of it. But had France and all other European
countries been at all times allowed a free
trade to Maryland and Virginia, the tobacco
of those colonies might by this time have
come cheaper than it actually does, not only
to all those other countries, but likewise to
England. The produce of tobacco, in consequence
of a market so much more extensive
than any which it has hitherto enjoyed,
might, and probably would, by this time have
been so much increased as to reduce the profits
of a tobacco plantation to their natural
level with those of a corn plantation, which it
is supposed they are still somewhat above.
The price of tobacco might, and probably
would, by this time have fallen somewhat
lower than it is at present. An equal quantity
of the commodities, either of England or
of those other countries, might have purchased
in Maryland and Virginia a greater quantity of
tobacco than it can do at present, and consequently
have been sold there for so much a
better price. So far as that weed, therefore,
can, by its cheapness and abundance, increase
the enjoyments, or augment the industry,
either of England or of any other country, it
would probably, in the case of a free trade,
have produced both these effects in somewhat
a greater degree than it can do at present.
England, indeed, would not, in this case, have
had any advantage over other countries. She
might have bought the tobacco of her colonies
somewhat cheaper, and consequently have
sold some of her own commodities somewhat
dearer, than she actually does; but she could
neither have bought the one cheaper, nor sold
the other dearer, than any other country might
have done. She might, perhaps, have gained
an absolute, but she would certainly have lost
a relative advantage.
In order, however, to obtain this relative
advantage in the colony trade, in order to execute
the invidious and malignant project of
excluding, as much as possible, other nations
from any share in it, England, there are very
probable reasons for believing, has not only
sacrificed a part of the absolute advantage
which she, as well as every other nation, might
have derived from that trade, but has subjected
herself both to an absolute and to a relative
disadvantage in almost every other branch of
trade.
When, by the act of navigation, England
assumed to herself the monopoly of the colony
trade, the foreign capitals which had before
been employed in it, were necessarily
withdrawn from it. The English capital,
which had before carried on but a part of it,
was now to carry on the whole. The capital
which had before supplied the colonies with
but a part of the goods which they wanted
from Europe, was now all that was employed
to supply them with the whole. But it could
not supply them with the whole; and the
goods with which it did supply them were
necessarily sold very dear. The capital which
had before bought but a part of the surplus
produce of the colonies, was now all that was
employed to buy the whole. But it could
not buy the whole at anything near the old
price; and therefore, whatever it did buy, it
necessarily bought very cheap. But in an
employment of capital, in which the merchant
sold very dear, and bought very cheap, the
profit must have been very great, and much
above the ordinary level of profit in other
branches of trade. This superiority of profit
in the colony trade could not fail to draw from
other branches of trade a part of the capital
which had before been employed in them.
But this revulsion of capital, as it must have
gradually increased the competition of capitals
in the colony trade, so it must have gradually
diminished that competition in all those
other branches of trade; as it must have gradually
lowered the profits of the one, so it
must have gradually raised those of the other,
till the profits of all came to a new level, different
from, and somewhat higher, than that
at which they had been before.
This double effect of drawing capital from
all other trades, and of raising the rate of
profit somewhat higher than it otherwise
would have been in all trades, was not only
produced by this monopoly upon its first establishment,
but has continued to be produced
by it ever since.
First, This monopoly has been continually
drawing capital from all other trades, to be
employed in that of the colonies.
Though the wealth of Great Britain has
increased very much since the establishment
of the act of navigation, it certainly has not
increased in the same proportion as that of
the colonies. But the foreign trade of every
country naturally increases in proportion to
its wealth, its surplus produce in proportion
to its whole produce; and Great Britain
having engrossed to herself almost the whole
of what may be called the foreign trade of
the colonies, and her capital not having increased
in the same proportion as the extent
of that trade, she could not carry it on without
continually withdrawing from other
branches of trade some part of the capital
which had before been employed in them, as
well as withholding from them a great deal
more which would otherwise have gone to
them. Since the establishment of the act of
navigation, accordingly, the colony trade has
been continually increasing, while many other
branches of foreign trade, particularly of that
to other parts of Europe, have been continually
decaying. Our manufactures for foreign
sale, instead of being suited, as before the
act of navigation, to the neighbouring market
of Europe, or to the more distant one of the
countries which lie round the Mediterranean
sea, have, the greater part of them, been accommodated
to the still more distant one of