Chapter Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies.

PART II. Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies.

  The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession either of a waste
  country, or of one so thinly inhabited that the natives easily give place
  to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than
  any other human society.

  The colonies carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other
  useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its own accord, in the course
  of many centuries, among savage and barbarous nations. They carry out with
  them, too, the habit of subordination, some notion of the regular
  government which takes place in their own country, of the system of laws
  which support it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they
  naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement. But
  among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress of law and
  government is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law
  and government have been so far established as is necessary for their
  protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate.
  He has no rent, and scarce any taxes, to pay. No landlord shares with him
  in its produce, and, the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle.
  He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce which is thus
  to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive,
  that, with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people
  whom he can get to employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth part of
  what it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect
  labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal
  wages. But those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of
  land, soon make those labourers leave him, in order to become landlords
  themselves, and to reward with equal liberality other labourers, who soon
  leave them for the same reason that they left their first master. The
  liberal reward of labour encourages marriage. The children, during the
  tender years of infancy, are well fed and properly taken care of; and when
  they are grown up, the value of their labour greatly overpays their
  maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour, and the
  low price of land, enable them to establish themselves in the same manner
  as their fathers did before them.

  In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior
  orders of people oppress the inferior one; but in new colonies, the
  interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one
  with more generosity and humanity, at least where that inferior one is not
  in a state of slavery. Waste lands, of the greatest natural fertility, are
  to be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the proprietor, who
  is always the undertaker, expects from their improvement, constitutes his
  profit, which, in these circumstances, is commonly very great; but this
  great profit cannot be made, without employing the labour of other people
  in clearing and cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the
  great extent of the land and the small number of the people, which
  commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get
  this labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing
  to employ labour at any price. The high wages of labour encourage
  population. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourage improvement,
  and enable the proprietor to pay those high wages. In those wages consists
  almost the whole price of the land; and though they are high, considered
  as the wages of labour, they are low, considered as the price of what is
  so very valuable. What encourages the progress of population and
  improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness.

  The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and
  greatness seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In the course of a
  century or two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even to have
  surpassed, their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily,
  Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear,
  by all accounts, to have been at least equal to any of the cities of
  ancient Greece. Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the arts
  of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, seem to have been
  cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them as in any
  part of the mother country. The schools of the two oldest Greek
  philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were established, it is
  remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in an Asiatic, the other in
  an Italian colony. All those colonies had established themselves in
  countries inhabited by savage and barbarous nations, who easily gave place
  to the new settlers. They had plenty of good land; and as they were
  altogether independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to manage
  their own affairs in the way that they judged was most suitable to their
  own interest.

  The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant. Some of
  them, indeed, such as Florence, have, in the course of many ages, and
  after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be considerable states. But
  the progress of no one of them seems ever to have been very rapid. They
  were all established in conquered provinces, which in most cases had been
  fully inhabited before. The quantity of land assigned to each colonist was
  seldom very considerable, and, as the colony was not independent, they
  were not always at liberty to manage their own affairs in the way that
  they judged was most suitable to their own interest.

  In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America
  and the West Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass, those of ancient
  Greece. In their dependency upon the mother state, they resemble those of
  ancient Rome; but their great distance from Europe has in all of them
  alleviated more or less the effects of this dependency. Their situation
  has placed them less in the view, and less in the power of their mother
  country. In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has upon
  many occasions been overlooked, either because not known or not understood
  in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly suffered and
  submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficult to restrain it.
  Even the violent and arbitrary government of Spain has, upon many
  occasions, been obliged to recall or soften the orders which had been
  given for the government of her colonies, for fear of a general
  insurrection. The progress of all the European colonies in wealth,
  population, and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

  The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived some
  revenue from its colonies from the moment of their first establishment. It
  was a revenue, too, of a nature to excite in human avidity the most
  extravagant expectation of still greater riches. The Spanish colonies,
  therefore, from the moment of their first establishment, attracted very
  much the attention of their mother country; while those of the other
  European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected. The
  former did not, perhaps, thrive the better in consequence of this
  attention, nor the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect. In
  proportion to the extent of the country which they in some measure
  possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less populous and thriving
  than those of almost any other European nation. The progress even of the
  Spanish colonies, however, in population and improvement, has certainly
  been very rapid and very great. The city of Lima, founded since the
  conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants
  near thirty years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable hamlet of
  Indians, is represented by the same author as in his time equally
  populous. Gemel i Carreri, a pretended traveller, it is said, indeed, but
  who seems everywhere to have written upon extreme good information,
  represents the city of Mexico as containing a hundred thousand
  inhabitants; a number which, in spite of all the exaggerations of the
  Spanish writers, is probably more than five times greater than what it
  contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed greatly those of
  Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities of the
  English colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards, there were no
  cattle fit for draught, either in Mexico or Peru. The lama was their only
  beast of burden, and its strength seems to have been a good deal inferior
  to that of a common ass. The plough was unknown among them. They were
  ignorant of the use of iron. They had no coined money, nor any established
  instrument of commerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on by
  barter. A sort of wooden spade was their principal instrument of
  agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and hatchets to cut with;
  fish bones, and the hard sinews of certain animals, served them with
  needles to sew with; and these seem to have been their principal
  instruments of trade. In this state of things, it seems impossible that
  either of those empires could have been so much improved or so well
  cultivated as at present, when they are plentifully furnished with all
  sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron, of the plough, and of
  many of the arts of Europe, have been introduced among them. But the
  populousness of every country must be in proportion to the degree of its
  improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of the
  natives which followed the conquest, these two great empires are probably
  more populous now than they ever were before; and the people are surely
  very different; for we must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spanish
  creoles are in many respects superior to the ancient Indians.

  After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portuguese in Brazil
  is the oldest of any European nation in America. But as for a long time
  after the first discovery neither gold nor silver mines were found in it,
  and as it afforded upon that account little or no revenue to the crown, it
  was for a long time in a great measure neglected; and during this state of
  neglect, it grew up to be a great and powerful colony. While Portugal was
  under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by the Dutch, who got
  possession of seven of the fourteen provinces into which it is divided.
  They expected soon to conquer the other seven, when Portugal recovered its
  independency by the elevation of the family of Braganza to the throne. The
  Dutch, then, as enemies to the Spaniards, became friends to the
  Portuguese, who were likewise the enemies of the Spaniards. They agreed,
  therefore, to leave that part of Brazil which they had not conquered to
  the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had
  conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about, with such good
  allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portuguese
  colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms
  against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with
  the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother
  country, drove them out of Brazil. The Dutch, therefore, finding it
  impossible to keep any part of the country to themselves, were contented
  that it should be entirely restored to the crown of Portugal. In this
  colony there are said to be more than six hundred thousand people, either
  Portuguese or descended from Portuguese, creoles, mulattoes, and a mixed
  race between Portuguese and Brazilians. No one colony in America is
  supposed to contain so great a number of people of European extraction.

  Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of the
  sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were the two great naval powers upon
  the ocean; for though the commerce of Venice extended to every part of
  Europe, its fleet had scarce ever sailed beyond the Mediterranean. The
  Spaniards, in virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as their
  own; and though they could not hinder so great a naval power as that of
  Portugal from settling in Brazil, such was at that time the terror of
  their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were
  afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent.
  The French, who attempted to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the
  Spaniards. But the declension of the naval power of this latter nation, in
  consequence of the defeat or miscarriage of what they called their
  invincible armada, which happened towards the end of the sixteenth
  century, put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements
  of the other European nations. In the course of the seventeenth century,
  therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, all the great
  nations who had any ports upon the ocean, attempted to make some
  settlements in the new world.

  The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number of Swedish
  families still to be found there sufficiently demonstrates, that this
  colony was very likely to prosper, had it been protected by the mother
  country. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon swallowed up by the
  Dutch colony of New York, which again, in 1674, fell under the dominion of
  the English.

  The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, are the only countries in
  the new world that have ever been possessed by the Danes. These little
  settlements, too, were under the government of an exclusive company, which
  had the sole right, both of purchasing the surplus produce of the
  colonies, and of supplying them with such goods of other countries as they
  wanted, and which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not
  only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do so.
  The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst
  of all governments for any country whatever. It was not, however, able to
  stop altogether the progress of these colonies, though it rendered it more
  slow and languid. The late king of Denmark dissolved this company, and
  since that time the prosperity of these colonies has been very great.

  The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East Indies,
  were originally put under the government of an exclusive company. The
  progress of some of them, therefore, though it has been considerable in
  comparison with that of almost any country that has been long peopled and
  established, has been languid and slow in comparison with that of the
  greater part of new colonies. The colony of Surinam, though very
  considerable, is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar colonies
  of the other European nations. The colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into
  the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would probably have soon
  become considerable too, even though it had remained under the government
  of the Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good land are such powerful
  causes of prosperity, that the very worst government is scarce capable of
  checking altogether the efficacy of their operation. The great distance,
  too, from the mother country, would enable the colonists to evade more or
  less, by smuggling, the monopoly which the company enjoyed against them.
  At present, the company allows all Dutch ships to trade to Surinam, upon
  paying two and a-half per cent. upon the value of their cargo for a
  license; and only reserves to itself exclusively, the direct trade from
  Africa to America, which consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This
  relaxation in the exclusive privileges of the company, is probably the
  principal cause of that degree of prosperity which that colony at present
  enjoys. Curacoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to the
  Dutch, are free ports, open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom,
  in the midst of better colonies, whose ports are open to those of one
  nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity of those two
  barren islands.

  The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last
  century, and some part of the present, under the government of an
  exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration, its progress
  was necessarily very slow, in comparison with that of other new colonies;
  but it became much more rapid when this company was dissolved, after the
  fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the English got
  possession of this country, they found in it near double the number of
  inhabitants which father Charlevoix had assigned to it between twenty and
  thirty years before. That jesuit had travelled over the whole country, and
  had no inclination to represent it as less inconsiderable than it really
  was.

  The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and
  freebooters, who, for a long time, neither required the protection, nor
  acknowledged the authority of France; and when that race of banditti
  became so far citizens as to acknowledge this authority, it was for a long
  time necessary to exercise it with very great gentleness. During this
  period, the population and improvement of this colony increased very fast.
  Even the oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was for some
  time subjected with all the other colonies of France, though it no doubt
  retarded, had not been able to stop its progress altogether. The course of
  its prosperity returned as soon as it was relieved from that oppression.
  It is now the most important of the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and
  its produce is said to be greater than that of all the English sugar
  colonies put together. The other sugar colonies of France are in general
  all very thriving.

  But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than
  that of the English in North America.

  Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own
  way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new
  colonies.

  In the plenty of good land, the English colonies of North America, though
  no doubt very abundantly provided, are, however, inferior to those of the
  Spaniards and Portuguese, and not superior to some of those possessed by
  the French before the late war. But the political institutions of the
  English colonies have been more favourable to the improvement and
  cultivation of this land, than those of the other three nations.

  First, The engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means been
  prevented altogether, has been more restrained in the English colonies
  than in any other. The colony law, which imposes upon every proprietor the
  obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited time, a certain
  proportion of his lands, and which, in case of failure, declares those
  neglected lands grantable to any other person; though it has not perhaps
  been very strictly executed, has, however, had some effect.

  Secondly, In Pennsylvania there is no right of primogeniture, and lands,
  like moveables, are divided equally among all the children of the family.
  In three of the provinces of New England, the oldest has only a double
  share, as in the Mosaical law. Though in those provinces, therefore, too
  great a quantity of land should sometimes be engrossed by a particular
  individual, it is likely, in the course of a generation or two, to be
  sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies, indeed, the
  right of primogeniture takes place, as in the law of England: But in all
  the English colonies, the tenure of the lands, which are all held by free
  soccage, facilitates alienation; and the grantee of an extensive tract of
  land generally finds it for his interest to alienate, as fast as he can,
  the greater part of it, reserving only a small quit-rent. In the Spanish
  and Portuguese colonies, what is called the right of majorazzo takes place
  in the succession of all those great estates to which any title of honour
  is annexed. Such estates go all to one person, and are in effect entailed
  and unalienable. The French colonies, indeed, are subject to the custom of
  Paris, which, in the inheritance of land, is much more favourable to the
  younger children than the law of England. But, in the French colonies, if
  any part of an estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and homage, is
  alienated, it is, for a limited time, subject to the right of redemption,
  either by the heir of the superior, or by the heir of the family; and all
  the largest estates of the country are held by such noble tenures, which
  necessarily embarrass alienation. But, in a new colony, a great
  uncultivated estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by
  alienation than by succession. The plenty and cheapness of good land, it
  has already been observed, are the principal causes of the rapid
  prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing of land, in effect, destroys
  this plenty and cheapness. The engrossing of uncultivated land, besides,
  is the greatest obstruction to its improvement; but the labour that is
  employed in the improvement and cultivation of land affords the greatest
  and most valuable produce to the society. The produce of labour, in this
  case, pays not only its own wages and the profit of the stock which
  employs it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The
  labour of the English colonies, therefore, being more employed in the
  improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater and
  more valuable produce than that of any of the other three nations, which,
  by the engrossing of land, is more or less diverted towards other
  employments.

  Thirdly, The labour of the English colonists is not only likely to afford
  a greater and more valuable produce, but, in consequence of the moderation
  of their taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs to
  themselves, which they may store up and employ in putting into motion a
  still greater quantity of labour. The English colonists have never yet
  contributed any thing towards the defence of the mother country, or
  towards the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the
  contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at the expense of
  the mother country; but the expense of fleets and armies is out of all
  proportion greater than the necessary expense of civil government. The
  expense of their own civil government has always been very moderate. It
  has generally been confined to what was necessary for paying competent
  salaries to the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of
  police, and for maintaining a few of the most useful public works. The
  expense of the civil establishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the
  commencement of the present disturbances, used to be but about £18;000
  a-year; that of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, £3500 each; that of
  Connecticut, £4000; that of New York and Pennsylvania, £4500 each; that of
  New Jersey, £1200; that of Virginia and South Carolina, £8000 each. The
  civil establishments of Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported by an
  annual grant of parliament; but Nova Scotia pays, besides, about £7000
  a-year towards the public expenses of the colony, and Georgia about £2500
  a-year. All the different civil establishments in North America, in short,
  exclusive of those of Maryland and North Carolina, of which no exact
  account has been got, did not, before the commencement of the present
  disturbances, cost the inhabitants above £64,700 a-year; an ever memorable
  example, at how small an expense three millions of people may not only be
  governed but well governed. The most important part of the expense of
  government, indeed, that of defence and protection, has constantly fallen
  upon the mother country. The ceremonial, too, of the civil government in
  the colonies, upon the reception of a new governor, upon the opening of a
  new assembly, etc. though sufficiently decent, is not accompanied with any
  expensive pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical government is conducted
  upon a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown among them; and their
  clergy, who are far from being numerous, are maintained either by moderate
  stipends, or by the voluntary contributions of the people. The power of
  Spain and Portugal, on the contrary, derives some support from the taxes
  levied upon their colonies. France, indeed, has never drawn any
  considerable revenue from its colonies, the taxes which it levies upon
  them being generally spent among them. But the colony government of all
  these three nations is conducted upon a much more extensive plan, and is
  accompanied with a much more expensive ceremonial. The sums spent upon the
  reception of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have frequently been
  enormous. Such ceremonials are not only real taxes paid by the rich
  colonists upon those particular occasions, but they serve to introduce
  among them the habit of vanity and expense upon all other occasions. They
  are not only very grievous occasional taxes, but they contribute to
  establish perpetual taxes, of the same kind, still more grievous; the
  ruinous taxes of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all
  those three nations, too, the ecclesiastical government is extremely
  oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with the
  utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them, besides, are
  oppressed with a numerous race of mendicant friars, whose beggary being
  not only licensed but consecrated by religion, is a most grievous tax upon
  the poor people, who are most carefully taught that it is a duty to give,
  and a very great sin to refuse them their charity. Over and above all
  this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

  Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and
  above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more favoured,
  and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of any other
  European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured, more or less, to
  monopolize to itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account,
  has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and has
  prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation. But
  the manner in which this monopoly has been exercised in different nations,
  has been very different.

  Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an
  exclusive company, of whom the colonists were obliged to buy all such
  European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell the
  whole of their surplus produce. It was the interest of the company,
  therefore, not only to sell the former as dear, and to buy the latter as
  cheap as possible, but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low
  price, than what they could dispose of for a very high price in Europe. It
  was their interest not only to degrade in all cases the value of the
  surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep
  down the natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that can
  well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of a new colony, that of an
  exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual. This, however, has
  been the policy of Holland, though their company, in the course of the
  present century, has given up in many respects the exertion of their
  exclusive privilege. This, too, was the policy of Denmark, till the reign
  of the late king. It has occasionally been the policy of France; and of
  late, since 1755, after it had been abandoned by all other nations on
  account of its absurdity, it has become the policy of Portugal, with
  regard at least to two of the principal provinces of Brazil, Pernambucco,
  and Marannon.

  Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined
  the whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother
  country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet
  and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a particular
  license, which in most cases was very well paid for. This policy opened,
  indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the natives of the mother
  country, provided they traded from the proper port, at the proper season,
  and in the proper vessels. But as all the different merchants, who joined
  their stocks in order to fit out those licensed vessels, would find it for
  their interest to act in concert, the trade which was carried on in this
  manner would necessarily be conducted very nearly upon the same principles
  as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants would be
  almost equally exorbitant and oppressive. The colonies would be ill
  supplied, and would be obliged both to buy very dear, and to sell very
  cheap. This, however, till within these few years, had always been the
  policy of Spain; and the price of all European goods, accordingly, is said
  to have been enormous in the Spanish West Indies. At Quito, we are told by
  Ulloa, a pound of iron sold for about 4s:6d., and a pound of steel for
  about 6s:9d. sterling. But it is chiefly in order to purchase European
  goods that the colonies part with their own produce. The more, therefore,
  they pay for the one, the less they really get for the other, and the
  dearness of the one is the same thing with the cheapness of the other. The
  policy of Portugal is, in this respect, the same as the ancient policy of
  Spain, with regard to all its colonies, except Pernambucco and Marannon;
  and with regard to these it has lately adopted a still worse.

  Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their
  subjects, who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother
  country, and who have occasion for no other license than the common
  despatches of the custom-house. In this case the number and dispersed
  situation of the different traders renders it impossible for them to enter
  into any general combination, and their competition is sufficient to
  hinder them from making very exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a
  policy, the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce, and to
  buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price; but since the dissolution
  of the Plymouth company, when our colonies were but in their infancy, this
  has always been the policy of England. It has generally, too, been that of
  France, and has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what in England
  is commonly called their Mississippi company. The profits of the trade,
  therefore, which France and England carry on with their colonies, though
  no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition were free to all other
  nations, are, however, by no means exorbitant; and the price of European
  goods, accordingly, is not extravagantly high in the greater past of the
  colonies of either of those nations.

  In the exportation of their own surplus produce, too, it is only with
  regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain are
  confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having
  been enumerated in the act of navigation, and in some other subsequent
  acts, have upon that account been called enumerated commodities. The rest
  are called non-enumerated, and may be exported directly to other
  countries, provided it is in British or plantation ships, of which the
  owners and three fourths of the mariners are British subjects.

  Among the non-enumerated commodities are some of the most important
  productions of America and the West Indies, grain of all sorts, lumber,
  salt provisions, fish, sugar, and rum.

  Grain is naturally the first and principal object of the culture of all
  new colonies. By allowing them a very extensive market for it, the law
  encourages them to extend this culture much beyond the consumption of a
  thinly inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand an ample
  subsistence for a continually increasing population.

  In a country quite covered with wood, where timber consequently is of
  little or no value, the expense of clearing the ground is the principal
  obstacle to improvement. By allowing the colonies a very extensive market
  for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate improvement by raising
  the price of a commodity which would otherwise be of little value, and
  thereby enabling them to make some profit of what would otherwise be mere
  expense.

  In a country neither half peopled nor half cultivated, cattle naturally
  multiply beyond the consumption of the inhabitants, and are often, upon
  that account, of little or no value. But it is necessary, it has already
  been shown, that the price of cattle should bear a certain proportion to
  that of corn, before the greater part of the lands of any country can be
  improved. By allowing to American cattle, in all shapes, dead and alive, a
  very extensive market, the law endeavours to raise the value of a
  commodity, of which the high price is so very essential to improvement.
  The good effects of this liberty, however, must be somewhat diminished by
  the 4th of Geo. III. c. 15, which puts hides and skins among the
  enumerated commodities, and thereby tends to reduce the value of American
  cattle.

  To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain by the extension
  of the fisheries of our colonies, is an object which the legislature seems
  to have had almost constantly in view. Those fisheries, upon this account,
  have had all the encouragement which freedom can give them, and they have
  flourished accordingly. The New England fishery, in particular, was,
  before the late disturbances, one of the most important, perhaps, in the
  world. The whale fishery which, notwithstanding an extravagant bounty, is
  in Great Britain carried on to so little purpose, that in the opinion of
  many people ( which I do not, however, pretend to warrant), the whole
  produce does not much exceed the value of the bounties which are annually
  paid for it, is in New England carried on, without any bounty, to a very
  great extent. Fish is one of the principal articles with which the North
  Americans trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.

  Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity, which could only be exported
  to Great Britain; but in 1751, upon a representation of the
  sugar-planters, its exportation was permitted to all parts of the world.
  The restrictions, however, with which this liberty was granted, joined to
  the high price of sugar in Great Britain, have rendered it in a great
  measure ineffectual. Great Britain and her colonies still continue to be
  almost the sole market for all sugar produced in the British plantations.
  Their consumption increases so fast, that, though in consequence of the
  increasing improvement of Jamaica, as well as of the ceded islands, the
  importation of sugar has increased very greatly within these twenty years,
  the exportation to foreign countries is said to be not much greater than
  before.

  Rum is a very important article in the trade which the Americans carry on
  to the coast of Africa, from which they bring back negro slaves in return.

  If the whole surplus produce of America, in grain of all sorts, in salt
  provisions, and in fish, had been put into the enumeration, and thereby
  forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much
  with the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably not so
  much from any regard to the interest of America, as from a jealousy of
  this interference, that those important commodities have not only been
  kept out of the enumeration, but that the importation into Great Britain
  of all grain, except rice, and of all salt provisions, has, in the
  ordinary state of the law, been prohibited.

  The non-enumerated commodities could originally be exported to all parts
  of the world. Lumber and rice having been once put into the enumeration,
  when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to the
  European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre. By
  the 6th of George III. c. 52, all non-enumerated commodities were
  subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south of
  Cape Finisterre are not manufacturing countries, and we are less jealous
  of the colony ships carrying home from them any manufactures which could
  interfere with our own.

  The enumerated commodities are of two sorts; first, such as are either the
  peculiar produce of America, or as cannot be produced, or at least are not
  produced in the mother country. Of this kind are molasses, coffee,
  cocoa-nuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whalefins, raw silk, cotton, wool,
  beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustick, and other dyeing
  woods; secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce of America, but
  which are, and may be produced in the mother country, though not in such
  quantities as to supply the greater part of her demand, which is
  principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval
  stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and
  bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest
  importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the
  growth, or interfere with the sale, of any part of the produce of the
  mother country. By confining them to the home market, our merchants, it
  was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them cheaper in the
  plantations, and consequently to sell them with a better profit at home,
  but to establish between the plantations and foreign countries an
  advantageous carrying trade, of which Great Britain was necessarily to be
  the centre or emporium, as the European country into which those
  commodities were first to be imported. The importation of commodities of
  the second kind might be so managed too, it was supposed, as to interfere,
  not with the sale of those of the same kind which were produced at home,
  but with that of those which were imported from foreign countries;
  because, by means of proper duties, they might be rendered always somewhat
  dearer than the former, and yet a good deal cheaper than the latter. By
  confining such commodities to the home market, therefore, it was proposed
  to discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, but of some foreign
  countries with which the balance of trade was believed to be unfavourable
  to Great Britain.

  The prohibition of exporting from the colonies to any other country but
  Great Britain, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine,
  naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and
  consequently to increase the expense of clearing their lands, the
  principal obstacle to their improvement. But about the beginning of the
  present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden endeavoured
  to raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting
  their exportation, except in their own ships, at their own price, and in
  such quantities as they thought proper. In order to counteract this
  notable piece of mercantile policy, and to render herself as much as
  possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of all the other northern
  powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the importation of naval stores
  from America; and the effect of this bounty was to raise the price of
  timber in America much more than the confinement to the home market could
  lower it; and as both regulations were enacted at the same time, their
  joint effect was rather to encourage than to discourage the clearing of
  land in America.

  Though pig and bar iron, too, have been put among the enumerated
  commodities, yet as, when imported from America, they are exempted from
  considerable duties to which they are subject when imported front any
  other country, the one part of the regulation contributes more to
  encourage the erection of furnaces in America than the other to discourage
  it. There is no manufacture which occasions so great a consumption of wood
  as a furnace, or which can contribute so much to the clearing of a country
  overgrown with it.

  The tendency of some of these regulations to raise the value of timber in
  America, and thereby to facilitate the clearing of the land, was neither,
  perhaps, intended nor understood by the legislature. Though their
  beneficial effects, however, have been in this respect accidental, they
  have not upon that account been less real.

  The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British
  colonies of America and the West Indies, both in the enumerated and in the
  non-enumerated commodities Those colonies are now become so populous and
  thriving, that each of them finds in some of the others a great and
  extensive market for every part of its produce. All of them taken
  together, they make a great internal market for the produce of one
  another.

  The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies, has
  been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce,
  either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of
  manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures, even of the
  colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain chuse to
  reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature to prevent
  their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and
  sometimes by absolute prohibitions.

  While, for example, Muscovado sugars from the British plantations pay,
  upon importation, only 6s:4d. the hundred weight, white sugars pay £1:1:1;
  and refined, either double or single, in loaves, £4:2:5 ⁸⁄₂₀ths. When
  those high duties were im

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