THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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rica, and the carriers, and in some respects the manufacturerstoo, for almost all the different nations of Asia , Africa, andAmerica . Two new worlds have been opened to their in-dustry, each of them much greater and more extensive thanthe old one, and the market of one of them growing stillgreater and greater every day.

The countries which possess the colonies of America , andwhich trade directly to the East Indies, enjoy, indeed, thewhole show and splendour of this great commerce. Othercountries, however, notwithstanding all the invidious re-straints by which it is meant to exclude them, frequentlyenjoy a greater share of the real benefit of it. The coloniesof Spain and Portugal , for example, give more real encou-ragement to the industry of other countries than to that ofSpain and Portugal . In the single article of linen alone theconsumption of those colonies amounts, it is said, but I donot pretend to warrant the quantity, to more than three mil-lions sterling a year. But this great consumption is almostentirely supplied by France, Flanders, Holland, and Ger-many. Spain and Portugal furnish but a small part of it.The capital which supplies the colonies with this great quan-tity of linen is annually distributed among, and furnishes arevenue to the inhabitants of those other countries. Theprofits of it ordy are spent in Spain and Portugal , where theyhelp to support the sumptuous prolusion of the merchantsof Cadiz and Lisbon .

Even the regulations by which each nation endeavours tosecure to itself the exclusive trade of its own colonics, arefrequently more hurtful to the countries in favour of winchthey are established, thar Vl to those against which they areestablished. The unjust oppression of the industry of othercountries falls back, if I may say so, upon the heads of theoppressors, and crushes their industry more than it does thatof those other countries. By those regulations, for example,the merchant of Hamburgh must send the linen which hedestines for the American market to London , and he mustbring back from thence the tobacco which he destines forthe German market; because he can neither send the onedirectly to America , nor bring back the other directly fromlienee. By this restraint he is probably obliged to sell theone somewhat cheaper, and to buy the other somewhatdearer than lie otherwise might have done ; and his profitsare probably somewhat abridged by means of it. I n this