countenanced by government, to draw from us, and establish in those countries, our hardware and woollen manufactures; but without success.

The reasons are various. A manufacture is part of a great system of commerce, which takes in conveniences of various kinds; methods of providing materials of all sorts, machines for expediting and facilitating labor, all the channels of correspondence for vending the wares, the credit and confidence necessary to found and support this correspondence, the mutual aid of different artisans, and a thousand other particulars, which time and long experience have gradually established. A part of such a system cannot support itself without the whole; and before the whole can be obtained the part perishes. Manufactures, where they are in perfection, are carried on by a multiplicity of hands, each of which is expert only in his own part; no one of them a master of the whole; and, if by any means spirited away to a foreign country, he is lost without his fellows. Then it is a matter of the extremest difficulty to persuade a complete set of workmen, skilled in all parts of a manufactory, to leave their country together, and settle in a foreign land. Some of the idle and drunken may be enticed away; but these only disappoint their employers, and serve to discourage the undertaking. If by royal munificence, and an expense that the profits of the trade alone would not bear, a complete set of good and skilful hands are collected and carried over, they find so much of the system imperfect, so many things wanting to carry on the trade to advantage, so many difficulties to overcome, and the knot of hands so easily broken by death, dissatisfaction, and desertion, that they and their employers are discouraged together, and the project vanishes into smoke.

Hence it happens, that established manufactures are

hardly ever lost, but by foreign conquest, or by some eminent interior fault in manners or government; a bad police oppressing and discouraging the workmen, or religious persecutions driving the sober and industrious out of the country. There is, in short, scarce a single instance in history of the contrary, where manufactures have once taken firm root. They sometimes start up in a new place; but are generally supported, like exotic plants, at more expense than they are worth for any thing but curiosity; until these new seats become the refuge of the manufacturers driven from the old ones.

The conquest of Constantinople, and final reduction of the Greek empire, dispersed many curious manufacturers into different parts of Christendom. The former conquests of its provinces, had before done the same. The loss of liberty in Verona, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, and other great cities of Italy, drove the manufacturers of woollen cloths into Spain and Flanders. The latter first lost their trade and manufactures to Antwerp and the cities of Brabant; from whence, by persecution for religion, they were sent into Holland and England; while the civil wars, during the minority of Charles the First of Spain, which ended in the loss of the liberty of their great towns, ended too in the loss of the manufactures of Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca, Medina del Campo, &c. The revocation of the Edict of Nantz communicated to all the Protestant part of Europe, the paper, silk, and other valuable manufactures of France; almost peculiar at that time to that country, and till then in vain attempted elsewhere.

To be convinced, that it is not soil and climate, nor even freedom from taxes, that determines the residence. of manufacturers, we need only turn our eyes on Holland; where a multitude of manufactures are still carried on, perhaps more than on the same extent of

territory anywhere in Europe, and sold on terms upon which they cannot be had in any other part of the world. And this too is true of those growths, which, by their nature and the labor required to raise them, come the nearest to manufactures.

As to the commonplace objection to the North American settlements, that they are in the same climate, and their produce the same, as that of England; in the first place, it is not true; it is particularly not so of the countries now likely to be added to our settlements; and of our present colonies, the products, lumber, tobacco, rice, and indigo, great articles of commerce, do not interfere with the products of England; in the next place, a man must know very little of the trade of the world, who does not know, that the greater part of it is carried on between countries whose climates differ very little. Even the trade between the different parts of these British Islands is greatly superior to that between England and all the West India Islands put together.

If I have been successful in proving, that a considerable commerce may and will subsist between us and our future most inland settlements in North America, notwithstanding their distance, I have more than half proved, that no other inconveniency will arise from their distance. Many men in such a country must "know," must "think," and must "care" about the country they chiefly trade with. The juridical and other connexions of government are yet a faster hold than even commercial ties, and spread, directly and indirectly, far and wide. Business to be solicited and causes depending create a great intercourse, even where private property is not divided in different countries; yet this division will always subsist, where different countries are ruled by the same government. Where a man has landed property, both in the mother country and the

province, he will almost always live in the mother country. This, though there were no trade, is singly a sufficient gain. It is said, that Ireland pays near a million sterling annually to its absentees in England. The balance of trade from Spain, or even Portugal, is scarcely equal to this.

Let it not be said we have no absentees from North America. There are many, to the writer's knowledge; and, if there are at present but few of them, that distinguish themselves here by great expense, it is owing to the mediocrity of fortune among the inhabitants of the northern colonies, and a more equal division of landed property, than in the West India Islands, so that there are as yet but few large estates. But if those, who have such estates, reside upon and take care of them themselves, are they worse subjects than they would be if they lived idly in England?

Great merit is assumed for the gentlemen of the West Indies,* on the score of their residing and spending their money in England. I would not depreciate that merit; it is considerable; for they might, if they pleased, spend their money in France; but the difference between their spending it here and at home is not so great. What do they spend it in when they are here, but the produce and manufactures of this country? and would they not do the same if they were at home? Is it of any great importance to the English farmer, whether the West India gentleman comes to London and eats his beef, pork, and tongues, fresh; or has them brought to him in the West Indies, salted? Whether he eats his English cheese and butter, or drinks his English ale, at London or in Barbadoes? the clothier's, or the mercer's, or the cutler's, or the

* Remarks, pp. 47, 48, &c.

Is

toyman's profit less, for their goods being worn and consumed by the same persons residing on the other side of the ocean? Would not the profits of the merchant and mariner be rather greater, and some addition. made to our navigation, ships, and seamen? If the North American gentleman stays in his own country, and lives there in that degree of luxury and expense, with regard to the use of British manufactures, that his fortune enables him to do, may not his example, from the imitation of superiors so natural to mankind, spread the use of those manufactures among hundreds of families around him, and occasion a much greater demand for them, than it would do if he should remove and live in London?

However this may be, if, in our views of immediate advantage, it seems preferable, that the gentlemen of large fortunes in North America should reside much in England, it is what may surely be expected, as fast as such fortunes are acquired there. Their having "colleges of their own for the education of their youth," will not prevent it. A little knowledge and learning acquired increases the appetite for more, and will make the conversation of the learned on this side the water more strongly desired. Ireland has its university likewise; yet this does not prevent the immense pecuniary benefit we receive from that kingdom. And there will always be, in the conveniencies of life, the politeness, the pleasures, the magnificence of the reigning country, many other attractions besides those of learning, to draw men of substance there, where they can, apparently at least, have the best bargain of happiness for their money.

Our trade to the West India Islands is undoubtedly a valuable one; but, whatever is the amount of it, it has