THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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to be saved altogether. This constant expense in time ofpeace, though very great, is insignificant in comparison withwhat the defence of the colonies has cost us in time of war.The last war, which was undertaken altogether on accountof the colonies, cost Great Britain , it has already been ob-served, upwards of ninety millions. The Spanish war of1739 was principally undertaken on their account; in which,and in the French war that was the consequence of it, Great Britain spent upwards of forty millions, a great part of whichought justly to be charged to the colonies. In those two warsthe colonies cost Great Britain much more than double thesum which the national debt amounted to before the com-mencement of the first of them. Had it not been for thosewars that debt might, and probably would by this time, havebeen completely paid ; and had it not been for the colonies,the former of those wars might not, and the latter certainlywould not have been undertaken. It was because the colo-nies were supposed to be provinces of the British empire,that this expense was laid out upon them. But countrieswhich contribute neither revenue nor military force towardsthe support of the empire, cannot be considered as provinces.They may perhaps be considered as appendages, as a sort ofsplendid and showy equipage of the empire. But if the em-pire can no longer support the expense of keeping up thisequipage, it ought certainly to lay it down; and if it cannotraise its revenue in proportion to its expense, it ought, atleast, to accommodate its expense to its revenue. If the co-lonies, notwithstanding their refusal to submit to British taxes, are still to be considered as provinces of the British empire, Bieir defence in some future war may cost Great Bri­ tain as great an expense as ever it has done in any formerwar. The rulers of Great Britain have for more than a cen-tury past, amused fhe people with the imagination that theypossessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic.This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imaginationonly. It has hitherto been, notan empire, but the project ofan empire ; not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine;a project which has cost, which continues to cost, and which,if pursued in the same way as it has been hitherto, is likelyto cost, immense expense, without being likely to bring anyprofit; for the effects of the monopoly of the colony trade, ithas been shewn, are, to the great body of the people, mereloss instead of profit. It is surely now time that our rulers