le who were
to export raw, and to receive manufactured, and this, not a few
luxurious articles, but all articles, even to those of the grossest,
most vulgar, and necessary consumption, a people who were in the hands
of a general monopolist, were ever such a people suspected of a
possibility of becoming a just object of revenue? All the ends of their
foundation must be supposed utterly contradicted before they could
become such an object. Every trade law we have made must have been
eluded, and become useless, before they could be in such a condition.

The partisans of the new system, who, on most occasions, take credit for
full as much knowledge as they possess, think proper on this occasion to
counterfeit an extraordinary degree of ignorance, and in consequence of
it to assert, "that the balance (between the colonies and Great Britain)
is unknown, and that no important conclusion can be drawn from premises
so very uncertain."[88] Now to what can this ignorance be owing? were
the navigation laws made, that this balance should be unknown? is it
from the course of exchange that it is unknown, which all the world
knows to be greatly and perpetually against the colonies? is it from the
doubtful nature of the trade we carry on with the colonies? are not
these schemists well apprised that the colonists, particularly those of
the northern provinces, import more from Great Britain, ten times more,
than they send in return to us? that a great part of their foreign
balance is and must be remitted to London? I shall be ready to admit
that the colonies ought to be taxed to the revenues of this country,
when I know that they are out of debt to its commerce. This author will
furnish some ground to his theories, and communicate a discovery to the
public, if he can show this by any medium. But he tells us that "their
seas are covered with ships, and their rivers floating with
commerce."[89] This is true. But it is with _our_ ships that these seas
are covered; and their rivers float with British commerce. The American
merchants are our factors; all in reality, most even in name. The
Americans trade, navigate, cultivate, with English capitals; to their
own advantage, to be sure; for without these capitals their ploughs
would be stopped, and their ships wind-bound. But he who furnishes the
capital must, on the whole, be the person principally benefited; the
person who works upon it profits on his part too; but he profits in a
subordinate w