Product and Manufactures with Money, especially if they pay for what they buy; And as for their Competitors the _Dutch_, if they were not better defended against them by our Fleets at home, and the Protection of the Princes they trade with, than by all the Force they have there, the Trade had been but ill-secured, and must have sunk long ago; Only those great Words serve to hold us amused, whilst their _Guineas_ in the two last Reigns were the Support of their Charter. One thing which I aim at in this Discourse is to perswade the Gentry of _England_ to be more in Love with our own Manufactures, and to encourage the wearing them by their Examples, and not of Choice to give Imployment to the Poor of another Nation whilst ours starve at home. [Sidenote: West-Indies.] We will next proceed to the _West-India_ and _African_ Trades; which I esteem the most profitable of any we drive, and do joyn them together because of their dependance on each other. But before we enter farther I will consider of one Objection, it having been a great question among many thoughtful Men whither our Foreign Plantations have been an advantage to this Nation; the reasons they give against them are, that they have drained us of Multitudes of our People who might have been serviceable at home, and advanced Improvements in Husbandry and Manufactures; That the Kingdom of _England_ is worse Peopled by so much as they are increased; and that Inhabitants being the Wealth of a Nation, by how much they are lessened, by so much we are poorer than when we first began to settle our Foreign Colonies; Though I allow the last Proposition to be true, that People are or may be made the Wealth of a Nation, yet it must be where you find Imployment for them, else they are a Burthen to it, as the Idle Drone is maintained by the Industry of the labourious Bee, so are all those who live by their Dependance on others, as Players, Ale-Houses-keepers, Common-Fidlers, and such like, but more particularly Beggars, who never set themselves to work; Its my Opinion that our Plantations are an Advantage to this Kingdom, and I doubt not but 'twill appear to be so by the consequence of this Discourse, though not all alike, but every one more or less, as they take off our Product and Manufactures, supply us with Commodities which may be either wrought up here, or Exported again, or prevent fetching things of the same Nature from other Princes for our home Consumption, imploy our Poor, and encourage our Navigation; for I take _England_ and all its Plantations to be one great Body, those being so many Limbs or Counties belonging to it, therefore when we consume their Growth we do as it were spend the Fruits of our own Land, and what thereof we sell to our Neighbours for Bullion, or such Commodities as we must pay for therein, brings a second Profit to the Nation.