sufficient to hinder them from making very
exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a policy,
the colonies are enabled both to sell their own
produce, and to buy the goods of Europe at
a reasonable price; but since the dissolution
of the Plymouth company, when our colonies
were but in their infancy, this has always been
the policy of England. It has generally, too,
been that of France, and has been uniformly
so since the dissolution of what in England is
commonly called their Mississippi company.
The profits of the trade, therefore, which
France and England carry on with their colonies,
though no doubt somewhat higher than
if the competition were free to all other nations,
are, however, by no means exorbitant;
and the price of European goods, accordingly,
is not extravagantly high in the greater
part of the colonies of either of those nations.
In the exportation of their own surplus produce,
too, it is only with regard to certain
commodities that the colonies of Great Britain
are confined to the market of the mother
country. These commodities having been
enumerated in the act of navigation, and in
some other subsequent acts, have upon that
account been called enumerated commodities.
The rest are called non-enumerated, and may
be exported directly to other countries, provided
it is in British or plantation ships, of
which the owners and three fourths of the mariners
are British subjects.
Among the non-enumerated commodities
are some of the most important productions of
America and the West Indies, grain of all
sorts, lumber, salt provisions, fish, sugar, and
rum.
Grain is naturally the first and principal
object of the culture of all new colonies. By
allowing them a very extensive market for it,
the law encourages them to extend this culture
much beyond the consumption of a thinly
inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand
an ample subsistence for a continually
increasing population.
In a country quite covered with wood,
where timber consequently is of little or no
value, the expense of clearing the ground is
the principal obstacle to improvement. By
allowing the colonies a very extensive market
for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate
improvement by raising the price of a
commodity which would otherwise be of little
value, and thereby enabling them to make
some profit of what would otherwise be mere
expense.
In a country neither half peopled nor half
cultivated, cattle naturally multiply beyond
the consumption of the inhabitants, and are
often, upon that account, of little or no value.
But it is necessary, it has already been
shown, that the price of cattle should bear a
certain proportion to that of corn, before the
greater part of the lands of any country can
be improved. By allowing to American cattle,
in all shapes, dead and alive, a very extensive
market, the law endeavours to raise
the value of a commodity, of which the high
price is so very essential to improvement.
The good effects of this liberty, however, must
be somewhat diminished by the 4th of Geo.
III. c. 15, which puts hides and skins among
the enumerated commodities and thereby tends
to reduce the value of American cattle.
To increase the shipping and naval power
of Great Britain by the extension of the fisheries
of our colonies, is an object which the
legislature seems to have had almost constantly
in view. Those fisheries, upon this account,
have had all the encouragement which freedom
can give them, and they have flourished
accordingly. The New England fishery, in
particular, was, before the late disturbances,
one of the most important, perhaps, in the
world. The whale fishery which, notwithstanding
an extravagant bounty, is in Great Britain
carried on to so little purpose, that in the
opinion of many people (which I do not, however,
pretend to warrant), the whole produce
does not much exceed the value of the bounties
which are annually paid for it, is in New
England carried on, without any bounty, to a
very great extent. Fish is one of the principal
articles with which the North Americans
trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.
Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity,
which could only be exported to Great
Britain; but in 1731, upon a representation
of the sugar-planters, its exportation was permitted
to all parts of the world. The restrictions,
however, with which this liberty was
granted, joined to the high price of sugar in
Great Britain, have rendered it in a great
measure ineffectual. Great Britain and her
colonies still continue to be almost the sole
market for all sugar produced in the British
plantations. Their consumption increases so
fast, that, though in consequence of the increasing
improvement of Jamaica, as well as
of the ceded islands, the importation of sugar
has increased very greatly within these twenty
years, the exportation to foreign countries is
said to be not much greater than before.
Rum is a very important article in the trade
which the Americans carry on to the coast of
Africa, from which they bring back negro
slaves in return.
If the whole surplus produce of America,
in grain of all sorts, in salt provisions, and in
fish, had been put into the enumeration, and
thereby forced into the market of Great Britain,
it would have interfered too much with
the produce of the industry of our own people.
It was probably not so much from any
regard to the interest of America, as from a
jealousy of this interference, that those important
commodities have not only been kept
out of the enumeration, but that the importation
into Great Britain of all grain, except