WEALTH OF NATIONS. 243 



the different employments of capital, and thus dimin- 

 ishing the great security derived from a moderate 

 amount of capital being invested in a great number of 

 trades, of which if one should fail, another may be ex- 

 pected to succeed. 



It is not to be denied, that a great portion of Dr. 

 Smith's objections to the colonial monopoly are well 

 founded. The object of that monopoly is to overcome 

 the natural effects of distance and severance, and to 

 render the remote territory, situated at the other ex- 

 tremity of the globe, a portion of the mother country's 

 European dominions. But even if such be its object, 

 it is treating the colony unlike any other part of the 

 parent State's dominions, to forbid all trade between its 

 people and foreign States, and to confine its commercial 

 existence to its relations with the rest of the empire. 

 No one ever thought of compelling Lancashire or De- 

 vonshire to trade with the other parts of England alone. 

 But we have even gone further and prohibited certain 

 of our colonies from trading with some of our other 

 colonies, as if Lancashire and Devonshire should be 

 obliged to trade with Middlesex alone. However, it 

 must be allowed, that Dr. Smith is wholly in error 

 when he regards the colonial trade and agriculture as 

 foreign, and the capital invested in them as invested 

 in remote foreign trade, round-about foreign trade, and 

 carrying trade. The colonies are part of the empire ; 

 their people are its citizens and subjects ; the trade 

 with the colonies is as much a home trade, as much 

 replaces British capital, and puts in motion two classes 

 of British labourers, as the trade between two provinces 

 of the mother country. Indeed it resembles most nearly 

 the commerce between the country and the towns in 

 any given state, the traffic of the producers with the 

 consumers, of the farmers with the manufacturers, of 

 all commerce the most gainful. It is also certain, that 

 he has overlooked another and a most material con- 

 sideration. The capital invested in foreign agriculture 



