I will next consider the Inconveniencies that have attended this Monopoly, and the Advantage the Nation reaps by the Trades being laid open; we now send more Ships, and supply the Plantations with more Negroes, and vend more of our Commodities for their Purchase: Besides, every Negro in the Plantations gives a second Employ to the Manufacturers of this Kingdom; and had we many more to spare, the _Spaniards_ would buy them, and pay us in Bullion, so there could be no Ground for putting this Trade into few Hands, unless ’twas designed those few should grow Rich, whilst for their sakes the Nation suffered in its Trade and Navigation, the Company having made this detrimental Use of their Charter, that they bought up our Manufactures cheaper at home, and made the Planters pay dearer for Negroes abroad, than could have been done, if there had been more Buyers for the One, and Sellers of the Other.
It is not to be doubted, whether the Vending our Manufactures, and Encouraging our Navigation, on Advantagious Terms, are the true Interest of this Kingdom, and that all Foreign Commerce, as it advances either, is more or less profitable to us; but the confining this Trade to an Exclusive Company could promote neither; and I believe ’tis one great Reason, why we know so little of that great Continent, because the Company, finding Ways enough to employ their Stock amongst those few Settlements they had made on the Sea-Coast, never endeavoured a farther Inland Discovery; whereas, now the Trade is laid open, the busy Merchant, that industrious Bee of the Nation, will not leave any Creek or River untraded to, from whence he may hope to make Advantage.
’Tis to Trade and Commerce we are beholding for what knowledge we have of Foreign Parts, and it is observable, that the more remote People dwell from the Sea, the less they are acquainted with Affairs abroad. _Africa_ is a large Country, and doubtless the Trade to it may be much enlarged to our Advantage; Use and Experience make us by degrees Masters of every thing, and tho’ the first Undertakers of a Design may fall short of answering their private Ends, yet they often lay open Beaten Paths, wherein Posterity do tread with Success, tho’ they miscarried: Now that all Places are permitted freely to send Ships, and to have the Management of their own Affairs, Industry is encourag’d, and Peoples Heads are set at Work how they may out-do each other, by getting first into a new Place of Trade. Besides, the more Traders, the more Buyers at home, and Sellers abroad, and by this means, our Plantations on the large Continent of _America_ are better furnish’d with Negroes, for want of which the Inhabitants there could never arrive to those Improvements they have done on the Islands, the Company having given them little or no Supply, but chose rather to send their Negroes to the latter, because they were able to make them better Payments; but the Free-Traders have since done it, to the great Advantage of those Plantations, and of the Nation in general.