"Adam Smith on the Economics of U.S. Independence"

From The Conversable Economist:

For economists around the world, 1776 means the publication date of Adam Smith's classic The Wealth of Nations.  Book IV, Chapter 7, is entitled "Of Colonies." Smith expresses the view that Europe contributed very little to the economic success of its American colonies--except for some talented people. He also believed that the while England benefited from trade with its colonies, England also had to bear the costs of defense and of the monopolies on trade that it created. He painted a picture of how the American colonies might be allowed democratic representation, but viewed it as a politically unlikely outcome. He also predicted that even when a nation didn't benefit from having colonies, it was still reluctant to let the colonies go peacefully. The quotations here are from the ever-useful "Library of Economics and Liberty," which has number of classic works  of economics freely available in searchable form on-line.

Here's Smith on the topic of what Europe contributed to its American colonies (with footnotes  omitted for readability): 

"The policy of Europe, therefore, has very little to boast of, either in the original establishment or, so far as concerns their internal government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America. Folly and injustice seem to have been the principles which presided over and directed the first project of establishing those colonies; the folly of hunting after gold and silver mines, and the injustice of coveting the possession of a country whose harmless natives, far from having ever injured the people of Europe, had received the first adventurers with every mark of kindness and hospitality.... MUCH MORE

HT: Fourth of July: Economics and Ruminations