. He
could enforce all his orders by the power of an absolute monarch; he
could compel individuals to sacrifice their private profit to the
general good; he could make one understanding preside over many hands,
and remove difficulties by quick and violent expedients. Where no man
thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead
of cooperating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths
to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is
superiour knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his
own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity
and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his
neighbour.

Colonies are always the effects and causes of navigation. They who visit
many countries find some, in which pleasure, profit, or safety invite
them to settle; and these settlements, when they are once made, must
keep a perpetual correspondence with the original country to which they
are subject, and on which they depend for protection in danger, and
supplies in necessity. So that a country, once discovered and planted,
must always find employment for shipping, more certainly than any
foreign commerce, which, depending on casualties, may be sometimes more,
and sometimes less, and which other nations may contract or suppress. A
trade to colonies can never be much impaired, being, in reality, only an
intercourse between distant provinces of the same empire, from which
intruders are easily excluded; likewise the interest and affection of
the correspondent parties, however distant, is the same.

On this reason all nations, whose power has been exerted on the ocean,
have fixed colonies in remote parts of the world; and while those
colonies subsisted, navigation, if it did not increase, was always
preserved from total decay. With this policy the French were well
acquainted, and, therefore, improved and augmented the settlements in
America and other regions, in proportion as they advanced their schemes
of naval greatness.

The exact time, in which they made their acquisitions in America, or
other quarters of the globe, it is not necessary to collect. It is
sufficient to observe, that their trade and their colonies increased
together; and, if their naval armaments were carried on, as they really
were, in greater proportion to their commerce, than can be practised in
other countries, it must be attributed to the martial disposition a