Any other free trade advatages?

[unmerged(377578)]

About slider of free trade / mercantilism. I was thinking that merchantilism is allways better - free trade gives only more colonists (also merchants, but I have normally enough merchants).
Is there anything, what free trade offers?

Also I experienced, Unhappines among merchants appears less often.. it's maybee one advantage.
I play as Netherlands (1617) and I have full free trade.. thats little bad, when my highest income is from trade. This is my 5. game in Ftg, first with free trade contry.

 

[The-Doc]

All slider settings effect a few random events, you can see which here. Overall the trade setting is one of the less important settings.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

The discussion in the EU2 forum about that can be still interesting:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-week-s-debate-Mercantilism-versus-Free-Trade