[7] Description of South Carolina. by——, p. 30.
[9] Arbuthnot on Air. App.
[10] By the best accounts we have, there were 4000 seamen employed in the tobacco trade, in the year 1733, when the inspection on tobacco passed into a law; and we may perhaps reckon them now 4500, although some reckon them less.
By the same accounts, taken by the custom-house officers, it appeared, that the number of British ships employed in all America, including the fishery, were 1400, with 17,000 seamen; besides 9000 or 10,000 seamen belonging to North-America, who are all ready to enter into the service of Britain on, any emergency or encouragement.
Of these there were but 4000 seamen employed in the fishery from Britain; and about as many, or 3600, in the sugar trade.
The French, on the other hand, employ upwards of 20,000 seamen in the fishery, and many more than we do in the sugar trade.
In short, the plantation trade of North America is to Britain, what the fishery is to France, the great nursery of seamen, which may be much improved. It is for this reason that we have always thought this nation ought, for its safety, to enjoy an exclusive right to the one or the other of these at least.
[11] See page 49, 111, &c. Charlevoix Hist. N. France, Tom. III. 484. Laval, infra, &c.
[12] See Douglas's Hist. N. America. Elliot's Improvements on New England, &c.