From five hundred and odd thoufand, 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 these two periods, within this century;-and this is matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my fecond account. 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

The trade with America alone is now within lefs than 500,000l. 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

Our general trade has

its prefent magnitude. been greatly augmented; and augmented more or less in almost 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 mafs 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 basis; or it is a reasoning 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 immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness, reft. upon the future. Let us however, before we defcend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national profperity has happened within the fhort period of the life of man. It has happened within fixtyeight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For inftance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progrefs. He was in 1704 of an age at leaft to be made to comprehend fuch things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere,

et

et quæ fit poterit cognofcere virtus-Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this aufpicious youth, foresee. ing the many virtues, which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the moft fortu. nate men of his age, had opened to him in vi fion, that, when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the house of Brunswick had fat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy iffue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great Britain, he should fee his fon, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to an higher rank of peerage, whilft he enriched the family with a new one-If amidst these bright and happy fcenes of domeftick honour and profperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing with admira, tion on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius fhould point out to him a little speck, fcarce vifible in the mafs of the national interest, a fmall feminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him-" Young man, there "is America-which at this day ferves for little "more than to amuse you with stories of savage "men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before

you taste of death, shew itself equal to the whole "of that commerce which now attracts the envy "of the world. Whatever England has been "growing to by a progreffive increase of improve

"ment,

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ment, brought in by varieties of people, by fuc"ceffion of civilizing conquests and civilizing set"tlements in a feries of feventeen hundred years,

'

you shall see as much added to her by America "in the courfe of a fingle life!" If this ftate of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the fanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to fee it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to fee nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!

You

Excufe me, Sir, if turning from fuch thoughts I refume this comparative view once more. have seen it on a large fcale; look at it on a fmall one. I will point out to your attention a particular inftance of it in the fingle province of Penfylvania. In the year 1704 that province called for 11,459. in value of your commodities, native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? Why nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export to Pensylvania was 507,909. nearly equal to the export to all the colonies together in the first period.

I choose, Sir, to enter into thefe, minute and particular details; because generalities, which in all other cafes are apt to heighten and raise the fubject, have here a tendency to fink it. When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fic

tion

tion lags after truth; invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I could fhew how many enjoyments they procure, which deceive the burthen of life; how many materials which invigorate the fprings of national industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestick commerce. This would be a curious fubject indeed-but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.

I pass therefore to the colonies in another point of view, their agriculture. This they have profecuted with fuch a spirit, that, befides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has fome years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest, I am perfuaded, they will export much more. At the beginning of the century, fome of these colonies imported corn from the mother country. For fome time paft, the old world has been fed from the new. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a defolating famine; if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent.

As