“The predictions of Harrington and De Foe are precisely such
as we might expect from a petty calculator,--a political
economist, who can see nothing farther than immediate results;
but the true philosophical predictor was Child, who had read
_the past_.”[281]
Disraeli was more curious than accurate. His excuse is, that he
followed another writer.[282] The prediction attributed to Child
belongs to Davenant.
The work of Child is practical rather than speculative, and shows a
careful student of trade. Dwelling on the “plantations” of England and
their value, he considers their original settlement, and here we find
a painful contrast between New England and Virginia.[283] Passing from
the settlement to the character, New England is described as “being a
more independent government from this kingdom than any other of our
plantations, and the people that went thither more one peculiar sort
or sect than those that went to the rest of our plantations.”[284] He
recognized in them “a people whose frugality, industry, and temperance,
and the happiness of whose laws and institution, do promise to
themselves long life, with _a wonderful increase of people, riches, and
power_.”[285] And then: “Of all the American plantations, his Majesty
hath none so apt for the building of shipping as New England, nor none
comparably so qualified for breeding of seamen, not only by reason of
the natural industry of that people, but principally by reason of their
cod and mackerel fisheries.”[286] On his last page are words more than
complimentary:--
“To conclude this chapter, and to do right to that most
industrious English colony, I must confess, that, though we
lose by their unlimited trade with our foreign plantations, yet
we are very great gainers by their direct trade to and from Old
England: our yearly exportations of English manufactures, malt,
and other goods, from hence thither, amounting, in my opinion,
to ten times the value of what is imported from thence.”[287]
Here is keen observation, but hardly prophecy.