Is Mercantilism Benefits The Mother Country?

While reading my Unites States History textbook, I ran upon the word "Mercantilism". But what does mercantilism really mean? An example of mercantilism would be like this: A colony produces tobacco. The tobacco is then shipped back to the mother country and made into cigarettes. The mother country then SELLS the cigarettes back to the colony. Many countries in Europe, especially England and Spain, used this method to obtain gold and silver. But does mercantilism benefit the colony as much as it benefits the mother country? Mercantilism is unfair because the colony is paying for everything, the mother country gets rich, and it produces an oversupply of money and, with it, serious inflation. Mercantilism developed at a time when the European