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VII.

wards them a greater fhare of that capital than CHA P. what would go to them of its own accord. Such in reality is the abfurd confidence which almost all men have in their own good fortune, that wherever there is the leaft probability of fuccefs, too great a fhare of it is apt to go to them of its own accord.

BUT though the judgment of fober reafon and experience concerning fuch projects has always been extremely unfavourable, that of human avidity has commonly been quite otherwise. The fame paffion which has fuggested to fo many people the abfurd idea of the philosopher's stone, has fuggefted to others the equally abfurd one of immenfe rich mines of gold and filver. They did not confider that the value of those metals has, in all ages and nations, arisen chiefly from their scarcity, and that their scarcity has arisen from the very fmall quantities of them which nature has any where depofited in one place, from the hard and intractable fubftances with which fhe has almost every where furrounded thofe fmall quantities, and confequently from the labour and expence which are every where neceffary in order to penetrate to and get at them. They flattered themselves that veins of thofe 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 Eldorado, may fatisfy us, that even wife men are not always exempt from such strange delusions. More A a 2

than

Book than a hundred years after the death of that great IV. man, the Jefuit Gumila was ftill convinced of

the reality of that wonderful country, and expreffed with great warmth, and I dare to fay, with great fincerity, how happy he should be to carry the light of the gospel to a people who could fo well reward the pious labours of their miffionary.

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In the countries first discovered by the Spaniards, no gold or filver mines are at prefent known which are fuppofed to be worth the working. The quantities of thofe metals which the firft adventurers are faid 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 thofe adventurers were reported to have found, however, was fufficient to inflame, the avidity of all their countrymen. Every Spaniard who failed to America expected to find an Eldorado. Fortune too did upon this what he has done upon very few other occafions. She realized in fome meafure the extravagant hopes of her votaries, and in the difcovery and, conqueft of Mexico and Peru (of which the one happened about thirty, the other about forty years after the first expe dition of Columbus), fhe presented them with something not very unlike that profusion of the precious metals which they fought for.

A PROJECT of commerce to the Eaft Indies, therefore, gave occafion to the first discovery of the Weft. A project of conqueft gave occafion to all the establishments of the Spaniards in those newly

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newly discovered countries. The motive which CHA P. excited them to this conqueft was a project of gold and filver mines; and a course of accidents, which no human wisdom could foresee, rendered this project much more fuccessful than the undertakers had any reasonable grounds for expect ing.

THE firft adventurers of all the other nations of Europe, who attempted to make fettlements in America, were animated by the like chimerical views; but they were not equally fuccessful. 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 discovered; 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 should 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-west passage to the Eaft Indies. They have hitherto been disappointed in both.

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Caufes of the Profperity of new Colonies. THE colony of a civilized nation which takes poffeffion, either of a waste country, or of one fo thinly inhabited, that the natives eafily give place to the new fettlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human fociety.

THE Colonists 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 courfe 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 administration of justice; and they naturally establish something of the fame kind in the 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 so far established, as is neceffary for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can poffibly cultivate, He has no rent, and scarce any taxes to pay. No landlord fhares with him in its produce, and the fhare of the fovereign is commonly but a trifle, He has every motive to render as great as pos fible a produce, which is thus to be almost en

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tirely his own. But his land is commonly foCHAP. extensive, 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 pro ducing, 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 those labourers leave him, in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who foon leave them for the fame 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 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

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