colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and colour; besides at least 500,000 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and 5 opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of so much weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high or too low, is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which 10 population shoots in that part of the world, that state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the 15 exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we 15 shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood, than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.1 I put this consideration of the present and the growing 20 numbers in the front of our deliberation; because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object. It will show you, that it is not to be considered as one of those 25 minima which are out of the eye and consideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean dependent, who may be neglected with little damage, and provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; 30 it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do so without guilt; and be assured you will not be able to do it long with impunity. But the population of this country, the great and growing 5 population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has been trod some days ago, and with great 10 ability, by a distinguished person,1 at your bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years it is so long since he first appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain has come again before you to plead the 7 same cause, without any other effect of time, than, that to 15 the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened and discriminating experience. 20 Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a person with any detail, if a great part of 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 /8 matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. 25 There is, if I mistake not, a point of view, from whence if you will look at this subject, it is impossible that it should not make an impression upon you. I have in my hand two accounts; one a comparative state of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in 30 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 20 alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade 21 The export trade to the colonies consists of three great branches. The African, which, terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their com- 10 merce;1 the West Indian; 2 and the North American. All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them, would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denomi- 15 nations to be, what in effect they are, one trade. The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus: Exports to North America, and the West Indies £483,265 20 86,665 £569,930 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: 25 To which if you add the export trade from Scotland, From five hundred and odd thousand, it has grown to six millions. It has increased no less than twelve-fold. This is the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at these two periods, within this century;—and this is matter 5 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 in 1704. 10 The whole export trade of England, including that to Export to the colonies alone, in 1772 Difference £6,509,000 6,024,000 £485,000 23 The trade with America alone is now within less than £500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial 15 nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole 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 20 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 difference, that of the six millions which 25 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 whole. This is the relative proportion of the importance of the colonies at these two periods: 30 and all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them 24 must have this proportion as its basis, or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical.' 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. 5 Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. Let 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 man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose mem- 10 ory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord 35 Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend |