between the British colonies in that part of the world, and that between thefe colonies and the Spanish and French.

Onfidering the little ftrength fhewn

related merely to themselves, during the courfe of that feffion of parliament, whofe principai tranfactions, as they were then thought to be, we furveyed in our last volume, it was almoft univerfally apprehended, that the blow, which they ftruck, immediately after its rifing, against fuch of their opponents as lay mott within their reach, muft fpeedily render that little ftrength of theirs ftill lefs, and fooner or later end in their total diffolution. But in this people happened to be greatly miftaken. Instead of fickening, they rather feemed to thrive upon it. Their difgrace, it now appears, was to come from another quarter, though produced, in a great measure, by feeds of their own fowing.

However fenfible that part of the body politic, against which they had thus thought proper to fignalize their refent ment, might be in itself, the fympathy between it and the other parts was not ftrong enough to excite thofe emotions and clamours, which, though not legiflative in the finalleft degree, have been often found to carry with them fuch natural powers of the executive kind, as to more than influence thofe great bodies conftitutionally invested with both. A doctrine long propagated by the enemies of minifters, now ferved to uphold the caufe of a miniftry. Through the writings of thofe in oppofition to court meafures, the bulk of the people had been fo Jong accustomed to confider a ftanding army, as, in fome meafure, unconititutional, or, at leaft, dangerous to their freedom from domestic tyranny, that they forgot all the fo late and fo ftrenuous exertions of that body in their defence from foreign violence. And, as much as the eftablishment of a national militia might tend to blunt that fting, it equally tended to make it appear dead excrefcence upon, and, of course, a burthen to, the nation. The people, therefore, were no way forry to fee it thus rudely treated, not confidering, that the quarter, from whence fuch treatment came, might render that body as dangerous in a legiflative, as it was ever apprehended to be in a military capacity,

But these truths were not fufficiently enforced. The writer beft qualified for that task, by a lucky knack of seasoning his compofitions to the palate of the unthinking vulgar both great and small,

ly fecure, as they imagined, in the enjoyment of their liberty by the late fevere animadverfions of both judges and juries against the executioners of general warrants on innocent perfons, and not metaphyfical enough to enter into the arguments concerning the illegality of thefe warrants merely as general, began to confider, that, whilft this nice point, so much above their comprehenfion, was in debate, no effectual measures had been thought of by their pretended friends to fecure them from the want of bread, though the law, they knew, forbid them from going to feek it in foreign parts. They even called to mind an event of the preceding year, in which numbers of their order had been fuffered to be illegally, as they thought, confined, and feveral of thofe fo confined to be killed, without any of the late fo zealous writers and actors against minifters of state and their general warrants, ftirring either pen or tongue to procure them liberty, whilt living; or enquiring into their blood, when they had loft their lives in endeavouring to recover it.

Perfonal fatire might have been of great fervice on this occafion to divert the multitude, fuch is the pleafing nature of scandal, from too close an attention even to their own feelings; but the late parliamentary refolutions against feditious libels; the judicial animadverfions upon them nearly on the fame spot, on which the execution of thefe parliamentary refolutions had been opposed; and the doubts concerning. what might be thought feditious, and what not, kept all the party writers quiet upon that fubject, except one, whofe too openly elpoufing the caufe of Mr. W-, now digiaced, by facrificing to libertinim on the altar, which he would have had the public believe he had entirely confecrated to liberty, added to the flaws which they thought they could perceive in his own character, took greatly from the weight of any thing he could fay to prejudice that of any other perfon's.

But however negatively the want of employment which most of the working

people

people now began to complain of, might at first feem to be owing to the want of a real concern for their subsistence, in thofe who had taken upon them to be the champions of their liberty, it foon appeared to be pofitively owing to the miniftry, allowing the miniftry to be chargeable with the ill confequences of every measure they propofe, however fan&tified by the approbation of the privy council and parliament, ard enforced by the latter; a way of judging, which, by the bye, is attended with no final degree of injury to our honour, and even of danger to our well-being, fince it not only tends to make foreigners believe, that we confider ourfelves as the property of a few individuals, but to render us actually fo, by exempting thofe, whofe bufinefs it is to examine into the propofals of minifters, from the infamy of not doing their duty properly in that respect.

But to abide by the common mode of fpeech on these occasions, a mode which minifters, however, cannot justly complain of, fince they have fo long acquiefced in it, this great decline of the means of fubfiftence, as we have been juft faying, foon appeared to be their own work. At the fame time that they thought it expedient to fit out armed cutters, under the command of fea officers, to prevent fmuggling on the coafts of Great-Britain and Ireland, they obliged all fea officers ftationed on thofe of our American colonies, to act in the capacity of the meanest revenue officers; making them fubmit to the ufual custom houfe oaths, and cuftom houfe regulations for that purpofe; by means of which the nature of their own important and exalted character was debaled, and that irregular vivacity of theirs, and contempt of common forms, which had been fo lately, and with fuch advan. tage, exerted againit the common enemy, was now inconfiderately played off upon the fubject.

If these gentlemen did not underftand all thole cafes, in which flips were liable to penalty, they as little understood thofe, in which hips were exempt even from detention; and, of courfe, hurt the interefts of trade in the fame proportion, that they difappointed the expectations of the treasury; to that, through the natural violence of their disposition, and their unacquaintance with the revenue business,

(and, how could it be expected they thould all at once become acquainted with a bufinefs, which requires at leaft, as much study, as that they had been bred to?) the trade ftill carried on between British fubjects, in fpight of that valt number and intricacy of bonds, clearances, cockets, affidavits, famps, certificates, regifters, manifeftos, &c. with which the heart has been fo unskilfully oppreffed to benefit the members, was very much injured.

What ferved greatly to aggravate this evil, was its being, in a great measure, without prevention or redress; or at least that speedy prevention and redress, which fo great an evil required. Thofe, who did the mifchief, iived on an element, where civil juftice is well known to have but little influence; or, if they sometimes ventured on fhore, it was in bodies too numerous not to intimidate the civil officers; or in places, where their blunders, to call them by no worse a name, were not cognizable, or where, at least, they ran no risk of being met by those, whole bufinefs it was to profecute them. The lords of the admiralty, or of the treasury, in Europe, could alone remove the evil; fo that, confidering the time an application to these boards must have taken in reaching them, and the orders of these boards in reaching the tranfgreffois, it may fairly be accounted one of the greatest bleffings Great Britain has had for a long time paft to boast of, that the trade of her colonies, as far as it depended upon thefe new-fangled custom-houfe officers, was not, in the mean time, totally annihilated.

Bad as this evil was, there fprung one ftill worfe from the fame fource. A trade had been for a long time carried on between the British and Spanish colonies in the new world, to the great advantage of both, but especially the former, and likewife of the mother country; the chief materials of it being, on the fide of the Britifh colonies, British manufactures, or fuch of their own produce, as enabled them to purchase British manufactures for their own confumption; and, on the part of the Spaniards, gold and filver in bullion and in coin, cochineal and medicinal drugs; befides live ftock, and mules, which in the Weft India plantations, to which places alone these last articles were carried, from their great ufefulness juftly

deferved

deferved to be ranked in the fame predicament with the molt precious metals. This trade did not clash with the spirit of any act of parliament made for the regulation of the British plantation trade, or, at least, with that fpirit of trade, which now univerfally prevails in our trade acts; but it was found to vary from the letter of the former, enough to give the new revenue officers a plea for doing that from principles of duty, which there were not wanting the molt powerful motives of intereft to make them do. Accordingly, they feized, indifcriminately, all the flips upon that trade both of fubjects and foreigners, which the custom-houfe officers ftationed a shore, through fear of the inhabitants, a jufter way of thinking, or an happy ignorance, had always permitted to pals unnoticed Probably, thofe at the head of affairs did not fufpect that there was any fuch variance between the letter of our old laws and the prefent fpirit of trade.

And, how weak foever this excufe may appear, it is the beft that can be made for occafion being given to an evil, to which it was not in the power of any board to apply an adequate remedy; fince ali naval officers, though not fworn and particularly directed to act, profeffedly, as tide furveyors and tide waiters, may, notwithstanding, do both. occafionally, in virtue of their rules of war; and it is hardly probable, that, having once tafted the fwects of making rich prizes, they fhould all, and all at once, fhun thofe opportunities, which before it had been their bufinefs to feek; and facrifice their intereits to the barren honour of complying with the orders of fuperiors, however enlightened, and actuated by a regard to the welfare of their country. Nay, how could thefe fuperiors venture to iffue fuch orders, confidering, what jealoufy the reprefentatives of the people have ever fhewn to fecure to the law its full courfe; and how feverely they have fometimes animadverted upon the highest characters, that happened to avow a delign of difpenfing

with it?

It might even be doubted, if the fupreme authority of the nation could apply fuch a remedy, confidering the offence, which the making of a law for that purpofe might give the court of Spain, in confequence of fome treaties made with her at a time, when we did not under

ftand the principles of commerce fo well; or did not apprehend fuch advantages from trading with the Spaniards in the new world; and, confequently, neglected to make thefe treaties fufficiently explicit; not but that they have been fince often and often implicitly renewed in more enlightened periods. But, perhaps, it was this very confideration, that prevented any attempts being made to amend them.

Befides this trade carried on between the British American colonies in general, especially thofe in the Weft Indies, and the Spanish, there had for a long time fubfilted one, equally extenfive, between the British North American colonies in particular, and the French West India ones, to the great advantage of both, as it con fifted chiefly in fuch goods, as must otherwife have remained a drug, if not an incumbrance, upon the hands of the poffeffors; fo that it united, in the strictest fenfe, all thofe benefits, which liberal minds include in the idea of a well-regulated commerce, as tending, in the higheft degree, to the mutual welfare of thofe who carry it on.

In thefe benefits the refpective mother countries had, no doubt a very large share, though it may be impoffible to determine, which, upon the whole, had most. We had enough to engage thofe in power to wink at it, for it was not ftrictly according to law, in confideration of the vast quantity of manufactures it enabled our North American colonies to take from us; and this, too, in fpight of all the clamours, which thofe concerned in our Weft India trade and poffeffions could raise against it, as enabling the French to underell them, in Weft India produce at foreign markets. Probably, this clamour was found to arife in a great measure from another confideration, which it was not fo proper in thefe gentlemen openly to avow, that of their not getting as good a price, as otherwife they might expect, for fuch part of their produce, as they fold in the markets of the mother country; and which, confidering the vaft demand for it, even by the poor, to whom from long habit it is become one of the chief neceffaries of life, it would have favoured of oppreflion to permit the raifing any higher. Be that as it will, this trade was permitted to be carried on for a long time in the last war between Great Britain and

France;

France; directly, by means of flags of truce ; and, in a round-about way, through the Dutch and Danish iflands; and, at length, through the Spanish port of Monte Chrifti in the island of Hispaniola ; tiil, at laft, the vaft advantages the French received from it above what the English could expect, in confequence of our having in a manner laid fiege to all their Weft India islands, determined the government to put a stop to it.

In doing this, however, they did not think proper to confider it fo much in the light of a contraband trade, as in that of a treafonable practice, fupplying the enemy with neceffaries, without which it would have been impoffible for thefe valuable islands to hold out so long against our attempts to reduce them. Accordingly, as foon as the conclusion of the laft war had taken the fting of treafon from this trade, it returned again to its priftine flourishing condition, and remained fo, till it funk under the fame blow with the trade between us and the Spaniards, whofe hiftory we have already related.

This trade not only prevented our North American colonies from being drained of their current cafh by the calls of the mother country upon them, but added greatly to it, fo as to make it in fome measure keep pace with their domeftic trade, which could not but increase greatly from day to day in proportion to the remarkable increafe of mankind in that part of the world, where the cheapnefs of land determines the greater part of the inhabitants to the exercife of the rural arts, fo favourable to population.

It is, therefore, no way furprising, if the inhabitants of these colonies, immediately on a stop being put to this trade, came to a refolution not to buy any cloathing they could poffibly do without, that was not of their own manufacturing. They were already too much in debt to the mother country to expect the ufual fupplies from her without making the ufual returns; and, not having the ufual returns to make, they wifely began the plan of retrenchment, which neceffity dictated, by renouncing finery, to the no fmall difappointment of many wife politicians, who had, rather prematurely, concluded, that, because the wool of the colonies was not as good as that of the mother country, it would be impoffible for them not to depend upon her,

Injury to the North American colonies confulerably increased by ill-timed laws in England. North American colonies obliged thereby to manufacture for themfelves. Mijchiefs to be apprehended from that fpirit to the mother country. Opinion of a great minifter concerning the expediency of the British parliament's taxing the colonies.

TH

THOUGH, therefore, that fuppreflion of trade, of which we have been speaking in the laft chapter, instead of barely intercepting the fupply of the neceffaries and conveniences of life, which our North American colonies before ufed to receive in return for their fuperfiuities and incumbrances, tended vifibly, by obftructing their internal commeice, to deprive them in a great meafure even of thofe bleffings, the fources of which lay within themfelves; yet was a law made the 5th of April 1764, which, whilft it rendered legal, in fome refpects, their intercourfe with the other European colonies in the new world, loaded the beft part of it with duties so far above its ftrength to bear, as to render it contraband to all intents and purposes. Befides, it ordered the money arising from thefe duties to be paid, and in fpecie too, into the British exchequer, to the entire draining off of the little ready money which might happen to be ftill remaining in thefe colonies. As though, however, the belt way to cure an emaciated body, whofe juices happened to be tainted, was to leave it no juices at all, within a fortnight after another law was paffed to hinder thefe wretched colonies from fapply. ing the demand of money for their internal wants, by preventing such paper bills of credit, as might afterwards be iffued in them, from being made legal tender in payment; and the legal tender of fuch paper bills, as were actually fubfifting, from being prolonged beyond the periods already limited for calling in and finking the fame.

It is true, indeed, that all the money arifing from the above duties was to he referved for defraying the charges of protecting the colonies on which it was levied; and that, at the fame time with the law for reftraining the increase of paper money, feveral new laws were made to encourage and increafe, as well as regu

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