Nature's Evil

Only some of these hopes were realised, but the English succeeded in expanding the American colonies on a scale that could hardly have been imagined in the original plans. The population of the colonies grew much more quickly than the population of the British Isles. The income of the white settlers was higher than earnings in England, and consumption in the colonies was also growing fast. The hopes for an influx of gold into the Treasury were not fulfilled. Charles Davenant calculated that only a quarter of the English revenue came from the export of domestic items such as wool and tin; everything else came from the two Indias. Davenant wrote that ‘Colonies are a Strength to their Mother Kingdom, while they are under good discipline … But otherwise, they are worse than Members lopp’d from the Body Politic.’ Moreover, if the mercantilist Navigation Acts were breached, ‘our own Plantations may become more profitable to our Neighbours, than to us.’ British colonies were not sufficiently profitable in peacetime and were not sufficiently reliable in wartime, wrote Davenant. 3 He thought that, while the sugar islands were useful for the empire, the colonies of North America only swallowed up resources. Sir William Petty, one of the founders of the Royal Society, proposed resettling American colonists in Ireland. According to another theorist, Malachy Postlethwayt, ‘it is a law founded on the very nature of the colonies, that they ought to have no culture or arts.’ 4

But history is uncanny. Colonies did have cultures, and this is exactly what made them disloyal and unreliable, if not unprofitable. It took about a century for the Dutch to do away with the Habsburg Empire, but it required much more time for them to leave their own colonies. However, the relatively peaceful trade with the Baltic lands gave the Dutch merchants greater profit than trade with both Indias. Having won their independence from the British, the Americans promoted free trade as one of their revolutionary principles. They also applied this regime to the slave trade. It was the British who led the Abolitionist movement.

Two monopolies

Trade in natural resources gave rise to the urban boom that defined the face of Europe. Roman cities had developed from fortified camps in strategic places. In contrast, the towns of modern Europe grew up where natural conditions offered convenient places for ships to berth or waterwheels to turn. Cosmopolitan centres of long-distance trade and early industry, such towns were outposts of global exchange. Indifferent to the surrounding lands and villages, many of these cities were built where the land was still unoccupied because of the risk of floods or pirate attacks – on deltas and marshland, near fords and dams. In the twenty-first century some of these cities will be the first victims of global warming.

An example of such a city, a part of the great world that fitted uneasily into the local space, is Glasgow. It had a convenient port, abundant timber, huge wharfs and an excellent university. Tobacco was Glasgow’s main product. In 1752, when Adam Smith became a professor of moral philosophy, Glasgow was processing more tobacco than all the English ports put together. 5 Scottish merchants avoided competition by buying tobacco from small farmers at flexible prices (the English preferred to buy from large plantations at fixed contracts). Moreover, the Scots were old hands at avoiding British duties – or, in other words, smuggling. But the tobacco traders actively collaborated with the authorities, and in due course they became the authorities. From 1740 to 1790, every mayor of Glasgow owned a tobacco firm. Like any transatlantic business, the tobacco trade was full of risks; it needed financial acumen and capital, and also trust in Providence. Banks, insurance offices and Presbyterian churches developed alongside the wharves and factories.

The union between Scotland and England had happened in 1707, and Adam Smith started a meandering career that was typical for an intellectual from the colonies. After finishing school in Kirkcaldy and completing a degree at the University of Glasgow, he went to imperial Oxford. He didn’t like it there and returned to Glasgow to teach moral philosophy. Apart from his involvement with the university administration, Smith had no business experience. He picked up knowledge of the world in clubs and coffeehouses, where the professors consumed the addictive fruits of colonial trade in the company of sea captains and manufacturers. After many years of teaching Scottish students, he agreed to take up a position as tutor in a family of English aristocrats. Later, Smith, a firm supporter of free trade, became a member of the Scottish Customs Committee.