to call for an account of the net produce of all the taxes from 1774 to 1782, distinguishing each year; but as that account consisted of more than one hundred and fifty items, put together in a confused manner, not totalled by the officer of the Exchequer, the result could not be stated."

Of late years we have begun to do that for our successors which it is so much to be wished our predecessors had done for us. The body of facts now systematically collected in this country at the period of their actual occurrence, and attested by the signatures of public functionaries, whose fidelity and accuracy cannot be doubted, are every day becoming more and more valuable through their accumulation, and will at length provide so steady and so bright a light, by which to read the pages of economical science, that it will be hardly possible to misinterpret the lessons they convey. Happily, too, the collection of statistical data is not confined to our own country; so that by this means we shall not only obtain records of various classes of facts which belong to dissimilar climates, and which are called forth by different circumstances, but we shall also be able to judge of the manner and degree in which the same facts and measures are capable of being modified by the force of circumstances a kind of knowledge calculated to exercise a powerful and most beneficial influence upon the welfare and happiness of mankind. Those persons only, who have given their attention to the collection of statistical information, can form an adequate idea of the advantage that may at some time or other be drawn from the record of even an insulated and apparently an unimportant fact, which may throw light upon matters, and render them pregnant with instruction, which, without this help, would have continued unintelligible, if even they should not be misunderstood, and thence perverted to mischievous ends. It is this conviction which emboldens me to offer to the section the following imperfect sketch; the facts which it embodies, few and insufficient as they may be considered, are drawn from sources some of which are not generally accessible, and are fast passing into oblivion.

The British colonies which now form part of the United States of America, were, with the exception of Georgia, all founded in the seventeenth century. The date of the first settlement of each individual colony was as follows:-Virginia, 1607; New York, 1614; Massachusetts, 1620; New Hampshire, 1623; New Jersey, 1624; Delaware, 1627; Maine, 1630; Maryland, 1633; Connecticut, 1635; Rhode Island, 1636; North Carolina, 1650; South Carolina, 1670; Pennsylvania, 1682; Georgia, 1733.

The earliest of these settlements resulted from the persecutions on account of religious opinions then prevalent in England, and had no view to the extension of our commerce. The success of the colonists, however, naturally gave rise to a brisk commercial intercourse with the mother country, and we are told by Sir Josiah Child, in his "New Discourse of Trade," published about 1670, that at that time "the trade to our American plantations employed nearly two-thirds of all our English shipping, and thereby gave constant sustenance to, it may be, 200,000 persons here at home." It is most probable that the West India colonies were included in this estimate, because thirty years later the whole imports and exports from and to the North American provinces did not amount to 700,000%.

In a work entitled "The Trade and Navigation of England considered," first published in 1728, by Joshua Gee, we find the following notice of the trade of those provinces:"The tobacco plantations take

from England their clothing, household goods, and utensils of all kinds; and England takes from them tobacco for use and for re-exportation. Carolina lies in a happy climate, producing the best rice in the world. Pennsylvania, within forty years, has made wonderful improvements, which have very much enlarged their demands upon us for broad-cloths, druggets, serges, stuffs, and manufactures of all sorts. They supply the sugar plantations with lumber, pipe-staves, &c."

A tract was published in London in 1731, under the title of "The Importance of the British Plantations in America to this Kingdom,' and in this tract it is stated that Virginia and Maryland together then sent annually to Great Britain 60,000 hogsheads of tobacco, each weighing 600 lbs., which, at 24d. per lb., amounted to 375,000l.; that the shipping employed to bring home this tobacco amounted to 24,000 tons; the freight, at 30s. per hogshead, was 90,000l.; other charges and commission 60,000l." The author adds, "In the same ships are brought lumber 15,000l., and skins and furs 60007." The trade of Maryland and Virginia was then almost wholly confined to the mother country; that to all places other than Great Britain having been carried on in shipping, the aggregate measurement of which did not exceed 1000 tons annually. The export trade of Pennsylvania, at that time, consisted of agricultural produce, which was sent principally to Spain and Portugal, and the proceeds remitted to England in payment for manufactures to the amount of 150,000. The produce of the New England fisheries, amounting to 172,500l., was also remitted to Great Britain for the same purpose: besides which, masts for the navy, and other naval stores, were sent here to the annual value of 400,000. in exchange for British manufactures and East India goods.

About the time just alluded to, the foreign trade of this country experienced a considerable increase. In Smith's "Memoirs of Wool," a work of much authority, published in 1747, it is stated that "before the year 1718, our foreign trade was chiefly confined to London, Bristol, and Liverpool; but it is now become so general, that not one sea-port, and scarce an inland town in the kingdom, is without adventurers, who export considerably, and correspond directly with most of the trading countries of Europe and America." The early growth of our cotton

manufacture is thus alluded to in these Memoirs:

"The manufacture of cotton, mixed and plain, is arrived at so great a perfection within these twenty years, that we do not only make enough for our own consumption, but supply our colonies and many of the nations of Europe. The benefits arising from this branch are such as to enable the manufacturers of Manchester alone to lay out above 30,000l. a year, for many years past, on additional buildings. It is computed that 2000 new houses have been built in that industrious town within these twenty years.”

It was not until half a century had elapsed from the period referred to in the foregoing extract, and when they had secured their independence, that any part of the raw material employed in the cotton manufacture was received from the British plantations in America. A few bags of cotton received in 1785 and 1786* were apparently of foreign growth, and had been received in America from the Spanish Main. Cotton was raised in gardens in the United States before 1786; but that was the first year in which it was cultivated by planters as a crop,

* Five bags in 1785, and six bags in 1786.

and 1787 was the earliest year in which any of the growth of the country was exported.

Before the separation of the British provinces from the mother country, the statements which were given concerning their trade exhibited that of each province separately. The first table to which your attention is requested, accordingly, contains the official value of imports and exports from and to each province, for the years 1701, 1710, 1720, 1730, 1740, 1750, and 1760, and thereafter for each individual year to 1783, when the independence of the United States was fully recognised. For a long period up to that event the operation of the navigation laws had given to this country a monopoly of the trade with its colonies; and it is worthy of remark, that so long as the American provinces continued thus connected with England, the increase of the commercial intercourse bore a very inadequate proportion to their increasing population. In 1749 the number of inhabitants in the provinces was stated to be 1,046,000, and the official value of exports and imports was 2,117,845l. Assuming that the population between 1749 and 1774 increased steadily at the rate afterwards exhibited by the census of 1790, the number of inhabitants in 1774 must have been 2,803,625. If the trade had increased in an equal ratio, the imports and exports in 1774 would have amounted to 5,676,5231.; whereas the actual amount was only 3,964,288., showing a deficiency of 30 per cent. It is probable that the estimate of the population in 1749 may have been below the truth; but we can scarcely imagine that it would be wrong to any thing approaching so great an extent as would render the trade of the two periods proportional, and it is impossible to believe otherwise than that there had been a virtual diminution of trade between England and the North American provinces in the twenty-five years that preceded the war of independence. The next table exhibits the official value of our imports from and to the United States collectively, in each year from 1784 to 1835.

The earliest census for the United States was taken in 1790, when the population was found to be 3,929,328. The official value of our trade with the United States in that year was 4,622,851. In 1800 the population was found to have increased to 5,309,758. At the same rate of increase the trade in that year should have been 6,246,925l.; but as it actually amounted to 9,243,4327., the increase was greater than that of the population by 48 per cent. In 1810 the population was 7,239,903, and the trade 10,427,7227. If the proportion of 1790 had been preserved, the amount would have been 8,517,7397. The excess, after allowing for the increased population, was therefore 22 per cent.; but if the comparison is made with 1800, it appears that the increased trade is not quite 13 per cent., while the population was augmented at the rate of 36 per cent.; there is therefore a virtual deficiency of 23 per cent., which is without doubt to be ascribed to the operation of the Orders in Council issued in retaliation of the Milan and Berlin decrees of Napoleon. Pursuing the comparison to 1820, we find that the population was then 9,638,166, showing an increase over 1810 of 33 per cent.; on the other hand, there is a falling off in the official value of the trade between the two countries at the rate of 27 per cent. This circumstance must be attributed to causes of a temporary nature, and which are capable of easy explanation. On the renewal of the intercourse between England and America, after the peace in 1815, our merchants and manufacturers, stimulated doubly by the deficiency of British goods in the American market, and their superabundance and consequent low price at home, made such large shipments of manu

factures to the United States, that a glut was there produced, and as this occurred simultaneously with a considerable derangement of the currency in the commercial cities of America, English goods were sacrificed at ruinous prices. In the mean time the commercial distress which had visited our own country was passing away, and an effective demand for our products had arisen from other quarters, as appears from the fact, that although the real value of British goods exported to the United States, which, on the average of the five preceding years, was near 9,000,000l., fell in 1820 to 3,875,2861., the general exports from the United Kingdom to foreign countries were greater in 1820 than they had been in the preceding year.

In 1830, the date of the last census, the population of the United States was 12,856,165, and the official value of the trade with this country 16,292,6397. The increase, as compared with 1790, was 227 per cent. on the population, and 252 per cent. on the amount of trade. If the comparison is made with the remaining decennary periods, it will be found that the increase in 1830 was as follows:

The increase of population in the United States, between 1820 and 1830, was at the rate of 3 per cent. per annum. If we assume that the increase has since gone forward at the rate of 3 per cent. in each year, the number of American citizens in 1835 must have been 14,784,589. The official value of their trade with this country in that year was 25,671,6027. A comparison of this amount with the value of the trade in the years of the different enumerations exhibits the following results:

It is not simply with reference to the numerical increase of the citizens of the United States that we should consider this question of the increase of our trade. During the forty-seven years that have elapsed since the first census was taken, in 1790, at least 11,000,000 of inhabitants have been added to their number, being equal to an increase of 276 per cent. But during that time we are fully warranted in believing that the wealth of the country has been augmented in a much greater proportion, and it may be fairly presumed that, but for the untoward interference of wars, and of that which is scarcely less inimical to national prosperity than war-commercial jealousy, the dealings between the two countries must have become far more considerable than they are. During the period in question, America has added materially to her means of consuming foreign products by the extent to which she has carried the cultivation of exportable products. In 1791, the whole export of cotton from the United States was under 200,000 lbs.; and it will be seen from the table herewith, that the average annual

importation of American cotton into this country, during the last ten years, has exceeded 225,000,000 lbs., the value of which cannot have been less than 7,500,000l. per annum. In 1836 our importation was 289,615,692 lbs., which, at the average price of the year, probably produced more than 10,000,000l. sterling.

Under the system of restriction acted upon in this country (how wisely it is not our present purpose to inquire), with the declared object of favouring the produce of our own soil, and of loading with discriminating duties such articles, the produce of other countries, as come into competition with the productions of our colonies and dependencies, the trade between us and the United States must have dwindled away to perfect insignificance, but for the adoption and great encouragement that has been there afforded to the cultivation of cotton, as will be seen on the inspection of the table, which states the quantities of the principal articles imported thence during the last ten years. On the other hand, it may fairly be doubted, whether but for the resource that has been so unexpectedly found in the fertile valleys of the Mississippi, our cotton manufacture, so far from having attained its now gigantic growth, could ever have ranked among the staple productions of England.

The intercourse between this country and the United States is important not only to our merchants and manufacturers, but also to our ship-owners, and that in a continually augmenting degree. The tonnage of vessels which entered the ports of the United States from foreign countries, in each year from 1821 to 1836, distinguishing American and British from other shipping, was as follows:

1832

1833

949,622 288,841 104,197 1,342,660 1,111,441 383,487 113,218 1,608,146 34.50 1834 1,074,670 453,495 114,557 1,642,722 42.19 1835 1,352,653 529,922 111,388 1,993,963 39.18 1836 1,255,384 547,606 132,607 1,935,597 43.62

30.41

These figures do not in any way justify the complaints of those persons who can see nothing but ruin to the shipping interest of this country from the relaxation of our navigation laws, introduced by the late Mr. Huskisson, and adopted and carried out by his successors in office.

The most interesting part by far of our trade with America consists in our exports of manufactured goods. The table exhibits the de