the people. The power of Spain and Portugal,
on the contrary, derives some support
from the taxes levied upon their colonies.
France, indeed, has never drawn any considerable
revenue from its colonies, the taxes
which it levies upon them being generally
spent among them. But the colony government
of all these three nations is conducted
upon a much more extensive plan, and is accompanied
with a much more expensive ceremonial.
The sums spent upon the reception
of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have
frequently been enormous. Such ceremonials
are not only real taxes paid by the rich colonists
upon those particular occasions, but they
serve to introduce among them the habit of
vanity and expense upon all other occasions.
They are not only very grievous occasional
taxes, but they contribute to establish perpetual
taxes, of the same kind, still more grievous;
the ruinous taxes of private luxury and
extravagance. In the colonies of all those
three nations, too, the ecclesiastical government
is extremely oppressive. Tithes take
place in all of them, and are levied with the
utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal.
All of them, besides, are oppressed with numerous
race of mendicant friars, whose beggary
being not only licensed but consecrated
by religion, is a most grievous tax upon the
poor people, who are most carefully taught
that it is a duty to give, and a very great sin
to refuse them their charity. Over and above
all this, the clergy are, in all of them, the
greatest engrossers of land.
Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus
produce, or of what is over and above their
own consumption, the English colonies have
been more favoured, and have been allowed a
more extensive market, than those of any
other European nation. Every European nation
has endeavoured, more or less, to monopolize
to itself the commerce of its colonies,
and, upon that account, has prohibited the
ships of foreign nations from trading to them,
and has prohibited them from importing European
goods from any foreign nation. But
the manner in which this monopoly has been
exercised in different nations, has been very
different.
Some nations have given up the whole commerce
of their colonies to an exclusive company,
of whom the colonists were obliged to
buy all such European goods as they wanted,
and to whom they were obliged to sell the
whole of their surplus produce. It was the
interest of the company, therefore, not only
to sell the former as dear, and to buy the latter
as cheap as possible, but to buy no more
of the latter, even at this low price, than what
they could dispose of for a very high price in
Europe. It was their interest not only to degrade
in all cases the value of the surplus produce
of the colony, but in many cases to discourage
and keep down the natural increase
of its quantity. Of all the expedients that
can well be contrived to stunt the natural
growth of a new colony, that of an exclusive
company is undoubtedly the most effectual.
This, however, has been the policy of Holland,
though their company, in the course of
the present century, has given up in many respects
the exertion of their exclusive privilege.
This, too, was the policy of Denmark, till the
reign of the late king. It has occasionally
been the policy of France; and of late, since
1755, after it had been abandoned by all other
nations on account of its absurdity, it has become
the policy of Portugal, with regard at
least to two of the principal provinces of Brazil,
Pernambucco, and Marannon.
Other nations, without establishing an exclusive
company, have confined the whole
commerce of their colonies to a particular port
of the mother country, from whence no ship
was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet and
at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence
of a particular license, which in most
cases was very well paid for. This policy opened,
indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the
natives of the mother country, provided they
traded from the proper port, at the proper season,
and in the proper vessels. But as all the
different merchants, who joined their stocks in
order to fit out those licensed vessels, would
find it for their interest to act in concert, the
trade which was carried on in this manner
would necessarily be conducted very nearly
upon the same principles as that of an exclusive
company. The profit of those merchants
would be almost equally exorbitant and oppressive.
The colonies would be ill supplied,
and would be obliged both to buy very dear,
and to sell very cheap. This, however, till
within these few years, had always been the
policy of Spain; and the price of all European
goods, accordingly, is said to have been enormous
in the Spanish West Indies. At Quito,
we are told by Ulloa, a pound of iron sold
for about 4s. 6d., and a pound of steel for
about 6s. 9d. sterling. But it is chiefly in order
to purchase European goods that the colonies
part with their own produce. The more,
therefore, they pay for the one, the less they
really get for the other, and the dearness of
the one is the same thing with the cheapness
of the other. The policy of Portugal is, in
this respect, the same as the ancient policy of
Spain, with regard to all its colonies, except
Pernambucco and Marannon; and with regard
to these it has lately adopted a still worse.
Other nations leave the trade of their colonies
free to all their subjects, who may carry
it on from all the different ports of the mother
country, and who have occasion for no other
license than the common despatches of the
custom-house. In this case the number and
dispersed situation of the different traders renders
it impossible for them to enter into any
general combination, and their competition is