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BOOK pounds, would not probably have incurred the IV. tenth part of that lofs.

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The revenue allotted by parliament for defraying the expence of the coinage is but fourteen thousand pounds a year, and the real expence which it cofts the government, or the fees of the officers of the mint, do not upon ordinary occafions, I am affured, exceed the half of that fum. The faving of fo very small a fum, or even the gaining of another which could not well be much larger, are objects too inconfiderable, it may be thought, to deferve the ferious attention of government. But the faving of eighteen or twenty thousand pounds a year in case of an event which is not improbable, which has frequently happened before, and which is very likely to happen again, is furely an object which well deferves the ferious attention even of fo great a company as the bank of England.

Some of the foregoing reafonings and obfervations might perhaps have been more properly placed in thofe chapters of the first book which treat of the origin and use of money, and of the difference between the real and the nominal price of commodities. But as the law for the encouragement of coinage derives its origin from thofe vulgar prejudices which have been introduced by the mercantile fyftem; I judged it more proper to referve them for this chapter. Nothing could be more agreeable to the spirit of that fyftem than a fort of bounty upon the production of money, the very thing which, it fup

pofes,

VI.

poses, constitutes the wealth of every nation. It c HA P. is one of its many admirable expedients for enriching the country.

CHAP. VII.

Of Colonies.

PART FIRST.

Of the Motives for eftablishing new Colonies.

THE

HE intereft which occafioned the firft fet- CHA P. tlement of the different European colonies

in America and the Weft Indies, was not altogether fo plain and diftinét as that which directed the establishment of thofe of ancient Greece and Rome.

All the different ftates of ancient Greece poffeffed, each of them, but a very small territory, and when the people in any one of them multiplied beyond what that territory could. easily maintain, a part of them were fent in quest of a new habitation in fome remote and diftant part of the world; the warlike neighbours who furrounded them on all fides, rendering it difficult for any of them to enlarge very much its territory at home. The colonies of the Dorians reforted chiefly to Italy and Sicily, which, in the times preceding the foundation of Rome, were inhabited by barbarous and uncivilized nations:

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VII.

BOOK thofe of the Ionians and Eolians, the two other IV. great tribes of the Greeks, to Afia Minor and

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the islands of the Egean Sea, of which the inhabitants feem at that time to have been pretty much in the fame state as thofe of Sicily and Italy. The mother city, though fhe confidered the colony as a child, at all times entitled to great favour and affistance, and owing in return much gratitude and refpect, yet confidered it as an emancipated child, over whom the pretended to claim no direct authority or jurisdiction. The colony fettled its own form of government, enacted its own laws, elected its own magiftrates, and made peace or war with its neighbours as an independent ftate, which had no occafion to wait for the approbation or confent of the mother city. Nothing can be more plain and diftinct than the intereft which directed every fuch establishment.

Rome, like most of the other ancient republics, was originally founded upon an Agrarian law, which divided the public territory in a certain proportion among the different citizens who compofed the ftate. The courfe of human affairs, by marriage, by fucceflion, and by alienation, neceffarily deranged this original divifion, and frequently threw the lands, which had been allotted for the maintenance of many different families into the poffeffion of a fingle perfon. To remedy this diforder, for fuch it was fuppofed to be, a law was made, reftricting the quantity of land which any citizen could poffefs to five hundred jugera, about three hundred and

VII.

fifty English acres. This law, however, though c HAP. we read of its having been executed upon one or two occafions, was either neglected or evaded, and the inequality of fortunes went on continually increafing. The greater part of the citizens had no land, and without it the manners and cuftoms of thofe times rendered it difficult for a freeman to maintain his independency. In the present times, though a poor man has no land of his own, if he has a little stock, he may either farm the lands of another, or he may carry on fome little retail trade; and if he has no stock, he may find employment either as a country labourer, or as an artificer. But, among the ancient Romans, the lands of the rich were all cultivated by flaves, who wrought under an overfeer, who was likewife a flave; fo that a poor freeman had little chance of being employed either as a farmer or as a labourer. All trades and manufactures too, even the retail trade, were carried on by the flaves of the rich for the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, authority, and protection made it difficult for a poor freeman to maintain the competition against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had scarce any other means of fubfiftence but the bounties of the candidates at the annual elections. The tribunes, when they had a mind to animate the people against the rich and the great, put them in mind of the ancient divifion of lands, and reprefented that law which reftricted this fort of private property as the fundamental law of the republic. The people be

came

IV.

BOOK came clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great, we may believe, were perfectly determined not to give them any part of theirs. To fatisfy them in fome measure, therefore, they frequently propofed to fend out a new colony. But conquering Rome was, even upon fuch occafions, under no neceffity of turning out her citizens to feek their fortune, if one may fay fo, through the wide world, without knowing where they were to fettle. She affigned them lands generally in the conquered provinces of Italy, where, being within the dominions of the republic, they could never form any independent state; but were at best but a fort of corporation, which, though it had the power of enacting byelaws for its own government, was at all times fubject to the correction, jurifdiction, and legiflative authority of the mother city. The fending out a colony of this kind, not only gave fome fatisfaction to the people, but often eftablished a fort of garrifon too in a newly conquered province, of which the obedience might otherwife have been doubtful. A Roman colony, therefore, whether we confider the nature of the establishment itself, or the motives for making it, was altogether different from a Greek one. The words accordingly, which in the original languages denote those different establishments, have very different meanings. The Latin word (Colonia) fignifies fimply a plantation. The Greek word (axia), on the contrary, fignifies a feparation of dwelling, a departure from home, a going out of the houfe. But, though the

Roman

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