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IV.

BOOK than a hundred years after the death of that great 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 gofpel to a people who could fo well reward the pious labours of their miffionary.

IN the countries firft difcovered 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 first adventurers are faid to have found there, had probably been very much magnified, as wel as the fertility of the mines which were wrought immediately after the firft difcovery. 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 firft expedition of Columbus), fhe prefented them with fomething not very unlike that profufion of the precious metals which they fought for.

A PROJECT of commerce to the East 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 thofe

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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 courfe of accidents, which no human wisdom could foresee, rendered this project much more fuccefsful than the undertakers had any reasonable grounds for expecting.

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 fuccefsful. It was more than a hundred years atter 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 present 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, those first settlers too joined that of difcovering a north weft paffage to the Eaft Indies. They have hitherto been difappointed in both.

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BOOK

IV.

PART SECOND.

Caufes of the profperity of new Colonies.

THE

HE 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 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 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 fupport it, and of a regular adminiftration 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 ftill flower than the natural progrefs of arts, after law and government have been fo 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 shares 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 poffible a produce, which is thus to be almost en

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tirely his own. But his land is commonly fo CHAP. extensive, that with all his own induftry, 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 moft 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 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 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 interest 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 state of flavery. Wafte 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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expects from their improvement, conftitutes his profit; which in thefe circumftances is commonly very great. But this great profit cannot be made without employing the labour of other people in clearing and cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the great extent of the land and the fmall number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get this labour. He does not, therefore, difpute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price. The high wages of labour encourage population. The cheapnefs and plenty of good land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay thofe high wages. In thofe wages confifts almoft the whole price of the land; and though they are high, confidered as the wages of labour, they are low, confidered as the price of what is fo very valuable. What encourages the progrefs of population and improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness.

THE progrefs of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and greatness, seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In the courfe of a century or two, feveral 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 leaft equal to any of the cities of ancient Greece. Though pofterior in their eftablifhment, yet all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, feem

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