a share of it is apt to go to them of its own The motive which excited them to this conaccord. quest 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 hun 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 na-dred years after the first settlement of the Brations, 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 Walter 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 zils, before any silver, gold, or diamond mines, 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. 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 He has extensive, that, with all his own industry, and Though posterior in their establishment, yet with all the industry of other people whom he all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, can get to employ, he can seldom make it and eloquence, seem to have been cultivated produce the tenth part of what it is capable of as early, and to have been improved as highly producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect in them as in any part of the mother country. labourers from all quarters, and to reward The schools of the two oldest Greek philosothem with the most liberal wages. But those phers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheap-established, it is remarkable, not in ancient ness of land, soon make those labourers leave Greece, but the one in an Asiatic, the other in him, in order to become landlords themselves, an Italian colony. All those colonies had and to reward with equal liberality other la- established themselves in countries inhabited bourers, who soon leave them for the same by savage and barbarous nations, who easily reason that they left their first master. The gave place to the new settlers. They had liberal reward of labour encourages marriage. plenty of good land; and as they were altogeThe children, during the tender years of in- ther independent of the mother city, they were fancy, are well fed and properly taken care at liberty to manage their own affairs in the of; and when they are grown up, the value of way that they judged was most suitable to their their labour greatly overpays their mainte-own interest. nance. When arrived at maturity, the high The history of the Roman colonies is by no price of labour, and the low price of land, en- means so brilliant. Some of them, indeed, able them to establish themselves in the same such as Florence, have, in the course of many manner as their fathers did before them. 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 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, In the plenty of good land, the European constitutes his profit, which, in these circum- colonies established in America and the West stances, is commonly very great; but this Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass, great profit cannot be made, without employ- those of ancient Greece. In their dependency ing the labour of other people in clearing and upon the mother state, they resemble those of cultivating the land; and the disproportion ancient Rome; but their great distance from between the great extent of the land and the Europe has in all of them alleviated more or mall number of the people, which commonly less the effects of this dependency. Their takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult situation has placed them less in the view, and for him to get this labour. He does not, there- less in the power of their mother country. In fore, dispute about wages, but is willing to pursuing their interest their own way, their employ labour at any price. The high wages conduct has upon many occasions been overof labour encourage population. The cheap- looked, either because not known or not unness and plenty of good land encourage im- derstood in Europe; and upon some occasions provement, and enable the proprietor to pay it has been fairly suffered and submitted to those high wages. In those wages consists because their distance rendered it difficult to almost the whole price of the land; and though restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary gothey are high, considered as the wages of la-vernment of Spain has, upon many occasions, bour, they are low, considered as the price of been obliged to recall or soften the orders which what is so very valuable. What encourages had been given for the government of her cothe progress of population and improvement, lonies, for fear of a general insurrection. The encourages that of real wealth and great-progress of all the European colonies in wealth, population, and improvement, has accordingly ness. The progress of many of the ancient Greek been very great. colonies towards wealth and greatness seems The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold accordingly to have been very rapid. In the and silver, derived some revenue from its cocourse of a century or two, several of them lonies from the moment of their first estabappear to have rivalled, and even to have sur-lishment. It was a revenue, too, of a nature passed, their mother cities. Syracuse and Agri- to excite in human avidity the most extravagentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Ita-gant expectation of still greater riches. The ly, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, ap- Spanish colonies, therefore, from the moment pear, by all accounts, to have been at least of their first establishment, attracted very much equal to any of the cities of ancient Greece. 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. Gemelli 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 Towards the end of the fifteenth, and durwith; fish bones, and the hard sinews of cer- ing the greater part of the sixteenth century, tain animals, served them with needles to sew Spain and Portugal were the two great naval with; and these seem to have been their prin- powers upon the ocean; for though the comcipal instruments of trade. In this state of merce of Venice extended to every part of Euthings, it seems impossible that either of those rope, its fleet had scarce ever sailed beyond empires could have been so much improved or the Mediterranean. The Spaniards, in virtue so well cultivated as at present, when they are of the first discovery, claimed all America as plentifully furnished with all sorts of Euro- their own; and though they could not hinder pean cattle, and when the use of iron, of the so great a naval power as that of Portugal plough, and of many of the arts of Europe, from settling in Brazil, such was at that time have been introduced among them. But the the terror of their name, that the greater part populousness of every country must be in pro- of the other nations of Europe were afraid to portion to the degree of its improvement and establish themselves in any other part of that cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction great continent. The French, who attempted of the natives which followed the conquest, to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the these two great empires are probably more po- Spaniards. But the declension of the naval pulous now than they ever were before; and power of this latter nation, in consequence of the people are surely very different; for we the defeat or miscarriage of what they called must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spa- their invincible armada, which happened tonish creoles are in many respects superior towards the end of the sixteenth century, put it the ancient Indians. out of their power to obstruct any longer the After the settlements of the Spaniards, that settlements of the other European nations In of the Portuguese in Brazil is the oldest of the course of the seventeenth century, there 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 soor 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. fore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and company, is probably the principal cause of Swedes, all the great nations who had any that degree of prosperity which that colony at ports upon the ocean, attempted to make some present enjoys. Curaçoa and Eustatia, the settlements in the new world. two principal islands belonging to the Dutch, The Swedes established themselves in New are free ports, open to the ships of all nations Jersey; and the number of Swedish families and this freedom, in the midst of better colostill to be found there sufficiently demonstrates, nies, whose ports are open to those of one nathat this colony was very likely to prosper, tion only, has been the great cause of the prohad it been protected by the mother country.sperity of those two barren islands. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon The French colony of Canada was, during swallowed up by the Dutch colony of New the greater part of the last century, and some York, which again, in 1674, fell under the dominion of the English. part of the present, under the government of an exclusive company. Under so unfavourThe small islands of St. Thomas and Santa able an administration, its progress was neces Cruz, are the only countries in the new world sarily very slow, in comparison with that of that have ever been possessed by the Danes. other new colonies; but it became much more These little settlements, too, were under the rapid when this company was dissolved, after government of an exclusive company, which the fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme had the sole right, both of purchasing the sur- When the English got possession of this coun plus produce of the colonies, and of supplying try, they found in it near double the number them with such goods of other countries as of inhabitants which father Charlevoix had asthey wanted, and which, therefore, both in its signed to it between twenty and thirty years purchases and sales, had not only the power before. That jesuit had travelled over the of oppressing them, but the greatest tempta- whole country, and had no inclination to retion to do so. The government of an exclu- present it as less inconsiderable than it really sive company of merchants is, perhaps, the was. worst of all governments for any country what- The French colony of St. Domingo was ever. 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. established by pirates and freebooters, who, for a long time, neither required the protec tion, 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 The Dutch settlements in the West, as well exercise it with very great gentleness. Duras those in the East Indies, were originally ing this period, the population and improveput under the government of an exclusive ment of this colony increased very fast. Even company. The progress of some of them, the oppression of the exclusive company, to therefore, though it has been considerable in which it was for some time subjected with all comparison with that of almost any country the other colonies of France, though it no that has been long peopled and established, doubt retarded, had not been able to stop its has been languid and slow in comparison with progress altogether. The course of its prospethat of the greater part of new colonies. The rity returned as soon as it was relieved from colony of Surinam, though very considerable, that oppression. It is now the most important is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar of the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and colonies of the other European nations. The its produce is said to be greater than that of colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into the all the English sugar colonies put together. two provinces of New York and New Jersey, The other sugar colonies of France are in gewould probably have soon become consider-neral all very thriving. able too, even though it had remained under But there are no colonies of which the pro the government of the Dutch. The plenty gress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America. and cheapness of good land are such powerful causes of prosperity, that the very worst go- Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage vernment is scarce capable of checking altoge- their own affairs their own way, seem to be ther the efficacy of their operation. The great the two great causes of the prosperity of all distance, too, from the mother country, would new colonies. enable the colonists to evade more or less, by In the plenty of good land, the English cosmuggling, the monopoly which the company lonies of North America, though no doubt enjoyed against them. At present, the com- very abundantly provided, are, however, infepany allows all Dutch ships to trade to Suri-rior to those of the Spaniards and Portuguese, nam, upon paying two and a-half per cent. and not superior to some of those possessed upon the value of their cargo for a license; by the French before the late war. But the and only reserves to itself exclusively, the di-political institutions of the English colonies rect trade from Africa to America, which cor have been more favourable to the improveists almost entirely in the slave trade. This ment and cultivation of this land, than those elaxation in the exclusive privileges of the of the other three nations. First, The engrossing of uncultivated land, therefore, being more employed in the imthough it has by no means been prevented al-provement and cultivation of land, is likely to together, has been more restrained in the Eng-afford a greater and more valuable produce lish colonies than in any other The colony than that of any of the other three nations, law, which imposes upon every proprietor the which, by the engrossing of land, is more or obligation of improving and cultivating, within less diverted towards other employments. 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. | 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 putSecondly, In Pennsylvania there is no right ting into motion a still greater quantity of laof primogeniture, and lands, like moveables, bour. The English colonists have never yet are divided equally among all the children of contributed any thing towards the defence of the family. In three of the provinces of New the mother country, or towards the support of England, the oldest has only a double share, its civil government. They themselves, on as in the Mosaical law. Though in those the contrary, have hitherto been defended alprovinces, therefore, too great a quantity of most entirely at the expense of the mother land should sometimes be engrossed by a par- country; but the expense of fleets and armies ticular individual, it is likely, in the course of is out of all proportion greater than the noa generation or two, to be sufficiently divided cessary expense of civil government. The exagain. In the other English colonies, indeed, pense of their own civil government has althe right of primogeniture takes place, as in ways been very moderate. It has generally the law of England: But in all the English been confined to what was necessary for paycolonies, the tenure of the lands, which are all ing competent salaries to the governor, to the held by free soccage, facilitates alienation; and judges, and to some other officers of police, the grantee of an extensive tract of land gene- and for maintaining a few of the most useful rally finds it for his interest to alienate, as fast public works. The expense of the civil estabas he can, the greater part of it, reserving only lishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the a small quit-rent. In the Spanish and Por- commencement of the present disturbances, tuguese colonies, what is called the right of used to be but about L. 18,000 a-year; that of majorazzo takes place in the succession of all New Hampshire and Rhode Island, L.3500 those great estates to which any title of ho- each; that of Connecticut, L. 4000; that of nour is annexed. Such estates go all to one New York and Pennsylvania, L. 4500 each; person, and are in effect entailed and unalien- that of New Jersey, L.1200; that of Virginia able. The French colonies, indeed, are sub- and South Carolina, L. 8000 each. The civil ject to the custom of Paris, which, in the in- establishments of Nova Scotia and Georgia heritance of land, is much more favourable to are partly supported by an annual grant of the younger children than the law of England. parliament; but Nova Scotia pays, besides, But, in the French colonies, if any part of an about L.7000 a-year towards the public exestate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry penses of the colony, and Georgia about and homage, is alienated, it is, for a limited L. 2500 a-year. All the different civil estabtime, subject to the right of redemption, either lishments in North America, in short, excluby the heir of the superior, or by the heir of sive of those of Maryland and North Caroli the family; and all the largest estates of the na, of which no exact account has been got, country are held by such noble tenures, which did not, before the commencement of the prenecessarily embarrass alienation. But, in a sent disturbances, cost the inhabitants above new colony, a great uncultivated estate is like- L. 64,700 a-year; an ever memorable examly to be much more speedily divided by alien-ple, at how small an expense three millions of ation than by succession. The plenty and people may not only be governed but well gocheapness of good land, it has already been verned. The most important part of the exobserved, are the principal causes of the rapid pense of government, indeed, that of defence prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing and protection, has constantly fallen upon the of land, in effect, destroys this plenty and mother country. The ceremonial, too, of the cheapness. The engrossing of uncultivated civil government in the coionies, upon the reland, besides, is the greatest obstruction to its ception of a new governor, upon the opening improvement; but the labour that is employed of a new assembly, &c. though sufficiently dein the improvement and cultivation of land cent, is not accompanied with any expensive affords the greatest and most valuable produce pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical governto the society. The produce of labour, in this ment is conducted upon a plan equally frucase, pays not only its own wages and the gal. Tithes are unknown among them; and profit of the stock which employs it, but the their clergy, who are far from being numerent of the land too upon which it is employ-rous, are maintained either by moderate stied The labour of the English colonies, pends, or by the voluntary contributions of |