British Colonies.—Though our maritime enterprizes against the Spaniards, and our projected settlements in Guiana, were prompted by the hope of golden treasure, the case was very different in regard to North America. A desire to exercise in freedom the profession of their religion, was a powerful motive of emigration with the early colonists ; and in the middle of the seventeenth century, our civil wars supplied a new motive for seek ing a foreign asylum. As the country became cleared, and as the reports of acquired fortune, always exagge rated at a distance, prevailed among the home connec tions of the settlers, fresh adventurers were induced to undertake the passage across the Atlantic. Though the English, nationally speaking, are not fond of emigration, the maritime habits of a proportion of the people, and the idea that a boundless field was open to the exertions of enterprise and industry in this unexplored hemisphere, proved the means of contributing successive additions to the number of the colonists. The main source, how ever, of increasing numbers, was the practicability, from abundance of provisions, of early marriage. All these causes concurred to raise the population, by the middle of the 18th century, to more than two millions, a num ber which, though not one-fourth of the present stock, was greatly beyond any calculation likely to be suggest ed in a former age, by the appearance of a wooded, and at first unhealthy, region. It deserves also to he re marked, that the religious disposition of the original settlers, and the serious habits impressed on their de scendants by the necessity of continued labour in retired situations, have given the Americans, particularly those of the northern and middle states, a character of more devotion than is generally found among European na tions.
In the case of our colonies, a progressive advance to prosperity was not retarded by the unfortunate circum stances attendant on those of Spain. There were here no metallic treasures to excite the cupidity of government, and the settlers being poor, enjoyed, in considerable la titude, the benefit of the political maxim, laissez nous la:re. Though prevented, in a great measure, from trading with any other country than Great Britain, they were limited to no particular harbours, so that the re striction, in the early part of their career particularly, was not productive of material detriment. Another point, and a most essential one, was that of exemption from taxes ; the mother country taking on herself the charge of military protection, not indeed from motives of gene rosity, but from a conviction of the inutility of attempting to collect any considerable revenue from a thinly scatter ed population. The colonies in consequence have no financial burden but that of their civil government, which, as they had neither king nor nobles, was abundantly mo derate. But while it is admitted that the natural advan tages of colonial settlements were less counteracted by illiberal regulations of the parent state in our case than in that of other countries, our acts of parliament on this subject will, at the same time, be found to afford a curi ous exemplification of the effects of the mercantile sys tem. The produce of our North American and West In dia settlements was divided into two distinct classes " enumerated" and "non-enumerated" commodities. The
former were exportable to the mother country only ; the latter might be sent to any part of the world, if shipped in a British vessel. On analyzing the motives of this important distinction, we find, not the benefit of the co lonies, but the imagined benefit of the mother country, the prevailing object with our legislature. Corn was a " non-enumerated" commodity ; and as it formed the leading article of produce in our northern colonies, the permission of its free exportation might have been ascri bed to parental solicitude for the welfare of our Ame rican relatives, had it not been accompanied by a law prohibiting its import into Great Britain, the market which of all others would have been most desired by our colonists. Here was a notable example of that unfor tunate prejudice which still actuates our landed interest, and makes them consider an enhancement of money not as equivalent to an increase of income. A parallel in stance was afforded in the case of the cattle of our co lonies. The exportation of them, either alive or in the shape of salt provisions, was permitted to all parts of the world, except to mother country. Next, as to the " enumerated commodities," our rule was to compel the importation into Great Britain, exclusively, of sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, indigo ; in short, of whatever could not interfere with the growth of our own soil and climate. \Ve calculated on thus having a supply for all our own wants in the first instance ; and, in the next, a profit on'all that we should sell to other nations.
So long as our consumption was proportioned to the growth of the colonies, the positive obligation to ship every thing to Britain was not productive of serious in jury to our fellow subjects abroad. In the time of Dr Smith, our growth and consumption corresponded suf ficiently to each other; a consideration to which, as well s to the very delicate predicament in which we then stood with our American provinces, we are to ascribe the palliating tone in which a writer, otherwise so inde pendent, thinks proper to speak of the course of our po licy towards our colonies. Enough has happened in our own day to give evidence of the injurious effect of forcing our West India settlements to throw all their produce into one market. Since the year 1799, the amount of their sugar crops, partly from extended cultivation, but more from the conquest of foreign settlements, have greatly exceeded our means of consumption. The planter has accordingly been repeatedly forced to send home his produce without obtaining. any profit whatever. No consideration of sympathy towards these our unfortunate countrymen was sufficient to overcome the inveteracy of long established prejudice. Our ministers were prevent ed, by apprehension of clamour, from making any relaxa tion in the provisions of the law ; and the landed interest, instigated apparently by selfish individuals, acted a part wholly unsuitable to their general character. On two oc casions, in 1808 and 1811, they mustered all their parlia mcntary strength to prevent the substitution of sugar for corn in the distillery, although examples of the suffer ings of the poor from deficiency of provision were fresh in their recollection.