VII. newly discovered countries. The motive which CHA P. excited them to this conqueft was a project of gold and filver mines; and a courfe of accidents, which no human wifdom could forefee, rendered this project much more fuccefsful than the undertakers had any reasonable ground for expecting. The firft adventurers of all the other nations of Europe, who attempted to make fettlements in America, were animated by the like chimeri cal views; but they were not equally fuccefsful. It was more than a hundred years after the first fettlement of the Brazils, before any filver, gold, or diamond mines were discovered there. In the English, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies, none have ever yet been difcovered; at least none that are at prefent fuppofed to be worth the working. The first English fettlers in North America, however, offered a fifth of all the gold and filver which fhould be found there to the king, as a motive for granting them their patents. In the patents to Sir Walter Raleigh, to the London and Plymouth companies, to the council of Plymouth, &c. this fifth was accordingly referved to the Crown. To the expectation of finding gold and filver mines, thofe firft fettlers too joined that of discovering a north-weft paffage to the Eaft Indies. They have hitherto been disappointed in both. BOOK IV. PART SECOND. Caufes of the Profperity of new Colonies. HE colony of a civilized nation which takes THE poffeffion, either of a waste country, or of one fo thinly inhabited, that the natives easily give place to the new fettlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatnefs than any other human fociety. The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other ufeful arts, fuperior to what can grow up of its own accord in the course of many centuries among favage and barbarous nations. They carry out with them too the habit of fubordination, fome notion of the regular government which takes place in their own country, of the fyftem of laws which fupports it, and of a regular adminiftration of juftice; and they naturally establish something of the fame kind in a new fettlement. But among favage and barbarous nations, the natural progrefs of law and government is still flower than the natural progrefs of arts, after law and government have been fo far eftablished, as is neceffary for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can poffibly cultivate. He has no rent, and fcarce any taxes to pay. No landlord fhares with him in its produce, and the share of the fovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as poffible a produce, which is thus to be almost en VII. tirely his own. But his land is commonly fo ex- CHA P. tensive, that with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can feldom 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 thofe liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapnefs of land, foon make thofe labourers leave him, in order to become landlords themfelves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who foon leave them for the fame reafon that they left their firft mafter. 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 eftablifh themfelves in the fame manner as their fathers did before them. In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two fuperior orders of people opprefs the inferior one. But in new colonies, the intereft of the two fuperior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one with more generofity and humanity; at leaft, where that inferior one is not in a ftate of flavery. 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 A A 4 BOOK expects from their improvement, conftitutes his monly very great. But this great profit cannot The progrefs of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and greatnefs, feems 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 furpaffed their mother cities. Syracufe and Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephefus and Miletus in Leffer Afia, appear by all accounts to have been at least equal to any of the cities of ancient Greece. Though pofterior in their establishment, yet all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, feem to VII. to have been cultivated as early, and to have C HAP. been improved as highly in them, as in any part of the mother country. The fchools of the two oldest Greek philofophers, thofe of Thales and Pythagoras, were established, it is remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in an Afiatic, the other in an Italian colony. All thofe colonies had established themfelves in countries inhabited by favage and barbarous nations, who eafily gave place to the new fettlers. 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 moft fuitable to their own intereft. The hiftory of the Roman colonies is by no means fo brilliant. Some of them, indeed, fuch as Florence, have, in the courfe of many ages, and after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be confiderable ftates. But the progrefs of no one of them feems ever to have been very rapid. They were all established in conquered provinces, which, in moft cafes, had been fully inhabited before. The quantity of land affigned to each colonist was feldom very confiderable, 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 fuitable to their own intereft. In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America and the Weft Indies refemble, and even greatly furpafs, those of ancient Greece. In their dependency upon the |