CHAPTER VII.
OF COLONIES.
PART I.
Of the Motives for Establishing New Colonies.
The interest which occasioned the first settlement of the
different European colonies in America and the West Indies, was
not altogether so plain and distinct as that which directed the
establishment of those of ancient Greece and Rome.
All the different states of ancient Greece possessed, each of
them, but a very small territory; and when the people in anyone
of them multiplied beyond what that territory could easily
maintain, a part of them were sent in quest of a new habitation,
in some remote and distant part of the world ; the warlike
neighbours who surrounded them on all sides, rendering it
difficult for any of them to enlarge very much its territory at
home. The colonies of the Dorians resorted chiefly to Italy and
Sicily, which, in the times preceding the foundation of Rome,
were inhabited by barbarous and uncivilized nations; those of the
Ionians and Aeolians, the two other great tribes of the Greeks,
to Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean sea, of which the
inhabitants sewn at that time to have been pretty much in the
same state as those of Sicily and Italy. The mother city, though
she considered the colony as a child, at all times entitled to
great favour and assistance, and owing in return much gratitude
and respect, yet considered it as an emancipated child, over whom
she pretended to claim no direct authority or jurisdiction. The
colony settled its own form of government, enacted its own laws,
elected its own magistrates, and made peace or war with its
neighbours, as an independent state, which had no occasion to
wait for the approbation or consent of the mother city. Nothing
can be more plain and distinct than the interest which directed
every such establishment.
Rome, like most of the other ancient republics, was originally
founded upon an agrarian law, which divided the public territory,
in a certain proportion, among the different citizens who
composed the state. The course of human affairs, by marriage, by
succession, and by alienation, necessarily deranged this original
division, and frequently threw the lands which had been allotted
for the maintenance of many different families, into the
possession of a single person. To remedy this disorder, for
such it was supposed to be, a law was made, restricting the
quantity of land which any citizen could possess to five hundred
jugera; about 350 English acres. This law, however, though we
read of its having been executed upon one or two occasions, was
either neglected or evaded, and the inequality of fortunes went
on continually increasing. The greater part of the citizens had
no land ; and without it the manners and customs of those times
rendered it difficult for a freeman to maintain his independency.
In the present times, though a poor man has no land of his own,
if he has a little stock, he may either farm the lands of
another, or he may carry on some little retail trade ; and if he
has no stock, he may find employment either as a country
labourer, or as an artificer. But among the ancient Romans, the
lands of the rich were all cultivated by slaves, who wrought
under an overseer, who was likewise a slave; so that a poor
freeman had little chance of being employed either as a farmer or
as a labourer. All trades and manufactures, too, even the retail
trade, were carried on by the slaves of the rich for the benefit
of their masters, whose wealth, authority, and protection, made
it difficult for a poor freeman to maintain the competition
against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had
scarce any other means of subsistence but the bounties of the
candidates at the annual elections. The tribunes, when they had a
mind to animate the people against the rich and the great, put
them in mind of the ancient divisions of lands, and represented
that law which restricted this sort of private property as the
fundamental law of the republic. The people became clamorous to
get land, and the rich and the great, we may believe, were
perfectly determined not to give them any part of theirs. To
satisfy them in some measure, therefore, they frequently proposed
to send out a new colony. But conquering Rome was, even upon such
occasions, under no necessity of turning out her citizens to seek
their fortune, if one may so, through the wide world, without
knowing where they were to settle. She assigned them lands
generally in the conquered provinces of Italy, where, being
within the dominions of the republic, they could never form any
independent state, but were at best but a sort of corporation,
which, though it had the power of enacting bye-laws for its own
government, was at all times subject to the correction,
jurisdiction, and legislative authority of the mother city. The
sending out a colony of this kind not only gave some satisfaction
to the people, but often established a sort of garrison, too, in
a newly conquered province, of which the obedience might
otherwise have been doubtful. A Roman colony, therefore, whether
we consider the nature of the establishment itself, or the
motives for making it, was altogether different from a Greek one.
The words, accordingly, which in the original languages denote
those different establishments, have very different meanings. The
Latin word (colonia) signifies simply a plantation. The Greek
word (apoixia), on the contrary, signifies a separation of
dwelling, a departure from home, a going out of the house. But
though the Roman colonies were, in many respects, different from
the Greek ones, the interest which prompted to establish them was
equally plain and distinct. Both institutions derived their
origin, either from irresistible necessity, or from clear and
evident utility.
The establishment of the European colonies in America and the
West Indies arose from no necessity; and though the utility which
has resulted from them has been very great, it is not altogether
so clear and evident. It was not understood at their first
establishment, and was not the motive, either of that
establishment, or of the discoveries which gave occasion to it ;
and the nature, extent, and limits of that utility, are not,
perhaps, well understood at this day.
The Venetians, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
carried on a very advantageous commerce in spiceries and other
East India goods, which they distributed among the other nations
of Europe. They purchased them chiefly in Egypt, at that time
under the dominion of the Mamelukes, the enemies of the Turks, of
whom the Venetians were the enemies ; and this union of interest,
assisted by the money of Venice, formed such a connexion as gave
the Venetians almost a monopoly of the trade.
The great profits of the Venetians tempted the avidity of the
Portuguese. They had been endeavouring, during the course of the
fifteenth century, to find out by sea a way to the countries from
which the Moors brought them ivory and gold dust across the
desert. They discovered the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores,
the Cape de Verd islands, the coast of Guinea, that of Loango,
Congo, Angola, and Benguela, and, finally, the Cape of Good Hope.
They had long wished to share in the profitable traffic of the
Venetians, and this last discovery opened to them a probable
prospect of doing so. In 1497, Vasco de Gamo sailed from the port
of Lisbon with a fleet of four ships, and, after a navigation of
eleven months, arrived upon the coast of Indostan ; and thus
completed a course of discoveries which had been pursued with
great steadiness, and with very little interruption, for near a
century together.
Some years before this, while the expectations of Europe were in
suspense about the projects of the Portuguese, of which the
success appeared yet to be doubtful, a Genoese pilot formed the
yet more daring project of sailing to the East Indies by the
west. The situation of those countries was at that time very
imperfectly known in Europe. The few European travellers who had
been there, had magnified the distance, perhaps through
simplicity and ignorance ; what was really very great, appearing
almost infinite to those who could not measure it; or, perhaps,
in order to increase somewhat more the marvellous of their own
adventures in visiting regions so immensely remote from Europe.
The longer the way was by the east, Columbus very justly
concluded, the shorter it would be by the west. He proposed,
therefore, to take that way, as both the shortest and the surest,
and he had the good fortune to convince Isabella of Castile of
the probability of his project. He sailed from the port of Palos
in August 1492, near five years before the expedition of Vasco de
Gamo set out from Portugal; and, after a voyage of between two
and three months, discovered first some of the small Bahama or
Lucyan islands, and afterwards the great island of St. Domingo.
But the countries which Columbus discovered, either in this or in
any of his subsequent voyages, had no resemblance to those which
he had gone in quest of. Instead of the wealth, cultivation, and
populousness of China and Indostan, he found, in St. Domingo, and
in all the other parts of the new world which he ever visited,
nothing but a country quite covered with wood, uncultivated, and
inhabited only by some tribes of naked and miserable savages. He
was not very willing, however, to believe that they were not the
same with some of the countries described by Marco Polo, the
first European who had visited, or at least had left behind him
any description of China or the East Indies ; and a very slight
resemblance, such as that which he found between the name of
Cibao, a mountaim in St. Domingo, and that of Cipange, mentioned
by Marco Polo, was frequently sufficient to make him return to
this favourite prepossession, though contrary to the clearest
evidence. In his letters to Ferdinand and Isabella, he called the
countries which he had discovered the Indies. He entertained no
doubt but that they were the extremity of those which had been
described by Marco Polo, and that they were not very distant from
the Ganges, or from the countries which had been conquered by
Alexander. Even when at last convinced that they were different,
be still flattered himself that those rich countries were at no
great distance; and in a subsequent voyage, accordingly, went in
quest of them along the coast of Terra Firma, and towards the
Isthmus of Darien.
In consequence of this mistake of Columbus, the name of the
Indies has stuck to those unfortunate countries ever since; and
when it was at last clearly discovered that the new were
altogether different from the old Indies, the former were called
the West, in contradistinction to the latter, which were called
the East Indies.
It was of importance to Columbus, however, that the countries
which he had discovered, whatever they were, should be
represented to the court of Spain as of very great consequence ;
and, in what constitutes the real riches of every country, the
animal and vegetable productions of the soil, there was at that
time nothing which could well justify such a representation of
them.
The cori, something between a rat and a rabbit, and supposed by
Mr Buffon to be the same with the aperea of Brazil, was the
largest viviparous quadruped in St. Domingo. This species seems
never to have been very nurnerous; and the dogs and cats of the
Spaniards are said to have long ago almost entirely extirpated
it, as well as some other tribes of a still smaller size. These,
however, together with a pretty large lizard, called the ivana or
iguana, constituted the principal part of the animal food which
the land afforded.
The vegetable food of the inhabitants, though, from their want of
industry, not very abundant, was not altogether so scanty. It
consisted in Indian corn, yams, potatoes, bananas, etc., plants
which were then altogether unknown in Europe, and which have
never since been very much esteemed in it, or supposed to yield a
sustenance equal to what is drawn from the common sorts of grain
and pulse, which have been cultivated in this part of the world
time out of mind.
The cotton plant, indeed, afforded the material of a very
important manufacture, and was at that time, to Europeans,
undoubtedly the most valuable of all the vegetable productions of
those islands. But though, in the end of the fifteenth century,
the muslins and other cotton goods of the East Indies were much
esteemed in every part of Europe, the cotton manufacture itself
was not cultivated in any part of it. Even this production,
therefore, could not at that time appear in the eyes of Europeans
to be of very great consequence.
Finding nothing, either in the animals or vegetables of the newly
discovered countries which could justify a very advantageous
representation of them, Columbus turned his view towards their
minerals; and in the richness of their productions of this third
kingdom, he flattered himself he had found a full compensation
for the insignificancy of those of the other two. The little bits
of gold with which the inhabitants ornamented their dress, and
which, he was informed, they frequently found in the rivulets and
torrents which fell from the mountains, were sufficient to
satisfy him that those mountains abounded with the richest gold
mines. St. Domingo, therefore, was represented as a country
abounding with gold, and upon that account (according to the
prejudices not only of the present times, but of those times), an
inexhaustible source of real wealth to the crown and kingdom of
Spain. When Columbus, upon his return from his first voyage, was
introduced with a sort of triumphal honours to the sovereigns of
Castile and Arragon, the principal productions of the countries
which he had discovered were carried in solemn procession before
him. The only valuable part of them consisted in some little
fillets, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, and in some
bales of cotton. The rest were mere objects of vulgar wonder and
curiosity ; some reeds of an extraordinary size, some birds of a
very beautiful plumage, and some stuffed skins of the huge
alligator and manati ; all of which were preceded by six or seven
of the wretched natives, whose singular colour and appearance
added greatly to the novelty of the show.
In consequence of the representations of Columbus, the council of
Castile determined to take possession of the countries of which
the inhabitants were plainly incapable of defending themselves.
The pious purpose of converting them to Christianity sanctified
the injustice of the project. But the hope of finding treasures
of gold there was the sole motive which prompted to undertake it;
and to give this motive the greater weight, it was proposed by
Columbus, that the half of all the gold and silver that should be
found there, should belong to the crown. This proposal was
approved of by the council.
As long as the whole, or the greater part of the gold which the
first adventurers imported into Europe was got by so very easy a
method as the plundering of the defenceless natives, it was not
perhaps very difficult to ,pay even this heavy tax ; but when the
natives were once fairly stript of all that they had, which, in
St. Domingo, and in all the other countries discovered by
Columbus, was done completely in six or eight years, and when, in
order to find more, it had become necessary to dig for it in the
mines, there was no longer any possibility of paying this tax.
The rigorous exaction of it, accordingly, first occasioned, it is
said, the total abandoning of the mines of St. Domingo, which
have never been wrought since. It was soon reduced, therefore, to
a third; then to a fifth; afterwards to a tenth; and at last to a
twentieth part of the gross produce of the gold mines. The tax
upon silver continued for a long time to be a fifth of the gross
produce. It was reduced to a tenth only in the course of the
present century. But the first adventurers do not appear to have
been much interested about silver. Nothing less precious than
gold seemed worthy of their attention.
All the other enterprizes of the Spaniards in the New World,
subsequent to those of Columbus, seem to have been prompted by
the same motive. It was the sacred thirst of gold that carried
Ovieda, Nicuessa, and Vasco Nugnes de Balboa, to the Isthmus of
Darien ; that carried Cortes to Mexico, Almagro and Pizarro to
Chili and Peru. When those adventurers arrived upon any unknown
coast, their first inquiry was always if there was any gold to be
found there ; and according to the information which they
received concerning this particular, they determined either to
quit the country or to settle in it.
Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which
bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage
in them, there is none, perhaps, more perfectly ruinous than the
search after new silver and gold mines. It is, perhaps, the most
disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the
gain of those who draw the prizes bears the least proportion to
the loss of those who draw the blanks; for though the prizes are
few, and the blanks many, the common price of a ticket is the
whole fortune of a very rich man. Projects of mining, instead of
replacing the capital employed in them, together with the
ordinary profits of stock, commonly absorb both capital and
profit. They are the projects, therefore, to which, of all
others, a prudent lawgiver, who desired to increase the capital
of his nation, would least choose to give any extraordinary
encouragement, or to turn towards them a greater share of that
capital than what would go to them of its own accord. Such, in
reality, is the absurd confidence which almost all men have in
their own good fortune, that wherever there is the least
probability of success, too great a share of it is apt to go to
them of its own accord.
But though the judgment of sober reason and experience concerning
such projects has always been extremely unfavourable, that of
human avidity has commonly been quite otherwise. The same passion
which has suggested to so many people the absurd idea of the
philosopher's stone, has suggested to others the equally absurd
one of immense rich mines of gold and silver. They did not
consider that the value of those metals has, in all ages and
nations, arisen chiefly from their scarcity, and that their
scarcity has arisen from the very small quantities of them which
nature has anywhere deposited in one place, from the hard and
intractable substances with which she has almost everywhere
surrounded those small quantities, and consequently from the
labour and expense which are everywhere necessary in order to
penetrate, and get at them. They flattered themselves that veins
of those metals might in many places be found, as large and as
abundant as those which are commonly found of lead, or copper, or
tin, or iron. The dream of Sir Waiter Raleigh, concerning the
golden city and country of El Dorado, may satisfy us, that even
wise men are not always exempt from such strange delusions. More
than a hundred years after the death of that great man, the
Jesuit Gumila was still convinced of the reality of that
wonderful country, and expressed, with great warmth, and, I dare
say, with great sincerity, how happy he should be to carry the
light of the gospel to a people who could so well reward the
pious labours of their missionary.
In the countries first discovered by the Spaniards, no gold and
silver mines are at present known which are supposed to be worth
the working. The quantities of those metals which the first
adventurers are said to have found there, had probably been very
much magnified, as well as the fertility of the mines which were
wrought immediately after the first discovery. What those
adventurers were reported to have found, however, was sufficient
to inflame the avidity of all their countrymen. Every Spaniard
who sailed to America expected to find an El Dorado. Fortune,
too, did upon this what she has done upon very few other
occasions. She realized in some measure the extravagant hopes of
her votaries; and in the discovery and conquest of Mexico and
Peru (of which the one happened about thirty, and the other about
forty, years after the first expedition of Columbus), she
presented them with something not very unlike that profusion of
the precious metals which they sought for.
A project of commerce to the East Indies, therefore, gave
occasion to the first discovery of the West. A project of
conquest gave occasion to all the establishments of the Spaniards
in those newly discovered countries. The motive which excited
them to this conquest was a project of gold and silver mines; and
a course of accidents which no human wisdom could foresee,
rendered this project much more successful than the undertakers
had any reasonable grounds for expecting.
The first adventurers of all the other nations of Europe who
attempted to make settlements in America, were animated by the
like chimerical views; but they were not equally successful. It
was more than a hundred years after the first settlement of the
Brazils, before any silver, gold, or diamond mines, were
discovered there. In the English, French, Dutch, and Danish
colonies, none have ever yet been discovered, at least none that
are at present supposed to be worth the working. The first
English settlers in North America, however, offered a fifth of
all the gold and silver which should be found there to the king,
as a motive for granting them their patents. In the patents of
Sir Waiter Raleigh, to the London and Plymouth companies, to the
council of Plymouth, etc. this fifth was accordingly reserved to
the crown. To the expectation of finding gold and silver mines,
those first settlers, too, joined that of discovering a
north-west passage to the East Indies. They have hitherto been
disappointed in both.
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 Eng1ish 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 about £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 dipose 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 legizslature 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 interferred 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 canriage 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 ever 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 consequcnce 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 o
