offer from fuch a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the conceffions of the weak are the conceffions of fear. When fuch a one is difarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his fuperior; and he lofes for ever that time and those chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and refources of all inferior power. The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide, are these two. First, whether you ought to concede; and fecondly, what your conceffion ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained (as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you) fome ground. But I am fenfi·ble that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of thefe great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be neceffary to confider diftinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us. Because after all our ftruggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America, according to that nature, and to thofe circumftances; and not according to our own imaginations; not according to abstract ideas of right; by no means according to mere general theories of government, the refort to which appears to me, in our prefent fituation, no better than arrant trifling. I fhall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay before you fome of the most materiak of these circumftances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to ftate them. The first thing that we have to confider with regard to the nature of the object is-the number of people in the colonies. I have taken for fome years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation juftify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and colour; befides at leaft 500,000 others, who form no inconfiderable part of the ftrength and opulence opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number. There is no occafion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of fo much weight and importance. But whether I put the prefent numbers too high or too low, is a matter of little moment. Such is the ftrength with which population fhoots in that part of the world, that ftate the numbers as high as we will, whilft the difpute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilft we are difcuffing any given. magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilt we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we fhall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow fafter from infancy to manhood, than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations. I put this confideration of the prefent and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation; becaufe, Sir, this confideration will make it evident to a blunter difcernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all fuitable to fuch an object. It will fhew you, that it is not to be confidered as one of those minima which are out of the eye and confideration of the law; not a paltry excrefcence of the ftate; not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little damage, and provoked with little danger. It will prove, that fome degree of care and caution is required in the handling fuch an object; it will fhew, that you ought not, in reafon, to trifle with fo large a mass of the interefts and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do fo without guilt; and be affured you will not be able to do it long with impunity. But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important confideration, will lofe much of its weight, if not combined with other circum ftances. ftances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has been trod fome days ago, and with great ability, by a diftinguished * perfon, at your bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years-it is fo long fince he first appeared at the fame place to plead for the commerce of Great-Britain-has come again before you to plead the fame caufe, without any other effect of time, than, that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a confummate knowledge in the commercial intereft of his country, formed by a long courfe of enlightened and difcriminating experience. Sir, I should be inexcufable in coming after fuch a perfon with any detail; if a great part of the members who now fill the house had not the misfortune to be abfent, when he appeared at your bar. Befides, Sir, I propose to take the matter at periods of time fomewhat different from his. There is, if I mistake not, a point of view, from whence if you will look at this fubject, it is impoffible that it should not make an impreffion upon you. I have in my hand two accounts; one à comparative state of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it flood in the year 1704, and as it ftood in the year 1772. The other a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the infpector general's office, which has been ever fince his time. fo abundant a fource of parliamentary information. *Mr. Glover. The The export trade to the colonies confifts of three great branches. The African, which, terminating almoft wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the Weft Indian; and the North American. All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to feparate them, would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and if not entirely deftroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore confider thefe three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade. The trade to the colonies, taken on the export fide, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, ftood thus: Exports to North America, and the West Indies - £.483,265 To Africa 86,665 569,930 In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows: To North America, and the Weft Indies £•4,791,734 866,398 To which if you add the export trade from Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence 364,000 6,024,171 From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to fix millions. It has increafed no lefs than twelve-fold. This is the ftate of the colony trade, as compared with itself at thefe two periods, within this century;—and this is matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my fecond ac count. count. See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 ftood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of England in 1704. The whole export trade of England, including that to the colonies, in 1704 Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 The trade with America alone is now within lefs than 500,000 7. of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be faid, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its prefent magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented; and augmented more or less in almoft every part to which it ever extended; but with this material difference; that of the fix millions which in the beginning of the century conftituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as a part of fixteen millions) confiderably more than a third of the whole. This is the relative proportion of the importance of the colonies at these two periods and all reafoning concerning our mode of treating them must have this proportion as its bafis; or it is a reafoning weak, rotten, and sophistical. Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great confideration. It is good for us to be here. We ftand where we have an immenfe view of what is, and what is paft. Clouds indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future. Let |