advance them by intercourse among themselves rather than by single or detached communication with the parent state. China, from her excessive population, requires a prodigious supply of articles of sustenance. New Holland possesses inexhaustible means of supplying it. Might we not here have objects for a mission to his celestial majesty, on the subject of commercial intercourse, conveying very different impressions from that produced by the flimsy and ostentatious specimens of British industry sent out with the last embassy. Judging of the indefatigable industry of the Chinese, we might at some future period look forward to mutually beneficial intercourse between these great Asiatic countries, from the united effect of which Great Britain will step in for her share of profit in the sale of her manufactures.

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The African settlements: the heart sickens at the waste of life devoted to this pestilential climate. If we seek to extend commerce and civilization by the medium of the British possessions, we can only do so by parcelling out the land among the chiefs; perpetuating its possession in their families; and by giving them a legal right over their peasantry to force them to cultivate it.

The remaining settlements of Great Britain may rather be looked upon as political stations than as possessions retained for purposes of commerce, and therefore come not within the province of our inquiry.y sift of tos dalinos oue 13

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CHAPTER III.

EXAMINATION OF THE RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED ON THE TRADE OF THE EAST AND WEST INDIA BRITISH POSSESSIONS.

SECT. I.-On West India Trade.

HOWEVER writers may disagree respecting our RECIPROCITY System with foreign nations, few will question its applicability between interests engaged in the different branches of production within our own empire.

The colonial system is characterized by two pre-. dominant features. 1st, It imposes regulations upon the colonists for the benefit of the subjects resident in the parent state. 2nd, It extends protection to the colonist in order to increase that benefit, and make it more durable and certain.

It is proper, therefore, before we go further, to investigate the first branch in detail, and to examine the restrictions which, from time to time, have been imposed upon West India trade.

The plantation trade seems to have been the leading object of the celebrated Navigation Act, 12 Car. II.

In the first section of that statute it was enacted, that no goods or commodities should be imported into or exported out of any lands, islands, planta

Examination of Restrictions on the Trade, &c. 91

tions, or territories to his majesty belonging, or in his possession, or which may hereafter belong unto, or be in the possession of, his majesty, his heirs, and successors, in Asia, Africa, or America, in any other ship or vessel but in such ships or vessels as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of Great Britain, or are of the build of and belonging to any of the said lands, islands, plantations, or territories, as proprietors and right owners thereof, and whereof the master and threefourths of the mariners at least are English, under pain of forfeiting the goods, and also the ship or vessel.

The law having thus secured the plantation trade to British shipping, the next object was to oblige the principal plantation commodities, to be carried only to the mother country, with the view that the profit of importing them, and again exporting them to other ports of Europe, should centre in the mother country. By the 18th sect. it is provided, that none of the enumerated articles, that is to say, nơ sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, or other dyeing wood, of the growth, production, or manufacture of any English plantations in Ame rica, Asia, or Africa, shall be shipped, carried, conveyed, or transported from any of the said plantations to any land, island, territory, dominion, port, or place whatsoever, other than to such other English plantations as belong to his majesty, or to the kingdom of England or Ireland, or principality

of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, there to be laid on shore, under pain of forfeiting the goods or the value thereof, and also the ship with all her guns, tackle, apparel, ammunition, and furniture, one moiety to the king, the other to the person seizing and suing for the same.

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By this act we perceive two leading principles of the colonial restrictive system established. The colonists were obliged to ship their produce in British ships, and they were not permitted to seek the most convenient market for their produce, but were constrained to send it to England.

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But the national advantages found to accrue from the colonial trade, led very shortly after to the imposition of further restrictions. The statute, 15 Car. II., c. 7, entitled "An Act for the Encouragement of Trade," confines the supplying the plantations with European goods wholly to the mother country. The preamble to this act is as follows: "And in regard his majesty's plantations beyond the seas are inhabited and peopled by his subjects of this his kingdom of England, for the "maintaining a greater correspondence and kind"ness between them, and keeping them in a firmer

dependence upon it, and rendering them yet more "beneficial and advantageous unto it in the further

employment and increase of English shipping and " seamen, vent of English woollen and other manufactures and commodities, rendering the navigation to and from the same more safe and cheap, and De rotsabong to diorg odd to alegriais do

"making this kingdom a staple, not only of the com"modities of those plantations, but also of the com❝modities of other countries and places, for the sup

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plying of them; and it being the usage of other "nations to keep their plantation trade to them"selves," &c.met

The comprehensive language of this excellent preamble to the important statute which it introduces, merits the most attentive consideration of all statesmen who are so fond of imputing narrow views to their ancestors, je

The 6th section of this act ordains, that no commodity of the growth, production, or manufacture of EUROPE should be imported into any land, island, or plantation, colony, territory, or place to his majesty belonging, or in his possession, in Asia, Africa, or America, but what shall be, bona fide, and without fraud, laden and shipped in England, Wales, or the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in English built shipping, whereof the master and three-fourths of the mariners at least are English; and which shall be carried directly to the said lands, islands, plantations, colonies, territories, or places, and from no other place whatever, under pain of forfeiting such commodities as shall be imported from any other place whatever, and of the ship importing them, one-third to the king, another to the governor where seized, and another to the informer.

Sect. 7. permits wines from Madeira and the Azores, and from Scotland or Ireland, horses, and dor all sorts of victuals of the growth or production of