the members who now fill the House had not the misfortune to be absent when he appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to take the matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. 5 There is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if you will look at the subject, it is impossible that it should not make an impression upon you.

I have in my hand two accounts: one a com10 parative state of the export trade of England to its colonies as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole 15 trade of England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who first estab20 lished the inspector-general's office, which has been ever since his time so abundant a source of parliamentary information.

The export trade to the colonies consists of three great branches: the African, which, ter

minating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the West Indian; and the North American. All these are

so interwoven that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; 5 and if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade.

The trade to the colonies, taken on the export 10 side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:

Exports to N. America and the W. Indies £483,265
To Africa.

86,665

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows:

To N. America and the W. Indies. £4,791,734

From five hundred and odd thousand it has grown to six millions. It has increased no less than twelvefold. This is the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at these two periods 5 within this century; and this is matter for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second account. See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to the whole trade of England 10 in 1704:

The trade with America alone is now within less than £500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole 20 world! If I had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse.

It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever extended, but with this material differ- 5 ence, that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a third of the 10 whole. This is the relative proportion of the importance of the colonies at these two periods: and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must have this proportion as its basis; or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.

15

Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. Let 20 us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of mạn. It has happened within sixty

eight years.

There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at 5 least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et quæ sit poterit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most 10 amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that when in the fourth generation the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy issue 15 of moderate and healing counsels) was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the 20 family with a new one;-if amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity that angel should have drawn up the curtain and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then commer