At the port of London, therefore, the final returns of

the whole round-about trade are more distant than the returns from

America, by the time only which the goods may lie unsold in the warehouse;

where, however, they may sometimes lie long enough. But, had not the

colonies been confined to the market of Great Britain for the sale of

their tobacco, very little more of it would probably have come to us than

what was necessary for the home consumption. The goods which Great Britain

purchases at present for her own consumption with the great surplus of

tobacco which she exports to other countries, she would, in this case,

probably have purchased with the immediate produce of her own industry, or

with some part of her own manufactures. That produce, those manufactures,

instead of being almost entirely suited to one great market, as at

present, would probably have been fitted to a great number of smaller

markets. Instead of one great round-about foreign trade of consumption,

Great Britain would probably have carried on a great number of small

direct foreign trades of the same kind. On account of the frequency of the

returns, a part, and probably but a small part, perhaps not above a third

or a fourth of the capital which at present carries on this great

round-about trade, might have been sufficient to carry on all those small

direct ones; might have kept in constant employment an equal quantity of

British industry; and have equally supported the annual produce of the

land and labour of Great Britain. All the purposes of this trade being, in

this manner, answered by a much smaller capital, there would have been a

large spare capital to apply to other purposes; to improve the lands, to

increase the manufactures, and to extend the commerce of Great Britain; to

come into competition at least with the other British capitals employed in

all those different ways, to reduce the rate of profit in them all, and

thereby to give to Great Britain, in all of them, a superiority over other

countries, still greater than what she at present enjoys.

The monopoly of the colony trade, too, has forced some part of the capital

of Great Britain from all foreign trade of consumption to a carrying

trade; and, consequently from supporting more or less the industry of

Great Britain, to be employed altogether in supporting partly that of the

colonies, and partly that of some other countries.

The goods, for example, which are annually purchased with the great

surplus of eighty-two thousand hogsheads of tobacco annually re-exported

from Great Britain, are not all consumed in Great Britain. Part of them,

linen from Germany and Holland, for example, is returned to the colonies

for their particular consumption. But that part of the capital of Great

Britain which buys the tobacco with which this linen is afterwards bought,

is necessarily withdrawn from supporting the industry of Great Britain, to

be employed altogether in supporting, partly that of the colonies, and

partly that of the particular countries who pay for this tobacco with the

produce of their own industry.

The monopoly of the colony trade, besides, by forcing towards it a much

greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would

naturally have gone to it, seems to have broken altogether that natural

balance which would otherwise have taken place among all the different

branches of British industry. The industry of Great Britain, instead of

being accommodated to a great number of small markets, has been

principally suited to one great market. Her commerce, instead of running

in a great number of small channels, has been taught to run principally in

one great channel. But the whole system of her industry and commerce has

thereby been rendered less secure; the whole state of her body politic

less healthful than it otherwise would have been. In her present

condition, Great Britain resembles one of those unwholesome bodies in

which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and which, upon that account,

are liable to many dangerous disorders, scarce incident to those in which

all the parts are more properly proportioned. A small stop in that great

blood-vessel, which has been artificially swelled beyond its natural

dimensions, and through which an unnatural proportion of the industry and

commerce of the country has been forced to circulate, is very likely to

bring on the most dangerous disorders upon the whole body politic. The

expectation of a rupture with the colonies, accordingly, has struck the

people of Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish

armada, or a French invasion. It was this terror, whether well or ill

grounded, which rendered the repeal of the stamp act, among the merchants

at least, a popular measure. In the total exclusion from the colony

market, was it to last only for a few years, the greater part of our

merchants used to fancy that they foresaw an entire stop to their trade;

the greater part of our master manufacturers, the entire ruin of their

business; and the greater part of our workmen, an end of their employment.

A rupture with any of our neighbours upon the continent, though likely,

too, to occasion some stop or interruption in the employments of some of

all these different orders of people, is foreseen, however, without any

such general emotion. The blood, of which the circulation is stopt in some

of the smaller vessels, easily disgorges itself into the greater, without

occasioning any dangerous disorder; but, when it is stopt in any of the

greater vessels, convulsions, apoplexy, or death, are the immediate and

unavoidable consequences. If but one of those overgrown manufactures,

which, by means either of bounties or of the monopoly of the home and

colony markets, have been artificially raised up to any unnatural height,

finds some small stop or interruption in its employment, it frequently

occasions a mutiny and disorder alarming to government, and embarrassing

even to the deliberations of the legislature. How great, therefore, would

be the disorder and confusion, it was thought, which must necessarily be

occasioned by a sudden and entire stop in the employment of so great a

proportion of our principal manufacturers?

Some moderate and gradual relaxation of the laws which give to Great

Britain the exclusive trade to the colonies, till it is rendered in a

great measure free, seems to be the only expedient which can, in all

future times, deliver her from this danger; which can enable her, or even

force her, to withdraw some part of her capital from this overgrown

employment, and to turn it, though with less profit, towards other

employments; and which, by gradually diminishing one branch of her

industry, and gradually increasing all the rest, can, by degrees, restore

all the different branches of it to that natural, healthful, and proper

proportion, which perfect liberty necessarily establishes, and which

perfect liberty can alone preserve. To open the colony trade all at once

to all nations, might not only occasion some transitory inconveniency, but

a great permanent loss, to the greater part of those whose industry or

capital is at present engaged in it. The sudden loss of the employment,

even of the ships which import the eighty-two thousand hogsheads of

tobacco, which are over and above the consumption of Great Britain, might

alone be felt very sensibly. Such are the unfortunate effects of all the

regulations of the mercantile system. They not only introduce very

dangerous disorders into the state of the body politic, but disorders

which it is often difficult to remedy, without occasioning, for a time at

least, still greater disorders. In what manner, therefore, the colony

trade ought gradually to be opened; what are the restraints which ought

first, and what are those which ought last, to be taken away; or in what

manner the natural system of perfect liberty and justice ought gradually

to be restored, we must leave to the wisdom of future statesmen and

legislators to determine.

Five different events, unforeseen and unthought of, have very fortunately

concurred to hinder Great Britain from feeling, so sensibly as it was

generally expected she would, the total exclusion which has now taken

place for more than a year (from the first of December 1774) from a very

important branch of the colony trade, that of the twelve associated

provinces of North America. First, those colonies, in preparing themselves

for their non-importation agreement, drained Great Britain completely of

all the commodities which were fit for their market; secondly, the extra

ordinary demand of the Spanish flota has, this year, drained Germany and

the north of many commodities, linen in particular, which used to come

into competition, even in the British market, with the manufactures of

Great Britain; thirdly, the peace between Russia and Turkey has occasioned

an extraordinary demand from the Turkey market, which, during the distress

of the country, and while a Russian fleet was cruizing in the Archipelago,

had been very poorly supplied; fourthly, the demand of the north of Europe

for the manufactures of Great Britain has been increasing from year to

year, for some time past; and, fifthly, the late partition, and

consequential pacification of Poland, by opening the market of that great

country, have, this year, added an extraordinary demand from thence to the

increasing demand of the north. These events are all, except the fourth,

in their nature transitory and accidental; and the exclusion from so

important a branch of the colony trade, if unfortunately it should

continue much longer, may still occasion some degree of distress. This

distress, however, as it will come on gradually, will be felt much less

severely than if it had come on all at once; and, in the mean time, the

industry and capital of the country may find a new employment and

direction, so as to prevent this distress from ever rising to any

considerable height.

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, so far as it has turned

towards that trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain

than what would otherwise have gone to it, has in all cases turned it,

from a foreign trade of consumption with a neighbouring, into one with a

more distant country; in many cases from a direct foreign trade of

consumption into a round-about one; and, in some cases, from all foreign

trade of consumption into a carrying trade. It has, in all cases,

therefore, turned it from a direction in which it would have maintained a

greater quantity of productive labour, into one in which it can maintain a

much smaller quantity. By suiting, besides, to one particular market only,

so great a part of the industry and commerce of Great Britain, it has

rendered the whole state of that industry and commerce more precarious and

less secure, than if their produce had been accommodated to a greater

variety of markets.

We must carefully distinguish between the effects of the colony trade and

those of the monopoly of that trade. The former are always and necessarily

beneficial; the latter always and necessarily hurtful. But the former are

so beneficial, that the colony trade, though subject to a monopoly, and,

notwithstanding the hurtful effects of that monopoly, is still, upon the

whole, beneficial, and greatly beneficial, though a good deal less so than

it otherwise would be.

The effect of the colony trade, in its natural and free state, is to open

a great though distant market, for such parts of the produce of British

industry as may exceed the demand of the markets nearer home, of those of

Europe, and of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean sea. In its

natural and free state, the colony trade, without drawing from those

markets any part of the produce which had ever been sent to them,

encourages Great Britain to increase the surplus continually, by

continually presenting new equivalents to be exchanged for it. In its

natural and free state, the colony trade tends to increase the quantity of

productive labour in Great Britain, but without altering in any respect

the direction of that which had been employed there before. In the natural

and free state of the colony trade, the competition of all other nations

would hinder the rate of profit from rising above the common level, either

in the new market, or in the new employment. The new market, without

drawing any thing from the old one, would create, if one may say so, a new

produce for its own supply; and that new produce would constitute a new

capital for carrying on the new employment, which, in the same manner,

would draw nothing from the old one.

The monopoly of the colony trade, on the contrary, by excluding the

competition of other nations, and thereby raising the rate of profit, both

in the new market and in the new employment, draws produce from the old

market, and capital from the old employment. To augment our share of the

colony trade beyond what it otherwise would be, is the avowed purpose of

the monopoly. If our share of that trade were to be no greater with, than

it would have been without the monopoly, there could have been no reason

for establishing the monopoly. But whatever forces into a branch of trade,

of which the returns are slower and more distant than those of the greater

part of other trades, a greater proportion of the capital of any country,

than what of its own accord would go to that branch, necessarily renders

the whole quantity of productive labour annually maintained there, the

whole annual produce of the land and labour of that country, less than

they otherwise would be. It keeps down the revenue of the inhabitants of

that country below what it would naturally rise to, and thereby diminishes

their power of accumulation. It not only hinders, at all times, their

capital from maintaining so great a quantity of productive labour as it

would otherwise maintain, but it hinders it from increasing so fast as it

would otherwise increase, and, consequently, from maintaining a still

greater quantity of productive labour.

The natural good effects of the colony trade, however, more than

counterbalance to Great Britain the bad effects of the monopoly; so that,

monopoly and altogether, that trade, even as it is carried on at present,

is not only advantageous, but greatly advantageous. The new market and the

new employment which are opened by the colony trade, are of much greater

extent than that portion of the old market and of the old employment which

is lost by the monopoly. The new produce and the new capital which has

been created, if one may say so, by the colony trade, maintain in Great

Britain a greater quantity of productive labour than what can have been

thrown out of employment by the revulsion of capital from other trades of

which the returns are more frequent. If the colony trade, however, even as

it is carried on at present, is advantageous to Great Britain, it is not

by means of the monopoly, but in spite of the monopoly.

It is rather for the manufactured than for the rude produce of Europe,

that the colony trade opens a new market. Agriculture is the proper

business of all new colonies; a business which the cheapness of land

renders more advantageous than any other. They abound, therefore, in the

rude produce of land; and instead of importing it from other countries,

they have generally a large surplus to export. In new colonies,

agriculture either draws hands from all other employments, or keeps them

from going to any other employment. There are few hands to spare for the

necessary, and none for the ornamental manufactures. The greater part of

the manufactures of both kinds they find it cheaper to purchase of other

countries than to make for themselves. It is chiefly by encouraging the

manufactures of Europe, that the colony trade indirectly encourages its

agriculture. The manufacturers of Europe, to whom that trade gives

employment, constitute a new market for the produce of the land, and the

most advantageous of all markets; the home market for the corn and cattle,

for the bread and butcher’s meat of Europe, is thus greatly extended by

means of the trade to America.

But that the monopoly of the trade of populous and thriving colonies is

not alone sufficient to establish, or even to maintain, manufactures in

any country, the examples of Spain and Portugal sufficiently demonstrate.

Spain and Portugal were manufacturing countries before they had any

considerable colonies. Since they had the richest and most fertile in the

world, they have both ceased to be so.

In Spain and Portugal, the bad effects of the monopoly, aggravated by

other causes, have, perhaps, nearly overbalanced the natural good effects

of the colony trade. These causes seem to be other monopolies of different

kinds: the degradation of the value of gold and silver below what it is in

most other countries; the exclusion from foreign markets by improper taxes

upon exportation, and the narrowing of the home market, by still more

improper taxes upon the transportation of goods from one part of the

country to another; but above all, that irregular and partial

administration of justice which often protects the rich and powerful

debtor from the pursuit of his injured creditor, and which makes the

industrious part of the nation afraid to prepare goods for the consumption

of those haughty and great men, to whom they dare not refuse to sell upon

credit, and from whom they are altogether uncertain of repayment.

In England, on the contrary, the natural good effects of the colony trade,

assisted by other causes, have in a great measure conquered the bad

effects of the monopoly. These causes seem to be, the general liberty of

trade, which, notwithstanding some restraints, is at least equal, perhaps

superior, to what it is in any other country; the liberty of exporting,

duty free, almost all sorts of goods which are the produce of domestic

industry, to almost any foreign country; and what, perhaps, is of still

greater importance, the unbounded liberty of transporting them from one

part of our own country to any other, without being obliged to give any

account to any public office, without being liable to question or

examination of any kind; but, above all, that equal and impartial

administration of justice, which renders the rights of the meanest British

subject respectable to the greatest, and which, by securing to every man

the fruits of his own industry, gives the greatest and most effectual

encouragement to every sort of industry.

If the manufactures of Great Britain, however, have been advanced, as they

certainly have, by the colony trade, it has not been by means of the

monopoly of that trade, but in spite of the monopoly. The effect of the

monopoly has been, not to augment the quantity, but to alter the quality

and shape of a part of the manufactures of Great Britain, and to

accommodate to a market, from which the returns are slow and distant, what

would otherwise have been accommodated to one from which the returns are

frequent and near. Its effect has consequently been, to turn a part of the

capital of Great Britain from an employment in which it would have

maintained a greater quantity of manufacturing industry, to one in which

it maintains a much smaller, and thereby to diminish, instead of

increasing, the whole quantity of manufacturing industry maintained in

Great Britain.

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, like all the other mean and

malignant expedients of the mercantile system, depresses the industry of

all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the

least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing, that of the country in

whose favour it is established.

The monopoly hinders the capital of that country, whatever may, at any

particular time, be the extent of that capital, from maintaining so great

a quantity of productive labour as it would otherwise maintain, and from

affording so great a revenue to the industrious inhabitants as it would

otherwise afford. But as capital can be increased only by savings from

revenue, the monopoly, by hindering it from affording so great a revenue

as it would otherwise afford, necessarily hinders it from increasing so

fast as it would otherwise increase, and consequently from maintaining a

still greater quantity of productive labour, and affording a still greater

revenue to the industrious inhabitants of that country. One great original

source of revenue, therefore, the wages of labour, the monopoly must

necessarily have rendered, at all times, less abundant than it otherwise

would have been.