"Illustrations of the spirit testified in these extracts from Child, may be collected from the work of Joshua Gee, "On the Trade and Navigation of Great Britain," published at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and also held in great estimation. The following passages are from his thirty-first chapter.

"But before I proceed to show the great advantage those additional materials would be to carry on the aforesaid manufactures, I think proper to take notice of an objection made by some gentlemen, which is, that if we encourage the plantations, they will grow rich, and set up for themselves, and cast off the English government.'

I have considered those objections abundance of times, the oftener I think of them, the less ground I see for such doubts and jealousies.'

"It must be allowed, New-England has shewn an uncommon stiffness. We think, however, all judicious men, when they come to examine thoroughly into their fears, will see they are groundless; and that as it seems impossible for the other colonies to join in any such design, so nothing could be more against their own interest: For if New-England should ever attempt to be independent of this kingdom, the stopping their supplying the sugar islands, and coasting and fishing trade, would drive them to the utmost difficulties to subsist as aforesaid; and of consequence the part they have in that trade would fall into hands of other colonies, which would greatly increase their riches. But if some turbulent spirited men should ever be capable of raising any defection, a small squadron of light frigates would entirely cut off their trade, and if that did not do, the government would be forced, contrary to their practice, to do what other nations do of choice, viz. place standing forces among them to keep them in order, and oblige them to raise money to pay them. We do not mention this with any apprehension that ever they will give occasion, but to shew the consequences that must naturally follow."

666 Some persons who endeavour to represent this colony in the worst light, would persuade us they would put themselves under a foreign power, rather than not gratify their resentments,' &c.

"Now as people have been filled with fears, that the colonies, if encouraged to raise rough materials, would set up for themselves; a little regulation would remove all those jealousies out of the way, as aforesaid,' &c.

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'It is to be hoped this method would allay the heat that some people have shewn (without reason) for destroying the iron works in the plantations, and pulling down all their forges; taking away in a violent manner, their estates and properties, preventing the husbandmen from getting their plough-shares, carts, or other utensils mended; destroying the manufacture of ship building, by depriving them of the liberty of making bolts, spikes, or other things proper for carrying on that work; by which article, returns are made for purchasing woollen manufactures, which is of more than ten times the profit that is brought into the kingdom by the exports of iron manufactures.'

"The present age is so far unacquainted with the cause of the increase of our riches, that they rather interrupt than encourage it, and instead of enlarging, lay hold of some small trifling things, which they think may touch their private interest, rather than promote the general good; and if they think any commodity from the plantations interferes with something we have at home, some hasty step is taken to prevent it; so that for the sake of saving a penny, we often deprive ourselves of things of a thousand times the value.'"

"The report made in 1731, at the command of the British Parliament, by the Board of Trade and Plantations, concerning the "trades carried on, and manufactures set up, in the colonies," betrays much disquietude, and recommends that, "some expedient be fallen

upon to direct the thoughts of the colonists from undertakings of this kind; so much the rather, because these manufactures in process of time, may be carried on in a greater degree, unless an early stop be put to their progress." The report carefully notes that in NewEngland" by a paper mill set up three years ago, they make to the value of 2001. sg. yearly." The measures adopted by the parliament in 1732 and 1733, were symptomatic of the morbid sensibility common to all classes of politicians as well as traders. By the act "for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his majesty's sugar colonies in America," the interests of New-England were sacrificed to those of the sugar planters.

"The petition of Rhode-Island and Providence, against the sugar colony bill, occasioned a debate in the House of Commons in 1733, some parts of which deserve to be copied as interesting in a double point of view.

"Sir John Barnard moved for leave to bring up the petition.-'

"Sir Wm. Yonge said, I must take notice of one thing which I have observed in the petition. They therein tell us, that as to the bill now depending before us, they apprehend it to be against their charter. This, I must say, is something very extraordinary; and in my opinion, looks very like aiming at an independence, and disclaiming the authority and jurisdiction of this House, as if this House had not a power to tax them, or to make any laws for the regulating the affairs of their colonies; therefore if there were no other reason for our not receiving the petition, on this single account I should be against it." "Mr. Winnington-I hope the petitioners have no charter which debars this House from taxing them as well as any other subjects of this nation. I am sure they can have no such charter.'

Sir John Barnard alleged that the language of the petitioners was " that they humbly conceive, that the bill now depending, if passed into a law, would be highly prejudicial to their charter." It may be that this House has sometimes refused to receive petitions from some parts of Britain, against duties to be laid on; but this can be no reason why the petition I have now in my hand should be rejected. The people in every part of Britain have a representative in this House, who is to take care of their particular interest-and they may, by means of their representative in this House, offer what reasons they think proper against any duties to be laid on. But the people who are the present petitioners, have no particular representatives in this House, therefore, they have no other way of applying or offering their reasons to this House, but in the way of being heard at the bar of the House, by their agent here in England. Therefore, the case of this petition is an exception.

The question being put for bringing up the petition, passed in the negative.'-(Parliamentary History.)

"The trade of the northern colonies with the foreign West India Islands, would have been totally prohibited, according to the prayer of the sugar planters, had not the parliament apprehended distant consequences, of a nature incompatible with the general British policy as to France.* The spirit of the legislation under review, is

*See Account of the European Settlements in America, vol. ii. p. 179. Moreover, according to the same authority, "The northern colonies declared, that if they were

strikingly exemplified in the law of 1732, to prevent the 'exportation of hats out of the plantations in America, and to restrain the number of apprentices taken by the hat makers, in the said plantations, &c.' So also, in the act of 1750, prohibiting, under severe penalties, the erection of any slitting-mill, plating-forge, or furnace for making steel, &c. Heavy complaints were made in Great Britain, that the people of New-England" not satisfied with carrying out their own produce, had become carriers for the other colonies." The injustice of the restraints imposed or solicited, may be understood from the circumstance that New-England had no staple to exchange for the British manufactures.

"These restraints, those relating to manufactures, at least, were as unnecessary, as vexatious and unjust. Our experience since the separation, has demonstrated the extravagance of the apprehensions of the mother country, when referred to New-England at the beginning the last century. The selfishness must have been extreme, the jealousy exquisite, which generated the phantoms of an independent empire and rival manufactures in that quarter, at so early a period. The opinions of Adam Smith, concerning the British legislation generally, in the case of the American colonies, carry with them an authority not to be resisted, and belong especially to an exposition, such as the one in which I am engaged.

"The policy of Europe has very little to boast of, either in the original establishment, or so far as concerns their internal government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America.'

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Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided over, and directed the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice of coveting the possession of a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with every mark of kind ness and hospitality.'

"The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the latter establishments, joined to the chimerical project of finding gold and silver mines, other motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do very little honour to the policy of Europe.'

"The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America ; and established there the four governments of New-England. The English Catholics treated with much greater injustice, established that of Maryland ; the Quakers, that of Pennsylvania, &c. &c.'

"The government of England contributed scarce any thing towards effec tuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in North America.'

"When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so considerable as to attract the attention of the mother country, the first regulations which she made with regard to them had always in view to keep to herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to enlarge her own

deprived of so great a branch of their trade, it must necessitate them to the establishment of manufactures. For, if they were cut off from their foreign trade, they never could purchase in England the many things for the use or the ornament of life, which bey have from thence, &c."

at their expense, and consequently rather to damp and discourage, than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity. In the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised, consists one of the most essential differences in the policy of the different European nations with regard to their colonies. The best of them all, that of England, is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of the rest.'

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"England purchased, by some of her subjects who felt uneasy at home, a great estate in a distant country. The price indeed was very small, and instead of thirty years purchase, the ordinary price of land in the present times, it amounted to little more than the expense of the different equipments which made the first discovery, reconnoitered the coast, and took a fictitious possession of the country. The land was good and of great extent, and the cultivators having plenty of good ground to work upon, and being for some time at liberty to sell their produce where they, pleased, became, in the course of little more than thirty or forty years, (between 1620 and 1660) so numerous and thriving a people, that the shop-keepers and other traders of England, wished to secure to themselves the monopoly of their custom. Without pretending, therefore, that they had paid any part, either of the original purchase money, or of the subsequent expense of improvement, they petitioned the parliament that the cultivators of America might, for the future, be confined to their shop; first, for buying all the goods which they wanted from Europe; and, secondly, for selling all such parts of their own produce as those traders might find it convenient to buy, for they did not find it convenient to buy every part of it. Some parts of it imported into England might have interfered with some of the trades which they themselves carried on at home. Those particular parts of it, therefore, they were willing that the colonists should sell where they could; the farther off the better; and, upon that account, proposed that their market should be confined to the countries south of Cape Finisterre. A clause in the famous act of navigation established this truly shop-keeper proposal into a law.'

"The maintenance of this monopoly has hitherto been the principal, or more properly, perhaps, the sole end and purpose of the dominion which Great Britain assumes over her colonies. It is the principal badge of their dependency, and it is the sole fruit which has hitherto been gathered from that depend ency. Whatever expense Great Britain has hitherto laid out in maintaining this dependency, has really been laid out in order to support this monopoly.' "While Great Britain encourages in America the manufactures of pig and bar iron, by exempting them from duties, to which the like commodities are subject, when imported from any other country, she imposes an absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel-furnaces and slit-mills in any of her American plantations. She will not suffer her colonies to work in those more refined manufactures even of their own consumption; but insists upon their purchasing of her merchants and manufacturers all goods of this kind, which they have occasion for.?

"She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water, and even the carriage by land on horseback or in a cart, of hats, of wools and woollen goods, of the produce of America; a regulation which effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of such commodities for distant sale, and confines the industry of her colonists in this way to such coarse and household manufactures, as a private family generally makes for its own use, or for that of some of its neighbours in the same province.'

"To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest viola tion of the most sacred rights of mankind. Though they had not been prohibited from establishing such manufactures, yet in their present state of improvement, a regard to their own interest would, probably, have prevented them from doing so. In their present state of improvement, those prohibitions,

perhaps, without cramping their industry, or restraining it from any employ ment to which it would have gone of its own accord, are only impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country.

Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, the merchants who carry it on, it must be observed, have been the principal advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in the greater part of them. their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies or that of the mother country. In their exclusive privilege of supplying the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and of purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not interfere with any of the trades which they themselves carried on at home, the interest of the colonies was sacrificed to the interests of those merchants.'

"As the plantations advanced in numbers, strength, wealth, and manufactures, they awakened a still more lively distrust, and jealous vigilance, in the mother country. In 1715, a bill was brought into the House of Commons to abolish all the charter governments; against which tyrannical project, the agent of Massachusetts, Dummer, published an elaborate and masterly pamphlet. One of the sections of his " Defence of the New-England Charters," is headed thus," The objection that the charter colonies will grow great and formidable, answered :"-and the author details, with much anxiety, the circumstances which, in his opinion, established the probability of the reverse. He begins his argument with stating, "There is one thing I have heard often urged against the colonies, and indeed, it is what one meets from people of all conditions and qualities. Tis said, that their increasing numbers and wealth, joined to their great distance from Great Britain, will give them an opportunity, in the course of some years, to throw off their dependence on the nation, and declare themselves a free state, if not curbed in time. I have often wondered to hear some great men profess their belief of the feasibleness of this, &c." In 1740, the House of Commons voted, upon the complaint preferred by the general court of Massachusetts, against Governor Belcher, for denying to them the disposal of the public monies,-"That the complaint, contained in the New-England memorial and petition, was frivolous and groundless; an high insult upon his majesty's government, and tending to shake off the dependency of the said colony upon this kingdom, to which, by law and right, they are and ought to be subject." When the general court ventured to censure one of their agents, Mr. Dunbar, for giving evidence before Parliament on the bill for the better securing the trade of the sugar colonies, the House of Commons voted, nem. con." That the presuming to call any person to account, or pass a censure upon him; for evidence given by such person before that House, was an audacious proceeding, and an high violation of the privileges of that House."

"To lessen the danger, or obviate new hazards, for her sovereignty and monopoly, England embraced the policy, of confining the settlements in North America as much as possible to the sea coast. The