at there existed a surplus
of labor at home and that the country was in need of blood letting. The
proper policy was to keep Englishmen in England, to devote their
energies to local industries and so strengthen the economic and military
sinews of the nation. And if unemployment existed, it was the correct
policy to bring work to the idle rather than send the idle out of the
country in quest of work.[8-5] And the colonies were to be utilized, no
longer as outlets for the population, but as a means to the upbuilding
of local industry. They were to supply a market for English goods, keep
employed English mariners and furnish the tobacco and sugar which when
re-exported weighed so heavily in the balance of trade. And since these
great staple crops could be produced by the work of slaves, it was
thought highly advantageous for all concerned that the negro should
replace the white servant in both the tobacco and the sugar fields. The
planters would profit by the lowered cost of production, English
industry would gain by the increased volume of traffic, the Crown
revenues would be enhanced and English laborers would be kept at
home.[8-6]

Apparently the deeper significance of this great movement was entirely
lost upon the British economists and ministers. They had no conception
of the advantage of having their colonies inhabited by one race alone
and that race their own. From the first their vision was too restricted
to embrace the idea of a new and greater Britain in its fullest sense.
They could not bring themselves to look upon the soil of Virginia and
Maryland as a part of the soil of an extended England, upon the
Virginians and Marylanders as Englishmen, enjoying privileges equal to
their own. They could not realize the strength that would come from such
an empire as this, the mighty future it would insure to the Anglo-Saxon
race.

Their conception was different. The British empire must consist of two
distinct parts--mother country and colonies. And in any clash of
interest between the two, the former must prevail. It was not their
intent that the colonies should be purposely sacrificed, that they
should be made to pay tribute to a tyrannical parent. In fact, they
earnestly desired that the plantations should prosper, for when they
languished English industry suffered. But in their eyes the colonies
existed primarily for the benefit of England. England had given them
birth, had defended them, had nurtured them; she was