THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

595

a large portion of its capital from other employments more ne-cessary or more useful, or more suitable to its circumstancesand situation, than a direct trade to the East Indies.

Though the Europeans possess many considerable settle-ments both upon the coast of Africa and in the East Indies,they have not yet established in either of those countries suchnumerous and thriving colonies as those in the islands andcontinent of America . Africa , however, as well as several ofthe countries comprehended under the general name of theEast Indies, are inhabited by barbarous nations. But thosenations were by no means so weak and defenceless as the mi-serable and helpless Americans; and in proportion to the na-tural fertility of the countries which they inhabited, they werebesides much more populous. The most barbarous nationseither of Africa or of the East Indies were shepherds ; eventhe Hottentots were so. But the natives of every part of Ame­ rica , except Mexico and Peru , were only hunters; and thedifference is very great between the number of shepherds andthatof hunters whom the same extent of equally fertile territorycan maintain. In Africa and the East Indies, therefore, itwas more difficult to displace the natives, and to extend theEuropean plantations over the greater part of the lands of theoriginal inhabitants. The genius of exclusive companies, be-sides, is unfavourable, it has already been observed, to thegrowth of new colonies, and has probably been the principalcause of the little progress which they have made in the EastIndies. The Portuguese carried on the trade both to Africa and the East Indies without any exclusive companies, andtheir settlements at Congo , Angola , and Benguela on thecoast of Africa , and at Goa in the East Indies, though muchdepressed by superstition and every sort of bad government,yet bear some faint resemblance to the colonies of America ,and arc partly inhabited by Portuguese who have been esta-blished there for several generations. The Dutch settlementsat the Cape of Good Hope and at Batavia are at present th6most considerable colonies which the Europeans have esta-blished either in Africa or in the East Indies, and both thesesettlements are peculiarly fortunate in their situation. TheCape of Good Hope was inhabited by a race of people almostas barbarous and quite as incapable of defending themselvesus the natives of America . It is besides the half-way house,if one may say so, between Europe and the East Indies, atwhich almost every European ship makes some stay both in