the people. The power of Spain and Portu- of its quantity. Of all the expedients that gal, on the contrary, derives some support can well be contrived to stunt the natural from the taxes levied upon their colonies. growth of a new colony, that of an exclusive France, indeed, has never drawn any consi-company is undoubtedly the most effectual. derable revenue from its colonies, the taxes This, however, has been the policy of Hol which it levies upon them being generally land, though their company, in the course of spent among them. But the colony govern- the present century, has given up in many rement of all these three nations is conducted spects the exertion of their exclusive privilege. upon a much more extensive plan, and is ac- This, too, was the policy of Denmark, till the companied with a much more expensive cere-reign of the late king. It has occasionally monial. The sums spent upon the reception been the policy of France; and of late, since of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have 1755, after it had been abandoned by all other frequently been enormous. Such ceremonials nations on account of its absurdity, it has be are not only real taxes paid by the rich colo- come the policy of Portugal, with regard at nists upon those particular occasions, but they | least to two of the principal provinces of Braserve to introduce among them the habit of zil, Pernambucco, and Marannon. vanity and expense upon all other occasions. Other nations, without establishing an exThey are not only very grievous occasional clusive company, have confined the whole taxes, but they contribute to establish perpe-commerce of their colonies to a particular port tual taxes, of the same kind, still more griev- of the mother country, from whence no ship ous; the ruinous taxes of private luxury and was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet and extravagance. In the colonies of all those at a particular season, or, if single, in consethree nations, too, the ecclesiastical govern- quence of a particular license, which in most ment is extremely oppressive. Tithes take cases was very well paid for. This policy openplace in all of them, and are levied with the ed, indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. natives of the mother country, provided they All of them, besides, are oppressed with a nu-traded from the proper port, at the proper sea. merous race of mendicant friars, whose beg-son, and in the proper vessels. But as all the gary being not only licensed but consecrated different merchants, who joined their stocks in by religion, is a most grievous tax upon the order to fit out those licensed vessels, would poor people, who are most carefully taught find it for their interest to act in concert, the that it is a duty to give, and a very great sin trade which was carried on in this manner to refuse them their charity. Over and above all this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

would necessarily be conducted very nearly upon the same principles as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus would be almost equally exorbitant and op produce, or of what is over and above their pressive. The colonies would be ill supplied, own consumption, the English colonies have and would be obliged both to buy very dear, been more favoured, and have been allowed a and to sell very cheap. This, however, tili more extensive market, than those of any within these few years, had always been the other European nation. Every European na- policy of Spain; and the price of all European tion has endeavoured, more or less, to mono- goods, accordingly, is said to have been enor polize to itself the commerce of its colonies, mous in the Spanish West Indies. At Quito, and, upon that account, has prohibited the we are told by Ulloa, a pound of iron sold ships of foreign nations from trading to them, for about 4s. 6d., and a pound of steel for and has prohibited them from importing Eu- about 6s. 9d. sterling. But it is chiefly in orropean goods from any foreign nation. But der to purchase European goods that the colothe manner in which this monopoly has been nies part with their own produce. The more, exercised in different nations, has been very

different.

therefore, they pay for the one, the less they really get for the other, and the dearness of Some nations have given up the whole com- the one is the same thing with the cheapness merce of their colonies to an exclusive com- of the other. The policy of Portugal is, in pany, of whom the colonists were obliged to this respect, the same as the ancient policy of buy all such European goods as they wanted, Spain, with regard to all its colonies, except and to whom they were obliged to sell the Pernambucco and Marannon; and with rewhole of their surplus produce. It was the gard to these it has lately adopted a still worse. interest of the company, therefore, not only Other nations leave the trade of their coloto sell the former as dear, and to buy the lat-nies free to all their subjects, who may carry ter as cheap as possible, but to buy no more it on from all the different ports of the mother of the latter, even at this low price, than what country, and who have occasion for no other they could dipose of for a very high price in license than the common despatches of the Europe. It was their interest not only to de-custom-house. In this case the number and grade in all cases the value of the surplus pro- dispersed situation of the different traders renduce of the colony, but in many cases to dis-ders it impossible for them to enter into any courage and keep down the natural increase general combination, and their competition is

sufficient to hinder them from making very | tle, in all shapes, dead and alive, a very exexorbitant profits. Under so liberal a policy, tensive market, the law endeavours to raise the colonies are enabled both to sell their own the value of a commodity, of which the high produce, and to buy the goods of Europe at price is so very essential to improvement. a reasonable price; but since the dissolution The good effects of this liberty, I owever, must of the Plymouth company, when our colonies be somewhat diminished by the 4th of Geo. were but in their infancy, this has always been III. c. 15, which puts hides and skins among the policy of England. It has generally, too, the enumerated commodities, and thereby tends been that of France, and has been uniformly to reduce the value of American cattle. so since the dissolution of what in England is To increase the shipping and naval power commonly called their Mississippi company. of Great Britain by the extension of the fishThe profits of the trade, therefore, which eries of our colonies, is an object which the France and England carry on with their colo-legislature seems to have had almost constantnies, though no doubt somewhat higher than ly in view. Those fisheries, upon this account, if the competition were free to all other na- have had all the encouragement which freetions, are, however, by no means exorbitant; dom can give them, and they have flourished and the price of European goods, according-accordingly. The New England fishery, in ly, is not extravagantly high in the greater particular, was, before the late disturbances, part of the colonies of either of those nations. one of the most important, perhaps, in the In the exportation of their own surplus pro-world. The whale fishery which, notwithstand duce, too, it is only with regard to certain ing an extravagant bounty, is in Great Bricommodities that the colonies of Great Britain carried on to so little purpose, that in the tain are confined to the market of the mother opinion of many people (which I do not, howcountry. These commodities having been ever, pretend to warrant), the whole produce enumerated in the act of navigation, and in does not much exceed the value of the bounsome other subsequent acts, have upon that ties which are annually paid for it, is in New occount been called enumerated commodities. England carried on, without any bounty, to a The rest are called non-enumerated, and may very great extent. Fish is one of the princibe exported directly to other countries, pro- pal articles with which the North Americans vided it is in British or plantation ships, of trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterwhich the owners and three fourths of the ma-ranean. tiners 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.

Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity, which could only be exported to Great Britain; but in 1731, 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

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 cul-colonies still continue to be almost the sole ture much beyond the consumption of a thin- market for all sugar produced in the British ly inhabited country, and thus to provide be- plantations. Their consumption increases so forehand an ample subsistence for a continu- fast, that, though in consequence of the inally increasing population.

creasing improvement of Jamaica, as well as In a country quite covered with wood, of the ceded islands, the importation of sugar where timber consequently is of little or no has increased very greatly within these twenty value, the expense of clearing the ground is years, the exportation to foreign countries is the principal obstacle to improvement. By said to be not much greater than before. allowing the colonies a very extensive market Rum is a very important article in the trade for their lumber, the law endeavours to facili- which the Americans carry on to the coast of tate improvement by raising the price of a Africa, from which they bring back negro commodity which would otherwise be of lit-slaves in return.

tle value, and thereby enabling them to make If the whole surplus produce of America, some profit of what would otherwise be mere in grain of all sorts, in salt provisions, and in expense. fish, had been put into the enumeration, and

In a country neither half peoplec, nor half thereby forced into the market of Great Bri. cultivated, cattle naturally multiply beyond tain, it would have interferred too much with the consumption of the inhabitants, and are the produce of the industry of our own peooften, upon that account, of little or no va- ple. It was probably not so much from any lue. But it is necessary, it has already been regard to the interest of America, as from a shown, that the price of cattle should bear a jealousy of this interference, that those im certain proportion to that of corn, before the portant commodities have not only been kept greater part of the lands of any country can out of the enumeration, but that the importa be improved. By allowing to American cat-tion into Great Britain of all grain, except

fect was rather to encourage than to discourage the clearing of land in America.

rice, and of all salt provisions, has, in the or- masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and dinary state of the law, been prohibited. turpentine, naturally tended to lower the price The non-enumerated commodities could of timber in the colonies, and consequently to originally be exported to all parts of the world. increase the expense of clearing their lands, Lumber and rice having been once put into the principal obstacle to their improvement. the enumeration, when they were afterwards But about the beginning of the present centaken out of it, were confined, as to the Eu- tury, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of ropean market, to the countries that lie south Sweden endeavoured to raise the price of their of Cape Finisterre. By the 6th of George commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting III. c. 52, all non-enumerated commodities their exportation, except in their own ships, were subjected to the like restriction. The at their own price, and in such quantities as parts of Europe which lie south of Cape Fi- they thought proper. In order to counteract nisterre are not manufacturing countries, and this notable piece of mercantile policy, and to we are less jealous of the colony ships carry-render herself as much as possible independ ing home from them any manufactures which ent, not only of Sweden, but of all the other could interfere with our own. northern powers, Great Britain gave a bounty The enumerated commodities are of two upon the importation of naval stores from sorts; first, such as are either the peculiar America; and the effect of this bounty was produce of America, or as cannot be produced, to raise the price of timber in America much or at least are not produced in the mother more than the confinement to the home marcountry. Of this kind are molasses, coffee, ket could lower it; and as both regulations cocoa-nuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whale- were enacted at the same time, their joint effins, raw silk, cotton, wool, beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustick, and other dyeing woods; secondly, such as are not the Though pig and bar iron, too, have been peculiar produce of America, but which are, put among the enumerated commodities, yet and may be produced in the mother country, as, when imported from America, they are though not in such quantities as to supply the exempted from considerable duties to which greater part of her demand, which is princi- they are subject when imported from any other pally supplied from foreign countries. Of country, the one part of the regulation con. this kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, tributes more to encourage the erection of fur. and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig naces in America than the other to discourage and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot it. There is no manufacture which occasions and pearl ashes. The largest importation of so great a consumption of wood as a furnace, commodities of the first kind could not dis-or which can contribute so much to the clear. courage the growth, or interfere with the sale, ing of a country overgrown with it. 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 The most perfect freedom of trade is per or emporium, as the European country into mitted between the British colonies of Ameriwhich those commodities were first to be im-ca and the West Indies, both in the enume ported. The importation of commodities of rated and in the non-enumerated commodities. the second kind might be so managed too, it Those colonies are now become so populous was supposed, as to interfere, not with the and thriving, that each of them finds in some sale of those of the same kind which were pro- of the others a great and extensive market duced at home, but with that of those which for every part of its produce. All of them were imported from foreign countries; because, taken together, they make a great internal by means of proper duties, they might be ren- market for the produce of one another. dered always somewhat dearer than the forThe liberality of England, however, towards mer, and yet a good deal cheaper than the lat-the trade of her colonies, has been confined ter. By confining such commodities to the chiefly to what concerns the market for their home market, therefore, it was proposed to produce, either in its rude state, or in what discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, may be called the very first stage of manufac but of some foreign countries with which the ture. The more advanced or more refined balance of trade was believed to be unfavour-manufactures, even of the colony produce, the able to Great Britain. merchants and manufacturers of Great BriThe prohibition of exporting from the colo-tain chuse to reserve to themselves, and have nies to any other country but Great Britain, prevailed upon the legislature to prevent their

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.

establishment in the colonies, sometimes by they have not hitherto been very hurtful to high duties, and sometimes by absolute pro- the colonies. Land is still so cheap, and, conhibitions. sequently, labour so dear among them, that While, for example, Muscovado sugars from they can import from the mother country althe British plantations pay, upon importation, most all the more refined or more advanced only 6s. 4d. the hundred weight, white sugars manufactures cheaper than they could make pay L.1:1:1; and refined, either double or them for themselves. Though they had not, single, in loaves, L.4:2: 5 8-20ths. When therefore, been prohibited from establishing those high duties were imposed, Great Bri- such manufactures, yet, in their present state tain was the sole, and she still continues to be, of improvement, a regard to their own intethe principal market, to which the sugars of rest would probably have prevented them from the British colonies could be exported. They doing so. In their present state of improveamounted, therefore, to a prohibition, at first ment, those prohibitions, perhaps, without of claying or refining sugar for any foreign cramping their industry, or restraining it from market, and at present of claying or refining any employment to which it would have gone it for the market which takes off, perhaps, of its own accord, are only impertinent badges more than nine-tenths of the whole produce. of slavery imposed upon them, without any The manufacture of claying or refining su- sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy gar, accordingly, though it has flourished in of the merchants and manufacturers of the all the sugar colonies of France, has been lit-mother country. In a more advanced state, tle cultivated in any of those of England, ex- they might be really oppressive and insupcept for the market of the colonies themselves. portable. 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.

Great Britain, too, as she confines to her own market some of the most important productions of the colonies, se, 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; While Great Britain encourages in Ameri- and, in the second, to their raw silk, to their ca the manufacturing of pig and bar iron, by hemp and flax, to their indigo, to their naval exempting them from duties to which the like stores, and to their building timber. commodities are subject when imported from second way of encouraging the colony proany other country, she imposes an absolute duce, by bounties upon importation, is, so far prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces as I have been able to learn, peculiar to Great and slit-mills in any of her American planta- Britain: the first is not. Portugal does not tions. She will not suffer her colonies to work content herself with imposing higher duties in those more refined manufactures, even for upon the importation of tobacco from any their own consumption; but insists upon their other country, but prohibits it under the sepurchasing of her merchants and manufactur-verest penalties. ers all goods of this kind which they have occasion for.

This

With regard to the importation of goods from Europe, England has likewise dealt more liberally with her colonies than any other nation.

She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water, and even the carriage by land upon horseback, or in a cart, of Great Britain allows a part, almost always hats, of wools, and woollen goods, of the pro- the half, generally a larger portion, and someduce of America; a regulation which effect- times the whole, of the duty which is paid upually prevents the establishment of any manu- on the importation of foreign goods, to be facture 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.

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 BriTo prohibit a great people, however, from tain. Unless, therefore, some part of those making all that they can of every part of their duties was drawn back upon exportation, own produce, or from employing their stock there was an end of the carrying trade; a and industry in the way that they judge most trade so much favoured by the mercantile advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however, as such prohibitions may be,

system.

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

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, upor the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of them.

Britain having assumed to herself the exclu- market, in consequence of the easy terms upsive right of supplying them with all goods on which foreign manufactures could be car. from Europe, might have forced them (in ried thither by means of those drawbacks. the same manner as other countries have done The progress of the linen manufacture of their colonies) to receive such goods loaded Great Britain, it is commonly said, has been with all the same duties which they paid in a good deal retarded by the drawbacks upon the mother country. But, on the contrary, till the re-exportation of German linen to the 1763, the same drawbacks were paid upon American colonies. 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 66 no part of the duty called the old subsidy "should be drawn back for any goods of the In every thing except their foreign trade. "growth, production, or manufacture of Eu- the liberty of the English colonists to manage rope or the East Indies, which should be their own affairs their own way, is complete. "exported from this kingdom to any British It is in every respect equal to that of their "colony or plantation in America; wines, fellow-citizens at home, and is secured in the "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.

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 Of the greater part of the regulations con- neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious cerning the colony trade, the merchants who colonist, as long as he obeys the law, has any carry it on, it must be observed, have been thing to fear from the resentment, either of the principal advisers. We must not wonder, the governor, or of any other civil or mitherefore, if, in a great part of them, their in- litary officer in the province. The colony asterest has been more considered than either semblies, though, like the house of commons that of the colonies or that of the mother in England, they are not always a very equal country. In their exclusive privilege of sup-representation of the people, yet they approach plying the colonies with all the goods which more nearly to that character; and as the exe they wanted from Europe, and of purchasing cutive power either has not the means to corall such parts of their surplus produce as rupt them, or, on account of the support which could not interfere with any of the trades it receives from the mother country, is not which they themselves carried on at home, the under the necessity of doing so, they are, perinterest of the colonies was sacrificed to the haps, in general more influenced by the incliinterest of those merchants. In allowing the nations of their constituents. The councils, same drawbacks upon the re-exportation of which, in the colony legislatures, correspond the greater part of European and East India to the house of lords in Great Britain, are goods to the colonies, as upon their re-expor-not composed of a hereditary nobility. In tation to any independent country, the inte- some of the colonies, as in three of the gorest of the mother country was sacrificed to it, vernments of New England, those councils even according to the mercantile ideas of that are not appointed by the king, but chosen by interest. It was for the interest of the mer- the representatives of the people. In none of chants to pay as little as possible for the fo- the English colonies is there any hereditary reign goods which they sent to the colonies, nobility. In all of them, indeed, as in all and, consequently, to get back as much as pos- other free countries, the descendant of an old sible of the duties which they advanced upon colony family is more respected than an uptheir importation into Great Britain. They start of equal merit and fortune; but he is might thereby be enabled to sell in the colo- only more respected, and he has no privileges nies, either the same quantity of goods with a by which he can be troublesome to his neighgreater profit, or a greater quantity with the bours. Before the commencement of the presame profit, and, consequently, to gain some-sent disturbances, the colony assemblies had thing either in the one way or the other. not only the legislative, but a part of the exeIt was likewise for the interest of the colo- cutive power. In Connecticut and Rhode nies to get all such goods as cheap, and in as Island, they elected the governor. In the great abundance as possible. But this might other colonies, they appointed the revenue offi not always be for the interest of the mother cers, who collected the taxes imposed by those country. She might frequently suffer, both respective assemblies, to whom those officers in her revenue, by giving back a great part were immediately responsible. There is more of the duties which had been paid upon the equality, therefore, among the English colo importation of such goods; and in her ma-nists than among the inhabitants of the monufactures, by being undersold in the colony ther country. Their manners are more re