730 



COLONY. 







colonies. 



habitant! it much more uncomfortable in the mining than 

 in tlir agricultural dUtricts. By * jingnlor absurdity, the 

 Portupucfc ministry resorted, in ttie middle of the lat 

 century, lo the plan of an exclusive company tor Div/il, 

 after the rest of Europe began to see the folly of these 

 privileged associations. This took place during the ad- 

 ministration of the well-known Marquis de Pombal. A 

 long courtc of misgovernment has thus retarded the im- 

 provement of Brazil, and the chief part of it continues at 

 the present day in a state of nature. The Prince Kc 

 gent's estate, for example, though nearly equal in M/.e 

 to one of our counties, and highly favoured, both i 

 and climate, is not sufficiently cultivated to support two 

 thousand persons. H<iw greatly the mercantile impor- 

 tance of Brazil has been overrated by our traders, has been 

 sufficiently apparent, from the long lists of bankruptcies 

 originating from shipments made to that quarter. Our 

 exporters allowed themselves to imagine that Brazil was 

 already peopled by a nation qualified to use and enabled 

 to pay for immense supplies of British manufacture. N\-\v 

 the true way to appreciate Brazil, is to direct our esti- 

 mates to its future capabilities, and to postpone our ex- 

 pectations of extended trade, until the lapse of other 

 age has given it a new character. But, considered re- 

 latively to the smallness of the mother country, Brazil, 

 even in its present state, becomes an object (if importance. 

 It is said (Brougham's Colonial Policy, Vol. I. p. 

 to supply a fourth of the national revenue, and to furnish 

 to the harbours of Portugal as much import trade as 

 they receive from all Europe together. The power, 

 likewise, of admitting or excluding the maritime nations 

 of Europe from the ports of Brazil, tends materially to 

 increase the political influence of Portugal. 



firilis/t Colonies. Though our maritime entcrprizes 

 against the Spaniards, and our projected settlements in 

 Guiana, were prompted by the hope of golden treasure, 

 the case was very different in regard to North America. 

 A desire to exercise in freedom the profession of their 

 religion, was a powerful motive of emigration with the ear- 

 ly colonists ; and in the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 our civil wars supplied a new motive for seeking a foreign 

 asylum. As the country became cleared, and as tlie re- 

 portsof acquired fortune, always exaggerated at a distance, 

 prevailed among the home connections of the settlers, 

 fresh adventurers were induced to undertake the passage 

 across the Atlantic. Though the English; nationally 

 speaking, are not fond of emigration, the maritime habits 

 of a proportion of the people, and the idea ttiat a bound- 

 less field was open to the exertions of enterprise and in- 

 dustry in this unexplored hemisphere, proved the means 

 of contributing successive additions to the number of 

 the colonists. The main source, however, of increasing 

 numbers, was the practicability, from abundance of pro- 

 visions, of early marriage. All these causes concurred to 

 raise the population, by the middle of the 18th century, 

 to more than two millions, a number which, though not 

 one-fourth of the present stock, was greatly beyond any 

 calculation likcJy to be suggested in a former age, by 

 the appearance of a wooded, and at first unhealthy re- 

 gion. It deserves also to be remarked, that the religi- 

 ous disposition of the original settlers, and the serious 

 habits impressed on their descendants by the necessity 

 of continued labour in retired situations, have given the 

 Americans, particularly those of the northern and middle 

 Mates, a character of more devotion than is generally 

 found among European nations. 



In the case of our colonies, a progressive advance to 

 prosperity was not retarded by the unfortunate circum- 

 stances attendant on those of Spain. There were here DO 



c treasure! to excite the cupidity *f government, ' 

 ;.n.l the ( tilers bcinp, 'erable la- "" 



titii(!e, tlie 1>. -tic-lit of the political maxim, laitsez 



Though prevented, in a great measure-, from 

 trading with any ot|u than Great Britain, they 



were limited to no particular harbours, so that the re- 

 st r.i-tion, in the early part of their caiccr particularly, 

 was not productive of material detriment. Anotlier point, 

 and a most essential one, was that of exemption from taxes; 

 th? mother country taking on herself the charge of mili- 

 tary protection, not indeed from motives of generosity, 

 but from a conviction of the inutility of attempting to col- 

 lect any considerable revenue from a thinly scattered po- 

 pulation. The colonies in consequence have no financial 

 burden but that of their civil government, which, as tiny 

 had neither king nor nobles, was abundantly moderate. 

 But while it is admitted that the natural advantages 

 of colonial settlements were less counteracted by ilhln- 

 ral regulations of the parent state in our case than in 

 that of other countius, our acts of parliament on 

 subject will, at the same time, be found to afford a curi- 

 ous exemplification of the effects of the mercantile system. 

 The produce of our North American and West India 

 settlements was divided into two distinct classes " enu- 

 merated" and " non-enumerated" commodities. The 

 former were exportable to the mother country only ; the 

 latter might be sent to any part of the world, if siiipped 

 in a British vessel. On analyzing the motives of this 

 important distinction, we find, nut the benefit of the co- 

 lonies, but the imagined benefit of the mother country, 

 the prevailing object with our legislature. Corn was a 

 "non-enumerated" commodity; and as it formed the 

 leading article of produce in our northern colonies, the 

 permission of its free exportation might have been ascri- 

 bed to parental solicitude for the welfare of our Ame- 

 rican relatives, had it not been accompanied by a law 

 prohibiting its import into Great Britain, the market 

 which of all others would have been most desired by our 

 colonists. Here was a notable example of that unfor- 

 tunate prejudice which still actuates our landed interest, 

 and makes diem consider an enhancement of money not 

 as equivalent to an increase of income. A parallel in- 

 stance was afforded in the case of the cattle of our co- 

 lonies. The exportation of them, either alive, or in the 

 shape of salt provisions, was permitted to all parts of 

 the world except the mother count ri/. Next, as to the 

 " enumerated commodities," our rule was to compel the 

 importation into Great Britain, exclusively, of sugar, 

 coffee, tobacco, cotton, indigo ; in short, of whatever 

 could not interfere with the growth of our own soil and 

 climate. We calculated on thus having a supply for all 

 our own wants in tlie lirst instance ; and, in the next, a 

 profit on all that we should sell to other nations. 



So long as our consumption was proportioned to the 

 growth of the colonies, the positive obligation to ship 

 every thing to Britain was not productive of serious in- 

 jury to our fellow subjects abroad. In the time of Dr 

 Smith, our growth and consumption corresponded suf- 

 ficiently to each other ; a consideration to which, as well 

 as to the very delicate predicament in winch we then 

 stood with our American provinces, we are to ascribe 

 the palliating tone in which a writer, otherwise so inde- 

 pendent, thinks proper to speak of the course of our po- 

 licy towards our colonies. Enough has happened in our 

 own day to give evidence of the injurious effect of forcing 

 our West India settlements to throw all their produce. 

 into one market. Since the year 1799) the amount of 

 their sugar crops, partly from extended cultivation, but 

 more from the conquest of foreign settlements, have 



