encouragement to bring them lately; but being restored to the market, they will take care conftantly to make a provifion equal to the demand, and to have the whole benefit of this acceffion to their

commerce.

A like attention was fhewn to the African trade in the article alfo of bugles, by allowing them to be warehoufed free of duty, instead of exacting the whole duty on the importation, and returning it afterwards in drawbacks; thefe, together with the coarfe printed callicoes, cowries and arangoes, may, from hence-forward, be attainable upon as eafy terms here as any where elfe: the inducements to bring in fuch commodities clandeftinely are taken away; and the fhips failing to the coast of África will no longer be tempted to touch in Holland, or other countries, for a fupply, the confequence of fuch a deviation most frequently was, that they took in alfo gun-powder, fpirits, and a ther affortments of goods, and made up a great part of their cargoes there: the African trade will be therefore more our own than it has been; it is in itself greater than it was by the acquifition of Senegal; and a further very liberal plan was adopted in 1765 for improving all its advantages. The committee of merchants, who had the management of the whole, were divefted of that part of the coaft which lies between the port of Sallee and cape Rouge the reft was left to them ftrengthened in their hands by building a block-houfe at the important point of cape Appolonia that which was taken from them was vested in the crown; a civil establishment was formed, with jurif diction between the rivers Senegal and Gambia; the duties upon gum are a fund for fupporting it; a regular military force is to be maintained there; and all the fecurities against domestic oppreffion, or foreign invafion, all the benefits, in fhort, of a fettled provincial govern ment, are provided for that district. This must be an encouragement to the prefent factories; it will be the means of increafing them; it may be the foundation of future improvements in power, in commerce, and in fettlement, to a degree, perhaps, of colonization: but without carrying the idea quite fo far, it will, at the leaft, certainly give ftability, order and credit, to the British trade upon the coalt, and make our eftablishments fupe

rior in ftrength, extent, and influence, to thofe of any other European power.

But of all the mealures which were purfued for the benefit of trade, those were by far the most important which refpected the colonies, who have been of late the darling object of their mothercountry's care: we are not yet recovered from a war undertaken folely for their protection: every object for which it was begun, is accomplished; and ftill greater are obtained than at firft were even thought of; but whatever may be the value of the acquifitions in America, the immediate benefit of them is to the colonies; and this country feels it only in their profperity; for though the acceffions of trade and of territory which were obtained by the peace, are fo many additions to the empire and the commerce of Great Bri tain at large, yet they principally affect that part of her dominions, and that branch of her trade, to which they more immediately relate. To improve thefe advantages, and to forward till further the peculiar interefts of the colonies, was the chief aim of the administration in the period now before me. Their whale-fishery was encouraged by taking off the hea vy duty under which it laboured; in confequence of which gratuity it must now foon over-power our own, and will probably rival that of the Dutch; so as to fupply not only the whole demand of this country, but part alfo of the foreign confumption. The refraint laid by the act of navigation upon the exportation of rice, was, at the fame time, relaxed, and liberty given to both Carolinas and to Georgia, to carry it to foreign plantations, where large cargoes may be annually difpofed of. The culture of hemp and flax in America was promoted by bounties; and another bounty was given upon the native wild produce of the continent, the timber, in fuch proportions on the feveral fpecies of it, as will enable the colonists to bring vast quantities hither. Should the ends intended by all this li berality be anfwered, and the effect be, as in time it probably will be, that the foreign plantations will be fupplied wholly with rice, and this ifland, in a great meafure, with whale-bone and oil, with hemp, flax, and timber, from the colonies, the increase of their trade will exceed the most fanguine expectations: the confumption of thefe commodities which

they

they may be able to furnish cannot be eftimated at less than a million a year: in all they will undoubtedly have the preference, and in fome a monopoly.

At the fame time that new branches of commerce were thus given to them, others, which they had before, were improved. The prohibition on the exportation of American bar-iron from this kingdom was taken away by an act paffed in 1765. By the fame act the importer of ice, intended only to be re-exported, is excufed from advancing the duties: the encouragement given to the culture of coffee in the plantations, by reducing the duty thereon below that charged on other coffee, has been taken notice of before; and a fill further preference was fhewn to the produce of our Weft-Indian colonies, by laying heavy impofitions upon the indigo, coffee, fugar, and melaffes of the foreign lands imported into North America, while the fame commodities raifed in our own, were lightly charged at the moft, and fome of them entirely free. It is all of general commercial utility that the fees of Cuftom-houfe officers fhould be fixed; and that correfpondence by letters fhould be frequent, fafe, and eafy and for both thefe, to far as the colonies were concerned in them, particular provifions were made by the acts fo often referred to.

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Whatever may be the effects of the attention thus fhewn to the colonies, the benefit will be partially felt here, but principally there: to them the whole is gain; we, on the contrary, in many refpe&ts, fuftain a lofs; and if the interefts of the mother-country could be diftinguished from thofe of the colonies, it would be difficult to juftify the expence fhe has thereby incurred; for out of her revenues, the bounties upon hemp, flax, and timber must be paid; and on fo much of the British confumption as fhall, in confequence of this encouragement, be fupplied from America, there will be a further lofs of the duties upon foreign hemp, flax, and, timber now imported here: the duty too upon whale-fins must be taken into the account, which is ano her deduction, avowedly made with a view to give their fishery a preference even to our own; and it is obvious, that the amount of the whole, though it cannot be estimated, must be very confiderable.

Were there no other ground to require a revenue from the colonies, than as a return for thefe obligations, it would alone be a fufficient foundation: add to thefe the advantages obtained for them by the peace; add the debt incurred by a war undertaken for their defence only; the diftrefs thereby brought upon the finances, upon the credit, both public and private, upon the trade, and upon the people of this country; and it mult be acknowledged that no time was ever fo feafonable for claiming their affittance. The diftribution is too unequal, of benefits only to the colonies, and of all the burthens upon the mother-country; and yet no more was defired, than that they fhould contribute to the prefervation of the advantages they have received, and take upon themfelves a fmall fhare of the eftablishment neceffary for their own protcction: upon these principles feveral new taxes were laid upon the colonies: many of them were indeed, as I have already fhewn, rather regulations of trade, than funds of revenue: but fome were intended to answer both purposes: in others, the produce was the principal object; and yet, even the most productive of all, were of that kind which is perhaps more tender of trade than any other: the fame fum could not have been raised with fo little oppreffion by impoft as by ftamp. duties, for they do not affect fome articles of commerce, more than others; they do not even fall upon men of any particular denomination: they are heavy upon none, because they are paid only occafionally; and they are collected with more ease to the subject than any; but a diftinction between internal and external taxes was fet up in America, and occafion was from thence taken to raise disturbances there, the particulars and the confequences of which are of fuch public notoriety, that it is needless to mention them: the events too were fubfequent to the period I am now confidering; and many of the queftions which they gave rife to, being either legal or political, it

does not belong to a work of this kind to difcufs them. But fuch confiderations of finance and of commerce, as were or ought to have been attended to before any impofitions were laid in America, are immediately within my fubject: I thall not however dwell upon thofe which related to the stamp act alone, the repeal of that act having put an end to them; but whether or how far the colonies ought to be taxed for the purposes of revenue, is ftill as it was then, a very weighty confideration, and it will be therefore neceffary to take fome notice of the arguments on either fide of fo important a question.

The inability of the colonies, and particularly of thofe upon the continent, has been pleaded in a variety of fhapes; though the Inhabitants of North America are reckoned by fome to be near 2,000,000 of people, and allowed by all to be 1,500,000 at the leaft. Taking then the lowest computation, and fuppofing that 100,000l. had been levied upon them, fuch a fum on fuch a number could not be an infupportable burthen; a capitation tax of one fhilling and four pence per head would raise as much; lefs than a day's labour would provide every man with his quota; and the diftribution must be perverfly partial, to make that oppreffive, which if equally divided would have been fo inconfiderable with refpect to the islands they could well have boine their share, for the Weft-Indians exceed the North-Americans in wealth, as much as they fall fhort of thein in numbers. . But the colonies, it is faid, were not before free from taxes, as they always provided for their own domeftic eftablishments; and does not Great Britain main tain her domeftic eftablishments alfo? Nor can fuch charges in a remote province ever bear any proportion to thofe of the mother country, which is the fear of a mighty empire, and fupports the state of monarchy, the fplendor of a court, the luftre of nobility, the dignity of magiftrates, and the importance of office, amidit the profufion of a capital. The eftablishments of all the colonies at prefent, do not together amount to 160,000l. per ann. adding therefore to these new duties, ftill the fum to be raised annually in the plantations would have been little more than 300,000l. while the revenue of this country exceeds 10,000,000l. per ann.

The intereft of the debt incurred du

ring the laft war by the North American colonies, is not included in an account of their permanent income, because the debt is fmall, and will be of very short duration. At the end of the war it was between 2,500,000 and 2,600,000l. It is already reduced to about 767,000l. and the greater part of this remainder will be paid off in two or three years, by funds provided for that purpose: but our appropriated funds are rivetted down on our posterity: favings of intereft give no relaxation of taxes: they are till wanted to discharge the principal; and we do not fee the profpect, even in a diftant and uncertain futurity, of a reduction at all proportionable to that which has been already made in the colonies: fo different are the circumstances of their debt and ours: and as to the amount of each, the comparison would be ridiculous between the national debt, and 767,000l. daily dwindling into nothing or if the confideration be limited to the expences only of the laft war, and their and our debt thus contracted in a common caufe put together, the general burthen, even in this confined view of it, appears to be unequally divided.

But it was never intended to impofe on them any fhare of the national debt : they were never called upon to defray any part of our domeftic civil expences: the legislature only required of them to contribute to the fupport of those establishments, which are equally interefting to all the fubjects of Great Britain. The charge of the navy, army, and ordnance, of Africa, and of America, is about 3,000,000l. per. ann. These furely are general; they are as important to the colonies as to the mother country; as neceffary to their protection, as conducive to their welfare, as to our own: if all share the benefit, they fhould alfo fhare the burthen; the whole ought not to be borne by a part; the Americans are in number a fifth of the British subjects;` yet the aid required of them was in the proportion only of about one in twenty; and to make it fill more eafy, the expenditure was reftrained to that country.

In anfwer to this it has been alledged, that the Americans, befides paying a duty on the foreign commodities with which they are fupplied from hence, contribute largely to the national revenue by their confumption of British manufactures, the price of which is enhanced

to them by the taxes here: it is true; but if fuch reafoning he purfued, it will be found equally true that they contribute allo to the revenues of France, to those of China, and in short of every country with which we have any commercial communication. Thofe countries likewife may be faid to bear a part of our charges, for they buy our commodities; and it muft at the leaft be acknowledged, that Great Britain makes an ample return to the coJonies in the confumption of their produce, with the advanced price upon it, which their provincial im politions occafion. Could the facts be afcertained, perhaps it would appear that we pay in this manner, if not an equal fum, yet as large a proportion of their taxes, as they pay of ours; for their contribution arifes chiefly from the British manufactures, and but little from the foreign commodities, which are, however, a third part of their fupply: while our contribution is on the American produce, which is the greater part of their return: but the difcuffion is intricate, unfatisfactory, and endless, and without entering further into it, thus much is evident already, that the benefits which the revenue of either country receives from the confumption of the other, are mutual; that the ballance between them is unknown; and that therefore neither fide can avail itself of any important conclufion to be drawn from premises fo very

uncertain.

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NOTE.

amount in value to one half of the American confumption; and the utmost force therefore of the argument is, that we lofe a vent for 80,000l. worth of manufactures, by getting an acceffion of 160,000l. to the revenue. Even this is not true if the revenue be fo much wanted, that unless it is raifed in America, Great Britain muft furnish it; for no large funds can be created here, which will not affect our manufactures; the home confumption, the foreign demand, even the American fupply will be thereby leffened; and the diminution being general, it may amount in the whole to a greater lofs than can be apprehended from an American taxation; all fuch argu. ments prove too much; they are as ftrong against feveral duties here; against any additional duties, against duties already fubfifting; for the propofition is generally true, that taxes are detrimental to trade and manufactures; but thofe which are least so, are the beft; and burthened as this country is, I believe none can be devifed lefs prejudicial to either, than taxes upon the colonies, when proportioned not to their numbers but to their abilities, and adapted to their circumftances, upon principles of justice and equality.

The argument is nearly the fame, it is only weaker, when instead of the confumption of the colonies, the consequence of that confumption, their debt to this country, is pleaded, and the new duties are reprefented as depriving them of the means of difcharging it: this complaint would be juft, if a revenue had been exacted from them, without furnishing them with refources for raising it; but the peace and the measures taken fince for improving the advantages of it, have done much more: for it would be rating the ceffions made by France very low indeed, if the fecurity which is the confe quence of them; if the vast acceffion of territory; if the intercourfe opened with the Indians, their great demand for cloathing, arms, spirits, and other com. modities, and the monopoly of their re

NOTE.

now; but all conjectures about the alteration must be very uncertain; and the fame reafoning is applicable to any other which may be thought the prefent

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