THE WEALTH OE NATIONS.

53t)

Rum is a very important article in the trade which theAmericans carry on to the coast of Africa , from which theybring back negro slaves in return.

If the whole surplus produce of America in grain of allsorts, in salt provisions, and in fish, had been put into theenumeration, and thereby forced into the market of GreatBritain, it would have interfered too much with the produceof the industry of our own people. It was probably not somuch from any regard to the interest of America , as from ajealousy of this interference, that those important commoditieshave not only been kept out of the enumeration, but that theimportation into Great Britain of all grain, except rice, andof all salt provisions, has, in the ordinary state of the law,been prohibited.

The non-enumerated commodities could originally be ex-ported to all parts of the world. Lumber and rice, havingbeen once put into the enumeration, when they were after-ward taken out of it, were confined, as to the European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre .By the Gth of Geo. III. c. 52. all non-enumerated commoditieswere subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south of Cape Finisterre , are not manufacturingcountries, and we were less jealous of the colony ships carry-ing home from them any manufactures which could interferewith our own.

The enumerated commodities are of two sorts: first, suchas are either the peculiar produce of America , or as cannotbe produced, or at least are not produced, in the mother coun-try. Of this kind are molasses, cofi'ee, cocoa-nuts, tobacco,pimento, ginger, whale-fins, raw silk, cotton-wool, beaver,and other peltry of America , indigo, fustic, and other dyingwoods: secondly, such as arc not the peculiar produce ofAmerica , but which are and may be produced in the mothercountry, though not in such quantities as to supply the greaterpart of her demand, which is principally supplied from foreigncountries. Of this kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, andbowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and bar iron, copperore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest im-portation of commodities of the first kind could not discouragethe growth, or interfere with the sale, of any part of the pro-duce of the mother country. By confining them to the homeMarket, our merchants, it was expected, would not only betabled to buy them cheaper in the Plantations, and eonse-

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