r side,
residents averaged 5,660 and visitors 5,435. Figures no longer yielded
an uncertain sound. The Rubicon was only just crossed, but was
indisputably and irrevocably crossed. Thenceforth the living-rooms
were larger than the corridors, and political arithmetic pointed at
the permanent occupants as the men of destiny. In 1764 the new tilt of
the balance struck the law officers of the Crown, who wrote that it
was 'disgraceful to suffer' the Act of 1699 'to remain in the Statute
Book' as circumstances had so much changed. This disproportion
increased; and the 12,000 inhabitants of 1764-74 swelled to 17,000 in
1792, 20,000 in 1804, and 52,000 in 1822, without any corresponding
increase on the part of those who appeared every spring and faded away
every autumn, like leaves or flowers."[33]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Quoted in Egerton's "History of British Colonial Policy."

[31] But see the end of the present chapter in regard to the character
and fluctuations of the population.

[32] For example, in 1745, 1746, 1757.

[33] Rogers, _op. cit._, pp. 122-123, 137-138.

CHAPTER VI

THE ENGLISH COLONIAL SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS

The War of American Independence forms a convenient point at which to
examine for a moment in passing the English colonial system, of which
Newfoundland was in some sense a victim. It may then at once be stated
that in the English view, as in the Spanish view, a "plantation" was
expected, directly or indirectly, to contribute to the wealth of the
Mother Country. If it contributed much, it was a good colony; if
little, its consequence was less. Hence the English legislation
throttling colonial manufacturers in the supposed interests of English
merchants, and confining colonial trade to English channels. Hence the
disregard, persistent and unashamed, of Adam Smith's immortal saying:
"To prohibit a great people from making all that they can of every
part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry
in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a
manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind." Long before
Smith, the wisest of Englishmen had sounded a clear note of warning
far in advance of his age. Bacon wrote in his essay on plantations:
"Let there be freedom from custom, till the plantation be of strength:
and not only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their
commodities where they make their best o