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THE NATURE. AND CAUSES OE

agriculture either draws hands from all other employments,or keeps them from going to any other employment. Thereare few hands to spare for the necessary, and none for theornamental manufactures. The greater part of the manufac-tures of both kinds, they find it cheaper to purchase of othercountries than to make for themselves. It is chiefly by en-couraging the manufactures of Europe that the colony tradeindirectly encourages its agriculture. The manufacturers ofEurope , to whom that trade gives employment, constitute anew market for the produce of the land; and the most advan-tageous of all markets; the home market for the corn andcattle, for the bread and butcher’s meat of Europe is thusgreatly extended by means of the trade to America .

But that the monopoly of the trade of populous and thriv-ing colonies is not alone sufficient to establish, or even tomaintain manufactures in any country, the examples of Spain and Portugal sufficiently demonstrate. Spain and Portugal were manufacturing countries before they had any consider-able colonies. Since they had the richest and most fertile inthe world, they have both ceased to be so.

In Spain and Portugal the bad effects of the monopoly,aggravated by other causes, have, perhaps, nearly overbalancedthe natural good effects of the colony trade. These causesseem to be other monopolies of different kinds; the degrada-tion of the value of gold and silver below what it is in mostother countries; the exclusion from foreign markets by im-proper taxes upon exportation, and the narrowing of the homemarket, by still more improper taxes upon the transportationof goods from one part of the country to another; but aboveall, that irregular and partial administration of justice, whichoften protects the rich and powerful debtor from the pursuitof his injured creditor, and which makes the industrious partof the nation afraid to prepare goods for the consumption ofthose haughty and great men, to whom they dare not refuseto sell upon credit, and from whom they are altogether un-certain of repayment.

In England, on the contrary, the natural good effects of thecolony trade, assisted by other causes, have in a great measureconquered the bad effects of the monopoly. These causesseem to be, the general liberty ot trade, which, notwithstand-ing some restraints, is at least equal, perhaps superior, to whatit is in any other country; the liberty of exporting, duty free,almost all sorts of goods which are the produce of domestic