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• Key to Abbreviations and References
• [iv] Book Iv, Continued.
• [iv.vi] Chapter VI: Of Treaties of Commerce
• [iv.vii] Chapter VII: Of Colonies
• [iv.vii.a] Part First: of the Motives For Establishing New Colonies
• [iv.vii.b] Part Second: Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies
• [iv.vii.c] Part Third: of the Advantages Which Europe Has Derived From the Discovery of America, and From That of a Passage to the East Indies By the Cape of Good Hope.
• [iv.viii] Chapter VIII: Conclusion of the Mercantile System
• [iv.ix] Chapter IX: Of the Agricultural Systems, Or of Those Systems of Political Œconomy, Which Represent the Produce of Land As Either the Sole Or the Principal Source of the Revenue and Wealth of Every Country
• [v] Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign Or Commonwealth
• [v.i] Chapter I: Of the Expences of the Sovereign Or Commonwealth
• [v.i.a] Part First: of the Expence of Defence
• [v.i.b] Part II: Of the Expence of Justice
• [v.i.c] Part III: Of the Expence of Publick Works and Publick Institutions
• Article I: Of the Publick Works and Institutions For Facilitating the Commerce of the Society
• [v.i.d] And, First, of Those Which Are Necessary For Facilitating Commerce In General A–a
• [v.i.e] of the Publick Works and Institutions Which Are Necessary For Facilitating Particular Branches of Commerce
• [v.i.f] Article II: Of the Expence of the Institutions For the Education of a Youth 1
• [v.i.g] Article III: Of the Expence of the Institutions For the Instruction of People of All Ages
• [v.i.h] Part IV: Of the Expence of Supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign
• [v.i.i] Conclusion of the Chapter
• [v.ii] Chapter II: Of the Sources of the General Or Publick Revenue of the Society
• [v.ii.a] Part I: Of the Funds Or Sources of Revenue Which May Peculiarly Belong to the Sovereign Or Commonwealth
• [v.ii.b] Part II: Of Taxes
• [v.ii.c] Article I: Taxes Upon Rent; Taxes Upon the Rent of Land
• [v.ii.d] Taxes Which Are Proportioned, Not to the Rent, But to the Produce of Land
• [v.ii.e] Taxes Upon the Rent of Houses
• [v.ii.f] Article II: Taxes Upon Profit, Or Upon the Revenue Arising From Stock
• [v.ii.g] Taxes Upon the Profit of Particular Employments
• [v.ii.h] Appendix to Articles I and II: Taxes Upon the Capital Value of Lands, Houses, and Stock
• [v.ii.i] Article III: Taxes Upon the Wages of Labour
• Article IV: Taxes Which, It Is Intended, Should Fall Indifferently Upon Every Different Species of Revenue
• [v.ii.j] Capitation Taxes
• [v.ii.k] Taxes Upon Consumable Commodities
• [v.iii] Chapter III: Of Publick Debts
• Appendix
• Textual Schedules
• Schedule A. Emendations of Accidental Readings
• Schedule B. Excluded Variants
• Schedule C. Line–end Hyphenation
• Table of Corresponding Passages

part second

Causes of the Prosperity of new Colonies

1The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession, either of a waste country, or of one so thinly inhabited, that the natives easily give place to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society.

2The 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 course of many centuries among savage and barbarous nations.1 They carry out with them too the habit of subordination, some notion of the regular government which takes place in their own country, of the system of laws which ^asupport^a it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement.2 But among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress of law and government is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law and government have been so far established, as is necessary for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes to pay.3 No landlord shares with him in its produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce, which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive, that with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can seldom 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 those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make those labourers leave him in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who soon leave them for the same 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 over–pays their maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour, and the low price of land, enable them to establish themselves in the same manner as their fathers did before them.4

3In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior orders of people oppress the inferior one. But in new colonies, the interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one with more generosity and humanity; at least, where that inferior one is not in a state of slavery. 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 from their improvement, constitutes his profit; which in these circumstances 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 small number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get this labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price. The high wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay those high wages.5 In those wages consists almost the whole price of the land; and though they are high, considered as the wages of labour, they are low, considered as the price of what is so very valuable. What encourages the progress of population and improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness.

4The progress of many of the antient Greek colonies towards wealth and greatness, seems 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 surpassed their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear by all accounts to have been at least equal to any of the cities of antient Greece.6 Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, seem to have been cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them, as in any part of the mother country.7 The schools of the two oldest Greek philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were established, it is remarkable, not in antient Greece, but the one in an Asiatick, the other in an Italian colony. All those colonies had established themselves in countries inhabited by savage and barbarous nations, who easily gave place to the new settlers. 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 most suitable to their own interest.

5The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant. Some of them, indeed, such as Florence, have in the course of many ages, and after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be considerable states. But the progress of no one of them seems ever to have been very rapid. They were all established in conquered provinces, which in most cases had been fully inhabited before. The quantity of land assigned to each colonist was seldom very considerable, 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 suitable to their own interest.

6In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America and the West Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass, those of antient Greece.8 In their dependency upon the mother state, they resemble those of ancient Rome; but their great distance from Europe has in all of them alleviated more or less the effects of this dependency. Their situation has placed them less in the view and less in the power of their mother country. In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has, upon many occasions, been over–looked, either because not known or not understood in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly suffered and submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficult to restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary government of Spain has, upon many occasions, been obliged to recall or soften the orders which had been given for the government of ^bher^b colonies, for fear of a general insurrection. The progress of all the European colonies in wealth, population, and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

7The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived some revenue from its colonies, from the moment of their first establishment. It was a revenue too, of a nature to excite in human avidity the most extravagant expectations of still greater riches. The Spanish colonies, therefore, from the moment of their first establishment, attracted very much the attention of their mother country; while those of the other European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected. The former did not, perhaps, thrive the better in consequence of this attention; nor the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect. In proportion to the extent of the country which they in some measure possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less populous and thriving than those of almost any other European nation. The progress even of the Spanish colonies, however, in population and improvement, has certainly been very rapid and very great. The city of Lima, founded since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa, as containing fifty thousand inhabitants near thirty years ago.9 Quito, which had been but a miserable hamlet of Indians, is represented by the same author as in his time equally populous.10 Gemelli Carreri, a pretended traveller,11 it is said, indeed, but who seems every where to have written upon extreme good information, represents the city of Mexico as containing a hundred thousand inhabitants; a number which, in spite of all the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is, probably, more than five times greater than what it contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed greatly those of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities of the English colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards there were no cattle fit for draught, either in Mexico or Peru. The lama was their only beast of burden, and its strength seems to have been a good deal inferior to that of a common ass. The plough was unknown among them. They were ignorant of the use of iron. They had no coined money, nor any established instrument of commerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on by barter. A sort of wooden spade was their principal instrument of agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and hatchets to cut with; fish bones and the hard sinews of certain animals served them for needles to sew with; and these seem to have been their principal instruments of trade. In this state of things, it seems impossible, that either of those empires could have been so much improved or so well cultivated as at present, when they are plentifully furnished with all sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron, of the plough, and of many of the arts of Europe, has been introduced among them. But the populousness of every country must be in proportion to the degree of its improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of the natives which followed the conquest, these two great empires are, probably, more populous now than they ever were before: and the people are surely very different; for we must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spanish creoles are in many respects superior to the antient Indians.

8After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portugueze in Brazil is the oldest of any European nation in America. But as for a long time after the first discovery, neither gold nor silver mines were found in it, and as it afforded, upon that account, little or no revenue to the crown, it was for a long time in a great measure neglected; and during this state of neglect, it grew up to be a great and powerful colony. While Portugal was under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by the Dutch, who got possession of seven of the fourteen provinces into which it is divided. They expected soon to conquer the other seven, when Portugal recovered its independency by the elevation of the family of Braganza to the throne. The Dutch then, as enemies to the Spaniards, became friends to the Portugueze, who were likewise the enemies of the Spaniards. They agreed, therefore, to leave that part of Brazil, which they had not conquered, to the king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about with such good allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portugueze colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of Brazil. The Dutch, therefore, finding it impossible to keep any part of the country to themselves, were contented that it should be entirely restored to the crown of Portugal.12 In this colony there are said to be more than six hundred thousand people, either Portugueze or descended from Portugueze, creoles, mulattoes, and a mixed race between Portugueze and Brazilians. No one colony in America is supposed to contain so great a number of people of European extraction.

9Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were the two great naval powers upon the ocean; for though the commerce of Venice extended to every part of Europe, its fleets had scarce ever sailed beyond the Mediterranean. The Spaniards, in virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as their own; and though they could not hinder so great a naval power as that of Portugal from settling in Brazil, such was, at that time, the terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent. The French, who attempted to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the Spaniards. But the declension of the naval power of this latter nation, in consequence of the defeat or miscarriage of, what they called, their Invincible Armada, which happened towards the end of the sixteenth century, put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations. In the course of the seventeenth century, therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, all the great nations who had any ports upon the ocean, attempted to make some settlements in the new world.

10The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number of Swedish families still to be found there, sufficiently demonstrates, that this colony was very likely to prosper, had it been protected by the mother country. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon swallowed up by the Dutch colony of New York, which again, in 1674, fell under the dominion of the English.13

11 The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz are the only countries in the new world that have ever been possessed by the Danes. These little settlements too were under the government of an exclusive company, which had the sole right, both of purchasing the surplus produce of the colonists, and of supplying them with such goods of other countries as they wanted, and which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do so. The government of an exclusive company of merchants, is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.14 It was not, however, able to stop altogether the progress of these colonies, though it rendered it more slow and languid. The late king of Denmark dissolved this company, and since that time the prosperity of these colonies has been very great.

12The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East Indies, were originally put under the government of an exclusive company. The progress of some of them, therefore, though it has been considerable, in comparison with that of almost any country that has been long peopled and established, has been languid and slow in comparison with that of the greater part of new colonies. The colony of Surinam, though very considerable, is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar colonies of the other European nations. The colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would probably have soon become considerable too, even though it had remained under the government of the Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good land are such powerful causes of prosperity,15 that the very worst government is scarce capable of checking altogether the efficacy of their operation. The great distance too from the mother country would enable the colonists to evade more or less, by smuggling, the monopoly which the company enjoyed against them. At present the company allows all Dutch ships to trade to Surinam upon paying two and a half per cent. upon the value of their cargo for a licence; and only reserves to itself exclusively the direct trade from Africa to America, which consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This relaxation in the exclusive privileges of the company, is probably the principal cause of that degree of prosperity which that colony at present enjoys. Curaçoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to the Dutch, are free ports open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom, in the midst of better colonies whose ports are open to those of one nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity of those two barren islands.

13The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last century, and some part of the present, under the government of an exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration its progress was necessarily very slow in comparison with that of other new colonies; but it became much more rapid when this company was dissolved after the fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme.16 When the English got possession of this country, they found in it near double the number of inhabitants which father Charlevoix had assigned to it between twenty and thirty years before.17 That jesuit had travelled over the whole country, and had no inclination to represent it as less considerable than it really was.

14The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and free–booters, who, for a long time, neither required the protection, nor acknowledged the authority of France; and when ^cthat^c race of banditti became so far citizens as to acknowledge this authority, it was for a long time necessary to exercise it with very great gentleness. During this period the population and improvement of this colony increased very fast. Even the oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was for some time subjected, with all the other colonies of France, though it no doubt retarded, had not been able to stop its progress altogether. The course of its prosperity returned as soon as it was relieved from that oppression. It is now the most important of the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and its produce is said to be greater than that of all the English sugar colonies put together. The other sugar colonies of France are in general all very thriving.18

15But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America.

16 Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies.

17In the plenty of good land the English colonies of North America, though, no doubt, very abundantly provided, are, however, inferior to those of the Spaniards and Portugueze, and not superior to some of those possessed by the French before the late war. But the political institutions of the English colonies have been more favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this land, than those of any of the other three nations.

18First, the engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means been prevented altogether, has been more restrained in the English colonies than in any other. The colony law which imposes upon every proprietor the obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited time, a certain proportion of his lands, and which, in case of failure, declares those neglected lands grantable to any other person; though it has not, perhaps, been very strictly executed, has, however, had some effect.

19Secondly, in Pensylvania there is no right of primogeniture, and lands, like moveables, are divided equally among all the children of the family.19 In three of the provinces of New England the oldest has only a double share, as in the Mosaical law. Though in those provinces, therefore, too great a quantity of land should sometimes be engrossed by a particular individual, it is likely, in the course of a generation or two, to be sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies, indeed, the right of primogeniture takes place, as in the law of England. But in all the English colonies the tenure of ^dtheir^d lands, which are all held by free socage, facilitates alienation, and the grantee of any extensive tract of land generally finds it for his interest to alienate, as fast as he can, the greater part of it, reserving only a small quit–rent. In the Spanish and Portugueze colonies, what is called the right of Majorazzo* takes place in the succession of all those great estates to which any title of honour is annexed. Such estates go all to one person, and are in effect entailed and unalienable. The French colonies, indeed, are subject to the custom of Paris, which, in the inheritance of land, is much more favourable to the younger children than the law of England. But, in the French colonies, if any part of an estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and homage, is alienated, it is, for a limited time, subject to the right of redemption, either by the heir of the superior or by the heir of the family; and all the largest estates of the country are held by such noble tenures, which necessarily embarrass alienation. But, in a new colony, a great uncultivated estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by alienation than by succession. ^eThe plenty and cheapness of good land , it has already been observed, are the principal causes of the rapid prosperity of new colonies.20 The engrossing of land, in effect, destroys this plenty and cheapness. The engrossing of uncultivated land, besides, is the greatest obstruction to its improvement. But^ethe labour that is employed in the improvement and cultivation of land affords the greatest and most valuable produce to the society.21^fThe produce of labour^f in this case, pays not only its own wages, and the profit of the stock which employs it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The labour of the English colonists, therefore, being more employed in the improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce, than that of any of the other three nations, which, by the engrossing of land, is more or less diverted towards other employments.

20Thirdly, the labour of the English colonists is not only likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce, but, in consequence of the moderation of their taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs to themselves, which they may store up and employ in putting into motion a still greater quantity of labour.22 The English colonists have never yet contributed any thing towards the defence of the mother country, or towards the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at the expence of the mother country. But the expence of fleets and armies is out of all proportion greater than the necessary expence of civil government. The expence of their own civil government has always been very moderate. It has generally been confined to what was necessary for paying competent salaries to the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of police, and for maintaining a few of the most useful publick works. The expence of the civil establishment of Massachusett’s Bay, before the commencement of the present disturbances, used to be but about 18,000l. a year. That of New Hampshire and Rhode Island 3,500l. each. That of Connecticut 4,000l. That of New York and Pensylvania 4,500l. each.23 That of New Jersey 1,200l. That of Virginia and South Carolina 8,000l. each. The civil ^gestablishment^g of Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported by an annual grant of parliament. But Nova Scotia pays, besides, about 7000l. a year towards the publick expences of the colony; and Georgia about 2,500l. a year. All the different civil establishments in North America, in short, exclusive of those of Maryland and North Carolina, of which no exact account has been got, did not, before the commencement of the present disturbances, cost the inhabitants above 64,700l. a year; an ever memorable example at how small an expence three millions of people may not only be governed, but well governed. The most important part of the expence of government, indeed, that of defence and protection, has constantly fallen upon the mother country. The ceremonial too of the civil government in the colonies, upon the reception of a new governor, upon the opening of a new assembly, &c. though sufficiently decent, is not accompanied with any expensive pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical government is conducted upon a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown among them;24 and their clergy, who are far from being numerous, are maintained either by moderate stipends, or by the voluntary contributions of the people. The power of Spain and Portugal, on the contrary, derives some support from the taxes levied upon their colonies.25 France, indeed, has never drawn any considerable revenue from its colonies, the taxes which it levies upon them being generally spent among them. But the colony government of all these three nations is conducted upon a much more expensive plan, and is accompanied with a much more expensive ceremonial. The sums spent upon the reception of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have frequently been enormous.26 Such ceremonials are not only real taxes paid by the rich colonists upon those particular occasions, but they serve to introduce among them the habit of vanity and expence upon all other occasions.27 They are not only very grievous occasional taxes, but they contribute to establish perpetual taxes of the same kind still more grievous; the ruinous taxes of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all those three nations too the ecclesiastical government is extremely oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with the utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them besides are oppressed with a numerous race of mendicant friars, whose beggary being not only licensed, but consecrated by religion, is a most grievous tax upon the poor people, who are most carefully taught that it is a duty to give, and a very great sin to refuse them their charity. Over and above all this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

21Fourthly, in the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more favoured, and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of any other European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured more or less to monopolize to itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account, has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and has prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation. But the manner in which this monopoly has been exercised in different nations has been very different.

22Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an exclusive company, of whom the ²²colonists^h were obliged to buy all such European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell the whole of their own surplus produce. It was the interest of the company, therefore, not only to sell the former as dear, and to buy the latter as cheap as possible, but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low price, than what they could dispose of for a very high price in Europe.28 It was their interest, not only to degrade in all cases the value of the surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep down the natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that can well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of a new colony, that of an exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual.29 This, however, has been the policy of Holland, though their company, in the course of the present century, has given up in many respects the exertion of their exclusive privilege. This too was the policy of Denmark till the reign of the late king. It has occasionally been the policy of France, and of late, since 1755, after it had been abandoned by all other nations, on account of its absurdity, it has become the policy of Portugal with regard at least to two of the principal provinces of Brazil, Fernambuco and Marannon.30

23Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined the whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a particular licence, which in most cases was very well paid for. This policy opened, indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the natives of the mother country, provided they traded from the proper port, at the proper season, and in the proper vessels. But as all the different merchants, who joined their stocks in order to fit out those licensed vessels, would find it for their interest to act in concert, the trade which was carried on in this manner would necessarily be conducted very nearly upon the same principles as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants would be almost equally exorbitant and oppressive. The colonies would be ill supplied, and would be obliged both to buy very dear, and to sell very cheap. This, however, ⁱtill within these few years, hadⁱ always been the policy of Spain, and the price of all European goods, accordingly, is said to ^jhave been^j enormous in the Spanish West Indies.31 At Quito, we are told by Ulloa, a pound of iron ^ksold^k for about four and sixpence, and a pound of steel for about six and nine–pence sterling.32 But it is chiefly in order to purchase European goods, that the colonies part with their own produce. The more, therefore, they pay for the one, the less they really get for the other, and the dearness of the one is the same thing with the cheapness of the other. The policy of Portugal is in this respect the same as ^lthe antient policy^l of Spain, with regard to all its colonies, except Fernambuco and Marannon, and with regard to these it has lately adopted a still worse.

24Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their subjects who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother country, and who have occasion for no other licence than the common dispatches of the customhouse. In this case the number and dispersed situation33 of the different traders renders it impossible for them to enter into any general combination, and their competition is sufficient to hinder them from making very exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a policy the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce and to buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price. But since the dissolution of the Plymouth company, when our colonies were but in their infancy, this has always been the policy of England. It has generally too been that of France, and^m has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what, in England, is commonly called their Mississippi company.34 The profits of the trade, therefore, which France and England carry on with their colonies, though no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition was free to all other nations, are, however, by no means exorbitant; and the price of European goods accordingly is not extravagantly high in the greater part of the colonies of either of those nations.

25In the exportation of their own surplus produce too, it is only with regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain are confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having been enumerated in the act of navigation35 and in some other subsequent acts, have upon that account been called enumerated commodities.36 The rest are called non–enumerated; and may be exported directly to other countries, provided it is in British or Plantation ships, of which the owners and three–fourths of the mariners are British subjects.

26Among 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.

27Grain 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 culture much beyond the consumption of a thinly inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand an ample subsistence for a continually increasing population.

28In a country quite covered with wood, where timber consequently is of little or no value, the expence of clearing the ground is the principal obstacle to improvement. By allowing the colonies a very extensive market for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate improvement by raising the price of a commodity which would otherwise be of little value, and thereby enabling them to make some profit of what would otherwise be mere expence.

29In a country neither half–peopled nor half–cultivated, cattle naturally multiply beyond the consumption of the inhabitants, and are often upon that account of little or no value. But it is necessary, it has already been shewn,37 that the price of cattle should bear a certain proportion to that of corn before the greater part of the lands of any country can be improved. By allowing to American cattle, in all shapes, dead and alive, a very extensive market, the law endeavours to raise the value of a commodity of which the high price is so very essential to improvement. The good effects of this liberty, however, must be somewhat diminished by the 4th of George III. c. 15. which puts hides and skins among the enumerated commodities, and thereby tends to reduce the value of American cattle.

30To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain, by the extension of the fisheries of our colonies, is an object which the legislature seems to have had almost constantly in view.38 Those fisheries, upon this account, have had all the encouragement which freedom can give them, and they have flourished accordingly. The New England fishery in particular was, before the late disturbances, one of the most important, perhaps, in the world. The whale–fishery which, notwithstanding an extravagant bounty,39 is in Great Britain carried on to so little purpose, that in the opinion of many people (which I do not, however, pretend to warrant) the whole produce does not much exceed the value of the bounties which are annually paid for it, is in New England carried on without any bounty to a very great extent. Fish is one of the principal articles with which the North Americans trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.

31Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity which could be exported only to Great Britain. But in 1731, upon a representation of the sugar–planters, its exportation was permitted to all parts of the world.40 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.41 Great Britain and her colonies, still continue to be almost the sole market for all the sugar produced in the British plantations. Their consumption increases so fast that, though in consequence of the increasing improvement of Jamaica as well of the Ceded Islands,42 the importation of sugar has increased very greatly within these twenty years, the exportation to foreign countries is said to be not much greater than before.

32Rum is a very important article in the trade which the Americans carry on to the coast of Africa, from which they bring back negroe slaves in return.

33If the whole surplus produce of America in grain of all sorts, in salt provisions and in fish, had been put into the enumeration, and thereby forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much with the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably not so much from any regard to the interest of America, as from a jealousy of this interference, that those important commodities have not only been kept out of the enumeration, but that the importation into Great Britain of all grain, except rice, and ofⁿ salt provisions, has, in the ordinary state of the law, been prohibited.43

34The non–enumerated commodities could originally be exported to all parts of the world. Lumber and rice, having been once put into the enumeration, when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to the European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre.44 By the 6th of George III. c. 52.45 all non–enumerated commodities were subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south of Cape Finisterre, are not manufacturing countries, and we were less jealous of the colony ships carrying home from them any manufactures which could interfere with our own.

35The enumerated commodities are of two sorts: first, such as are either the peculiar produce of America, or as cannot be produced, or at least are not produced, in the mother country. Of this kind are, melasses, coffee, cacao–nuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whale–fins, raw silk, cotton–wool, beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustick, and other dying woods: secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce of America, but which are and may be produced in the mother country, though not in such quantities as to supply the greater part of her demand, which is principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the growth or interfere with the sale 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,46 of which Great Britain was necessarily to be the center or emporium, as the European country into which those commodities were first to be imported. The importation of commodities of the second kind might be so managed too, it was supposed, as to interfere, not with the sale of those of the same kind which were produced at home, but with that of those which were imported from foreign countries; because, by means of proper duties, they might be rendered always somewhat dearer than the former, and yet a good deal cheaper than the latter. By confining such commodities to the home market, therefore, it was proposed to discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, but of some foreign countries with which the balance of trade was believed to be unfavourable to Great Britain.

36The prohibition of exporting from the colonies, to any other country but Great Britain, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and consequently to increase the expence of clearing their lands, the principal obstacle to their improvement. But about the beginning of the present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden endeavoured to raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting their exportation, except in their own ships, at their own price, and in such quantities as they thought proper.47 In order to counteract this notable piece of mercantile policy, and to render herself as much as possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of all the other northern powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the importation of naval stores from America,48 and the effect of this bounty was to raise the price of timber in America, much more than the confinement to the home market could lower it; and as both regulations were enacted at the same time, their joint effect was rather to encourage than to discourage the clearing of land in America.

37Though pig and bar iron too have been put among the enumerated commodities, yet as, when imported from America, they are exempted from considerable duties to which they are subject when imported from any other country, the one part of the regulation contributes more to encourage the erection of furnaces in America, than the other to discourage it.49 There is no manufacture which occasions so great a consumption of wood as a furnace, or which can contribute so much to the clearing of a country overgrown with it.50

38The 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.

39The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British colonies of America and the West Indies, both in the enumerated and in the non–enumerated commodities. Those colonies are now becoming so populous and thriving, that each of them finds in some of the others a great and extensive market for every part of its produce. All of them taken together, they make a great internal market for the produce of one another.

40The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce, either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures even of the colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain chuse to reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature to prevent their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and sometimes by absolute prohibitions.51

41While, for example, Muskovado sugars from the British plantations, pay upon importation only 6s. 4d. the hundred weight; white sugars pay 1l. 1s. 1d.; and refined, either double or single, in loaves 4l. 2s. 5d.8/20. When those high duties were imposed, Great Britain was the sole, and she still continues to be the principal market to which the sugars of the British colonies could be exported. They amounted, therefore, to a prohibition, at first of claying or refining sugar for any foreign market, and at present of claying or refining it for the market, which takes off, perhaps, more than nine–tenths of the whole produce. The manufacture of claying or refining sugar accordingly, though it has flourished in all the sugar colonies of France, has been little cultivated in any of those of England, except for the market of the colonies themselves. 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 customhouse, clayed or refined sugar, if reduced from loaves into powder, is commonly imported as Muskovado.

42While Great Britain encourages in America the manufactures of pig and bar iron, by exempting them from duties to which the like commodities are subject when imported from any other country, she imposes an absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces and slitmills in any of her American plantations.52 She will not suffer her colonists to work in those more refined manufactures even for their own consumption; but insists upon their purchasing of her merchants and manufacturers all goods of this kind which they have occasion for.

43She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water, and even the carriage by land upon horseback or in a cart, of hats,53 of wools and woollen goods,54 of the produce of America; a regulation which effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture 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.

44To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however, as such prohibitions may be, they have not hitherto been very hurtful to the colonies. Land is still so cheap, and, consequently, labour so dear among them, that they can import from the mother country, almost all the more refined or more advanced manufactures cheaper than they could make them for themselves.55 Though they had not, therefore, been prohibited from establishing such manufactures, yet in their present state of improvement, a regard to their own interest would, probably, have prevented them from doing so. In their present state of improvement, those prohibitions, perhaps, without cramping their industry, or restraining it from any employment to which it would have gone of its own accord, are only impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country.56 In a more advanced state they might be really oppressive and insupportable.

45Great Britain too, as she confines to her own market some of the most important productions of the colonies, so 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.57 In the first way she gives an advantage in the home–market to the sugar, tobacco,58 and iron of her own colonies, and in the second to their raw silk, to their hemp and flax, to their indigo, to their naval stores, and to their building–timber.59 This second way of encouraging the colony produce by bounties upon importation, is, so far as I have been able to learn, peculiar to Great Britain. The first is not. Portugal does not content herself with imposing higher duties upon the importation of tobacco from any other country, but prohibits it under the severest penalties.

46With regard to the importation of goods from Europe, England has likewise dealt more liberally with her colonies than any other nation.

47Great Britain allows a part, almost always the half, generally a larger portion, and sometimes the whole of the duty which is paid upon the importation of foreign goods, to be drawn back upon their exportation to any foreign country.60 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 Britain. Unless, therefore, some part of those duties was drawn back upon exportation, there was an end of the carrying trade; a trade so much favoured by the mercantile system.

48Our colonies, however, are by no means independent foreign countries; and Great Britain having assumed to herself the exclusive right of supplying them with all goods from Europe, might have forced them (in the same manner as other countries have done their colonies) to receive such goods, loaded with all the same duties which they paid in the mother country. But, on the contrary, till 1763, the same drawbacks were paid upon the exportation of the greater part of foreign goods to our colonies as to any independent foreign country.61 In 1763, indeed, by the 4th of Geo. III. c. 15. this indulgence was a good deal abated, and it was enacted, “That no part of the duty called the old subsidy should be drawn back for any goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe or the East Indies, which should be exported from this kingdom to any British colony or plantation in America; wines, white callicoes and muslins excepted.”62 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.

49Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, the merchants who carry it on, it must be observed, have been the principal advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in the greater part of them, their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies or that of the mother country. In their exclusive privilege of supplying the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and of purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not interfere with any of the trades which they themselves carried on at home, the interest of the colonies was sacrificed to the interest of those merchants. In allowing the same drawbacks upon the re–exportation of the greater part of European and East India goods to the colonies, as upon their reexportation to any independent country, the interest of the mother country was sacrificed to it, even according to the mercantile ideas of that interest. It was for the interest of the merchants to pay as little as possible for the foreign goods which they sent to the colonies, and, consequently, to get back as much as possible of the duties which they advanced upon their importation into Great Britain. They might thereby be enabled to sell in the colonies, either the same quantity of goods with a greater profit, or a greater quantity with the same profit, and, consequently, to gain something either in the one way or the other. It was, likewise, for the interest of the colonies to get all such goods as cheap and in as great abundance as possible. But this might not always be for the interest of the mother country. She might frequently suffer both in her revenue, by giving back a great part of the duties which had been paid upon the importation of such goods; and in her manufactures, by being undersold in the colony market, in consequence of the easy terms upon which foreign manufactures could be carried thither by means of those drawbacks. The progress of the linen manufacture of Great Britain, it is commonly said, has been a good deal retarded by the drawbacks upon the re–exportation of German linen to the American colonies.63

50But 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, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of them.

51In every thing, except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English colonists to manage their own affairs their own way is complete. It is in every respect equal to that of their fellow–citizens at home, and is secured in the 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.64 The authority of this assembly over–awes the executive power, and neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious colonist, as long as he obeys the law, has any thing to fear from the resentment, either of the governor, or of any other civil or military officer in the province. The colony assemblies, though, like the house of commons in England, they are not always a very equal representation of the people, yet ^othey approach more nearly to that character; and^o as the executive power either has not the means to corrupt them, or, on account of the support which it receives from the mother country, is not under the necessity of doing so, they are perhaps in general more influenced by the inclinations of their constituents. The councils, which, in the colony legislatures, correspond to the House of Lords in Great Britain, are not composed of an hereditary nobility. In some of the colonies, as in three of the governments of New England, those councils are not appointed by the king, but chosen by the representatives of the people. In none of the English colonies is there any hereditary nobility.65 In all of them, indeed, as in all other free countries, the descendant of an old colony family is more respected than an upstart of equal merit and fortune:66 but he is only more respected, and he has no privileges by which he can be troublesome to his neighbours. Before the commencement of the present disturbances, the colony assemblies had not only the legislative, but a part of the executive power. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, they elected the governor. In the other colonies they appointed the revenue officers who collected the taxes imposed by those respective assemblies, to whom those officers were immediately responsible. There is more equality, therefore, among the English colonists than among the inhabitants of the mother country.67 Their manners are more republican, and their governments, those of three of the provinces of New England in particular, have hitherto been more republican too.68

52The absolute governments of Spain, Portugal, and France, on the contrary, take place in their colonies; and the discretionary powers which such governments commonly delegate to all their inferior officers are, on account of the great distance, naturally exercised there with more than ordinary violence. Under all absolute governments there is more liberty in the capital than in any other part of the country. The sovereign himself can never have either interest or inclination to pervert the order of justice, or to oppress the great body of the people. In the capital his presence overawes more or less all his inferior officers, who in the remoter provinces, from whence the complaints of the people are less likely to reach him, can exercise their tyranny with much more safety. But the European colonies in America are more remote than the most distant provinces of the greatest empires which had ever been known before. The government of the English colonies is perhaps the only one which, since the world began, could give perfect security to the inhabitants of so very distant a province. The administration of the French colonies, however, has always been conducted with more gentleness and moderation than that of the Spanish and Portuguese. This superiority of conduct is suitable both to the character of the French nation, and to what forms the character of every nation, the nature of their government, which though arbitrary and violent in comparison with that of Great Britain, is legal and free in comparison with those of Spain and Portugal.

53It is in the progress of the North American colonies, however, that the superiority of the English policy chiefly appears. The progress of the sugar colonies of France has been at least equal, perhaps superior, to that of the greater part of those of England; and yet the sugar colonies of England enjoy a free government nearly of the same kind with that which takes place in her colonies of North America. But the sugar colonies of France are not discouraged, like those of England, from refining their own sugar; and, what is of still greater importance, the genius of their government naturally introduces a better management of their negro slaves.69

54In all European colonies the culture of the sugar–cane is carried on by negro slaves.70 The constitution of those who have been born in the temperate climate of Europe could not, it is supposed, support the labour of digging the ground under the burning sun of the West Indies; and the culture of the sugar–cane, as it is managed at present, is all hand labour, though, in the opinion of many, the drill plough might be introduced into it with great advantage. But, as the profit and success of the cultivation which is carried on by means of cattle, depend very much upon the good management of those cattle; so the profit and success of that which is carried on by slaves, must depend equally upon the good management of those slaves; and in the good management of their slaves the French planters, I think it is generally allowed, are superior to the English. The law, so far as it gives some weak protection to the slave against the violence of his master, is likely to be better executed in a colony where the government is in a great measure arbitrary, than in one where it is altogether free. In every country where the unfortunate law of slavery is established, the magistrate, when he protects the slave, intermeddles in some measure in the management of the private property of the master; and, in a free country, where the master is perhaps either a member of the colony assembly, or an elector of such a member, he dare not do this but with the greatest caution and circumspection. The respect which he is obliged to pay to the master, renders it more difficult for him to protect the slave. But in a country where the government is in a great measure arbitrary, where it is usual for the magistrate to intermeddle even in the management of the private property of individuals, and to send them, perhaps, a lettre de cachet if they do not manage it according to his liking, it is much easier for him to give some protection to the slave; and common humanity naturally disposes him to do so. The protection of the magistrate renders the slave less contemptible in the eyes of his master, who is thereby induced to consider him with more regard, and to treat him with more gentleness. Gentle usage renders the slave not only more faithful, but more intelligent, and therefore, upon a double account, more useful. He approaches more to the condition of a free servant, and may possess some degree of integrity and attachment to his master’s interest, virtues which frequently belong to free servants, but which never can belong to a slave, who is treated as slaves commonly are in countries where the master is perfectly free and secure.

55That the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary than under a free government, is, I believe, supported by the history of all ages and nations.71 In the Roman history, the first time we read of the magistrate interposing to protect the slave from the violence of his master, is under the emperors. When Vedius Pollio, in the presence of Augustus, ordered one of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cut into pieces and thrown into his fish pond in order to feed his fishes, the emperor commanded him, with indignation, to emancipate immediately, not only that slave, but all the others that belonged to him.72 Under the republick no magistrate could have had authority enough to protect the slave, much less to punish the master.

56The stock, it is to be observed, which has improved the sugar colonies of France, particularly the great colony of St. Domingo, has been raised almost entirely from the gradual improvement and cultivation of those colonies. It has been almost altogether the produce of the soil and ^pof^p the industry of the colonists, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of that produce gradually accumulated by good management, and employed in raising a still greater produce. But the stock which has improved and cultivated the sugar colonies of England has, a great part of it, been sent out from England, and has by no means been altogether the produce of the soil and industry of the colonists.73 The prosperity of the English sugar colonies has been, in a great measure, owing to the great riches of England, of which a part has overflowed, if one may say so, upon those colonies. But the prosperity of the sugar colonies of France has been entirely owing to the good conduct of the colonists, which must therefore have had some superiority over that of the English; and this superiority has been remarked in nothing so much as in the good management of their slaves.

57Such have been the general outlines of the policy of the different European nations with regard to their colonies.

58The policy of Europe, therefore, has very little to boast of, either in the original establishment, or, ^qso far as concerns their internal government,^q in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America.

59Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided over and directed the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice of coveting the possession of a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with every mark of kindness and hospitality.

60The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the later establishments, joined, to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines, other motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do very little honour to the policy of Europe.

61The English puritans, ^rrestrained^r at home, fled for freedom to America, and established there the four governments of New England. The English catholicks, treated with ^smuch greater^s injustice, established that of Maryland; the Quakers, that of Pensylvania. The Portuguese Jews, persecuted by the inquisition, stript of their fortunes, and banished to Brazil, introduced, by their example, some sort of order and industry among the transported felons and strumpets, by whom that colony was originally peopled, and taught them the culture of the sugar–cane.74 Upon all these different occasions it was, not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America.75

62In effectuating some of the most important of these establishments, the different governments of Europe had as little merit as in projecting them. The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of Spain, but of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit of the bold adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in spite of every thing which that governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person, could do to thwart it.76 The conquerors of Chili and Peru, and of almost all the other Spanish settlements upon the continent of America, carried out with them no other publick encouragement, but a general permission to make settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain. Those adventures were all at the private risk and expence of the adventurers. The government of Spain contributed scarce any thing to any of them. That of England contributed as little towards effectuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in North America.

63When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so considerable as to attract the attention of the mother country, the first regulations which she made with regard to them had always in view to secure to herself the monopoly of their commerce;77 to confine their market, and to enlarge her own at their expence, and, consequently, rather to damp and discourage, than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity. In the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised, consists one of the most essential differences in the policy of the different European nations with regard to their colonies.78 The best of them all, that of England, is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of the rest.

64In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the first establishment, or to the present grandeur of the colonies of America? In one way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal. Magna virûm Mater!79 It bred and formed the men who were capable of atchieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world of which the policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually and in fact formed such men. The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and great views of their active and enterprizing founders; and some of the greatest and most important of them, ^tso far as concerns their internal government,^t owe to it scarce any thing else.80

[1 ]The natural progress of law and government among primitive peoples is described in V.i.b. and its later progress in III. See especially ED 5.2, where it is pointed out that the most important contributory factors are the difficulties of acquiring stock and the slow progress of invention. In this place Smith also made the interesting point that ‘a nation is not always in a condition to imitate and copy the inventions and improvements of its more wealthy neighbours; the application of these frequently requiring a stock with which it is not furnished.’

[a–a]supports 5–6

[2 ]Smith comments on the specific advantages accruing to the British colonies as a result of her particular institutions at IV.vii.b.51. In an apparent reference to England, Montesquieu (Esprit, XIX. xxvii.35) remarked that: ‘As men are fond of introducing into other places what they have established among themselves, they have given the people of the colonies their own form of government; and this government carrying prosperity along with it, they have raised great nations in the forests they were sent to inhabit.’

[3 ]See above, III.ii.20, where Smith comments on the improvement which is possible in the absence of rent payments. See also III.i.5.

[4 ]Smith comments at I.viii.23 on the high value of children in America.

[5 ]It is stated at I.ix.11 that high wages and profits are only found together in the ‘peculiar circumstances of new colonies’.

[6 ]Cf. Astronomy, III.4: ‘Greece, and the Greek colonies in Sicily, Italy, and the Lesser Asia, were the first countries which, in these western parts of the world, arrived at a state of civilized society. It was in them, therefore, that the first philosophers, of whose doctrine we have any distinct account, appeared.’ Smith commented in LRBL ii.117–19, ed. Lothian 132–3, with regard to the history of Athens, that at one stage philosophy and the arts had come to a state ‘of some perfection’ in the colonies: before they were heard of in the mother country. Thales had taught at Miletus, Pythagoras in Italy, and Empedocles in Sicily, before the time of the Persian expedition, from which time commerce, that had been cultivated in the colonies, flourished in the continent, and brought wealth, arts, and refinement along with it. Gorgias of Mitylene was the first who introduced Eloquence into Greece. He is said to have astonished them with the elegance and force of the Oration he delivered on his embassy from his country. From that time Eloquence began to be cultivated, and was soon encouraged by the addition of wealth and opulence to the Grecian States . . .

[7 ]Smith made a related point in LRBL ii.115, ed. Lothian 131–2: ‘Opulence and commerce commonly precede the improvement of arts and refinement of every sort . . . Wherever the inhabitants of a city are rich and opulent, where they enjoy the necessaries and conveniencies of life in ease and security, there the arts will be cultivated, and refinement of manners a never–failing attendent.’ He also noted in the Astronomy, III.3 that men in the savage state have little opportunity to think in terms other than of superstition: ‘But when law has established order and security, and subsistence ceases to be precarious, the curiosity of mankind is increased, and their fears are diminished. The leisure which they then enjoy renders them more attentive to the appearances of nature, more observant of her smallest irregularities, and more desirous to know what is the chain which links them all together.’ The point finds an echo in Hume’s essay, ‘Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences’, where it is stated that ‘From law arises security: from security curiosity: and from curiosity knowledge.’ (Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Green and Grose, i. 180.)

[8 ]It is remarked at I.xi.g.26 that plenty of good cheap land is a ‘circumstance common to all new colonies’.

[b–b]its 1

[9 ]See above, I.xi.g.26 where the number of inhabitants is stated to be ‘more than fifty thousand’.

[10 ]Quito is given as having ‘between 50 and 60,000 persons, of all ages, sexes, and ranks’. Juan and Ulloa, Voyage historique, i.229, trans. John Adams, i.262.

[11 ]J. F. G. Carreri, A Voyage round the World, in A. and J. Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1704), iv.508.

[12 ]In 1654.

[13 ]New Amsterdam (to become New York) was occupied by the English in 1664 and ceded to the English by the Treaty of Breda in 1667. The Dutch recaptured New York in 1673 but English rule was resumed in 1674.

[14 ]See below, IV.vii.c.103, where it is stated that a company of merchants seems ‘incapable of considering themselves as sovereigns’.

[15 ]See above, II.v.21 and III.iv.19.

[16 ]See above, II.ii.78, where Smith discusses the ‘real foundation’ of the scheme, and below § 24.

[17 ]‘. . . il est evident, qu’il ne peut être assez considérable, pour faire vivre une Colonie de vint à vint–cinq mille Ames, et pour fournier à ce qu’elle est obligée de tirer de France.’ (F. X. de Charlevoix, Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France (Paris, 1744), ii.390.)

[c–c]the 1

[18 ]Smith comments on the extent of the demand for sugar at I.xi.b.32 and on the high profits of the English colonies engaged in this trade at III.ii.10.

[19 ]Smith comments on the origins of the right of primogeniture at III.ii.3, and its impact on the sale of land in Europe, as compared to America, at III.iv.19.

[d–d]the 4–6

[* ]Jus Majoratus.

[e–e]The engrossing, however, of uncultivated land, it has already been observed, is the greatest obstruction to its improvement and cultivation; and 1

[20 ]See for example, above § 3, and I.ix.11.

[21 ]Smith comments on the superior productivity of agriculture at II.v.12 and accounts for the rapid progress of the American colonies in § 21 of that section.

[f–f]Its produce 1

[22 ]A similar point is made at IV.vii.c.12,64; V.iii.92.

[23 ]The cost of government in Pennsylvannia is mentioned at V.ii.a.11 and the costs of the colonies as a whole at V.iii.76.

[g–g]establishments 5–6

[24 ]Tithes are stated to be a ‘very great hindrance’ to improvement at III.ii.13 and V.ii.d.3.

[25 ]It is stated at IV.vii.c.13 that Spain and Portugal alone among the European powers had benefited in this way.

[26 ]Juan and Ulloa, Voyage historique, i.437–42, trans. John Adams, ii.46–52.

[27 ]See above, II.iii.12 where Smith discusses the influence of ‘manners’ on economic activity, and below, IV.vii.c.61.

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[28 ]Above, I.vii.27, where Smith stated the famous proposition that the ‘price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got’.

[29 ]See for example, IV.vii.c.101.

[30 ]‘It was not to be expected, that a nation, which, in the barbarous ages, had pursued the inestimable advantages of competition, would at last, in an enlightened age, adopt a pernicious system, which, by collecting the principles of life and motion into a small part of the body politic, leave nothing in all the rest but langour and death . . . They [the ministry] had already, ever since the 6th of June 1755, created the Maragnan company; and, far from receding, they erected the Fernambucca company, four years after, and thereby enslaved all the northern part of Brazil.’ (G. T. F. Raynal, Histoire philosophique, iii.384–5, trans. J. Justamond, ii.434.)

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[31 ]Juan and Ulloa, Voyage historique, i.489 and i.523, trans. John Adams, ii.108 and ii.148.

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[32 ]At Quito ‘they also import, by way of Guayaquil, iron and steel both from Europe and the coast of Guatemala; and though it fetches so high a price, that a quintal of iron sells for above a hundred dollars, and the same quantity of steel for a hundred and fifty, there is a continual demand in order to supply the peasants with the necessary instruments of agriculture.’ (Ibid. i.252, trans. John Adams, i.292.)

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[33 ]A similar point is made with regard to ease of combination, for example, at I.x.c.23, IV.ii.21, and IV.v.b.4.

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[34 ]See above, § 13 and II.ii.78.

[35 ]The provisions of the act are discussed in IV.ii.24f.

[36 ]Sugar, tobacco, cotton–wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, and other dyeing woods are enumerated in 12 Charles II, c.18 (1660).

[37 ]See above, I.xi.b.7–9 and I.xi.l.1–3.

[38 ]See for example, II.v.30, IV.ii.30, and IV.v.a.27.

[39 ]See above, IV.v.a.26. The bounty on the herring fishery is considered in IV.v.a.28f. Bounties were granted by 11 George III, c.38 (1771).

[40 ]12 George II, c.30 (1738) permitted sugar to be carried from the colonies direct to foreign ports, from 1739 not 1731. Ships had, however, to call at a British port if not bound south of Cape Finisterre.

[41 ]See above, I.xi.b.32, where Smith comments on the level of demand for sugar.

[42 ]It is stated at V.iii.46 that the government received £95,500 from the sale of the ceded islands.

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[43 ]See above, III.iv.20, IV.ii.1, IV.ii.16, IV.v.a.23, IV.v.b.33, IV.v.b.37, and below, V.ii.k.13.

[44 ]Rice by 3 George II, c.28 (1729) and lumber by 5 George III, c.45 (1765). See above, IV.iv.10 and IV.vii.c.63. The enumerated commodities are also discussed, for example, at IV.vii.c.15 and IV.viii.40.

[45 ]6 George III, c.52 (1766).

[46 ]The term is defined at II.v.24.

[47 ]A. Anderson, Origin of Commerce (1764), ii.238.

[48 ]3 and 4 Anne, c.9 (1704) in Statutes of the Realm, viii.354–6; 3 and 4 Anne, c.10 in Ruffhead’s edition. See below, IV.viii.7.

[49 ]23 George II, c.29 (1749), ‘An Act to encourage importation of pig and bar iron from the American colonies; and to prevent the erection of any mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron; or any plateing forge to work with a Tilt Hammer; or any Furnace for making steel’. See below, IV.vii.b.42 and IV.viii.3.

[50 ]It is stated at I.xi.c.5 that in many parts of North America, the landlord ‘would be much obliged to any body who would carry away the greater part of his large trees’. It is stated below that the British iron manufacture used coal as an instrument of trade, V.ii.k.12.

[51 ]Smith mentions the encouragement given to the output of rude produce at IV.vii.c.51, IV.viii.1, and V.ii.k.24. Policy with regard to the colonies may have been the reflection of a belief which Smith himself seems to have shared at the time when his lectures were delivered. See LJ (B) 319–20, ed. Cannan 246–7:

the common prejudice that wealth consists in money has not been in this respect so hurtfull as might have been imagined, and has even given occasions to regulations not very inconvenient. Those nations to whom we give more goods than we receive, generaly send us manufactured goods; those on the contrary from whom we receive more goods than we give, or with respect to whom the balance is in our favour, generaly send us unmanufactured goods . . . This kind of trade is very advantageous, because goods in an unmanufactured and rude state afford employment and maintenance to a great number of persons. Cantillon also observed (Essai, 308–9, ed. Higgs 233) that: ‘It will always be found by examining particular cases that the exportation of all Manufactured articles is advantageous to the State, because in this case the Foreigner always pays and supports Workmen useful to the State: that the best returns or payments imported are specie, and in default of specie the produce of Foreign land into which there enters the least labour.’ See also Harris, Essay, i.24 and Steuart, Principles, II.xxiv. Smith may have first come in contact with the ‘export of work doctrine’ from Hutcheson, who said that ‘Foreign materials should be imported and even premiums given, when necessary, that all our hands may be employed; and that, by exporting them again manufactured, we may obtain from abroad the price of our labours.’ (System, ii.319.) For comment, see E. A. G. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith (New York, 1960), Chapter xxxv.

[52 ]23 George II, c.29 (1749). See above, IV.vii.b.37, and below, IV.viii.3.

[53 ]5 George II, c.22 (1731). See above, I.x.c.6.

[54 ]10 William III, c.16 (1698) in Statutes of the Realm, vii.524–8; 10 and 11 William, c.10 (1698) in Ruffhead’s edition. Smith also comments on the restrictions imposed on the wool trade in England at IV.viii.21.

[55 ]See below, IV.vii.c.51, where a similar point is made. Smith also comments on the absence of manufactures in America at III.i.5 and attributes the rapid growth of America to concentration on agriculture at II.v.21.

[56 ]Smith refers to monopoly as the ‘principal badge’ of colonial dependency at IV.vii.c.64.

[57 ]The bounties given to the colonies are extensively reviewed in IV.viii.

[58 ]Smith also comments on the restrictions imposed on the culture of tobacco in Europe at I.xi.b.33.

[59 ]For details see below, IV.viii.7–14.

[60 ]For details see above, IV.iv.

[61 ]See above, IV.iv.15.

[62 ]4 George III, c.15 (1764). The quotation is not quite verbatim. See also IV.iv.10,11.

[63 ]In 1742 bounties were granted on exports of British linen to Africa, America, Spain, and Portugal instead of granting the demand for the withdrawal of the drawbacks. Bounties were withdrawn for two years in 1754 and gave rise to many complaints, especially because of the sharp fall in exports in those years. See above, I.viii.50. It is remarked at IV.vii.c.82 that the consumption of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies alone was valued at £3 million, much of it supplied by France, Holland, and Germany. See also IV.viii.4.

[64 ]See below, IV.vii.c.79, where Smith discusses American representation in the British Parliament. It is pointed out at V.iii.88 that the colonies owed their constitutions to the British model; cf. IV.vii.b.2 and below, § 64. See also LJ (A) v.134–5: ‘It is in Britain alone that any consent of the people is required, and God knows it is but a very figurative metaphoricall consent which is given here. And in Scotland still more than in England, as but very few have a vote for a member of parliament who give this metaphoricall consent . . .’ A similar point is made in LJ (B) 94, ed. Cannan 69. Smith reviews the basis of English liberties in LJ (A) v.1–15 and LJ (B) 61–4, ed. Cannan, 43–6.

[o–o]2–6

[65 ]Smith also comments at V.iii.90 on the absence of an ‘oppressive aristocracy’ in the colonies.

[66 ]See for example, V.i.b.8, and cf. V.iii.36.

[67 ]Some of the material of this paragraph was probably derived from the Report to the House of Commons of 1732, quoted by A. Anderson, Origin of Commerce (1764), ii.342–6.

[68 ]See below, IV.vii.c.74, where Smith comments on the sense of importance felt by many of the leading men of the colonies, attributing this in part to the existence of representative institutions.

[69 ]See also V.iii.77, where Smith comments on the appropriate treatment of slaves.

[70 ]Smith comments on the use of slaves in the sugar colonies at III.ii.10, where it is also stated that the profits available were such as to justify their use.

[71 ]The argument that slaves are better treated in arbitrary governments is mentioned in LJ (B) 135, ed. Cannan 96–7, and in LJ (A) iii.104. It is also noted in LJ (A) iv.142 that ‘monarchicall governments are allways more gentle than republican to this order’.

[72 ]The case of Vedius Pollio is cited in LJ (B) 135, ed. Cannan 97, and LJ (A) iii.92–3, where the story is repeated in this form:

We are told that Augustus once manumitted all the slaves of Vedius Pollio with whom he supped. A slave bringing in a dish happened to break it. The slave fell at Augustus’ feet and requested him, not to get his pardon of his master, for death he thought was inevitable, but that he would request his master that after he was crucified, which was the common punishment inflicted on slaves, he should not hack his body into pieces and throw it to feed the fish in his ponds, which was, it seems, his common way of treating them. Seneca reports that: ‘Caesar, shocked by such an innovation in cruelty, ordered that the boy be pardoned, and, besides, that all the crystal cups be broken before his eyes and that the fish–pond be filled up.’ (De ira, iii.40, translated by J. W. Basore in Seneca’s Moral Essays, Loeb Classical Library (1928), i.349.) The episode is also recorded in Dio’s Roman History, liv.23 translated by E. Cary in Leob Classical Library (1917), vi.333–41, who adds that Vedius Pollio still left Augustus ‘a good share of his estate’. Smith adds that a man entertaining Augustus at this time would have had between 900 and 1,000 slaves so that Pollio’s loss through their manumission, estimated at current slave prices in Africa or America of the order of £30 or £40, would amount to between £40,000 and £50,000. See also LJ (A) iii.102–3.

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[73 ]See above, II.v.21 and below, IV.vii.c.38 and V.iii.83.

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[74 ]‘Before these last periods, the Jews, who had been stripped of their property by the inquisition, and banished to the Brazils, were not yet totally forsaken. Many found kind relations and faithful friends; others, who were known to be honest and industrious men, obtained credit from merchants of different nations, whom they had formerly dealt with, who advanced them money. These helps enabled them to cultivate suger–canes, which they first procured from the island of Madeira.’ (G. T. F. Raynal, Histoire philosophique, iii.324–5, trans. J. Justamond, ii.380–1.)

[75 ]‘Peopled gradually from England by the necessitous and indigent, who, at home, increased neither wealth nor populousness, the colonies, which were planted along that tract, [from St. Augustine to Cape Breton] have promoted the navigation, encouraged the industry, and even multiplied the inhabitants of their mother–country. The spirit of independency, which was reviving in England, here shone forth in its full lustre, and received new accessions of force from the aspiring character of those, who, being discontented with the established church and monarchy, had fought for freedom amid those savage deserts. The seeds of many a noble state have been sown in climates, kept desolate by the wild manners of the antient inhabitants; and as asylum secured, in that solitary world, for liberty and science, if ever the spreading of unlimited empire, or the inroads of barbarous nations, should again extinguish them in this turbulent and restless hemisphere.’ (Hume, History of England (1778), vi.186.)

[76 ]Smith made a related point in LJ (B) 144–5, ed. Cannan 103: ‘The slavery in the West Indies took place contrary to law. When that country was conquered by Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand were at the greatest pains to prevent the Indians from falling into a state of servitude, their intention being to make settlements, to trade with them and to instruct them. But Columbus and Cortez were far from the law, and obeyed not their orders but reduced them to slavery, . . .’

[77 ]See below, IV.vii.c.63, where it is pointed out that regulations were only imposed on the colonies after they had attained a level of economic growth sufficient to attract the attention of the mother–country.

[78 ]‘The colonies they [European nations] have formed are under a kind of dependence, of which there are but very few instances in all the colonies of the ancients; whether we consider them as holding of the state itself, or of some trading company established in the state.

The design of these colonies is, to trade on more advantageous conditions than could otherwise be done with the neighbouring people, with whom all advantages are reciprocal. It has been established that the metropolis, or mother country, alone shall trade in the colonies, and that from very good reason; because the design of the settlement was the extension of commerce, not the foundation of a city or of a new empire.’ (Montesquieu, Esprit, XXI.xxi.10–11.)

[79 ]‘Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, Magna Virum’: Hail, land of Saturn, great mother of earth’s fruits, great mother of men.’ (Virgil, Georgics, ii.173–4, translated by H. R. Fairclough in Loeb Classical Library (1930), 128–9.)

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[80 ]See above, § 51, with regard to the debt owed to British institutions.