is so long since he first appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain,—­has come again before you to plead the same cause, without any other effect of time than that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened and discriminating experience.

Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a person with any detail, if a great part of the members who now fill the House had not the misfortune to be absent when he appeared at your bar.  Besides, Sir, I propose to take the matter at periods of time somewhat different from his.  There is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if you will look at this subject, it is impossible that it should not make an impression upon you.

I have in my hand two accounts:  one a comparative state of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in the year 1704.  They are from good vouchers:  the latter period from the accounts on your table; the earlier from an original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the Inspector-General’s office, which has been ever since his time so abundant a source of Parliamentary information.

The export trade to the colonies consists of three great branches:  the African, which, terminating almost wholly in the colonies, must be put to the account of their commerce; the West Indian; and the North American.  All these are so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole, and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate, the value of all the parts.  I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade.

The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood thus:—­

Exports to North America and the West
Indies L 483,265
To Africa 86,665
                                        ---------
                                        L 569,930

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, the account was as follows:—­

To North America and the West Indies L 4,791,734
To Africa 866,398
To which if you add the export trade
from Scotland, which had in 1704 no
existence 364,000
                                       ----------
                                       L6,024,171