Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates / 1772

by Great Britain. Board of Trade

In that representation they deliver their opinion upon a proposition for settling new colonies in the interior country as follows, viz.

"The proposition of forming inland colonies in America is, we humbly conceive, entirely new: it adopts principles in respect to American settlements, different from what have hitherto been the policy of this kingdom, and leads to a system which, if pursued through all its consequences, is, in the present state of that country, of the greatest importance.

"The great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America, has been to improve and extend the commerce, navigation, and manufactures of this kingdom, upon which its strength and security depend.

1. "By promoting the advantageous fishery carried on upon the northern coast.

2. "By encouraging the growth and culture of naval stores, and of raw materials, to be transported hither in exchange for perfect manufactures and other merchandise.

3. "By securing a supply of lumber, provisions, and other necessaries, for the support of our establishments in the American islands.

"In order to answer these salutary purposes, it has been the policy of this kingdom to confine her settlements as much as possible to the sea coast, and not to extend them to places inaccessible to shipping, and consequently more out of the reach of commerce; a plan, which, at the same time that it secured the attainment of these commercial objects, had the further political advantage of guarding against all interfering of foreign powers, and of enabling this kingdom to keep up a superior naval force in those seas, by the actual possession of such rivers and harbours as were proper stations for fleets in time of war.

"Such, may it please your Majesty, have been the considerations inducing that plan of policy hitherto pursued in the settlement of your Majesty's American colonies, with which the private interest and sagacity of the settlers co-operated from the first establishments formed upon that continent: It was upon these principles, and with these views, that government undertook the settling of Novia Scotia in 1749; and it was from a view of the advantages represented to arise from it in these different articles, that it was so liberally supported by the aid of parliament.

"The same motives, though operating in a less degree, and applying to fewer objects, did, as we humbly conceive, induce the forming the colonies of Georgia, East Florida, and West Florida, to the South, and the making those provincial arrangements in the proclamation of 1763, by which the interior country was left to the possession of the Indians.

"Having thus briefly stated what has been the policy of this kingdom in respect to colonizing in America, it may be necessary to take a cursory view of what has been the effect of it in those colonies, where there has been sufficient time for that effect to discover itself; because, if it shall appear from the present state of these settlements, and the progress they have made, that they are likely to produce the advantages above stated, it will, we humbly apprehend, be a very strong argument against forming settlements in the interior country; more especially, when every advantage, derived from an established government, would naturally tend to draw the stream of population; fertility of soil and temperature of climate offering superior incitements to settlers, who, exposed to few hardships, and struggling with few difficulties, could, with little labour, earn an abundance for their own wants, but without a possibility of supplying ours with any considerable quantities. Nor would these inducements be confined in their operation to foreign emigrants, determining their choice where to settle, but would act most powerfully upon the inhabitants of the northern and southern latitudes of your Majesty's American dominions; who, ever suffering under the opposite extremes of heat and cold, would be equally tempted by a moderate climate to abandon latitudes peculiarly adapted to the production of those things, which are by Nature denied to us; and for the whole of which we should, without their assistance, stand indebted to, and dependant upon other countries.