An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

of the greatest natural fertility, are to be had for a

trifle. The increase of revenue which the proprietor, who is

always the undertaker, expects from their improvement,

constitutes his profit, which, in these circumstances, is

commonly very great; but this great profit cannot be made,

without employing the labour of other people in clearing and

cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the great

extent of the land and the small number of the people, which

commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him

to get this labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages,

but is willing to employ labour at any price. The high wages of

labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty of good

land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay

those high wages. In those wages consists almost the whole price

of the land ; and though they are high, considered as the wages

of labour, they are low, considered as the price of what is so

very valuable. What encourages the progress of population and

improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness.

 

The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth

and greatness seems accordingly to have been very rapid. In the

course of a century or two, several of them appear to have

rivalled, and even to have surpassed, their mother cities.

Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy,

Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear, by all accounts, to

have been at least equal to any of the cities of ancient Greece.

Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the arts of

refinement, philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, seem to have been

cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them

as in any part of the mother country The schools of the two

oldest Greek philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras, were

established, it is remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one

in an Asiatic, the other in an Italian colony. All those colonies

had established themselves in countries inhabited by savage and

barbarous nations, who easily gave place to the new settlers.

They had plenty of good land; and as they were altogether

independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to manage

their own affairs in the way that they judged was most suitable

to their own interest.

 

The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant.

Some of them, indeed, such as Florence, have, in the course of

many ages, and after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be

considerable states. But the progress of no one of them seems

ever to have been very rapid. They were all established in

conquered provinces, which in most cases had been fully inhabited

before. The quantity of land assigned to each colonist was seldom

very considerable, and, as the colony was not independent, they

were not always at liberty to manage their own affairs in the way

that they judged was most suitable to their own interest.

 

In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in

America and the West Indies resemble, and even greatly surpass,

those of ancient Greece. In their dependency upon the mother

state, they resemble those of ancient Rome; but their great

distance from Europe has in all of them alleviated more or less

the effects of this dependency. Their situation has placed them

less in the view, and less in the power of their mother country.

In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has upon

many occasions been overlooked, either because not known or not

understood in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly

suffered and submitted to, because their distance rendered it

difficult to restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary

government of Spain has, upon many occasions, been obliged to

recall or soften the orders which had been given for the

government of her colonies, for fear of a general insurrection.

The progress of all the European colonies in wealth, population,

and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

 

The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived

some revenue from its colonies from the moment of their first

establishment. It was a revenue, too, of a nature to excite in

human avidity the most extravagant expectation of still greater

riches. The Spanish colonies, therefore, from the moment of their

first establishment, attracted very much the attention of their

mother country; while those of the other European nations were

for a long time in a great measure neglected. The former did not,

perhaps, thrive the better in consequence of this attention, nor

the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect. In

proportion to the extent of the country which they in some

measure possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less

populous and thriving than those of almost any other European

nation. The progress even of the Spanish colonies, however, in

population and improvement, has certainly been very rapid and

very great. The city of Lima, founded since the conquest, is

represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants

near thirty years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable

hamlet of Indians, is represented by the same author as in his

time equally populous. Gemel i Carreri, a pretended traveller, it

is said, indeed, but who seems everywhere to have written upon

extreme good information, represents the city of Mexico as

containing a hundred thousand inhabitants ; a number which, in

spite of all the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is

probably more than five times greater than what it contained in

the time of Montezuma. These numbers exceed greatly those of

Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities of

the English colonies. Before the conquest of the Spaniards, there

were no cattle fit for draught, either in Mexico or Peru. The

lama was their only beast of burden, and its strength seems to

have been a good deal inferior to that of a common ass. The

plough was unknown among them. They were ignorant of the use of

iron. They had no coined money, nor any established instrument of

commerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on by barter. A

sort of wooden spade was their principal instrument of

agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and hatchets to

cut with; fish bones, and the hard sinews of certain animals,

served them with needles to sew with; and these seem to have been

their principal instruments of trade. In this state of things, it

seems impossible that either of those empires could have been so

much improved or so well cultivated as at present, when they are

plentifully furnished with all sorts of European cattle, and when

the use of iron, of the plough, and of many of the arts of

Europe, have been introduced among them. But the populousness of

every country must be in proportion to the degree of its

improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of

the natives which followed the conquest, these two great empires

are probably more populous now than they ever were before; and

the people are surely very different; for we must acknowledge, I

apprehend, that the Spanish creoles are in many respects superior

to the ancient Indians.

 

After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portuguese

in Brazil is the oldest of any European nation in America. But as

for a long time after the first discovery neither gold nor silver

mines were found in it, and as it afforded upon that account

little or no revenue to the crown, it was for a long time in a

great measure neglected ; and during this state of neglect, it

grew up to be a great and powerful colony. While Portugal was

under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by the Dutch,

who got possession of seven of the fourteen provinces into which

it is divided. They expected soon to conquer the other seven,

when Portugal recovered its independency by the elevation of the

family of Braganza to the throne. The Dutch, then, as enemies to

the Spaniards, became friends to the Portuguese, who were

likewise the enemies of the Spaniards. They agreed, therefore, to

leave that part of Brazil which they had not conquered to the

king of Portugal, who agreed to leave that part which they had

conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about, with

such good allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress

the Portuguese colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with

complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own

valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without

any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of

Brazil. The Dutch, therefore, finding it impossible to keep any

part of the country to themselves, were contented that it should

be entirely restored to the crown of Portugal. In this colony

there are said to be more than six hundred thousand people,

either Portuguese or descended from Portuguese, creoles,

mulattoes, and a mixed race between Portuguese and Brazilians. No

one colony in America is supposed to contain so great a number of

people of European extraction.

 

Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of

the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were the two great

naval powers upon the ocean ; for though the commerce of Venice

extended to every part of Europe, its fleet had scarce ever

sailed beyond the Mediterranean. The Spaniards, in virtue of the

first discovery, claimed all America as their own; and though

they could not hinder so great a naval power as that of Portugal

from settling in Brazil, such was at that time the terror of

their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe

were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that

great continent. The French, who attempted to settle in Florida,

were all murdered by the Spaniards. But the declension of the

naval power of this latter nation, in consequence of the defeat

or miscarriage of what they called their invincible armada, which

happened towards the end of the sixteenth century, put it out of

their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other

European nations. In the course of the seventeenth century,

therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, all the

great nations who had any ports upon the ocean, attempted to make

some settlements in the new world.

 

The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number

of Swedish families still to be found there sufficiently

demonstrates, that this colony was very likely to prosper, had it

been protected by the mother country. But being neglected by

Sweden, it was soon swallowed up by the Dutch colony of New York,

which again, in 1674, fell under the dominion of the English.

 

The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, are the only

countries in the new world that have ever been possessed by the

Danes. These little settlements, too, were under the government

of an exclusive company, which had the sole right, both of

purchasing the surplus produce of the colonies, and of supplying

them with such goods of other countries as they wanted, and

which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not only

the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do

so. The government of an exclusive company of merchants is,

perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.

It was not, however, able to stop altogether the progress of

these colonies, though it rendered it more slow and languid. The

late king of Denmark dissolved this company, and since that time

the prosperity of these colonies has been very great.

 

The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East

Indies, were originally put under the government