Vate this evil, was its being, in a great measure, without prevention or redrefs; or at least that Speedy prevention and redrefs, which fo great an evil required. Thofe who did the mischief, lived on an element, where civil justice is well known to have but little influence: or, if they fometimes 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, whofe 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 tranf greffors, it may fairly be accounted one of the greateft bleffings Great Britain has had for a long time past to boast of, that the trade of her colonies, as far as it depended upon these new-fangled cuftomhoufe 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 efpecially the former, and likewife of the mother-country; the chief materials of it being, on the fide of the British colonies, British manufactures or fuch of their own produce, as enabled them to purchafe 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 thefe laft articles were carried, from their great ufefulness justly deferved to be ranked in the fame predicament with the most precious metals.

This trade did not clash with the fpirit 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 most powerful motives of intereft to make them do. Accordingly, they feized, indifcriminately, all the fhips upon that trade, both of fubjects and foreigners, which the customhoufe officers ftationed a-fhore, through fear of the inhabitants, a jufter way of thinking, or an happy ignorance, had always permitted to pafs unnoticed. bably, 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.

Pro

And, how weak foever this excufe may appear, it is the best 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 all naval officers, though not fworn and particularly directed to act, profejedly, as tide furveyors and tide waiters, may, notwithstanding, do both occafionally, in virtue of their rules [C] 2

of

of war; and it is hardly probable, that, having once tafted the fweets 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 interefts to the bar -ren 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 jealousy 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 defign 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 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 understand 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 these 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 fubfifted 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 confifted chiefly in fuch goods, as muft otherwife have remained a drug, if not an incumbrance, upon the hands of the poffeffors; fo that it united, in the strictest fenfe, all those benefits, which liberal minds include in the idea of a well-regulated commerce, as tending, in the highest degree, to the mutual welfare of thofe who carry it on.

In thefe benefits the respective mother countries had, no doubt, a very large fhare, though it may be impoffible to determine, which, upon the whole, had most. We had enough to engage thofe in power to wink at, 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 fpite of all the clamours, which thofe concerned in our Weft India trade and poffeffions could raise against it, as enabling the French to underfell them, in West India produce, at foreign markets. Probably, this clamour was found to arise in a great measure from another confideration, which it was not so proper in these 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 vast 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 oppreffion to permit the raifing any higher. Be that as it will, this trade was permitted

to

to be carried on for a long time into the laft war between Great Britain and France; directly, by means of flags of truce; and in a roundabout way, through the Dutch and Danish islands; and at length, through the Spanish port of Monti Chrifti in the island of Hifpaniola: till, at last, the vait 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 iflands, 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 treasonable practice, fupplying the enemy with neceffaries, without which it would have been impoffible for thefe valuable islands to hold out fo long against our attempts to reduce them. Accordingly, as foon as the conclufion of the last 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 history we have already related.

This trade, not only prevented our North American colonies from being drained of their current cash

by the calls of the mother country upon them, but added greatly to it, fo as to make it in fome meafure to keep pace with their domeftic trade, which could not but increase greatly from day to day, in proportion to the remarkable increase of mankind in that part of the world, where the cheapness 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 furprifing, 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 manu facturing. 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 neceflity dictated, by renouncing finery, to the no fmall difappoint-, ment 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.

HOUGH, therefore, that

which we have been fpeaking in the last chapter, instead of barely intercepting the fupply of the neceffaries and conveniencies of life, which our North American colonies before used to receive in return for their fuperfluities and incumbrances, tended visibly, by obAtructing their internal commerce, to deprive them in a great measure even of those bleffings, the fources of which lay within themfelves; yet was a law made in the begin

5th Apr. ning of the last year,

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 fo far above its ftrength to bear, as to render it contraband to all intents and purpofes. Befides, it ordered the money arifing 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 best way to cure an emaciated body, whofe juices happened to be tainted, was

to leave it no juices at all, within

paffed to hinder these wretched colonies from fupplying the demand of money for their internal wants, by preventing fuch 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 be 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, several new laws were made to encourage and increafe as well as regulate the commercial intercourfe of our North American colonies with the mother-country; fuch as a bill for granting leave, for a limited time, for carrying rice from the provinces of South Carolina and Georgia to other parts of America on paying British duties; a bill for granting a bounty upon the importation of hemp, and rough

and