A calculation has lately been made both of the amount of the revenue arising from the duties with which our trade is at present charged, and of the bounties and encouragement paid out of the British revenue upon articles of American produce imported into England, and the latter is found to exceed the former more than four fold. This does not look like a partiality to our disadvantage. However, there is no surer method of determining whether the colonies have been oppressed by the laws of trade and revenue, than by observing their effects.
From what source has the wealth of the colonies flowed? Whence is it derived? Not from agriculture only: exclusive of commerce the colonists would this day have been a poor people, possessed of little more than the necessaries for supporting life; of course their numbers would be few; for population always keeps pace with the ability of maintaining a family; there would have been but little or no resort of strangers here; the arts and sciences would have made but small progress; the inhabitants would rather have degenerated into a state of ignorance and barbarity. Or had Great Britain laid such restrictions upon our trade, as our patriots would induce us to believe, that is, had we been pouring the fruits of all our labour into the lap of our parent and been enriching her by the sweat of our brow, without receiving an equivalent, the patrimony derived from our ancestors must have dwindled from little to less, until their posterity should have suffered a general bankruptcy.
But how different are the effects of our connection with, and subordination to Britain? They are too strongly marked to escape the most careless observer. Our merchants are opulent, and our yeomanry in easier circumstances than the noblesse of some states. Population is so rapid as to double the number of inhabitants in the short period of twenty-five years. Cities are springing up in the depths of the wilderness. Schools, colleges, and even universities are interspersed through the continent; our country abounds with foreign refinements, and flows with exotic luxuries. These are infallible marks not only of opulence but of freedom. The recluse may speculate--the envious repine--the disaffected calumniate--all these may combine to excite fears and jealousies in the minds of the multitude, and keep them in alarm from the beginning to the end of the year; but such evidence as this must for ever carry conviction with it to the minds of the dispassionate and judicious.