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

of an exclusive

company. The progress of some of them, therefore, though it has

been considerable in comparison with that of almost any country

that has been long peopled and established, has been languid and

slow in comparison with that of the greater part of new colonies.

The colony of Surinam, though very considerable, is still

inferior to the greater part of the sugar colonies of the other

European nations. The colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into the

two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would probably have

soon become considerable too, even though it had remained under

the government of the Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good

land are such powerful causes of prosperity, that the very worst

government is scarce capable of checking altogether the efficacy

of their operation. The great distance, too, from the mother

country, would enable the colonists to evade more or less, by

smuggling, the monopoly which the company enjoyed against them.

At present, the company allows all Dutch ships to trade to

Surinam, upon paying two and a-half per cent. upon the value of

their cargo for a license; and only reserves to itself

exclusively, the direct trade from Africa to America, which

consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This relaxation in

the exclusive privileges of the company, is probably the

principal cause of that degree of prosperity which that colony at

present enjoys. Curacoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands

belonging to the Dutch, are free ports, open to the ships of all

nations; and this freedom, in the midst of better colonies, whose

ports are open to those of one nation only, has been the great

cause of the prosperity of those two barren islands.

 

The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the

last century, and some part of the present, under the government

of an exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration,

its progress was necessarily very slow, in comparison with that

of other new colonies; but it became much more rapid when this

company was dissolved, after the fall of what is called the

Mississippi scheme. When the English got possession of this

country, they found in it near double the number of inhabitants

which father Charlevoix had assigned to it between twenty and

thirty years before. That jesuit had travelled over the whole

country, and had no inclination to represent it as less

inconsiderable than it really was.

 

The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and

freebooters, who, for a long time, neither required the

protection, nor acknowledged the authority of France; and when

that race of banditti became so far citizens as to acknowledge

this authority, it was for a long time necessary to exercise it

with very great gentleness. During this period, the population

and improvement of this colony increased very fast. Even the

oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was for some

time subjected with all the other colonies of France, though it

no doubt retarded, had not been able to stop its progress

altogether. The course of its prosperity returned as soon as it

was relieved from that oppression. It is now the most important

of the sugar colonies of the West Indies, and its produce is said

to be greater than that of all the English sugar colonies put

together. The other sugar colonies of France are in general all

very thriving.

 

But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more

rapid than that of the English in North America.

 

Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs

their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity

of all new colonies.

 

In the plenty of good land, the English colonies of North

America, though no doubt very abundantly provided, are, however,

inferior to those of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and not

superior to some of those possessed by the French before the late

war. But the political institutions of the English colonies have

been more favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this

land, than those of the other three nations.

 

First, The engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by

no means been prevented altogether, has been more restrained in

the English colonies than in any other. The colony law, which

imposes upon every proprietor the obligation of improving and

cultivating, within a limited time, a certain proportion of his

lands, and which, in case of failure, declares those neglected

lands grantable to any other person; though it has not perhaps

been very strictly executed, has, however, had some effect.

 

Secondly, In Pennsylvania there is no right of primogeniture,

and lands, like moveables, are divided equally among all the

children of the family. In three of the provinces of New England,

the oldest has only a double share, as in the Mosaical law.

Though in those provinces, therefore, too great a quantity of

land should sometimes be engrossed by a particular individual, it

is likely, in the course of a generation or two, to be

sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies,

indeed, the right of primogeniture takes place, as in the law of

England: But in all the English colonies, the tenure of the

lands, which are all held by free soccage, facilitates alienation

; and the grantee of an extensive tract of land generally finds

it for his interest to alienate, as fast as he can, the greater

part of it, reserving only a small quit-rent. In the Spanish and

Portuguese colonies, what is called the right of majorazzo takes

place in the succession of all those great estates to which any

title of honour is annexed. Such estates go all to one person,

and are in effect entailed and unalienable. The French colonies,

indeed, are subject to the custom of Paris, which, in the

inheritance of land, is much more favourable to the younger

children than the law of England. But, in the French colonies, if

any part of an estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and

homage, is alienated, it is, for a limited time, subject to the

right of redemption, either by the heir of the superior, or by

the heir of the family; and all the largest estates of the

country are held by such noble tenures, which necessarily

embarrass alienation. But, in a new colony, a great uncultivated

estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by alienation

than by succession. The plenty and cheapness of good land, it has

already been observed, are the principal causes of the rapid

prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing of land, in effect,

destroys this plenty and cheapness. The engrossing of

uncultivated land, besides, is the greatest obstruction to its

improvement ; but the labour that is employed in the improvement

and cultivation of land affords the greatest and most valuable

produce to the society. The produce of labour, in this case, pays

not only its own wages and the profit of the stock which employs

it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The

labour of the English colonies, therefore, being more employed in

the improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a

greater and more valuable produce than that of any of the other

three nations, which, by the engrossing of land, is more or less

diverted towards other employments.

 

Thirdly, The labour of the English colonists is not only

likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce, but, in

consequence of the moderation of their taxes, a greater

proportion of this produce belongs to themselves, which they may

store up and employ in putting into motion a still greater

quantity of labour. The Eng1ish colonists have never yet

contributed any thing towards the defence of the mother country,

or towards the support of its civil government. They themselves,

on the contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at

the expense of the mother country ; but the expense of fleets and

armies is out of all proportion greater than the necessary

expense of civil government. The expense of their own civil

government has always been very moderate. It has generally been

confined to what was necessary for paying competent salaries to

the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of

police, and for maintaining a few of the most useful public

works. The expense of the civil establishment of Massachusetts

Bay, before the commencement of the present disturbances, used to

be but about �18;000 a-year ; that of New Hampshire and Rhode

Island, �3500 each; that of Connecticut, �4000; that of New York

and Pennsylvania, �4500 each; that of New Jersey, �1200; that of

Virginia and South Carolina, �8000 each. The civil establishments

of Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported by an annual

grant of parliament; but Nova Scotia pays, besides, about �7000

a-year towards the public expenses of the colony, and Georgia

about �2500 a-year. All the different civil establishments in

North America, in short, exclusive of those of Maryland and North

Carolina, of which no exact account has been got, did not, before

the commencement of the present disturbances, cost the

inhabitants about �64,700 a-year; an ever memorable example, at

how small an expense three millions of people may not only be

governed but well governed. The most important part of the

expense of government, indeed, that of defence and protection,

has constantly fallen upon the mother country. The ceremonial,

too, of the civil government in the colonies, upon the reception

of a new governor, upon the opening of a new assembly, etc.

though sufficiently decent, is not accompanied with any expensive

pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical government is conducted upon

a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown among them; and their

clergy, who are far from being numerous, are maintained either by

moderate stipends, or by the voluntary contributions of the

people. The power of Spain and Portugal, on the contrary, derives

some support from the taxes levied upon their colonies. France,

indeed, has never drawn any considerable revenue from its

colonies, the taxes which it levies upon them being generally

spent among them. But the colony government of all these three

nations is conducted upon a much more extensive plan, and is

accompanied with a much more expensive ceremonial. The sums spent

upon the reception of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have

frequently been enormous. Such ceremonials are not only real

taxes paid by the rich colonists upon those particular occasions,

but they serve to introduce among them the habit of vanity and

expense upon all other occasions. They are not only very grievous

occasional taxes, but they contribute to establish perpetual

taxes, of the same kind, still more grievous ; the ruinous taxes

of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all those

three nations, too, the ecclesiastical government is extremely

oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with

the utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them,

besides, are oppressed with a numerous race of mendicant friars,

whose beggary being not only licensed but consecrated by

religion, is a most grievous tax upon the poor people, who are

most carefully taught that it is a duty to give, and a very great

sin to refuse them their charity. Over and above all this, the

clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

 

Fourthly, In the disposal of their surplus produce, or of

what is over and above their own consumption, the English

colonies have been more favoured, and have been allowed a more

extensive market, than those of any other European nation. Every

European nation has endeavoured, more or less, to monopolize to

itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account, has

prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and

has prohibited them