THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

899

portion to the greatness or smallness of the balances which wererespectively due from them. Payments have in general beenmore regular from the northern than from the tobacco colo-nies, though the former have generally paid a pretty largebalance in money, while the latter have either paid no balance,or a much smaller one. The difficulty of getting paymentfrom our diil’erent sugar colonies has been greater or less inproportion, not so much to the extent of the balances respec-tively due from them, as to the quantity of uncultivated landwhich they contained ; that is, to the greater or smallertemptation which the planters have been under of over-trading, or of undertaking the settlement and plantation ofgreater quantities of waste land than suited the extent of theircapitals. The returns from the great island of Jamaica , wherethere is still much uncultivated land, have, upon this account,been in general more irregular and. uncertain, than thosefrom the smaller islands of Barbadoes , Antigua , and St.Christopher, which have for these many years been com-pletely cultivated, and have, upon that account, afforded lessfield for the speculations of the planter. The new acquisitionsof Grenada , Tobago, St. Vincent, and Dominica , have openeda new field for speculations of this kind; and the returnsfrom those islands have of late been as irregular and uncer-tain as those from the great island of Jamaica .

It is not, therefore, the poverty of the colonies which occa-sions, in the greater part of them, the present scarcity of goldand silver money. Their great demand for active and produc-tive stock makes it convenient for them to have as little deadstock as possible; and disposes them upon that account tocontent themselves with a cheaper though less commodiousinstrument of commerce than gold and silver. They arc therebyenabled to convert the value of that gold and silver into theinstruments of trade, iuto the materials of clothing, into house-hold furniture, and into the iron work necessary for buildingand extending their settlements and plantations. In thosebranches of business which cannot be transacted withoutgold and silver money, it appears, that they can always findthe necessary quantity of those metals; and if they frequentlydo not find it, their failure is generally the effect, not of theirnecessary poverty, but of their unnecessary and excessive en-terprise. It is not because they are poor that their paymentsare irregular and uncertain; but because they are too ca»er♦o become excessively rich. Though all that part of the pro-