But it was further contended that the duty of protecting her colonies was one which Great Britain neglected. While the colonies were poor and insignificant, the mother country, it was alleged, neglected them. When they became richer and more valuable she tried to oppress them. If the charge of neglect in the general sense was true, we may refer to Mr. Lecky’s words already quoted, as showing that it may well be argued that the colonies profited by it.[26] Mr. Lecky writes of conditions in the eighteenth century, but Adam Smith used similar terms with reference to the earlier days of the colonies. Contrasting the Spanish colonies in America with those owned by other European nations on that continent, he wrote: ‘The Spanish colonies’ (in consequence of their mineral wealth) ‘from the moment of their first establishment attracted very much the attention of their mother country; while those of the other European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected. The former did not perhaps thrive the better in consequence of this attention, nor the latter the worse in consequence of their neglect.’[27] It may be answered, however, that the neglect here referred to was neglect of the colonies in their internal concerns, leaving them, as Adam Smith puts it, to pursue their interest in their own way. This was an undeniably beneficial form of neglect, wholly different from the neglect which leaves distant dependencies exposed to foreign invasion and native raids. Was then the British Government guilty of the latter form of neglect in the case of the American colonies? [Sidenote: The attitude of the mother country in the earlier history of the colonies.]