appendix.] WEST INDIES. 253 
as to the value of those she possesses in the West Indies, 
in so many and such material points dissimilar in nature and 
situation. So early as the time of Sir Josiah Child, who 
wrote in 1660, while the colonies of both kinds were yet 
in their infancy, this distinction was marked; their relative 
fitness for raising rival manufactures, building rival ship¬ 
ping, and draining the mother country of people, are by 
him stated in plain, but forcible terms. (See Child on Trade, 
cap. 10.) It should never be forgotten, that the cultiva¬ 
tion of the West India islands, is entirely devoted to ob¬ 
jects which the mother country cannot produce, yet cannot 
do without, and which, from their extensive consumption, 
afford the surest means of balancing her foreign trade;—• 
those colonies possess no exclusive shipping, and their ac¬ 
quirements centre, not by indirect channels, but immediate¬ 
ly, in the bosom of Great Britain. Political economists 
may theorize concerning the utility of colonies, and the 
preference of concentring the national industry and wealth, 
but they forget that such establishments are inseparable from 
the genius of a maritime people, and essential to its pros¬ 
perity. And if the comparative merit of colonies be exa¬ 
mined, we may safely assert, that none ever existed so re- 
concileable with the best principles of political economy as 
those which the European nations possess in the West In¬ 
dies. 
Thirdly, The independency of the West India islands, 
all things considered, is not a subject of probable specula¬ 
tion; they are constituted for an interchange of exclusive 
benefits, like that in which they now exist, and have 
hitherto flourished; and Great Britain would impose a task 
upon herself greater than any she ever undertook, were she 
to attempt to counteract their natural bias in that respect. 
Now, if any of our political economists should be disposed 
to maintain, that in a state of dependence upon some other 
nation. Great Britain might derive advantages from their 
