SIR ,
The following objection against communicating to the colonies the rights, privileges, and powers of the realm, as to parts of the realm, has been made. I have been endeavoring to obviate it, and I communicate [it] to you, in hopes of your promised assistance. If, say the objectors, we communicate to the colonies the power of sending representatives, and in consequence expect them to participate in an equal share and proportion of all our taxes, we must grant to them all the powers of trade and manufacturing, which any other parts of the realm within the isle of Great Britain enjoy.-- If so , perchance the profits of the Atlantic commerce may converge to some centre in America; to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or to some of the isles :- if so , then the natural and artificial produce of the colonies, and in course of consequences, the landed interest of the colonies, will be promoted; while the natural and artificial produce and landed interest of Great Britain will be depressed, to its utter ruin and destruction; and consequently the balance of the power of government, although still within the realm, will be locally transferred from Great Britain to the colonies. Which consequence, however it may suit a citizen of the world, must be folly and madness to a Briton. My fit is gone off; and though weak, both from the gout and a concomitant and very ugly fever, I am much better. Would be glad to see you. Your friend, J. POWNALL. to Benjamin Franklin, in Memoires of the Life and Writing of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, third edition (1818) 295-296
Gov. Pownall's letter is mentioned in Hobson's Imperialism, which cites Bernard Holland's (1901) Imperium et Libertas, 78-78. Holland claims the letter is from 1767. Thomas Pownall was then a former governor of Massachusetts. Among Adam Smith scholars he is known for an insightful, early, and critical review of Wealth of Nations. I name-drop Smith because from this letter I learned that the idea ("we communicate to the colonies the power of sending representatives, and in consequence expect them to participate in an equal share and proportion of all our taxes,"*) of what Smith calls (recall) an Atlantic "parliament" or "the states general of the British empire," was clearly already circulating in London,+ while Smith was finishing up his book. (So, I now wonder to what extent Pownall and Smith knew each other.) It is not a minor issue for Smith; the Wealth of Nations culminates in the idea of an Atlantic federation.
Pownall recognizes that with parliamentary power, such a Atlantic federation would likely be a giant free trade zone (that becomes a virtue not a bug in Smith's system). But because Pownall views the world in Mercantilist zero-sum terms, he conceives of trade in terms of economic winners and losers, and consequently political winners (i.e, the colonial elites) and losers (British elites). And so he foresees that the economic and political winners of free mutual trade within an Atlantic federation would be Stateside. Smith would object to Pownall's economic argument on multiple grounds not the least to the presupposition that profits are central to a people's enrichment.**
But my interest here is not in economics. I just want to call attention to Pownall's recognition that a federated structure is cosmopolitan in character.1 And he recognizes that from such a cosmopolitan perspective pacific, Atlantic federation is to be welcomed. (Yes, I think the logic of this argument looks ahead to Kant.) That is to say, he recognizes that from a certain impartial perspective such a federated political project is a net good. (After all even he can recognize that while the profits may go to the colonies, British consumers would benefit.) It is just that from his own theoretical perspective and his local attachments prevent him from adopting such a cosmopolitan stance.
And so, to return one more time to Smith's argument in Wealth of Nations.++ We may understand it as addressing, in part, the theoretical misconceptions that prevent somebody like Pownall from seeing that true interests of the Brit and the Cosmopolitan can be made to coincide in ambitious political project of a gigantic political and economic federation that would make the North Atlantic a domestic great lake. That is to say, I had already suspected that the Kantian idea of a cosmopolitan expansive, federated commercial republic was indebted to Smith; but it is not original to Smith and, given his relatively long stay in London ahead of the (1776) publication of Wealth of Nations, I would expect him to be familiar with these debates in the run-up American independence.
*Notice that the ability to pay an equal share of taxes is a badge of liberty. Smith echoes this point, too. The language is all very republican.
+I assume that intellectual historians and scholars of the American revolution are aware of the fact that there is a pre-history to Smith's plan. But I had no idea.
**If Pownall knew of the gist of Smith's arguments before Wealth of Nations appeared, his interest in reading & reviewing it would be pretty clear.
++Smith agreed with Pownall that with growing population it was possible that the seat of parliament could eventually move to the colonies.
1. From Pownall's review of Wealth of Nations, we can see that he also rejected Smith's account of natural equality. I don't tend to think of mercantilism as presupposing natural hierarchy.
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