Economical theories
the prelude to final free trade. but this want was speedily supplied, and the foundation laid for an exclusive but highly flourishing trade and navigation, which continued in full vigour for more than a century, when the revolt of the North American Colonies formed a new epoch in history, and, by raising up an independent maritime people as direct rivals in the carrying trade of the world, gave a deathblow to a system no longer fitted for the new state of things. During this long interval the theory of trade and navigation became better understood. The French economists,[1] made intelligible and even popular by Adam Smith's great work, threw a flood of light on the faults prevailing in the most economical distribution of wealth in relation with colonies. But the arguments of theorists would have remained disregarded had the increasing number and influence of the American colonists and the attitude assumed by the Northern maritime powers not rendered it impossible to maintain a system now become obsolete, and the wisdom of the governments of both England and the United States effected a change which has proved not only to be safe, but salutary for all parties interested in this great commercial revolution.
In the middle of the seventeenth century it was indeed unreasonable to expect that England, after her heavy expenditure on settlements all over the globe, would relinquish advantages from which the first adventurers, and ultimately the entire nation,
- ↑ It is remarkable that the free trade theories, which had their origin in France, should have been so long altogether neglected in the legislation of that great country; but the most republican governments there, as elsewhere, seem to have been the most jealous champions oi the protectionist system.
