colonies is circulated and dispersed to the remotest corner of the
island, whereby the consumption is become so great, and by which those
colonies are so increased, and are become so populous and so wealthy as
I have already observed of them. This importation consists chiefly of
sugars and tobacco, of which the consumption in Great Britain is
scarcely to be conceived of, besides the consumption of cotton, indigo,
rice, ginger, pimento or Jamaica pepper, cocoa or chocolate, rum and
molasses, train-oil, salt-fish, whale-fin, all sorts of furs, abundance
of valuable drugs, pitch, tar, turpentine, deals, masts, and timber, and
many other things of smaller value; all which, besides the employing a
very great number of ships and English seamen, occasion again a very
great exportation of our own manufactures of all sorts to those
colonies; which being circulated again for consumption there, that
circulation is to be accounted a branch of home or inland trade, as
those colonies are on all such occasions esteemed as a branch of part of
ourselves, and of the British government in the world.

This trade to our West Indies and American colonies, is very
considerable, as it employs so many ships and sailors, and so much of
the growth of those colonies is again exported by us to other parts of
the world, over and above what is consumed among us at home; and, also,
as all those goods, and a great deal of money in specie, is returned
hither for and in balance of our own manufactures and merchandises
exported thither--on these accounts some have insisted that more real
wealth is brought into Great Britain every year from those colonies,
than is brought from the Spanish West Indies to old Spain,
notwithstanding the extent of their dominion is above twenty times as
much, and notwithstanding the vast quantity of gold and silver which
they bring from the mines of Mexico, and the mountains of Potosi.[38]

Whether these people say true or no, is not my business to inquire here;
though, if I may give my opinion, I must acknowledge that I believe they
do; but be it so or not, it is certain that it is an infinitely extended
trade, and daily increasing; and much of it, if not all, is and ought to
be esteemed as an inland trade, because, as above, it is a circulation
among ourselves.

As the manufactures of England, particularly those of wool (cotton wool
included), and of silk, are the greatest, and amount to the greatest
value of any single ma