Brought into the market of Europe, these productions afforded a new equivalent to the produce of its soil and industry, raised its price, and necessarily augmented its production. They therefore increased the wealth of Europe, not only with their own value, but also with the value of all the commodities which they caused to be produced to serve as their equivalent. The results of this double improvement are incalculable. It is true, that the population of Europe has almost entirely created the population of the New World; that its capitals have paid for the clearing and cultivating of its valuable soil: but how advantageous and profitable has this employment of capital proved to Europe! It is, no doubt, impossible to ascertain the precise amount of these advantages; but the most superficial estimation enables us to judge of their extent and importance. The number of Europeans who have peopled the New World, cannot be estimated higher than one million. This population, according to the most enlightened political arithmeticians, would have been doubled in Europe in five hundred years, and consequently would have multiplied only at the rate of two thousand individuals a year, which, in the space of two centuries, would have augmented the population of Europe by four hundred thousand individuals. The population of the New World, which is of European origin, amounts at least to twelve millions; which supposes that the one million of individuals who passed from Europe into the New World have multiplied at the rate of fifty-three thousand three hundred individuals a year, consequently in a proportion twenty-six times superior to that which would have taken place, if that one million of individuals had remained in Europe. The progression of the capitals which Europe sent to the New World has not been less rapid, nor less extraordinary. Supposing that every European who went over to the New World carried with him a capital of threehundred French livres (about 127. 10s, sterling), the totality of the capitals conveyed from Europe to America, in the space of two centuries, would amount to three hundred French millions, (12,500,000l. sterling). As this transmission was effected gradually, it is probable that Europe has not been totally deprived of it for more than a century. These three hundred millions employed in Europe would not have produced above ten per cent per annum, and consequently would only have increased the capital of Europe by three-thousand millions. The same three hundred millions employed in the clearing and cultivating of the lands of the New World, and in the working of its mines, have created a capital of more than five-and-twenty thousand millions. According to the most particular information derived from persons intimately acquainted with the subject, the lands that have been cleared in the United States amount to thirty-nine millions of acres. Besides having subsisted above six millions of individuals, these lands furnished, in 1804, an exportation of corn amounting to forty-two millions of dollars, or above two hundred millions of French livres. Supposing that the home-consumption does not exceed the amount of the corn exported, thirty-nine millions of acres must have produced four hundred millions of livres, and may therefore be valued at, at least 8,000,000,000 Dwelling-houses, 1,225,000 in number, cannot be estimated at less than Household furniture, machines, and implements of labour may be rated, 2,000,000,000 without exaggeration, at, at least, 1,000,000,000 Horses, 1,200,000 in number, must be worth at least Heads of horned cattle, 2,950,000 in number 120,000,000 212,400,000 Metallic currency in circulation stated at 17 millions of dollars, making, in French livres, about 80,000,000 The produce of the French West Indies amounted, in 1787, to 218 millions, the capital of which is .. 4,000,000,000 Their houses, buildings, cattle, and machines, household-furniture, and coin in circulation, amounted at least to The produce of the English possessions in America have been rated at 1,000,000,000 1 Brought forward above 500 millions: but the par- A well-informed French author, with The houses, buildings, cattle, imple- The mines of South America have, 16,412,400,000 3,150,000,000 1,000,000,000 at that sum, they form a capital of 2,000,000,000 The other productions of South Ame rica cannot be rated at less than fifty tal of 1,000,000,000 23,562,400,000 * The Aurora newspaper of New York, August the 8th, 1807. + Traité d' Economie Politique et du Commerce des Colonies, par Mr. Page. Brought forward Finally, the houses, buildings, cattle, implements, machines, household furniture, and circulating coin of 23,562,400,000 South America must certainly exceed 2,000,000,000 Total livres 25,562,400,000 This immense result, compared to that which the employment of the same capitals would have yielded in Europe, not only proves to demonstration the utility of the colonization of America, but also furnishes an additional proof of the error into which Adam Smith has been betrayed, when he set it down as a principle, 1st, that agricultural labour is the most productive in any country; 2dly, that capitals are so much more conducive to national wealth, when they are first employed in the cultivating of the national soil, and afterwards in the support of that industry the produce of which is consumed at home, and, lastly, in the home-trade; 3dly, that the home-trade is the most advantageous to any country. Had Europe followed this doctrine; had she employed in the cultivation of her soil, in her particular industry and home-trade, the three hundred millions which she sent to America, they would have increased her capital only by three thousand millions of French livres, whilst employing them in cultivating the soil of and trading with America has raised that capital to above five-and-twenty thousand millions of livres, or one thousand millions sterling. Europe therefore is infinitely richer through this mode of employing her capital, than she would have been through that recommended by Adam Smith. |