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VII.

CHA P. the care they have taken in their education, and to the tie which has been mutually formed by both, during the state of pupilage.

Nations fhould pro

ry for their

furplus po.

pulation.

107. Societies at large ought to act precifely on the fame vide territo- principle, in forming colonies, which are no other than their own children, or the fuperfluity of their population. It is indeed a duty incumbent on the government of every free, industrious, and profperous nation, to look out betimes for unoccupied territory, against the period when their population and manufactures fhall exceed the proportion which they ought to have to the land they already occupy, when fully improved. That proportion certainly has a limit, and commencing emigration will fhew when that limit is exceeded. Without providing new space for furplus population, and seeking new markets for manufactures, the progress of both must cease; or else the people will emigrate to countries unconnected with the state. Hence found policy feems to dictate, that governments should, with the care of provident fathers, prepare proper receptacles for the excess of their population-a principle which few or no mother countries feem to have fufficiently observed*.

108. When a large society thus gives birth to a small one, can it act on a nobler principle than that of regarding, in the first place, the interest of mankind at large, or universal society, and fubordinately, the advantage of it's own colony, or the fociety descended from it in particular? Standing thus between both, will not the happiness of both centre in itself? Does not the father of a family rejoice in, and partake of, the felicity both of the community and of his children?

*See Reasons for establishing the Colony of Georgia, p. 3.

109. But

VII. Causes of difcord be

tween natheir colo

tions and

nies.

109. But is there any colony exifting, founded on these CHA P. truly humane and enlarged principles? On the contrary, does not the education, or treatment, which the present European colonies have received, and do ftill receive, from their imprudent and interested parents, generally prove the fource of hatred between societies that ought to be united by the the most indiffoluble ties? Whence comes it, that parties and fects have been firft driven to difcontent, then to emigration, and lastly, to separation from the larger focieties to which they belonged; but from perverted fyftems of policy, the abuse of power, civil and ecclefiaftical, and the provoking attempt to keep mature descendants perpetually in leading ftrings, like infants? Was it thus that the ancient Greeks treated their colonies ? And ought not the moderns, in prudence, to have imitated the liberal system of those famed ancients, who confidered their colonies as friends and allies, not as dependent focieties or conquered provinces?

110. "The mother Greek city, fays Dr. Smith, though she confidered the colony as a child, at all times entitled to great favour and assistance, and owing, in return, much gratitude and respect, yet considered it as an emancipated child, over whom she pretended to claim no direct authority or jurisdiction. The colony fettled it's own form of government, enacted it's own laws, and made peace and war with it's neighbours, as an independent ftate. The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In a century or two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even surpassed, their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum, in Sicily; Tarentum and Locri, in Italy; Ephesus and Miletus, in Leffer Afia, appear,

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CHAP. by all accounts, to have been at least equal to any of the

VII.

cities of ancient Greece."

111. "But the policy of modern Europe has very little to boast of, either in the original formation, or, so far as concerns their internal government, in the subsequent profperity of the colonies of America. Folly and injustice feem to have been the principles which prefided over the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly of hunting after mines, and the injustice of coveting a country, whose natives, far from having ever injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with every mark of kindness and hospitality."

112. Every modern mother-country, has fecured to herfelf, in one shape or another, a monopoly of her colony trade." This monopoly, like all the other mean and malignant expedients of the mercantile system, depresses the industry of all other countries; but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing, that of the country in whofe favour it is eftablished. Some nations have even gone fo far as to give up the whole commerce of their colonies to an exclufive company, of whom the colonies were obliged to buy all fuch European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to fell the whole of their own furplus produce. It was the intereft of the company, therefore, not only to fell the former as dear, and to buy the latter as cheap, as poffible; but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low price, than they could difpofe of at a very high price in Europe. It was their intereft, not only to degrade, in all cafes, the value of the produce of the colony, but, in many cafes, to keep down the natural increase of it's quantity. Of all the expedients that can well be contrived to stunt the na

tural

VII.

tural growth of a new colony, that of an exclufive company is CHA P. undoubtedly the most effectual." "For example, the Dutch East India company, by different arts of oppreffion, have reduced the population of several of the Molucca Islands, formerly pretty well inhabited, nearly to the number sufficient to fupply with provifions their own infignificant garrifons, and such of their fhips as occafionally come there for fpices*."

COMMERCE.

113. There are two species of commerce different from, and even opposite to, if not destructive of, one another. Some explanation of both forms an effential part of my plan.

commerce

114. 1ft. Commiffion-commerce, into which, in remote ages, Commiffion mankind were naturally led by their real wants. An interchange of useful commodities was the only object of merchants in early times. A natural and necessary barter, by

* Wealth of Nations, edit. 5. Vol. II. p. 344, 360, 375, 397, 434.-At p. 476, the intelligent author mentions the operations of the Dutch Eaft India company, in the Spice Islands, to enhance the price, by burning all the spices, beyond a certain quantity, giving premiums for the collection of the bloffoms of the clove and nutmeg trees, &c. He alfo glances at certain practices of the English Eaft India. company's former fervants; particularly their ordering the peasants to plough up rice, and fow poppies, and the contrary, juft as their intereft, in the fale of opium or rice, happened to direct.-Sir W. Temple, in his obfervations on Holland, fays that “a Dutchman, who had been at the Spice Islands, told him, that he saw at one time three heaps of nutmegs burnt, each of which was more than an ordinary church would hold."-But we need not go fo far abroad, for inftances of fuch proceedings; for, in the year 1774, I was prefent at the burning of a large quantity of of faleable fpices, at the India House in Amfterdam, for the avowed purpose of keeping up the price.

their

VII.

CHAP. their means, diffused the produce of every part of the then known world over the whole; and their profits might be regarded more as the wages of neceffary labour, than as the gains of injurious monopoly. Gold and filver were not excluded from this commerce; but they were left to find their way into the general circulation, by their weight and fandard. Their relative worth was not, like that of coin, fixed by artificial laws; but, like the worth of every other commodity, was regulated by the natural demand. And paper credit had, in that early period, no exiftence. This natural and unreftrained ftate of commerce accorded perfectly with the primitive fimplicity of thofe ages: and it certainly tended to promote a diffusion of the comforts of life commenfurate to the wants of mankind, whom it united by the bond of mutual interests.

fhould be encouraged

in a new colony.

115. A mixture of fenfible and virtuous Europeans with simple, untutored Africans, may be expected, by the reciprocal action and re-action of their habits and manners, to produce a focial character nearly approaching the ancient fimplicity. It were therefore to be wifhed, that the beneficial fpecies of commerce, just mentioned, could be fo fixed in every new African colony, as for ever to exclude that perverted system which I shall call fpeculation-commerce, on which it seems neceffary to dwell fomewhat more particularly *.

116.

* In order to give the reader some idea of the extent to which a trade in the productions of Africa may be carried, it may not be amifs to mention a few facts which show that a communication between very diftant parts of that continent, is already open. And it will scarcely be denied, that this might be made the channel of conveying regular fupplies of European goods into those central regions which have hitherto seldom received any, except when the precarious success of the predatory expeditions of their chiefs happened to enable them to make returns in

flaves;

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