HKB
whom he has conquered, is for enslaving them, he causes the state of war to subsist between this people and him. M. De Vattel, B. 3. c. 10. sec. 201.
"It is now near three hundred years since the continent of North America was first discovered, and that by British subjects; the Cabots discovered the continent before the Spaniards. Ten generations have passed away, through infinite toils and bloody conflicts, in settling this country. None of those ever dreamed, but that they were entitled at least to equal privileges with those of the same rank born within the realm.
"British America has been hitherto distinguished from the slavish colonies round about it, as the fortunate Britons have been from most of their neighbours on the continent of Europe. It is for the interest of Great-Britain that her Colonies be ever thus distinguished. Every man must wilfully blind himself that does not see the immense value of our acquisitions in the late war; and that though we did not retain all at the conclusion of peace, that we obtained by the sword, yet our gracious sovereign, at the same time that he has given a divine lesson of equitable moderation to the princes of the earth, has retained sufficient to make the British arms the dread of the universe, and his name dear to all posterity.
"To the freedom of the British constitution, and to their increase of commerce, it is owing, that our colonies have flourished without diminishing the inhabitants of our mother country, quite contrary to the effects of plantations, made by most other nations which have suffered at home, in order to aggrandize themselves abroad. This is remarkably the case of Spain. The subjects of a free and happy constitution of government, have a thousand advantages to colonize above those who live under despotic princes.
"We see how the British colonies on the continent have outgrown those of the French; notwithstanding, they have ever engaged the savages to keep us back. Their advantages over us in the West Indies, are, 1st. A capital neglect in former reigns, in suffering them to have a firm possession of so many valuable islands, that we had a better title to than they. 2. The French, unable to push their settlements effectually on the continent, have bent their views to islands, and poured vast numbers into them. 3. The climate and business of these islands is by nature much better adapted to Frenchmen and to Negroes, than to Britons. 4. The labour of slaves, black or white, will be ever cheaper than that of freemen, because that of individuals among the former, will never be worth so much as with the latter; but this difference is more than supplied, by numbers under the advantages above mentioned. The French will ever be able to sell their West India produce cheaper, than our own islanders; and yet, while our own islanders can have such a price for theirs, as to grow much richer than the French, or any other of the king's subjects in America, as is the case; and what the northern colonies take from the French, and other foreign islands, centers finally in return to Great Britain for her manufactures, to an immense value, and with a vast profit to her. It is contrary to the first principles of policy to cloy such a trade with duties; much more to prohibit it, to the risque, if not certain destruction of the fishery.
"It is allowed by the most accurate British writers on commerce, Mr. Postlethwait in particular, who seems to favour the cause of the sugar islands, that one half of the immense commerce of Great Britain is with her colonies. It is very certain, that without the fishery, seven eighths of this commerce would cease. The fishery is the centre of motion, upon which the wheel of all the British commerce in America turns. Without the American trade, would Britain, as a commercial state, make any great figure at this day in Europe?