which they have occasioned. These misfortunes,
however, seem to have arisen rather
from accident than from any thing in the nature
of those events themselves. At the particular
time when these discoveries were made,
the superiority of force happened to be so
great on the side of the Europeans, that they
were enabled to commit with impunity every
sort of injustice in those remote countries.
Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries
may grow stronger, or those of Europe
may grow weaker; and the inhabitants of all
the different quarters of the world may arrive
at that equality of courage and force which,
by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe
the injustice of independent nations into some
sort of respect for the rights of one another.
But nothing seems more likely to establish
this equality of force, than that mutual communication
of knowledge, and of all sorts of
improvements, which an extensive commerce
from all countries to all countries naturally,
or rather necessarily, carries along with it.
In the mean time, one of the principal effects
of those discoveries has been, to raise the
mercantile system to a degree of splendour
and glory which it could never otherwise have
attained to. It is the object of that system
to enrich a great nation, rather by trade and
manufactures than by the improvement and
cultivation of land, rather by the industry of
the towns than by that of the country. But
in consequence of those discoveries, the commercial
towns of Europe, instead of being
the manufacturers and carriers for but a very
small part of the world (that part of Europe
which is washed by the Atlantic ocean, and
the countries which lie round the Baltic and
Mediterranean seas), have now become the
manufacturers for the numerous and thriving
cultivators of America, and the carriers, and
in some respects the manufacturers too, for
almost all the different nations of Asia,
Africa, and America. Two new worlds have
been opened to their industry, each of them
much greater and more extensive than the
old one, and the market of one of them growing
still greater and greater every day.
The countries which possess the colonies of
America, and which trade directly to the East
Indies, enjoy indeed the whole show and
splendour of this great commerce. Other
countries, however, notwithstanding all the
invidious restraints by which it is meant to
exclude them, frequently enjoy a greater
share of the real benefit of it. The colonies
of Spain and Portugal, for example, give
more real encouragement to the industry of
other countries than to that of Spain and Portugal.
In the single article of linen alone,
the consumption of those colonies amounts, it
is said (but I do not pretend to warrant the
quantity), to more than three millions sterling
a-year. But this great consumption is almost
entirely supplied by France, Flanders, Holland,
and Germany. Spain and Portugal
furnish but a small part of it. The capital
which supplies the colonies with this great
quantity of linen, is annually distributed among,
and furnishes a revenue to, the inhabitants
of those other countries. The profits
of it only are spent in Spain and Portugal,
where they help to support the sumptuous
profusion of the merchants of Cadiz and
Lisbon.
Even the regulations by which each nation
endeavours to secure to itself the exclusive
trade of its own colonies, are frequently more
hurtful to the countries in favour of which
they are established, than to those against
which they are established. The unjust oppression
of the industry of other countries
falls back, if I may say so, upon the heads
of the oppressors, and crushes their industry
more than it does that of those other countries.
By those regulations, for example, the
merchant of Hamburg must send the linen
which he destines for the American market
to London, and he must bring back from
thence the tobacco which he destines for the
German market; because he can neither send
the one directly to America, nor bring the
other directly from thence. By this restraint
he is probably obliged to sell the one somewhat
cheaper, and to buy the other somewhat
dearer, than he otherwise might have done;
and his profits are probably somewhat abridged
by means of it. In this trade, however,
between Hamburg and London, he certainly
receives the returns of his capital much more
quickly than he could possibly have done in
the direct trade to America, even though we
should suppose, what is by no means the case,
that the payments of America were as punctual
as those of London. In the trade,
therefore, to which those regulations confine
the merchant of Hamburg, his capital can
keep in constant employment a much greater
quantity of German industry than he possibly
could have done in the trade from which he
is excluded. Though the one employment,
therefore, may to him perhaps be less profitable
than the other, it cannot be less advantageous
to his country. It is quite otherwise
with the employment into which the monopoly
naturally attracts, if I may say so, the
capital of the London merchant. That employment
may, perhaps, be more profitable to
him than the greater part of other employments;
but on account of the slowness of the
returns, it cannot be more advantageous to
his country.
After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of
every country in Europe to engross to itself
the whole advantage of the trade of its own
colonies, no country has yet been able to
engross to itself any thing but the expense of
supporting in time of peace, and of defending
in time of war, the oppressive authority which
it assumes over them. The inconveniencies