If these means of internal commerce were vast, those afforded by the Atlantic Ocean were not less extensive. The latter were developed in the treatise on “The Administration of the Colonies,” the fourth edition of which, published in 1768, is now before me. This was after the differences between the Colonies and the mother country had begun, but before the idea of independence had shown itself. Pownall insisted that the Colonies ought to be considered as parts of the realm, entitled to representation in Parliament. This was a constitutional unity. But he portrayed a commercial unity also, which he represented in attractive forms. The British Isles, and the British possessions in the Atlantic and in America, were, according to him, “a grand marine dominion,” and ought, therefore, by policy, to be united into one empire, with one centre. On this he dwells at length, and the picture is presented repeatedly.[527] It was incident to the crisis in the world produced by the predominance of the commercial spirit already beginning to rule the powers of Europe. It was the duty of England to place herself at the head of this great movement:-- “As the rising of this crisis above described forms precisely the _object_ on which Government should be employed, so the taking leading measures towards the forming all those Atlantic and American possessions into one empire, of which Great Britain should be the commercial and political centre, is the _precise duty_ of Government at this crisis.”[528] This was his desire. But he saw clearly the resources as well as the rights of the Colonies, and was satisfied, that, if power were not consolidated under the constitutional auspices of England, it would be transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. Here his words are prophetic:-- “The whole train of events, the whole course of business, must perpetually bring forward into practice, and necessarily in the end into establishment, _either an American or a British union_. There is no other alternative.”[529] The necessity for union is enforced in a manner which foreshadows our National Union:-- “The Colonial Legislature does certainly not answer all purposes,--is incompetent and inadequate to many purposes. Something, therefore, more is necessary,--_either a common union amongst themselves_, or a one common union of subordination under the one general legislature of the state.”[530] Then, again, in another place of the same work, after representing the declarations of power over the Colonies as little better than mockery, he prophesies:-- “Such is the actual state of the really existing system of our dominions, that _neither the power of government over these various parts can long continue under the present mode of administration_, nor the great interest of commerce extended throughout the whole long subsist under the present system of the laws of trade.”[531]