330 HISTORY OF THE [book vi. 
the British colonists in America had no right to 
manufacture even a nail for a liorse-shoe. 
As a compensation for these restrictions and pro¬ 
hibitions on the colonies of Great Britain, to favour 
the navigation, revenues, manufactures, and inha¬ 
bitants of the mother-countrv, the colonists became 
possessed of certain commercial advantages ; among 
others, of the privilege before-mentioned—the 
subject of our present discussion—that of an exclu¬ 
sive access to the British market for the sale of their 
produce. Thus the benefits were reciprocal ; and 
each country. Great Britain and her colonies, be¬ 
came a permanent staple, or mart, for the products 
and trade of the other. 
Such was the arrangement, or double monopoly, 
which, with a few exceptions. Great Britain, in the 
plenitude of her imperial capacity, thought fit to 
establish. It was the basis of her commercial in¬ 
tercourse with her trans-atlantic plantations, and she 
terms it herself a system of “ correspondence and 
kindness.”* Whether it was an arrangement 
founded in wisdom and sound policy, it is now too 
late to inquire. It has existed, it has been con¬ 
firmed, it has been admired, it has been imitated ; 
and the colonists have embarked their fortunes upon 
the faith of it. All therefore that remains, is to 
point out the value and importance of the colonial 
contribution. It is presumed that nothing more 
* Preamble to the 15 C. II. ch. 7. 
