Page:Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania - Dickinson - 1768.djvu/32

[&emsp;26&emsp;] we are very great gainers by their direct trade to and from Old England. Our yearly exportations of English manufactures, malt and other goods, from hence thither, amounting, in my opinion, to ten times the value of what is imported from thence; which calculation I do not make at random, but upon mature consideration, and, peradventure, upon as much experience in this very trade, as any other person will pretend to; and therefore, whenever reformation of our correspondency in trade with that people shall be thought on, it will, in my poor judgment, require, and .”

“Our plantations spend mostly our English manufactures, and those of all sorts almost imaginable, in egregious quantities, and employ near two thirds of all our English shipping; so that we have more people in England, by reason of our plantations in America.”

Sir says, in another part of his work, “That not more than fifty families are maintained in England by the refining of sugar.” From whence, and from what Davenant says, it is plain, that the advantages here said to be derived from the plantations by England, must be meant chiefly of the continental colonies.

“I shall sum up my whole remarks on our American colonies, with this observation, that as they are a certain annual revenue of to their mother country, they ought carefully to be protected, duly encouraged, and every opportunity that presents, improved for their increment and advantage, as every one they can possibly reap, must at last return to us with interest.”

“We may safely advance, that our trade and navigation are greatly encreased by our colonies, and that they really are a source of treasure and naval power to this kingdom, since, and. Before their settlement, our manufactures were few, and those but indifferent; the number of English merchants very small, and the whole shipping of the nation much inferior to what now belongs to the Northern Colonies only. These are certain facts. But since their establishment, our condition has altered for the better, almost to a degree beyond credibility.---Our are prodigiously encreased, chiefly by the demand for them in the plantations, where they, and supply us with many valuable commodities for exportation, which is as great an emolument to the mother kingdom, as to the plantations themselves.”

“Most of the nations of Europe have interfered with us, more or less, in divers of our staple manufactures, within half a century, not only in our woollen, but in our lead and tin manufactures, as well as our fisheries.”

“The inhabitants of our colonies, by carrying on a trade with their foreign neighbours, do not only occasion a greater quantity of the goods and merchandizes of Europe being sent from hence to them, and a greater quantity of the product of America to be sent from them hither, which would otherwise be carried from, these colonies? As constantly as streams tend to the ocean, have they been pouring the fruits of all their labors into their mother’s lap. Good heaven! and shall a total oblivion of former tendernesses and blessings, be spread over the minds of a good and wise nation, by the sordid arts of intriguing men, who, covering their selfish projects under pretences of public good, first enrage their countrymen into a frenzy of passion, and then advance their own influence and interest, by gratifying the passion, which they themselves have basely excited.