ought to concede; and secondly, what your conceffion ought to be. On the first of these queftions we have gained (as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you) fome ground. But I am fenfible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precife judgment, I think it may be ne. ceffary to confider diftinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us. Becaufe after all our ftruggle, whether we will or not, we muft govern America, according to that nature, and to thofe circumstances; and not according to our own imaginations; not according to abstract ideas of right; by no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I fhall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay before you fome of the moft material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.

The first thing that we have to confider with regard to the nature of the object is-the number of people in the colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and colour; besides at least 500,000

D 2

-500,000 others, who form no inconfiderable part of the ftrength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number.. There is no occafion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of fo much weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high or too low, is a matter of little moment. Such is the ftrength with which population fhoots in that part of the world, that ftate the numbers as high as we will, whilft the difpute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilft we are difcuffing any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we fhall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood, than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.

I put this confideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation; because, Sir, this confideration will make it evident to a blunter difcernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occafional system will be at all fuitable to fuch an object. It will fhew you, that it is not to be confidered as one of thofe minima which are out of the eye and confideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence of the state; not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little damage, and provoked with

little

T

little danger. It will prove, that fome degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will fhew that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with fo large a mafs of the interefts and feelings of the human race. You could at no time do fo without guilt; and be affured you will not be able to do it long with impunity.

But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important confideration, will lofe much of its weight, if not combined with other circumftances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce indeed has been trod fome days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished perfon,* at your bar. This gentleman, after thirtyfive years-it is fo long fince he first appeared at the fame place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain has come again before you to plead the fame caufe, without any other effect of time, than, that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a confummate knowledge in the commercial intereft of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened and difcriminating experience.

Sir, I fhould be inexcufable in coming after fuch

a perfon with any detail; if a great part of the members who now fill the house had not the mis fortune to be abfent when he appeared at your bar. Befides, Sir, I propofe to take the matter at periods of time fomewhat different from his. There is, if I mistake not, a point of view, from whence if you will look at this fubject, it is impoffible that it fhould not make an impreffion upon you.

I have in my hand two accounts; one a compa rative state of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it ftood in the year 1704, and as it ftood in the year 1772. The other a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it ftood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the year 1704. They are from good vouchers; the latter period from the accounts on your table, the carlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who firft established the inspector general's office, which has been ever since his time so abundant a fource of parliámentary information.

The export trade to the colonies confifts of three great branches. The African, which, terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the Weft Indian; and the North American. All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them, would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and

if not entirely deftroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore con fider these three denominations to be, what in ef fect they are, one trade.

The trade to the colonies, taken on the export fide, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, ftood thus:

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows:

To which if you add the export trade from Scotland, which had in 1704

no existence

D 4

364,000

: 6,022,132

From