THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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Yovk and New Jersey , would probably liave soon becomeconsiderable too, even though it had remained under the go-vernment of the Dutch . The plenty and cheapness of goodland arc such powerful causes of prosperity, that the veryworst government is scarce capable of checking altogetherthe efficacy of their operation. The great distance too fromthe mother country would enable the colonists to evade moreor less, by smuggling, the monopoly which the company en-joyed against them. At present the company allows allDutch ships to trade to Surinam upon paying two and a halfper cent, upon the value of their cargo for a licence; andonly 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, isprobably the principal cause of that degree of prosperitywhich that colony at present enjoys. Cura<joa and Eustatia,the two principal islands belonging to the Dutch , are freeports open to the ships of all nations ; and this freedom, inthe midst ot better colonies whose ports are open to those ofone nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity ofthose two barren islands.

The French colony of Canada was, during the greater partof the last century, and some part of the present, under thegovernment of an exclusive company. Under so favourablean administration its progress was necessarily very slow incomparison with that of other new colonies; but it becamemuch more rapid when this company was dissolved after thefall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the Eng-lish got possession of this country, they found in it near dou-ble the number of inhabitants which father Charlevoix hadassigned to it between twenty and thirty years before. Thatjesuit had travelled over the whole country, and had no in-clination to represent it as lessconsiderablethan it really was.

The French colony of St. Domingo, was established bypirates and free-hooters, who, for a long time, neither requiredthe protection, nor acknowledged the authority of France ;and when that race of banditti became so far citizens as toacknowledge this authority, it was for a long time necessaryto exercise it with very great gentleness. During this periodthe population and improvement of this colony increased veryfast. Even the oppression of the exclusive company, to whichit was for some time subjected, with all the other colouies ofFrance , though it no doubt retarded, had not been able to