A Discourse on Trade, and Other Matters Relative to it

by John Cary

And I think it a proper Work for a Committee of Trade, to receive these Accounts from time to time, and after a just Examination, to lay them before the Parliament at every Meeting, with their Opinions thereon.

But if they only mean, that the Exportation of those Manufactures is a help to us in the Ballance of our Trade, which must otherwise be paid in Bullion, I answer, that our own Product and Manufactures always have, and are still sufficent to support the Ballance of our Trade.

As for white Callicoes and Muslins, they have beat out the wearing of Lawns, Cambricks, and other thin German and Silesia Linnens, which has been the Occasion of turning many of those Looms to the Woollen Manufactures there, that were formerly employed in the weaving them, and hath abated the Exportation of great Quantities of Cloth; besides the hinderance Callicoes give to the consumption of Scots-Linnens, which being thin and soft, are as proper for dying, printing, and staining, as they are, and may be made as white.

The East-Indies is a bottomless Pit for our Bullion, which can never circulate hither again; whereas, if it was sent to any Part of Europe, there might be some hopes, by the Ballance of our Trade, to bring it back again; and when our Bullion fails, that Trade must cease of course, which it will soon do, if the Company continue to carry out yearly as much as our other Trades brings us in.

I wish the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom would be in Love with our own Manufactures, and those which are purchased with them, and that they would by their Examples encourage the using them, which would be attended with the Prayers of the Poor, besides the Advantage it would bring to their Estates.

And as to Navigation, I think it will not be disputed, that long Voyages rather use Sailors than make them, both the Employers, and the Employed, chusing rather to make their first Experiments on short ones.

West-India and Africa.I will next proceed to the West-India and African Trades, which I esteem the most profitable we drive, and join them together, because of their dependance on each other.

Whether Settling of Plantations hath been an Advantage.But before I enter farther thereon, I will consider of one Objection, it having been a great Question among many thoughtful Men, whether the settling our Plantations Abroad has been an Advantage to the Nation; the Reasons they give against them are, That they have drained us of Multitudes of our People, who might have been serviceable at Home, and advanced Improvement in Husbandry and Manufactures; that this Kingdom is worse peopled, by so much as they are increased; and that Inhabitants being the Wealth of a Nation, by how much they are lessened, by so much we are poorer, than when we first began to settle those Colonies.

To all which I answer; that though I allow the last Proposition to be true, that People are the Wealth of a Nation, yet it can only be so, where we find Imployment for them, otherwise they must be a Burthen to it: ’Tis my Opinion, that our Plantations are an Advantage to this Kingdom, though not all alike, but every one more or less, as they take off our Product and Manufactures, supply us with Commodities, which may be either wrought up here, or exported again, or prevent fetching things of the same Nature from other Places for our Home Consumption, employ our Poor, and encourage our Navigation; for I take this Kingdom, and all its Plantations, to be one great Body, those being as so many Limbs or Counties belonging to it; therefore when we consume their Growth, we do as it were spend the Fruits of our own Land; and what thereof we sell to our Neighbours, brings a second Profit to the Nation.

These Plantations are either the great Continent from Hudson’s-Bay Northward to Florida Southward, containing Nova Scotia, New-England, New-Jersy, New-York, Pensilvania, Virginia, Mary-Land, Carolina; and also our Islands, the Chief whereof are, Newfoundland, Barbadoes, Antegoa, Nevis, St. Christophers, Montserat, and Jamaica; the Commodities they afford us are more especially Sugars, Cotton, Tobacco, Piamento and Fustick, of their own Growth; also Logwood, which we bring from Jamaica (but first brought thither from the Bay of Campechia on the Continent of Mexico, belonging to the Spaniards, but cut by the Subjects of this Kingdom, who have made small settlements there) besides great Quantities of Fish, taken on the Coasts both of Newfoundland and New-England: These being the Product of Earth, Sea and Labour, are clear Profit to the Kingdom, and give a double Employment to our People, first to those who raise them there, next to those who prepare Manufactures here, wherewith they are supplied, besides the Advantage they afford to our Navigation; for the Commodities exported thither, and those imported thence hither, being generally bulky, do thereby employ more Ships, and consequently more Sailors, which leaves more Room for other labouring People to be kept at work in our Husbandry and Manufactures, whilst they consume the Product of the one, and the Effects of the other, in an Employment of a distinct Nature from either.