Adam Smith.............................................................................................................................................1

THE annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and

conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce

According therefore as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the

number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries

But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances; first, by the skill,

dexterity, and judgment with which its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between

the number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed. Whatever

be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual

The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon the former of those two

circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is

able to work, is more or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide, as well as he can, the

necessaries and conveniences of life, for himself, or such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too

young, or too infirm to go a hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor that, from

mere want, they are frequently reduced, or, at least, think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of

directly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with

lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilised and thriving

nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the

produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labour than the greater part of those who work; yet

the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great that all are often abundantly supplied, and a

workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of

the necessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

The causes of this improvement, in the productive powers of labour, and the order, according to which its

produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which labour is applied in any nation,

the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the

proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful labour, and that of those who

are not so employed. The number of useful and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere

in proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work, and to the particular

way in which it is so employed. The second book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the

manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different quantities of labour which it puts into

Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the application of labour, have

followed very different plans in the general conduct or direction of it; those plans have not all been equally

favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some nations has given extraordinary encouragement

to the industry of the country; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and

impartially with every sort of industry. Since the downfall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has

been more favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns, than to agriculture, the

industry of the country. The circumstances which seem to have introduced and established this policy are

Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private interests and prejudices of

particular orders of men, without any regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare

of the society; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of political economy; of which some

magnify the importance of that industry which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the

country. Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions of men of learning, but

upon the public conduct of princes and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain, as

fully and distinctly as I can, those different theories, and the principal effects which they have produced in

To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the people, or what has been the nature of

those funds which, in different ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of

these four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue of the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this

book I have endeavoured to show, first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth;

which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; and which of

them by that of some particular part only, or of some particular members of it: secondly, what are the

different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards defraying the expenses

incumbent on the whole society, and what are the principal advantages and inconveniences of each of those

methods: and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons and causes which have induced almost all modern

governments to mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of

those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the society.

THE greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and

judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of

The effects of the division of labour, in the general business of society, will be more easily understood by

considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be

carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in others of

more importance: but in those trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants of but a

small number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in

every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under

the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great

wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a number of

workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one

time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really

be divided into a much greater number of parts than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has

been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pinmaker; a workman not educated to this business (which

the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed

in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce,

perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the

way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided

into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire,

another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make

the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is

another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is,

in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all

performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I

have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them

consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but

indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make

among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a

middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of fortyeight thousand pins in

a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of fortyeight thousand pins, might be considered as

making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently,

and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them

have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps

not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence

In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this

very trifling one; though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so

great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in

every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and

employments from one another seems to have taken place in consequence of this advantage. This separation,

too, is generally called furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and

improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society being generally that of several in an

improved one. In every improved society, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer,

nothing but a manufacturer. The labour, too, which is necessary to produce any one complete manufacture is

almost always divided among a great number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each

branch of the linen and woollen manufactures from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the bleachers and

smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not

admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one business from another, as

manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely the business of the grazier from that of the cornfarmer

as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. The spinner is almost always a

distinct person from the weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the

corn, are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts of labour returning with the different seasons

of the year, it is impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This

impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation of all the different branches of labour employed

in agriculture is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labour in this art does

not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally

excel all their neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more

distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated,

and having more labour and expense bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to the extent and

natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much more than in proportion to the

superiority of labour and expense. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more

productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never so much more productive as it commonly is in

manufactures. The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in the same degree of goodness, come

cheaper to market than that of the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as

that of France, notwithstanding the superior opulence and improvement of the latter country. The corn of

France is, in the corn provinces, fully as good, and in most years nearly about the same price with the corn of

England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior to England. The cornlands of

England, however, are better cultivated than those of France, and the cornlands of France are said to be

much better cultivated than those of Poland. But though the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of

its cultivation, can, in some measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it can pretend to

no such competition in its manufactures; at least if those manufactures suit the soil, climate, and situation of

the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of England, because the silk

manufacture, at least under the present high duties upon the importation of raw silk, does not so well suit the

climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the coarse woollens of England are beyond all

comparison superior to those of France, and much cheaper too in the same degree of goodness. In Poland

there are said to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those coarser household manufactures

This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number

of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of

dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing

from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily increases the quantity of the work he can

perform; and the division of labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and by

making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increased very much dexterity of the

workman. A common smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make

nails, if upon some particular occasion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be able to make

above two or three hundred nails in a day, and those too very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to

make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not been that of a nailer, can seldom with his utmost

diligence make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen several boys under twenty

years of age who had never exercised any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted

themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of two thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of

a nail, however, is by no means one of the simplest operations. The same person blows the bellows, stirs or

mends the fire as there is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail: in forging the head too he

is obliged to change his tools. The different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is

subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the dexterity of the person, of whose life it has been the

sole business to perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which some of the operations of

those manufacturers are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who had never seen them,

Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work

to another is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very

quickly from one kind of work to another that is carried on in a different place and with quite different tools.

A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the

field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss

of time is no doubt much less. It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters

a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment to another. When he first begins the new work he is

seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than

applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or

rather necessarily acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every

half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost

always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on the most pressing occasions.

Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce

Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the

application of proper machinery. It is unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that

the invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated and abridged seems to have been

originally owing to the division of labour. Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods

of attaining any object when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single object than

when it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of the division of labour, the whole

of every man's attention comes naturally to be directed towards some one very simple object. It is naturally to

be expected, therefore, that some one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch of labour

should soon find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particular work, wherever the nature

of it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which

labour is most subdivided, were originally the inventions of common workmen, who, being each of them

employed in some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and

readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures must

frequently have been shown very pretty machines, which were the inventions of such workmen in order to

facilitate and quicken their particular part of the work. In the first fireengines, a boy was constantly

employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as

the piston either ascended or descended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed

that, by tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to another part of the

machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with

his playfellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made upon this machine, since it was first

invented, was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the inventions of those who had

occasion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the

machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are

called philosophers or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do anything, but to observe everything; and

who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar

objects. In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the

principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens. Like every other employment too, it is

subdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords occupation to a peculiar tribe or

class of philosophers; and this subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business,

improves dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch, more

work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of

labour, which occasions, in a wellgoverned society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the

lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what

he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to

exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the

price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they

accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in a civilised and thriving

country, and you will perceive that the number of people of whose industry a part, though but a small part,

has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for

example, which covers the daylabourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint

labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the woolcomber or carder, the

dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their

different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides,

must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live

in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many

shipbuilders, sailors, sailmakers, ropemakers, must have been employed in order to bring together the

different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world! What a

variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say

nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the

weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine,

the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore,

the seller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smeltinghouse, the brickmaker,

the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them

join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different

parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which

cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchengrate at

which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the

earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen,

all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and

divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window

which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art

requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world

could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen

employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what

a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and

cooperation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided, even

according to what we very falsely imagine the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly

accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must

no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a

European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant as the

accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and

THIS division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any

human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the

necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in

view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can

be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and

speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other

race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in

running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her

towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This,

however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same

object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for

another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another,

this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of

a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service

it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the

attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts

with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations,

endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do

this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance

of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost

every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in

its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant

occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He

will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their selflove in his favour, and show them that it is for their

own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind,

proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of

every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good

offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that

we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity

but to their selflove, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a

beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellowcitizens. Even a beggar does not

depend upon it entirely. The charity of welldisposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his

subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has

occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of

his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by

purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another

bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for

money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase that we obtain from one another the greater part of those mutual

good offices which we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion

to the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for

example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for

venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison than

if he himself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows

and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels in making the

frames and covers of their little huts or movable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this way to his

neighbours, who reward him in the same manner with cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his

interest to dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of housecarpenter. In the same

manner a third becomes a smith or a brazier, a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the principal part

of the nothing of savages. And thus the certainty of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce

of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's

labour as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and to

cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess for that particular species of

The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very

different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not

upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the

most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise

not so much from nature as from habit, custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the

first six or eight years of their existence, they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their parents nor

playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be

employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and

widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance.

But without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every

necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the

same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion

As it is this disposition which forms that difference of talents, so remarkable among men of different

professions, so it is this same disposition which renders that difference useful. Many tribes of animals

acknowledged to be all of the same species derive from nature a much more remarkable distinction of genius,

than what, antecedent to custom and education, appears to take place among men. By nature a philosopher is

not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound, or a

greyhound from a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd's dog. Those different tribes of animals, however,

though all of the same species, are of scarce any use to one another. The strength of the mastiff is not, in the

least, supported either by the swiftness of the greyhound, or by the sagacity of the spaniel, or by the docility

of the shepherd's dog. The effects of those different geniuses and talents, for want of the power or disposition

to barter and exchange, cannot be brought into a common stock, and do not in the least contribute to the

better accommodation ind conveniency of the species. Each animal is still obliged to support and defend

itself, separately and independently, and derives no sort of advantage from that variety of talents with which

nature has distinguished its fellows. Among men, on the contrary, the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to

one another; the different produces of their respective talents, by the general disposition to truck, barter, and

exchange, being brought, as it were, into a common stock, where every man may purchase whatever part of

AS it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division

must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market. When the

market is very small, no person can have any encouragement to dedicate himself entirely to one employment,

for want of the power to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and

above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for.

There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind, which can be carried on nowhere but in a great

town. A porter, for example, can find employment and subsistence in no other place. A village is by much too

narrow a sphere for him; even an ordinary market town is scarce large enough to afford him constant

occupation. In the lone houses and very small villages which are scattered about in so desert a country as the

Highlands of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher, baker and brewer for his own family. In such situations

we can scarce expect to find even a smith, a carpenter, or a mason, within less than twenty miles of another of

the same trade. The scattered families that live at eight or ten miles distance from the nearest of them must

learn to perform themselves a great number of little pieces of work, for which, in more populous countries,

they would call in the assistance of those workmen. Country workmen are almost everywhere obliged to

apply themselves to all the different branches of industry that have so much affinity to one another as to be

employed about the same sort of materials. A country carpenter deals in every sort of work that is made of

wood: a country smith in every sort of work that is made of iron. The former is not only a carpenter, but a

joiner, a cabinetmaker, and even a carver in wood, as well as a wheelwright, a ploughwright, a cart and

waggon maker. The employments of the latter are still more various. It is impossible there should be such a

trade as even that of a nailer in the remote and inland parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Such a workman at

the rate of a thousand nails a day, and three hundred working days in the year, will make three hundred

thousand nails in the year. But in such a situation it would be impossible to dispose of one thousand, that is,

As by means of watercarriage a more extensive market is opened to every sort of industry than what

landcarriage alone can afford it, so it is upon the seacoast, and along the banks of navigable rivers, that

industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and improve itself, and it is frequently not till a long time

after that those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country. A broadwheeled

waggon, attended by two men, and drawn by eight horses, in about six weeks' time carries and brings back

between London and Edinburgh near four ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship navigated by six

or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London and Leith, frequently carries and brings back two

hundred ton weight of goods. Six or eight men, therefore, by the help of watercarriage, can carry and bring

back in the same time the same quantity of goods between London and Edinburgh, as fifty broadwheeled

waggons, attended by a hundred men, and drawn by four hundred horses. Upon two hundred tons of goods,

therefore, carried by the cheapest landcarriage from London to Edinburgh, there must be charged the

maintenance of a hundred men for three weeks, and both the maintenance, and, what is nearly equal to the

maintenance, the wear and tear of four hundred horses as well as of fifty great waggons. Whereas, upon the

same quantity of goods carried by water, there is to be charged only the maintenance of six or eight men, and

the wear and tear of a ship of two hundred tons burden, together with the value of the superior risk, or the

difference of the insurance between land and watercarriage. Were there no other communication between

those two places, therefore, but by landcarriage, as no goods could be transported from the one to the other,

except such whose price was very considerable in proportion to their weight, they could carry on but a small

part of that commerce which at present subsists between them, and consequently could give but a small part

of that encouragement which they at present mutually afford to each other's industry. There could be little or

no commerce of any kind between the distant parts of the world. What goods could bear the expense of

landcarriage between London and Calcutta? Or if there were any so precious as to be able to support this

expense, with what safety could they be transported through the territories of so many barbarous nations?

Those two cities, however, at present carry on a very considerable commerce with each other, and by

mutually affording a market, give a good deal of encouragement to each other's industry.

Since such, therefore, are the advantages of watercarriage, it is natural that the first improvements of art and

industry should be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every

sort of labour, and that they should always be much later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the

country. The inland parts of the country can for a long time have no other market for the greater part of their

goods, but the country which lies round about them, and separates them from the seacoast, and the great

navigable rivers. The extent of their market, therefore, must for a long time be in proportion to the riches and

populousness of that country, and consequently their improvement must always be posterior to the

improvement of that country. In our North American colonies the plantations have constantly followed either

the seacoast or the banks of the navigable rivers, and have scarce anywhere extended themselves to any

The nations that, according to the best authenticated history, appear to have been first civilised, were those

that dwelt round the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. That sea, by far the greatest inlet that is known in the

world, having no tides, nor consequently any waves except such as are caused by the wind only, was, by the

smoothness of its surface, as well as by the multitude of its islands, and the proximity of its neighbouring

shores, extremely favourable to the infant navigation of the world; when, from their ignorance of the

compass, men were afraid to quit the view of the coast, and from the imperfection of the art of shipbuilding,

to abandon themselves to the boisterous waves of the ocean. To pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, that is, to

sail out of the Straits of Gibraltar, was, in the ancient world, long considered as a most wonderful and

dangerous exploit of navigation. It was late before even the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the most skilful

navigators and shipbuilders of those old times, attempted it, and they were for a long time the only nations

Of all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt seems to have been the first in which either

agriculture or manufactures were cultivated and improved to any considerable degree. Upper Egypt extends

itself nowhere above a few miles from the Nile, and in Lower Egypt that great river breaks itself into many

different canals, which, with the assistance of a little art, seem to have afforded a communication by

watercarriage, not only between all the great towns, but between all the considerable villages, and even to

many farmhouses in the country; nearly in the same manner as the Rhine and the Maas do in Holland at

present. The extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal causes of the

The improvements in agriculture and manufactures seem likewise to have been of very great antiquity in the

provinces of Bengal, in the East Indies, and in some of the eastern provinces of China; though the great extent

of this antiquity is not authenticated by any histories of whose authority we, in this part of the world, are well

assured. In Bengal the Ganges and several other great rivers form a great number of navigable canals in the

same manner as the Nile does in Egypt. In the Eastern provinces of China too, several great rivers form, by

their different branches, a multitude of canals, and by communicating with one another afford an inland

navigation much more extensive than that either of the Nile or the Ganges, or perhaps than both of them put

together. It is remarkable that neither the ancient Egyptians, nor the Indians, nor the Chinese, encouraged

foreign commerce, but seem all to have derived their great opulence from this inland navigation.

All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine

and Caspian seas, the ancient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem in all ages of the world to have

been in the same barbarous and uncivilised state in which we find them at present. The Sea of Tartary is the

frozen ocean which admits of no navigation, and though some of the greatest rivers in the world run through

that country, they are at too great a distance from one another to carry commerce and communication through

the greater part of it. There are in Africa none of those great inlets, such as the Baltic and Adriatic seas in

Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine seas in both Europe and Asia, and the gulfs of Arabia, Persia, India,

Bengal, and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: and the

great rivers of Africa are at too great a distance from one another to give occasion to any considerable inland

navigation. The commerce besides which any nation can carry on by means of a river which does not break

itself into any great number of branches or canals, and which runs into another territory before it reaches the

sea, can never be very considerable; because it is always in the power of the nations who possess that other

territory to obstruct the communication between the upper country and the sea. The navigation of the Danube

is of very little use to the different states of Bavaria, Austria and Hungary, in comparison of what it would be

if any of them possessed the whole of its course till it falls into the Black Sea.

WHEN the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's

wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by

exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption,

for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by

exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a

But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been

very much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain

commodity than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former consequently would be glad

to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter should chance to have

nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more

meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to

purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their

respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate

occasion for. No exchange can, in this case, be made between them. He cannot be their merchant, nor they his

customers; and they are all of them thus mutually less serviceable to one another. In order to avoid the

inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment

of the division of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such a manner as to have

at alltimes by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one

commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of

Many different commodities, it is probable, were successively both thought of and employed for this purpose.

In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the common instrument of commerce; and, though

they must have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently valued

according to the number of cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says

Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common

instrument of commerce and exchanges in Abyssinia; a species of shells in some parts of the coast of India;

dried cod at Newfoundland; tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies; hides or dressed

leather in some other countries; and there is at this day a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am

told, for a workman to carry nails instead of money to the baker's shop or the alehouse.

In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the

preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity. Metals can not only be kept with as

little loss as any other commodity, scarce anything being less perishable than they are, but they can likewise,

without any loss, be divided into any number of parts, as by fusion those parts can easily be reunited again; a

quality which no other equally durable commodities possess, and which more than any other quality renders

them fit to be the instruments of commerce and circulation. The man who wanted to buy salt, for example,

and had nothing but cattle to give in exchange for it, must have been obliged to buy salt to the value of a

whole ox, or a whole sheep at a time. He could seldom buy less than this, because what he was to give for it

could seldom be divided without loss; and if he had a mind to buy more, he must, for the same reasons, have

been obliged to buy double or triple the quantity, the value, to wit, of two or three oxen, or of two or three

sheep. If, on the contrary, instead of sheep or oxen, he had metals to give in exchange for it, he could easily

proportion the quantity of the metal to the precise quantity of the commodity which he had immediate

Different metals have been made use of by different nations for this purpose. Iron was the common

instrument of commerce among the ancient Spartans; copper among the ancient Romans; and gold and silver

Those metals seem originally to have been made use of for this purpose in rude bars, without any stamp or

coinage. Thus we are told by Pliny, upon the authority of Timaeus, an ancient historian, that, till the time of

Servius Tullius, the Romans had no coined money, but made use of unstamped bars of copper, to purchase

whatever they had occasion for. These bars, therefore, performed at this time the function of money.

The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two very considerable inconveniencies; first, with the

trouble of weighing; and, secondly, with that of assaying them. In the precious metals, where a small

difference in the quantity makes a great difference in the value, even the business of weighing, with proper

exactness, requires at least very accurate weights and scales. The weighing of gold in particular is an

operation of some nicety. In the coarser metals, indeed, where a small error would be of little consequence,

less accuracy would, no doubt, be necessary. Yet we should find it excessively troublesome, if every time a

poor man had occasion either to buy or sell a farthing's worth of goods, he was obliged to weigh the farthing.

The operation of assaying is still more difficult, still more tedious, and, unless a part of the metal is fairly

melted in the crucible, with proper dissolvents, any conclusion that can be drawn from it, is extremely

uncertain. Before the institution of coined money, however, unless they went through this tedious and

difficult operation, people must always have been liable to the grossest frauds and impositions, and instead of

a pound weight of pure silver, or pure copper, might receive in exchange for their goods an adulterated

composition of the coarsest and cheapest materials, which had, however, in their outward appearance, been

made to resemble those metals. To prevent such abuses, to facilitate exchanges, and thereby to encourage all

sorts of industry and commerce, it has been found necessary, in all countries that have made any considerable

advances towards improvement, to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of such particular metals as

were in those countries commonly made use of to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and of

those public offices called mints; institutions exactly of the same nature with those of the aulnagers and

stampmasters of woolen and linen cloth. All of them are equally meant to ascertain, by means of a public

stamp, the quantity and uniform goodness of those different commodities when brought to market.

The first public stamps of this kind that were affixed to the current metals, seem in many cases to have been

intended to ascertain, what it was both most difficult and most important to ascertain, the goodness or

fineness of the metal, and to have resembled the sterling mark which is at present affixed to plate and bars of

silver, or the Spanish mark which is sometimes affixed to ingots of gold, and which being struck only upon

one side of the piece, and not covering the whole surface, ascertains the fineness, but not the weight of the

metal. Abraham weighs to Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the field

of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current money of the merchant, and yet are received by

weight and not by tale, in the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present. The revenues of

the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been paid, not in money but in kind, that is, in victuals

and provisions of all sorts. William the Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them in money. This

money, however, was, for a long time, received at the exchequer, by weight and not by tale.

The inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals with exactness gave occasion to the institution of

coins, of which the stamp, covering entirely both sides of the piece and sometimes the edges too, was

supposed to ascertain not only the fineness, but the weight of the metal. Such coins, therefore, were received

The denominations of those coins seem originally to have expressed the weight or quantity of metal

contained in them. In the time of Servius Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the Roman as or pondo

contained a Roman pound of good copper. It was divided in the same manner as our Troyes pound, into

twelve ounces, each of which contained a real ounce of good copper. The English pound sterling, in the time

of Edward I, contained a pound, Tower weight, of silver, of a known fineness. The Tower pound seems to

have been something more than the Roman pound, and something less than the Troyes pound. This last was

not introduced into the mint of England till the 18th of Henry VIII. The French livre contained in the time of

Charlemagne a pound, Troyes weight, of silver of a known fineness. The fair of Troyes in Champaign was at

that time frequented by all the nations of Europe, and the weights and measures of so famous a market were

generally known and esteemed. The Scots money pound contained, from the time of Alexander the First to

that of Robert Bruce, a pound of silver of the same weight and fineness with the English pound sterling.

English, French, and Scots pennies, too, contained all of them originally a real pennyweight of silver, the

twentieth part of an ounce, and the twohundredandfortieth part of a pound. The shilling too seems

originally to have been the denomination of a weight. When wheat is at twelve shillings the quarter, says an

ancient statute of Henry III, then wastel bread of a farthing shall weigh eleven shillings and four pence. The

proportion, however, between the shilling and either the penny on the one hand, or the pound on the other,

seems not to have been so constant and uniform as that between the penny and the pound. During the first

race of the kings of France, the French sou or shilling appears upon different occasions to have contained

five, twelve, twenty, and forty pennies. Among the ancient Saxons a shilling appears at one time to have

contained only five pennies, and it is not improbable that it may have been as variable among them as among

their neighbours, the ancient Franks. From the time of Charlemagne among the French, and from that of

William the Conqueror among the English, the proportion between the pound, the shilling, and the penny,

seems to have been uniformly the same as at present, though the value of each has been very different. For in

every country of the world, I believe, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign states, abusing the

confidence of their subjects, have by degrees diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally

contained in their coins. The Roman as, in the latter ages of the Republic, was reduced to the twentyfourth

part of its original value, and, instead of weighing a pound, came to weigh only half an ounce. The English

pound and penny contain at present about a third only; the Scots pound and penny about a thirtysixth; and

the French pound and penny about a sixtysixth part of their original value. By means of those operations the

princes and sovereign states which performed them were enabled, in appearance, to pay their debts and to

fulfil their engagements with a smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have been requisite. It was

indeed in appearance only; for their creditors were really defrauded of a part of what was due to them. All

other debtors in the state were allowed the same privilege, and might pay with the same nominal sum of the

new and debased coin whatever they had borrowed in the old. Such operations, therefore, have always proved

favourable to the debtor, and ruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced a greater and more

universal revolution in the fortunes of private persons, than could have been occasioned by a very great

It is in this manner that money has become in all civilised nations the universal instrument of commerce, by

the intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another.

What are the rules which men naturally observe in exchanging them either for money or for one another, I

shall now proceed to examine. These rules determine what may be called the relative or exchangeable value

The word value, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some

particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object

conveys. The one may be called "value in use"; the other, "value in exchange." The things which have the

greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the

greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it

will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has

scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

In order to investigate the principles which regulate the exchangeable value of commodities, I shall

First, what is the real measure of this exchangeable value; or, wherein consists the real price of all

Secondly, what are the different parts of which this real price is composed or made up.

And, lastly, what are the different circumstances which sometimes raise some or all of these different parts of

price above, and sometimes sink them below their natural or ordinary rate; or, what are the causes which

sometimes hinder the market price, that is, the actual price of commodities, from coinciding exactly with

I shall endeavour to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, those three subjects in the three following

chapters, for which I must very earnestly entreat both the patience and attention of the reader: his patience in

order to examine a detail which may perhaps in some places appear unnecessarily tedious; and his attention in

order to understand what may, perhaps, after the fullest explication which I am capable of giving of it, appear

still in some degree obscure. I am always willing to run some hazard of being tedious in order to be sure that I

am perspicuous; and after taking the utmost pains that I can to be perspicuous, some obscurity may still

CHAPTER V. Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, or their Price in Labour, and their Price in

EVERY man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries,

conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken

place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part

of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity

of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity,

therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it

for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command.

Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and

trouble of acquiring it. What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to

dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which

it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much

as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They

contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to

contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchasemoney that was paid

for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally

purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is

precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.

Wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power. But the person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune,

does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may,

perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both, but the mere possession of that fortune does not necessarily

convey to him either. The power which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the

power of purchasing; a certain command over all the labour, or over all the produce of labour, which is then

in the market. His fortune is greater or less, precisely in proportion to the extent of this power; or to the

quantity either of other men's labour, or, what is the same thing, of the produce of other men's labour, which

it enables him to purchase or command. The exchangeable value of everything must always be precisely

But though labour be the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities, it is not that by which

their value is commonly estimated. It is of difficult to ascertain the proportion between two different

quantities of labour. The time spent in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this

proportion. The different degrees of hardship endured, and of ingenuity exercised, must likewise be taken

into account. There may be more labour in an hour's hard work than in two hours' easy business; or in an

hour's application to a trade which it cost ten years' labour to learn, than in a month's industry at an ordinary

and obvious employment. But it is not easy to find any accurate measure either of hardship or ingenuity. In

exchanging, indeed, the different productions of different sorts of labour for one another, some allowance is

commonly made for both. It is adjusted, however, not by any accurate measure, but by the higgling and

bargaining of the market, according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is sufficient for

Every commodity, besides, is more frequently exchanged for, and thereby compared with, other commodities

than with labour. It is more natural, therefore, to estimate its exchangeable value by the quantity of some

other commodity than by that of the labour which it can purchase. The greater part of people, too, understand

better what is meant by a quantity of a particular commodity than by a quantity of labour. The one is a plain

palpable object; the other an abstract notion, which, though it can be made sufficiently intelligible, is not

But when barter ceases, and money has become the common instrument of commerce, every particular

commodity is more frequently exchanged for money than for any other commodity. The butcher seldom

carries his beef or his mutton to the baker, or the brewer, in order to exchange them for bread or for beer; but

he carries them to the market, where he exchanges them for money, and afterwards exchanges that money for

bread and for beer. The quantity of money which he gets for them regulates, too, the quantity of bread and

beer which he can afterwards purchase. It is more natural and obvious to him, therefore, to estimate their

value by the quantity of money, the commodity for which he immediately exchanges them, than by that of

bread and beer, the commodities for which he can exchange them only by the intervention of another

commodity; and rather to say that his butcher's meat is worth threepence or fourpence a pound, than that it is

worth three or four pounds of bread, or three or four quarts of small beer. Hence it comes to pass that the

exchangeable value of every commodity is more frequently estimated by the quantity of money, than by the

quantity either of labour or of any other commodity which can be had in exchange for it.

Gold and silver, however, like every other commodity, vary in their value, are sometimes cheaper and

sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier and sometimes of more difficult purchase. The quantity of labour

which any particular quantity of them can purchase or command, or the quantity of other goods which it will

exchange for, depends always upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which happen to be known about

the time when such exchanges are made. The discovery of the abundant mines of America reduced, in the

sixteenth century, the value of gold and silver in Europe to about a third of what it had been before. As it

costs less labour to bring those metals from the mine to the market, so when they were brought thither they

could purchase or command less labour; and this revolution in their value, though perhaps the greatest, is by

no means the only one of which history gives some account. But as a measure of quantity, such as the natural

foot, fathom, or handful, which is continually varying in its own quantity, can never be an accurate measure

of the quantity of other things; so a commodity which is itself continually varying in its own value, can never

be an accurate measure of the value of other commodities. Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places,

may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits; in the

ordinary degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always laydown the same portion of his ease, his liberty,

and his happiness. The price which he pays must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods

which he receives in return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes purchase a greater and sometimes a

smaller quantity; but it is their value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them. At all times

and places that is dear which it is difficult to come at, or which it costs much labour to acquire; and that cheap

which is to be had easily, or with very little labour. Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is

alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be

estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only.

But though equal quantities of labour are always of equal value to the labourer, yet to the person who

employs him they appear sometimes to be of greater and sometimes of smaller value. He purchases them

sometimes with a greater and sometimes with a smaller quantity of goods, and to him the price of labour

seems to vary like that of all other things. It appears to him dear in the one case, and cheap in the other. In

reality, however, it is the goods which are cheap in the one case, and dear in the other.

In this popular sense, therefore, labour, like commodities, may be said to have a real and a nominal price. Its

real price may be said to consist in the quantity of the necessaries and conveniences of life which are given

for it; its nominal price, in the quantity of money. The labourer is rich or poor, is well or ill rewarded, in

The distinction between the real and the nominal price of commodities and labour is not a matter of mere

speculation, but may sometimes be of considerable use in practice. The same real price is always of the same

value; but on account of the variations in the value of gold and silver, the same nominal price is sometimes of

very different values. When a landed estate, therefore, is sold with a reservation of a perpetual rent, if it is

intended that this rent should always be of the same value, it is of importance to the family in whose favour it

is reserved that it should not consist in a particular sum of money. Its value would in this case be liable to

variations of two different kinds; first, to those which arise from the different quantities of gold and silver

which are contained at different times in coin of the same denomination; and, secondly, to those which arise

from the different values of equal quantities of gold and silver at different times.

Princes and sovereign states have frequently fancied that they had a temporary interest to diminish the

quantity of pure metal contained in their coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment it.

The quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has, accordingly, been almost

continually diminishing, and hardly ever augmenting. Such variations, therefore, tend almost always to

The discovery of the mines of America diminished the value of gold and silver in Europe. This diminution, it

is commonly supposed, though I apprehend without any certain proof, is still going on gradually, and is likely

to continue to do so for a long time. Upon this supposition, therefore, such variations are more likely to

diminish than to augment the value of a money rent, even though it should be stipulated to be paid, not in

such a quantity of coined money of such a denomination (in so many pounds sterling, for example), but in so

The rents which have been reserved in corn have preserved their value much better than those which have

been reserved in money, even where the denomination of the coin has not been altered. By the 18th of

Elizabeth it was enacted that a third of the rent of all college leases should be reserved in corn, to be paid,

either in kind, or according to the current prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this

corn rent, though originally but a third of the whole, is in the present times, according to Dr. Blackstone,

commonly near double of what arises from the other twothirds. The old money rents of colleges must,

according to this account, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their ancient value; or are worth little more

than a fourth part of the corn which they were formerly worth. But since the reign of Philip and Mary the

denomination of the English coin has undergone little or no alteration, and the same number of pounds,

shillings and pence have contained very nearly the same quantity of pure silver. This degradation, therefore,

in the value of the money rents of colleges, has arisen altogether from the degradation in the value of silver.

When the degradation in the value of silver is combined with the diminution of the quantity of it contained in

the coin of the same denomination, the loss is frequently still greater. In Scotland, where the denomination of

the coin has undergone much greater alterations than it ever did in England, and in France, where it has

undergone still greater than it ever did in Scotland, some ancient rents, originally of considerable value, have

Equal quantities of labour will at distant times be purchased more nearly with equal quantities of corn, the

subsistence of the labourer, than with equal quantities of gold and silver, or perhaps of any other commodity.

Equal quantities of corn, therefore, will, at distant times, be more nearly of the same real value, or enable the

possessor to purchase or command more nearly the same quantity of the labour of other people. They will do

this, I say, more nearly than equal quantities of almost any other commodity; for even equal quantities of corn

will not do it exactly. The subsistence of the labourer, or the real price of labour, as I shall endeavour to show

hereafter, is very different upon different occasions; more liberal in a society advancing to opulence than in

one that is standing still; and in one that is standing still than in one that is going backwards. Every other

commodity, however, will at any particular time purchase a greater or smaller quantity of labour in

proportion to the quantity of subsistence which it can purchase at that time. A rent therefore reserved in corn

is liable only to the variations in the quantity of labour which a certain quantity of corn can purchase. But a

rent reserved in any other commodity is liable not only to the variations in the quantity of labour which any

particular quantity of corn can purchase, but to the variations in the quantity of corn which can be purchased

Though the real value of a corn rent, it is to be observed, however, varies much less from century to century

than that of a money rent, it varies much more from year to year. The money price of labour, as I shall

endeavour to show hereafter, does not fluctuate from year to year with the money price of corn, but seems to

be everywhere accommodated, not to the temporary or occasional, but to the average or ordinary price of that

necessary of life. The average or ordinary price of corn again is regulated, as I shall likewise endeavour to

show hereafter, by the value of silver, by the richness or barrenness of the mines which supply the market

with that metal, or by the quantity of labour which must be employed, and consequently of corn which must

be consumed, in order to bring any particular quantity of silver from the mine to the market. But the value of

silver, though it sometimes varies greatly from century to century, seldom varies much from year to year, but

frequently continues the same, or very nearly the same, for half a century or a century together. The ordinary

or average money price of corn, therefore, may, during so long a period, continue the same or very nearly the

same too, and along with it the money price of labour, provided, at least, the society continues, in other

respects, in the same or nearly in the same condition. In the meantime the temporary and occasional price of

corn may frequently be double, one year, of what it had been the year before, or fluctuate, for example, from

five and twenty to fifty shillings the quarter. But when corn is at the latter price, not only the nominal, but the

real value of a corn rent will be double of what it is when at the former, or will command double the quantity

either of labour or of the greater part of other commodities; the money price of labour, and along with it that

Labour, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal, as well as the only accurate measure of value, or

the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times, and at all places.

We cannot estimate, it is allowed, the real value of different commodities from century to century by the

quantities of silver which were given for them. We cannot estimate it from year to year by the quantities of

corn. By the quantities of labour we can, with the greatest accuracy, estimate it both from century to century

and from year to year. From century to century, corn is a better measure than silver, because, from century to

century, equal quantities of corn will command the same quantity of labour more nearly than equal quantities

of silver. From year to year, on the contrary, silver is a better measure than corn, because equal quantities of

But though in establishing perpetual rents, or even in letting very long leases, it may be of use to distinguish

between real and nominal price; it is of none in buying and selling, the more common and ordinary

At the same time and place the real and the nominal price of all commodities are exactly in proportion to one

another. The more or less money you get for any commodity, in the London market for example, the more or

less labour it will at that time and place enable you to purchase or command. At the same time and place,

therefore, money is the exact measure of the real exchangeable value of all commodities. It is so, however, at

Though at distant places, there is no regular proportion between the real and the money price of commodities,

yet the merchant who carries goods from the one to the other has nothing to consider but their money price,

or the difference between the quantity of silver for which he buys them, and that for which he is likely to sell

them. Half an ounce of silver at Canton in China may command a greater quantity both of labour and of the

necessaries and conveniences of life than an ounce at London. A commodity, therefore, which sells for half

an ounce of silver at Canton may there be really dearer, of more real importance to the man who possesses it

there, than a commodity which sells for an ounce at London is to the man who possesses it at London. If a

London merchant, however, can buy at Canton for half an ounce of silver, a commodity which he can

afterwards sell at London for an ounce, he gains a hundred per cent by the bargain, just as much as if an

ounce of silver was at London exactly of the same value as at Canton. It is of no importance to him that half

an ounce of silver at Canton would have given him the command of more labour and of a greater quantity of

the necessaries and conveniences of life than an ounce can do at London. An ounce at London will always

give him the command of double the quantity of all these which half an ounce could have done there, and this

As it is the nominal or money price of goods, therefore, which finally determines the prudence or imprudence

of all purchases and sales, and thereby regulates almost the whole business of common life in which price is

concerned, we cannot wonder that it should have been so much more attended to than the real price.

In such a work as this, however, it may sometimes be of use to compare the different real values of a

particular commodity at different times and places, or the different degrees of power over the labour of other

people which it may, upon different occasions, have given to those who possessed it. We must in this case

compare, not so much the different quantities of silver for which it was commonly sold, as the different

quantities of labour which those different quantities of silver could have purchased. But the current prices of

labour at distant times and places can scarce ever be known with any degree of exactness. Those of corn,

though they have in few places been regularly recorded, are in general better known and have been more

frequently taken notice of by historians and other writers. We must generally, therefore, content ourselves

with them, not as being always exactly in the same proportion as the current prices of labour, but as being the

nearest approximation which can commonly be had to that proportion. I shall hereafter have occasion to make

In the progress of industry, commercial nations have found it convenient to coin several different metals into

money; gold for larger payments, silver for purchases of moderate value, and copper, or some other coarse

metal, for those of still smaller consideration. They have always, however, considered one of those metals as

more peculiarly the measure of value than any of the other two; and this preference seems generally to have

been given to the metal which they happened first to make use of as the instrument of commerce. Having

once begun to use it as their standard, which they must have done when they had no other money, they have

The Romans are said to have had nothing but copper money till within five years before the first Punic war,

when they first began to coin silver. Copper, therefore, appears to have continued always the measure of

value in that republic. At Rome all accounts appear to have been kept, and the value of all estates to have

been computed either in asses or in sestertii. The as was always the denomination of a copper coin. The word

sestertius signifies two asses and a half. Though the sestertius, therefore, was originally a silver coin, its value

was estimated in copper. At Rome, one who owed a great deal of money was said to have a great deal of

The northern nations who established themselves upon the ruins of the Roman empire, seem to have had

silver money from the first beginning of their settlements, and not to have known either gold or copper coins

for several ages thereafter. There were silver coins in England in the time of the Saxons; but there was little

gold coined till the time of Edward III nor any copper till that of James I of Great Britain. In England,

therefore, and for the same reason, I believe, in all other modern nations of Europe, all accounts are kept, and

the value of all goods and of all estates is generally computed in silver: and when we mean to express the

amount of a person's fortune, we seldom mention the number of guineas, but the number of pounds sterling

Originally, in all countries, I believe, a legal tender of payment could be made only in the coin of that metal,

which was peculiarly considered as the standard or measure of value. In England, gold was not considered as

a legal tender for a long time after it was coined into money. The proportion between the values of gold and

silver money was not fixed by any public law or proclamation; but was left to be settled by the market. If a

debtor offered payment in gold, the creditor might either reject such payment altogether, or accept of it at

such a valuation of the gold as he and his debtor could agree upon. Copper is not at present a legal tender

except in the change of the smaller silver coins. In this state of things the distinction between the metal which

was the standard, and that which was not the standard, was something more than a nominal distinction.

In process of time, and as people became gradually more familiar with the use of the different metals in coin,

and consequently better acquainted with the proportion between their respective values, it has in most

countries, I believe, been found convenient to ascertain this proportion, and to declare by a public law that a

guinea, for example, of such a weight and fineness, should exchange for oneandtwenty shillings, or be a

legal tender for a debt of that amount. In this state of things, and during the continuance of any one regulated

proportion of this kind, the distinction between the metal which is the standard, and that which is not the

In consequence of any change, however, in this regulated proportion, this distinction becomes, or at least

seems to become, something more than nominal again. If the regulated value of a guinea, for example, was

either reduced to twenty, or raised to twoandtwenty shillings, all accounts being kept and almost all

obligations for debt being expressed in silver money, the greater part of payments could in either case be

made with the same quantity of silver money as before; but would require very different quantities of gold

money; a greater in the one case, and a smaller in the other. Silver would appear to be more invariable in its

value than gold. Silver would appear to measure the value of gold, and gold would not appear to measure the

value of silver. The value of gold would seem to depend upon the quantity of silver which it would exchange

for; and the value of silver would not seem to depend upon the quantity of gold which it would exchange for.

This difference, however, would be altogether owing to the custom of keeping accounts, and of expressing

the amount of all great and small sums rather in silver than in gold money. One of Mr. Drummond's notes for

fiveandtwenty or fifty guineas would, after an alteration of this kind, be still payable with fiveandtwenty

or fifty guineas in the same manner as before. It would, after such an alteration, be payable with the same

quantity of gold as before, but with very different quantities of silver. In the payment of such a note, gold

would appear to be more invariable in its value than silver. Gold would appear to measure the value of silver,

and silver would not appear to measure the value of gold. If the custom of keeping accounts, and of

expressing promissory notes and other obligations for money in this manner, should ever become general,

gold, and not silver, would be considered as the metal which was peculiarly the standard or measure of value.

In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the

different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve

copper pence contain half a pound, avoirdupois, of copper, of not the best quality, which, before it is coined,

is seldom worth sevenpence in silver. But as by the regulation twelve such pence are ordered to exchange for

a shilling, they are in the market considered as worth a shilling, and a shilling can at any time be had for

them. Even before the late reformation of the gold coin of Great Britain, the gold, that part of it at least which

circulated in London and its neighbourhood, was in general less degraded below its standard weight than the

greater part of the silver. Oneandtwenty worn and defaced shillings, however, were considered as

equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and defaced too, but seldom so much so. The late

regulations have brought the gold coin as near perhaps to its standard weight as it is possible to bring the

current coin of any nation; and the order, to receive no gold at the public offices but by weight, is likely to

preserve it so, as long as that order is enforced. The silver coin still continues in the same worn and degraded

state as before the reformation of the gold coin. In the market, however, oneandtwenty shillings of this

degraded silver coin are still considered as worth a guinea of this excellent gold coin.

The reformation of the gold coin has evidently raised the value of the silver coin which can be exchanged for

In the English mint a pound weight of gold is coined into fortyfour guineas and a half, which, at

oneandtwenty shillings the guinea, is equal to fortysix pounds fourteen shillings and sixpence. An ounce

of such gold coin, therefore, is worth L3 17s. 10 1/2d. in silver. In England no duty or seignorage is paid

upon the coinage, and he who carries a pound weight or an ounce weight of standard gold bullion to the mint,

gets back a pound weight or an ounce weight of gold in coin, without any deduction. Three pounds seventeen

shillings and tenpence halfpenny an ounce, therefore, is said to be the mint price of gold in England, or the

Before the reformation of the gold coin, the price of standard gold bullion in the market had for many years

been upwards of L3 18s. sometimes L3 19s. and very frequently L4 an ounce; that sum, it is probable, in the

worn and degraded gold coin, seldom containing more than an ounce of standard gold. Since the reformation

of the gold coin, the market price of standard gold bullion seldom exceeds L3 17s. 7d. an ounce. Before the

reformation of the gold coin, the market price was always more or less above the mint price. Since that

reformation, the market price has been constantly below the mint price. But that market price is the same

whether it is paid in gold or in silver coin. The late reformation of the gold coin, therefore, has raised not only

the value of the gold coin, but likewise that of the silver coin in proportion to gold bullion, and probably, too,

in proportion to all other commodities; through the price of the greater part of other commodities being

influenced by so many other causes, the rise in the value either of gold or silver coin in proportion to them

In the English mint a pound weight of standard silver bullion is coined into sixtytwo shillings, containing, in

the same manner, a pound weight of standard silver. Five shillings and twopence an ounce, therefore, is said

to be the mint price of silver in England, or the quantity of silver coin which the mint gives in return for

standard silver bullion. Before the reformation of the gold coin, the market price of standard silver bullion

was, upon different occasions, five shillings and fourpence, five shillings and fivepence, five shillings and

sixpence, five shillings and sevenpence, and very often five shillings and eightpence an ounce. Five shillings

and sevenpence, however, seems to have been the most common price. Since the reformation of the gold

coin, the market price of standard silver bullion has fallen occasionally to five shillings and threepence, five

shillings and fourpence, and five shillings and fivepence an ounce, which last price it has scarce ever

exceeded. Though the market price of silver bullion has fallen considerably since the reformation of the gold

In the proportion between the different metals in the English coin, as copper is rated very much above its real

value, so silver is rated somewhat below it. In the market of Europe, in the French coin and in the Dutch coin,

an ounce of fine gold exchanges for about fourteen ounces of fine silver. In the English coin, it exchanges for

about fifteen ounces, that is, for more silver than it is worth according to the common estimation of Europe.

But as the price of copper in bars is not, even in England, raised by the high price of copper in English coin,

so the price of silver in bullion is not sunk by the low rate of silver in English coin. Silver in bullion still

preserves its proper proportion to gold; for the same reason that copper in bars preserves its proper proportion

Upon the reformation of the silver coin in the reign of William III the price of silver bullion still continued to

be somewhat above the mint price. Mr. Locke imputed this high price to the permission of exporting silver

bullion, and to the prohibition of exporting silver coin. This permission of exporting, he said, rendered the

demand for silver bullion greater than the demand for silver coin. But the number of people who want silver

coin for the common uses of buying and selling at home, is surely much greater than that of those who want

silver bullion either for the use of exportation or for any other use. There subsists at present a like permission

of exporting gold bullion, and a like prohibition of exporting gold coin: and yet the price of gold bullion has

fallen below the mint price. But in the English coin silver was then, in the same manner as now, underrated

in proportion to gold, and the gold coin (which at that time too was not supposed to require any reformation)

regulated then, as well as now, the real value of the whole coin. As the reformation of the silver coin did not

then reduce the price of silver bullion to the mint price, it is not very probable that a like reformation will do

Were the silver coin brought back as near to its standard weight as the gold, a guinea, it is probable, would,

according to the present proportion, exchange for more silver in coin than it would purchase in bullion. The

silver coin containing its full standard weight, there would in this case be a profit in melting it down, in order,

first, to sell the bullion for gold coin, and afterwards to exchange this gold coin for silver coin to be melted

down in the same manner. Some alteration in the present proportion seems to be the only method of

The inconveniency perhaps would be less if silver was rated in the coin as much above its proper proportion

to gold as it is at present rated below it; provided it was at the same time enacted that silver should not be a

legal tender for more than the change of a guinea, in the same manner as copper is not a legal tender for more

than the change of a shilling. No creditor could in this case be cheated in consequence of the high valuation

of silver in coin; as no creditor can at present be cheated in consequence of the high valuation of copper. The

bankers only would suffer by this regulation. When a run comes upon them they sometimes endeavour to

gain time by paying in sixpences, and they would be precluded by this regulation from this discreditable

method of evading immediate payment. They would be obliged in consequence to keep at all times in their

coffers a greater quantity of cash than at present; and though this might no doubt be a considerable

inconveniency to them, it would at the same time be a considerable security to their creditors.

Three pounds seventeen shillings and tenpence halfpenny (the mint price of gold) certainly does not contain,

even in our present excellent gold coin, more than an ounce of standard gold, and it may be thought,

therefore, should not purchase more standard bullion. But gold in coin is more convenient than gold in

bullion, and though, in England, the coinage is free, yet the gold which is carried in bullion to the mint can

seldom be returned in coin to the owner till after a delay of several weeks. In the present hurry of the mint, it

could not be returned till after a delay of several months. This delay is equivalent to a small duty, and renders

gold in coin somewhat more valuable than an equal quantity of gold in bullion. If in the English coin silver

was rated according to it proper proportion to gold, the price of silver bullion would probably fall below the

mint price even without any reformation of the silver coin; the value even of the present worn and defaced

silver coin being regulated by the value of the excellent gold coin for which it can be changed.

A small seignorage or duty upon the coinage of both gold and silver would probably increase still more the

superiority of those metals in coin above an equal quantity of either of them in bullion. The coinage would in

this case increase the value of the metal coined in proportion to the extent of this small duty; for the same

reason that the fashion increases the value of plate in proportion to the price of that fashion. The superiority

of coin above bullion would prevent the melting down of the coin, and would discourage its exportation. If

upon any public exigency it should become necessary to export the coin, the greater part of it would soon

return again of its own accord. Abroad it could sell only for its weight in bullion. At home it would buy more

than that weight. There would be a profit, therefore, in bringing it home again. In France a seignorage of

about eight per cent is imposed upon the coinage, and the French coin, when exported, is said to return home

The occasional fluctuations in the market price of gold and silver bullion arise from the same causes as the

like fluctuations in that of all other commodities. The frequent loss of those metals from various accidents by

sea and by land, the continual waste of them in gilding and plating, in lace and embroidery, in the wear and

tear of coin, and in that of plate; require, in all countries which possess no mines of their own, a continual

importation, in order to repair this loss and this waste. The merchant importers, like all other merchants, we

may believe, endeavour, as well as they can, to suit their occasional importations to what, they judge, is likely

to be the immediate demand. With all their attention, however, they sometimes overdo the business, and

sometimes underdo it. When they import more bullion than is wanted, rather than incur the risk and trouble of

exporting it again, they are sometimes willing to sell a part of it for something less than the ordinary or

average price. When, on the other hand, they import less than is wanted, they get something more than this

price. But when, under all those occasional fluctuations, the market price either of gold or silver bullion

continues for several years together steadily and constantly, either more or less above, or more or less below

the mint price, we may be assured that this steady and constant, either superiority or inferiority of price, is the

effect of something in the state of the coin, which, at that time, renders a certain quantity of coin either of

more value or of less value than the precise quantity of bullion which it ought to contain. The constancy and

steadiness of the effect supposes a proportionable constancy and steadiness in the cause.

The money of any particular country is, at any particular time and place, more or less an accurate measure of

value according as the current coin is more or less exactly agreeable to its standard, or contains more or less

exactly the precise quantity of pure gold or pure silver which it ought to contain. If in England, for example,

fortyfour guineas and a half contained exactly a pound weight of standard gold, or eleven ounces of fine

gold and one ounce of alloy, the gold coin of England would be as accurate a measure of the actual value of

goods at any particular time and place as the nature of the thing would admit. But if, by rubbing and wearing,

fortyfour guineas and a half generally contain less than a pound weight of standard gold; the diminution,

however, being greater in some pieces than in others; the measure of value comes to be liable to the same sort

of uncertainty to which all other weights and measures are commonly exposed. As it rarely happens that these

are exactly agreeable to their standard, the merchant adjusts the price of his goods, as well as he can, not to

what those weights and measures ought to be, but to what, upon an average, he finds by experience they

actually are. In consequence of a like disorder in the coin, the price of goods comes, in the same manner, to

be adjusted, not to the quantity of pure gold or silver which the corn ought to contain, but to that which, upon

By the moneyprice of goods, it is to be observed, I understand always the quantity of pure gold or silver for

which they are sold, without any regard to the denomination of the coin. Six shillings and eightpence, for

example, in the time of Edward I, I consider as the same moneyprice with a pound sterling in the present

times; because it contained, as nearly as we can judge, the same quantity of pure silver.

IN that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of

land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the

only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. If among a nation of

hunters, for example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one beaver

should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days'

or two hours' labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day's or one hour's labour.

If the one species of labour should be more severe than the other, some allowance will naturally be made for

this superior hardship; and the produce of one hour's labour in the one way may frequently exchange for that

Or if the one species of labour requires an uncommon degree of dexterity and ingenuity, the esteem which

men have for such talents will naturally give a value to their produce, superior to what would be due to the

time employed about it. Such talents can seldom be acquired but in consequence of long application, and the

superior value of their produce may frequently be no more than a reasonable compensation for the time and

labour which must be spent in acquiring them. In the advanced state of society, allowances of this kind, for

superior hardship and superior skill, are commonly made in the wages of labour; and something of the same

In this state of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer; and the quantity of labour

commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity is the only circumstance which can regulate

the quantity exchange for which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for.

As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in

setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a

profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials. In exchanging the

complete manufacture either for money, for labour, or for other goods, over and above what may be sufficient

to pay the price of the materials, and the wages of the workmen, something must be given for the profits of

the undertaker of the work who hazards his stock in this adventure. The value which the workmen add to the

materials, therefore, resolves itself in this ease into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the

profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced. He could have no

interest to employ them, unless he expected from the sale of their work something more than what was

sufficient to replace his stock to him; and he could have no interest to employ a great stock rather than a small

one, unless his profits were to bear some proportion to the extent of his stock.

The profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought are only a different name for the wages of a particular sort of

labour, the labour of inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite

different principles, and bear no proportion to the quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of this supposed

labour of inspection and direction. They are regulated altogether by the value of the stock employed, and are

greater or smaller in proportion to the extent of this stock. Let us suppose, for example, that in some

particular place, where the common annual profits of manufacturing stock are ten per cent, there are two

different manufactures, in each of which twenty workmen are employed at the rate of fifteen pounds a year

each, or at the expense of three hundred a year in each manufactory. Let us suppose, too, that the coarse

materials annually wrought up in the one cost only seven hundred pounds, while the finer materials in the

other cost seven thousand. The capital annually employed in the one will in this case amount only to one

thousand pounds; whereas that employed in the other will amount to seven thousand three hundred pounds.

At the rate of ten per cent, therefore, the undertaker of the one will expect a yearly profit of about one

hundred pounds only; while that of the other will expect about seven hundred and thirty pounds. But though

their profits are so very different, their labour of inspection and direction may be either altogether or very

nearly the same. In many great works almost the whole labour of this kind is committed to some principal

clerk. His wages properly express the value of this labour of inspection and direction. Though in settling them

some regard is had commonly, not only to his labour and skill, but to the trust which is reposed in him, yet

they never bear any regular proportion to the capital of which he oversees the management; and the owner of

this capital, though he is thus discharged of almost all labour, still expects that his profits should bear a

regular proportion to his capital. In the price of commodities, therefore, the profits of stock constitute a

component part altogether different from the wages of labour, and regulated by quite different principles.

In this state of things, the whole produce of labour does not always belong to the labourer. He must in most

cases share it with the owner of the stock which employs him. Neither is the quantity of labour commonly

employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, the only circumstance which can regulate the quantity

which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for. An additional quantity, it is evident, must

be due for the profits of the stock which advanced the wages and furnished the materials of that labour.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to

reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the

grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer

only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must

then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either

collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the

rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities makes a third component part.

The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed, is measured by the quantity

of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value not only of that

part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which

In every society the price of every commodity finally resolves itself into some one or other, or all of those

three parts; and in every improved society, all the three enter more or less, as component parts, into the price

In the price of corn, for example, one part pays the rent of the landlord, another pays the wages or

maintenance of the labourers and labouring cattle employed in producing it, and the third pays the profit of

the farmer. These three parts seem either immediately or ultimately to make up the whole price of corn. A

fourth part, it may perhaps be thought, is necessary for replacing the stock of the farmer, or for compensating

the wear and tear of his labouring cattle, and other instruments of husbandry. But it must be considered that

the price of any instrument of husbandry, such as a labouring horse, is itself made up of the same three parts;

the rent of the land upon which he is reared, the labour of tending and rearing him, and the profits of the

farmer who advances both the rent of this land, and the wages of this labour. Though the price of the corn,

therefore, may pay the price as well as the maintenance of the horse, the whole price still resolves itself either

immediately or ultimately into the same three parts of rent, labour, and profit.

In the price of flour or meal, we must add to the price of the corn, the profits of the miller, and the wages of

his servants; in the price of bread, the profits of the baker, and the wages of his servants; and in the price of

both, the labour of transporting the corn from the house of the farmer to that of the miller, and from that of

the miner to that of the baker, together with the profits of those who advance the wages of that labour.

The price of flax resolves itself into the same three parts as that of corn. In the price of linen we must add to

this price the wages of the flaxdresser, of the spinner, of the weaver, of the bleacher, etc., together with the

As any particular commodity comes to be more manufactured, that part of the price which resolves itself into

wages and profit comes to be greater in proportion to that which resolves itself into rent. In the progress of

the manufacture, not only the number of profits increase, but every subsequent profit is greater than the

foregoing; because the capital from which it is derived must always be greater. The capital which employs

the weavers, for example, must be greater than that which employs the spinners; because it not only replaces

that capital with its profits, but pays, besides, the wages of the weavers; and the profits must always bear

In the most improved societies, however, there are always a few commodities of which the price resolves

itself into two parts only, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and a still smaller number, in which it

consists altogether in the wages of labour. In the price of seafish, for example, one part pays the labour of

the fishermen, and the other the profits of the capital employed in the fishery. Rent very seldom makes any

part of it, though it does sometimes, as I shall show hereafter. It is otherwise, at least through the greater part

of Europe, in river fisheries. A salmon fishery pays a rent, and rent, though it cannot well be called the rent of

land, makes a part of the price of a salmon as well as wages and profit. In some parts of Scotland a few poor

people make a trade of gathering, along the seashore, those little variegated stones commonly known by the

name of Scotch Pebbles. The price which is paid to them by the stonecutter is altogether the wages of their

But the whole price of any commodity must still finally resolve itself into some one or other, or all of those

three parts; as whatever part of it remains after paying the rent of the land, and the price of the whole labour

employed in raising, manufacturing, and bringing it to market, must necessarily be profit to somebody.

As the price or exchangeable value of every particular commodity, taken separately, resolves itself into some

one or other or all of those three parts; so that of all the commodities which compose the whole annual

produce of the labour of every country, taken complexly, must resolve itself into the same three parts, and be

parcelled out among different inhabitants of the country, either as the wages of their labour, the profits of

their stock, or the rent of their land. The whole of what is annually either collected or produced by the labour

of every society, or what comes to the same thing, the whole price of it, is in this manner originally

distributed among some of its different members. Wages, profit, and rent, are the three original sources of all

revenue as well as of all exchangeable value. All other revenue is ultimately derived from some one or other

Whoever derives his revenue from a fund which is his own, must draw it either from his labour, from his

stock, or from his land. The revenue derived from labour is called wages. That derived from stock, by the

person who manages or employes it, is called profit. That derived from it by the person who does not employ

it himself, but lends it to another, is called the interest or the use of money. It is the compensation which the

borrower pays to the lender, for the profit which he has an opportunity of making by the use of the money.

Part of that profit naturally belongs to the borrower, who runs the risk and takes the trouble of employing it;

and part to the lender, who affords him the opportunity of making this profit. The interest of money is always

a derivative revenue, which, if it is not paid from the profit which is made by the use of the money, must be

paid from some other source of revenue, unless perhaps the borrower is a spendthrift, who contracts a second

debt in order to pay the interest of the first. The revenue which proceeds altogether from land, is called rent,

and belongs to the landlord. The revenue of the farmer is derived partly from his labour, and partly from his

stock. To him, land is only the instrument which enables him to earn the wages of this labour, and to make

the profits of this stock. All taxes, and an the revenue which is founded upon them, all salaries, pensions, and

annuities of every kind, are ultimately derived from some one or other of those three original sources of

revenue, and are paid either immediately or mediately from the wages of labour, the profits of stock, or the

When those three different sorts of revenue belong to different persons, they are readily distinguished; but

when they belong to the same they are sometimes confounded with one another, at least in common language.

A gentleman who farms a part of his own estate, after paying the expense of cultivation, should gain both the

rent of the landlord and the profit of the farmer. He is apt to denominate, however, his whole gain, profit, and

thus confounds rent with profit, at least in common language. The greater part of our North American and

West Indian planters are in this situation. They farm, the greater part of them, their own estates, and

accordingly we seldom hear of the rent of a plantation, but frequently of its profit.

Common farmers seldom employ any overseer to direct the general operations of the farm. They generally,

too, work a good deal with their own hands, as ploughmen, harrowers, etc. What remains of the crop after

paying the rent, therefore, should not only replace to them their stock employed in cultivation, together with

its ordinary profits, but pay them the wages which are due to them, both as labourers and overseers. Whatever

remains, however, after paying the rent and keeping up the stock, is called profit. But wages evidently make a

part of it. The farmer, by saving these wages, must necessarily gain them. Wages, therefore, are in this case

An independent manufacturer, who has stock enough both to purchase materials, and to maintain himself till

he can carry his work to market, should gain both the wages of a journeyman who works under a master, and

the profit which that master makes by the sale of the journeyman's work. His whole gains, however, are

commonly called profit, and wages are, in this case too, confounded with profit.

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different

characters of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the

profit of the second, and the wages of the third. The whole, however, is commonly considered as the earnings

As in a civilised country there are but few commodities of which the exchangeable value arises from labour

only, rent and profit contributing largely to that of the far greater part of them, so the annual produce of its

labour will always be sufficient to purchase or command a much greater quantity of labour than what

employed in raising, preparing, and bringing that produce to market. If the society were annually to employ

all the labour which it can annually purchase, as the quantity of labour would increase greatly every year, so

the produce of every succeeding year would be of vastly greater value than that of the foregoing. But there is

no country in which the whole annual produce is employed in maintaining the industrious. The idle

everywhere consume a great part of it; and according to the different proportions in which it is annually

divided between those two different orders of people, its ordinary or average value must either annually

THERE is in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary or average rate both of wages and profit in every

different employment of labour and stock. This rate is naturally regulated, as I shall show hereafter, partly by

the general circumstances of the society, their riches or poverty, their advancing, stationary, or declining

There is likewise in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary or average rate of rent, which is regulated

too, as I shall show hereafter, partly by the general circumstances of the society or neighbourhood in which

the land is situated, and partly by the natural or improved fertility of the land.

These ordinary or average rates may be called the natural rates of wages, profit, and rent, at the time and

When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land,

the wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market,

according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price.

The commodity is then sold precisely for what it is worth, or for what it really costs the person who brings it

to market; for though in common language what is called the prime cost of any commodity does not

comprehend the profit of the person who is to sell it again, yet if he sell it at a price which does not allow him

the ordinary rate of profit in his neighbourhood, he is evidently a loser by the trade; since by employing his

stock in some other way he might have made that profit. His profit, besides, is his revenue, the proper fund of

his subsistence. As, while he is preparing and bringing the goods to market, he advances to his workmen their

wages, or their subsistence; so he advances to himself, in the same manner, his own subsistence, which is

generally suitable to the profit which he may reasonably expect from the sale of his goods. Unless they yield

him this profit, therefore, they do not repay him what they may very properly be said to have really cost him.

Though the price, therefore, which leaves him this profit is not always the lowest at which a dealer may

sometimes sell his goods, it is the lowest at which he is likely to sell them for any considerable time; at least

where there is perfect liberty, or where he may change his trade as often as he pleases.

The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price. It may either be above,

The market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is

actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the

commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labour, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither.

Such people may be called the effectual demanders, and their demand the effectual demand; since it may be

sufficient to effectuate the bringing of the commodity to market. It is different from the absolute demand. A

very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but

his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy

When the quantity of any commodity which is brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, all those

who are willing to pay the whole value of the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it

thither, cannot be supplied with the quantity which they want. Rather than want it altogether, some of them

will be willing to give more. A competition will immediately begin among them, and the market price will

rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and

wanton luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition. Among

competitors of equal wealth and luxury the same deficiency will generally occasion a more or less eager

competition, according as the acquisition of the commodity happens to be of more or less importance to

them. Hence the exorbitant price of the necessaries of life during the blockade of a town or in a famine.

When the quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual demand, it cannot be all sold to those who are

willing to pay the whole value of the rent, wages, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither.

Some part must be sold to those who are willing to pay less, and the low price which they give for it must

reduce the price of the whole. The market price will sink more or less below the natural price, according as

the greatness of the excess increases more or less the competition of the sellers, or according as it happens to

be more or less important to them to get immediately rid of the commodity. The same excess in the

importation of perishable, will occasion a much greater competition than in that of durable commodities; in

When the quantity brought to market is just sufficient to supply the effectual demand, and no more, the

market price naturally comes to be either exactly, or as nearly as can be judged of, the same with the natural

price. The whole quantity upon hand can be disposed of for this price, and cannot be disposed of for more.

The competition of the different dealers obliges them all to accept of this price, but does not oblige them to

The quantity of every commodity brought to market naturally suits itself to the effectual demand. It is the

interest of all those who employ their land, labour, or stock, in bringing any commodity to market, that the

quantity never should exceed the effectual demand; and it is the interest of all other people that it never

If at any time it exceeds the effectual demand, some of the component parts of its price must be paid below

their natural rate. If it is rent, the interest of the landlords will immediately prompt them to withdraw a part of

their land; and if it is wages or profit, the interest of the labourers in the one case, and of their employers in

the other, will prompt them to withdraw a part of their labour or stock from this employment. The quantity

brought to market will soon be no more than sufficient to supply the effectual demand. All the different parts

of its price will rise to their natural rate, and the whole price to its natural price.

If, on the contrary, the quantity brought to market should at any time fall short of the effectual demand, some

of the component parts of its price must rise above their natural rate. If it is rent, the interest of all other

landlords will naturally prompt them to prepare more land for the raising of this commodity; if it is wages or

profit, the interest of all other labourers and dealers will soon prompt them to employ more labour and stock

in preparing and bringing it to market. The quantity brought thither will soon be sufficient to supply the

effectual demand. All the different parts of its price will soon sink to their natural rate, and the whole price to

The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are

continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and

sometimes force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them

from settling in this centre of repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.

The whole quantity of industry annually employed in order to bring any commodity to market naturally suits

itself in this manner to the effectual demand. It naturally aims at bringing always that precise quantity thither

But in some employments the same quantity of industry will in different years produce very different

quantities of commodities; while in others it will produce always the same, or very nearly the same. The same

number of labourers in husbandry will, in different years, produce very different quantities of corn, wine, oil,

hops, etc. But the same number of spinners and weavers will every year produce the same or very nearly the

same quantity of linen and woollen cloth. It is only the average produce of the one species of industry which

can be suited in any respect to the effectual demand; and as its actual produce is frequently much greater and

frequently much less than its average produce, the quantity of the commodities brought to market will

sometimes exceed a good deal, and sometimes fall short a good deal, of the effectual demand. Even though

that demand therefore should continue always the same, their market price will be liable to great fluctuations,

will sometimes fall a good deal below, and sometimes rise a good deal above their natural price. In the other

species of industry, the produce of equal quantities of labour being always the same, or very nearly the same,

it can be more exactly suited to the effectual demand. While that demand continues the same, therefore, the

market price of the commodities is likely to do so too, and to be either altogether, or as nearly as can be

judged of, the same with the natural price. That the price of linen and woolen cloth is liable neither to such

frequent nor to such great variations as the price of corn, every man's experience will inform him. The price

of the one species of commodities varies only with the variations in the demand: that of the other varies, not

only with the variations in the demand, but with the much greater and more frequent variations in the quantity

The occasional and temporary fluctuations in the market price of any commodity fall chiefly upon those parts

of its price which resolve themselves into wages and profit. That part which resolves itself into rent is less

affected by them. A rent certain in money is not in the least affected by them either in its rate or in its value.

A rent which consists either in a certain proportion or in a certain quantity of the rude produce, is no doubt

affected in its yearly value by all the occasional and temporary fluctuations in the market price of that rude

produce; but it is seldom affected by them in its yearly rate. In settling the terms of the lease, the landlord and

farmer endeavour, according to their best judgment, to adjust that rate, not to the temporary and occasional,

Such fluctuations affect both the value and the rate either of wages or of profit, according as the market

happens to be either overstocked or understocked with commodities or with labour; with work done, or with

work to be done. A public mourning raises the price of black cloth (with which the market is almost always

understocked upon such occasions), and augments the profits of the merchants who possess any considerable

quantity of it. It has no effect upon the wages of the weavers. The market is understocked with commodities,

not with labour; with work done, not with work to be done. It raises the wages of journeymen tailors. The

market is here understocked with labour. There is an effectual demand for more labour, for more work to be

done than can be had. It sinks the price of coloured silks and cloths, and thereby reduces the profits of the

merchants who have any considerable quantity of them upon hand. It sinks, too, the wages of the workmen

employed in preparing such commodities, for which all demand is stopped for six months, perhaps for a

twelvemonth. The market is here overstocked both with commodities and with labour.

But though the market price of every particular commodity is in this manner continually gravitating, if one

may say so, towards the natural price, yet sometimes particular accidents, sometimes natural causes, and

sometimes particular regulations of police, may, in many commodities, keep up the market price, for a long

When by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some particular commodity happens to rise

a good deal above the natural price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market are generally

careful to conceal this change. If it was commonly known, their great profit would tempt so many new rivals

to employ their stocks in the same way that, the effectual demand being fully supplied, the market price

would soon be reduced to the natural price, and perhaps for some time even below it. If the market is at a

great distance from the residence of those who supply it, they may sometimes be able to keep the secret for

several years together, and may so long enjoy their extraordinary profits without any new rivals. Secrets of

this kind, however, it must be acknowledged, can seldom be long kept; and the extraordinary profit can last

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade. A dyer who has found the

means of producing a particular colour with materials which cost only half the price of those commonly made

use of, may, with good management, enjoy the advantage of his discovery as long as he lives, and even leave

it as a legacy to his posterity. His extraordinary gains arise from the high price which is paid for his private

labour. They properly consist in the high wages of that labour. But as they are repeated upon every part of his

stock, and as their whole amount bears, upon that account, a regular proportion to it, they are commonly

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effects of particular accidents, of which, however,

Some natural productions require such a singularity of soil and situation that all the land in a great country,

which is fit for producing them, may not be sufficient to supply the effectual demand. The whole quantity

brought to market, therefore, may be disposed of to those who are willing to give more than what is sufficient

to pay the rent of the land which produced them, together with the wages of the labour, and the profits of the

stock which were employed in preparing and bringing them to market, according to their natural rates. Such

commodities may continue for whole centuries together to be sold at this high price; and that part of it which

resolves itself into the rent of land is in this case the part which is generally paid above its natural rate. The

rent of the land which affords such singular and esteemed productions, like the rent of some vineyards in

France of a peculiarly happy soil and situation, bears no regular proportion to the rent of other equally fertile

and equally wellcultivated land in its neighbourhood. The wages of the labour and the profits of the stock

employed in bringing such commodities to market, on the contrary, are seldom out of their natural proportion

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effect of natural causes which may hinder the

effectual demand from ever being fully supplied, and which may continue, therefore, to operate for ever.

A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or

manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the

effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether

The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. The natural price, or the price of

free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion, indeed, but for

any considerable time together. The one is upon every occasion the highest which can be squeezed out of the

buyers, or which, it is supposed, they will consent to give: the other is the lowest which the sellers can

The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all those laws which restrain, in

particular employments, the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the

same tendency, though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies, and may frequently, for ages

together, and in whole classes of employments, keep up the market price of particular commodities above the

natural price, and maintain both the wages of the labour and the profits of the stock employed about them

Such enhancements of the market price may last as long as the regulations of police which give occasion to

The market price of any particular commodity, though it may continue long above, can seldom continue long

below its natural price. Whatever part of it was paid below the natural rate, the persons whose interest it

affected would immediately feel the loss, and would immediately withdraw either so much land, or so much

labour, or so much stock, from being employed about it, that the quantity brought to market would soon be no

more than sufficient to supply the effectual demand. Its market price, therefore, would soon rise to the natural

The same statutes of apprenticeship and other corporation laws indeed, which, when a manufacture is in

prosperity, enable the workman to raise his wages a good deal above their natural rate, sometimes oblige him,

when it decays, to let them down a good deal below it. As in the one case they exclude many people from his

employment, so in the other they exclude him from many employments. The effect of such regulations,

however, is not near so durable in sinking the workman's wages below, as in raising them above their natural

rate. Their operation in the one way may endure for many centuries, but in the other it can last no longer than

the lives of some of the workmen who were bred to the business in the time of its prosperity. When they are

gone, the number of those who are afterwards educated to the trade will naturally suit itself to the effectual

demand. The police must be as violent as that of Indostan or ancient Egypt (where every man was bound by a

principle of religion to follow the occupation of his father, and was supposed to commit the most horrid

sacrilege if he changed it for another), which can in any particular employment, and for several generations

together, sink either the wages of labour or the profits of stock below their natural rate.

This is all that I think necessary to be observed at present concerning the deviations, whether occasional or

The natural price itself varies with the natural rate of each of its component parts, of wages, profit, and rent;

and in every society this rate varies according to their circumstances, according to their riches or poverty,

their advancing, stationary, or declining condition. I shall, in the four following chapters, endeavour to

explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, the causes of those different variations.

First, I shall endeavour to explain what are the circumstances which naturally determine the rate of wages,

and in what manner those circumstances are affected by the riches or poverty, by the advancing, stationary, or

Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what are the circumstances which naturally determine the rate of profit,

and in what manner, too, those circumstances are affected by the like variations in the state of the society.

Though pecuniary wages and profit are very different in the different employments of labour and stock; yet a

certain proportion seems commonly to take place between both the pecuniary wages in all the different

employments of labour, and the pecuniary profits in all the different employments of stock. This proportion,

it will appear hereafter, depends partly upon the nature of the different employments, and partly upon the

different laws and policy of the society in which they are carried on. But though in many respects dependent

upon the laws and policy, this proportion seems to be little affected by the riches or poverty of that society;

by its advancing, stationary, or declining condition; but to remain the same or very nearly the same in all

those different states. I shall, in the third place, endeavour to explain all the different circumstances which

In the fourth and last place, I shall endeavour to show what are the circumstances which regulate the rent of

land, and which either raise or lower the real price of all the different substances which it produces.

In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock,

the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him.

Had this state continued, the wages of labour would have augmented with all those improvements in its

productive powers to which the division of labour gives occasion. All things would gradually have become

cheaper. They would have been produced by a smaller quantity of labour; and as the commodities produced

by equal quantities of labour would naturally in this state of things be exchanged for one another, they would

But though all things would have become cheaper in reality, in appearance many things might have become

dearer than before, or have been exchanged for a greater quantity of other goods. Let us suppose, for

example, that in the greater part of employments the productive powers of labour had been improved to ten

fold, or that a day's labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had done originally; but that

in a particular employment they had been improved, only to double, or that a day's labour could produce only

twice the quantity of work which it had done before. In exchanging the produce of a day's labour in the

greater part of employments for that of a day's labour in this particular one, ten times the original quantity of

work in them would purchase only twice the original quantity in it. Any particular quantity in it, therefore, a

pound weight, for example, would appear to be five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it would be

twice as cheap. Though it required five times the quantity of other goods to purchase it, it would require only

half the quantity of labour either to purchase or to produce it. The acquisition, therefore, would be twice as

But this original state of things, in which the labourer enjoyed the whole produce of his own labour, could not

last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock. It was at an end,

therefore, long before the most considerable improvements were made in the productive powers of labour,

and it would be to no purpose to trace further what might have been its effects upon the recompense or wages

As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the

labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour

It seldom happens that the person who tills the ground has wherewithal to maintain himself till he reaps the

harvest. His maintenance is generally advanced to him from the stock of a master, the farmer who employs

him, and who would have no interest to employ him, unless he was to share in the produce of his labour, or

unless his stock was to be replaced to him with a profit. This profit, makes a second deduction from the

The produce of almost all other labour is liable to the like deduction of profit. In all arts and manufactures the

greater part of the workmen stand in need of a master to advance them the materials of their work, and their

wages and maintenance till it be completed. He shares in the produce of their labour, or in the value which it

adds to the materials upon which it is bestowed; and in this share consists his profit.

It sometimes happens, indeed, that a single independent workman has stock sufficient both to purchase the

materials of his work, and to maintain himself till it be completed. He is both master and workman, and

enjoys the whole produce of his own labour, or the whole value which it adds to the materials upon which it

is bestowed. It includes what are usually two distinct revenues, belonging to two distinct persons, the profits

Such cases, however, are not very frequent, and in every part of Europe, twenty workmen serve under a

master for one that is independent; and the wages of labour are everywhere understood to be, what they

usually are, when the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which employs him another.

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those

two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to

give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the

advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in

number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their

combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to

lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out

much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single

workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many

workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In

the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But

whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the

subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to

raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular

action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this

combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of.

Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.

These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the

workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard

of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination

of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to

raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes

the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or

defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have

always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are

desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their

masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters upon these occasions are just as

clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the

rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of

servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the

violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly

from the necessity superior steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater part of the

workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, but the

But though in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a

certain rate below which it seems impossible to reduce, for any considerable time, the ordinary wages even of

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must

even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family,

and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr. Cantillon seems, upon this

account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their

own maintenance, in order that one with another they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of

the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to

provide for herself. But one half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The

poorest labourers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four

children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of

four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an ablebodied slave, the

same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he

thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an ablebodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to

bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common

labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in

what proportion, whether in that above mentioned, or in any other, I shall not take upon me to determine.

There are certain circumstances, however, which sometimes give the labourers an advantage, and enable

them to raise their wages considerably above this rate; evidently the lowest which is consistent with common

When in any country the demand for those who live by wages, labourers, journeymen, servants of every kind,

is continually increasing; when every year furnishes employment for a greater number than had been

employed the year before, the workmen have no occasion to combine in order to raise their wages. The

scarcity of hands occasions a competition among masters, who bid against one another, in order to get

workmen, and thus voluntarily break through the natural combination of masters not to raise wages.

The demand for those who live by wages, it is evident, cannot increase but in proportion to the increase of the

funds which are destined for the payment of wages. These funds are of two kinds; first, revenue which is over

and above what is necessary for the maintenance; and, secondly, the stock which is over and above what is

When the landlord, annuitant, or monied man, has a greater revenue than what he judges sufficient to

maintain his own family, he employs either the whole or a part of the surplus in maintaining one or more

menial servants. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the number of those servants.

When an independent workman, such as a weaver or shoemaker, has got more stock than what is sufficient to

purchase the materials of his own work, and to maintain himself till he can dispose of it, he naturally employs

one or more journeymen with the surplus, in order to make a profit by their work. Increase this surplus, and

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue

and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the

increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the

It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages

of labour. It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are

growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a

much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in

North America than in any part of England. In the province of New York, common labourers earn three

shillings and sixpence currency, equal to two shillings sterling, a day; ship carpenters, ten shillings and

sixpence currency, with a pint of rum worth sixpence sterling, equal in all to six shillings and sixpence

sterling; house carpenters and bricklayers, eight shillings currency, equal to four shillings and sixpence

sterling; journeymen tailors, five shillings currency, equal to about two shillings and tenpence sterling. These

prices are all above the London price; and wages are said to be as high in the other colonies as in New York.

The price of provisions is everywhere in North America much lower than in England. A dearth has never

been known there. In the worst seasons they have always had a sufficiency for themselves, though less for

exportation. If the money price of labour, therefore, be higher than it is anywhere in the mother country, its

real price, the real command of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it conveys to the labourer

But though North America is not yet so rich as England, it is much more thriving, and advancing with much

greater rapidity to the further acquisition of riches. The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is

the increase of the number of its inhabitants. In Great Britain, and most other European countries, they are not

supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In the British colonies in North America, it has been

found that they double in twenty or fiveandtwenty years. Nor in the present times is this increase

principally owing to the continual importation of new inhabitants, but to the great multiplication of the

species. Those who live to old age, it is said, frequently see there from fifty to a hundred, and sometimes

many more, descendants from their own body. Labour is there so well rewarded that a numerous family of

children, instead of being a burthen, is a source of opulence and prosperity to the parents. The labour of each

child, before it can leave their house, is computed to be worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them. A young

widow with four or five young children, who, among the middling or inferior ranks of people in Europe,

would have so little chance for a second husband, is there frequently courted as a sort of fortune. The value of

children is the greatest of all encouragements to marriage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the people in

North America should generally marry very young. Notwithstanding the great increase occasioned by such

early marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of hands in North America. The demand for

labourers, the funds destined for maintaining them, increase, it seems, still faster than they can find labourers

Though the wealth of a country should be very great, yet if it has been long stationary, we must not expect to

find the wages of labour very high in it. The funds destined for the payment of wages, the revenue and stock

of its inhabitants, may be of the greatest extent; but if they have continued for several centuries of the same,

or very nearly of the same extent, the number of labourers employed every year could easily supply, and even

more than supply, the number wanted the following year. There could seldom be any scarcity of hands, nor

could the masters be obliged to bid against one another in order to get them. The hands, on the contrary,

would, in this case, naturally multiply beyond their employment. There would be a constant scarcity of

employment, and the labourers would be obliged to bid against one another in order to get it. If in such a

country the wages of labour had ever been more than sufficient to maintain the labourer, and to enable him to

bring up a family, the competition of the labourers and the interest of the masters would soon reduce them to

this lowest rate which is consistent with common humanity. China has been long one of the richest, that is,

one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in world. It seems,

however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago,

describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by

travellers in the present times. It had perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of

riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits it to acquire. The accounts of all travellers,

inconsistent in many other respects, agree in the low wages of labour, and in the difficulty which a labourer

finds in bringing up a family in China. If by digging the ground a whole day he can get what will purchase a

small quantity of rice in the evening, he is contented. The condition of artificers is, if possible, still worse.

Instead of waiting indolently in their workhouses, for the calls of their customers, as in Europe, they are

continually running about the streets with the tools of their respective trades, offering their service, and as it

were begging employment. The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most

beggarly nations in Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton many hundred, it is commonly said, many

thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and

canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage

thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though

half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.

Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them.

In all great towns several are every night exposed in the street, or drowned like puppies in the water. The

performance of this horrid office is even said to be the avowed business by which some people earn their

China, however, though it may perhaps stand still, does not seem to go backwards. Its towns are nowhere

deserted by their inhabitants. The lands which had once been cultivated are nowhere neglected. The same or

very nearly the same annual labour must therefore continue to be performed, and the funds destined for

maintaining it must not, consequently, be sensibly diminished. The lowest class of labourers, therefore,

notwithstanding their scanty subsistence, must some way or another make shift to continue their race so far as

But it would be otherwise in a country where the funds destined for the maintenance of labour were sensibly

decaying. Every year the demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of

employments, be less than it had been the year before. Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not

being able to find employment in their own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest class

being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other classes, the

competition for employment would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most miserable

and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find employment even upon these hard

terms, but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence either by begging, or by the perpetration

perhaps of the greatest enormities. Want, famine, and mortality would immediately prevail in that class, and

from thence extend themselves to all the superior classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was

reduced to what could easily be maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had

escaped either the tyranny or calamity which had destroyed the rest. This perhaps is nearly the present state of

Bengal, and of some other of the English settlements in the East Indies. In a fertile country which had before

been much depopulated, where subsistence, consequently, should not be very difficult, and where,

notwithstanding, three or four hundred thousand people die of hunger in one year, we may be assured that the

funds destined for the maintenance of the labouring poor are fast decaying. The difference between the genius

of the British constitution which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company

which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot perhaps be better illustrated than by the different

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing

national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that

things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they are going fast backwards.

In Great Britain the wages of labour seem, in the present times, to be evidently more than what is precisely

necessary to enable the labourer to bring up a family. In order to satisfy ourselves upon this point it will not

be necessary to enter into any tedious or doubtful calculation of what may be the lowest sum upon which it is

possible to do this. There are many plain symptoms that the wages of labour are nowhere in this country

First, in almost every part of Great Britain there is a distinction, even in the lowest species of labour, between

summer and winter wages. Summer wages are always highest. But on account of the extraordinary expense

of fuel, the maintenance of a family is most expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when this

expense is lowest, it seems evident that they are not regulated by what is necessary for this expense; but by

the quantity and supposed value of the work. A labourer, it may be said indeed, ought to save part of his

summer wages in order to defray his winter expense; and that through the whole year they do not exceed

what is necessary to maintain his family through the whole year. A slave, however, or one absolutely

dependent on us for immediate subsistence, would not be treated in this manner. His daily subsistence would

Secondly, the wages of labour do not in Great Britain fluctuate with the price of provisions. These vary

everywhere from year to year, frequently from month to month. But in many places the money price of

labour remains uniformly the same sometimes for half a century together. If in these places, therefore, the

labouring poor can maintain their families in dear years, they must be at their ease in times of moderate

plenty, and in affluence in those of extraordinary cheapness. The high price of provisions during these ten

years past has not in many parts of the kingdom been accompanied with any sensible rise in the money price

of labour. It has, indeed, in some, owing probably more to the increase of the demand for labour than to that

Thirdly, as the price of provisions varies more from year to year than the wages of labour, so, on the other

hand, the wages of labour vary more from place to place than the price of provisions. The prices of bread and

butcher's meat are generally the same or very nearly the same through the greater part of the United

Kingdom. These and most other things which are sold by retail, the way in which the labouring poor buy all

things, are generally fully as cheap or cheaper in great towns than in the remoter parts of the country, for

reasons which I shall have occasion to explain hereafter. But the wages of labour in a great town and its

neighbourhood are frequently a fourth or a fifth part, twenty or fiveandtwenty per cent higher than at a few

miles distance. Eighteenpence a day may be reckoned the common price of labour in London and its

neighbourhood. At a few miles distance it falls to fourteen and fifteenpence. Tenpence may be reckoned its

price in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. At a few miles distance it falls to eightpence, the usual price of

common labour through the greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than

in England. Such a difference of prices, which it seems is not always sufficient to transport a man from one

parish to another, would necessarily occasion so great a transportation of the most bulky commodities, not

only from one parish to another, but from one end of the kingdom, almost from one end of the world to the

other, as would soon reduce them more nearly to a level. After all that has been said of the levity and

inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidently from experience that a man is of all sorts of luggage the

most difficult to be transported. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in those parts of

the kingdom where the price of labour is lowest, they must be in affluence where it is highest.

Fourthly, the variations in the price of labour not only do not correspond either in place or time with those in

Grain, the food of the common people, is dearer in Scotland than in England, whence Scotland receives

almost every year very large supplies. But English corn must be sold dearer in Scotland, the country to which

it is brought, than in England, the country from which it comes; and in proportion to its quality it cannot be

sold dearer in Scotland than the Scotch corn that comes to the same market in competition with it. The quality

of grain depends chiefly upon the quantity of flour or meal which it yields at the mill, and in this respect

English grain is so much superior to the Scotch that, though often dearer in appearance, or in proportion to

the measure of its bulk, it is generally cheaper in reality, or in proportion to its quality, or even to the measure

of its weight. The price of labour, on the contrary, is dearer in England than in Scotland. If the labouring

poor, therefore, can maintain their families in the one part of the United Kingdom, they must be in affluence

in the other. Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people in Scotland with the greatest and the best part of

their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England. This

difference, however, in the mode of their subsistence is not the cause, but the effect of the difference in their

wages; though, by a strange misapprehension, I have frequently heard it represented as the cause. It is not

because one man keeps a coach while his neighbour walks afoot that the one is rich and the other poor; but

because the one is rich he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor he walks afoot.

During the course of the last century, taking one year with another, grain was dearer in both parts of the

United Kingdom than during that of the present. This is a matter of fact which cannot now admit of any

reasonable doubt; and the proof of it is, if possible, still more decisive with regard to Scotland than with

regard to England. It is in Scotland supported by the evidence of the public fiars, annual valuations made

upon oath, according to the actual state of the markets, of all the different sorts of grain in every different

county of Scotland. If such direct proof could require any collateral evidence to confirm it, I would observe

that this has likewise been the case in France, and probably in most other parts of Europe. With regard to

France there is the clearest proof. But though it is certain that in both parts of the United Kingdom grain was

somewhat dearer in the last century than in the present, it is equally certain that labour was much cheaper. If

the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their families then, they must be much more at their ease now.

In the last century, the most usual daywages of common labour through the greater part of Scotland were

sixpence in summer and fivepence in winter. Three shillings a week, the same price very nearly, still

continues to be paid in some parts of the Highlands and Western Islands. Through the greater part of the low

country the most usual wages of common labour are now eightpence a day; tenpence, sometimes a shilling

about Edinburgh, in the counties which border upon England, probably on account of that neighbourhood,

and in a few other places where there has lately been a considerable rise in the demand for labour, about

Glasgow, Carron, Ayrshire, etc. In England the improvements of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce

began much earlier than in Scotland. The demand for labour, and consequently its price, must necessarily

have increased with those improvements. In the last century, accordingly, as well as in the present, the wages

of labour were higher in England than in Scotland. They have risen, too, considerably since that time, though,

on account of the greater variety of wages paid there in different places, it is more difficult to ascertain how

much. In 1614, the pay of a foot soldier was the same as in the present times, eightpence a day. When it was

first established it would naturally be regulated by the usual wages of common labourers, the rank of people

from which foot soldiers are commonly drawn. Lord Chief Justice Hales, who wrote in the time of Charles II,

computes the necessary expense of a labourer's family, consisting of six persons, the father and mother, two

children able to do something, and two not able, at ten shillings a week, or twentysix pounds a year. If they

cannot earn this by their labour, they must make it up, he supposes, either by begging or stealing. He appears

to have inquired very carefully into this subject. In 1688, Mr. Gregory King, whose skill in political

arithmetic is so much extolled by Doctor Davenant, computed the ordinary income of labourers and

outservants to be fifteen pounds a year to a family, which he supposed to consist, one with another, of three

and a half persons. His calculation, therefore, though different in appearance, corresponds very nearly at

bottom with that of Judge Hales. Both suppose the weekly expense of such families to be about twenty pence

a head. Both the pecuniary income and expense of such families have increased considerably since that time

through the greater part of the kingdom; in some places more, and in some less; though perhaps scarce

anywhere so much as some exaggerated accounts of the present wages of labour have lately represented them

to the public. The price of labour, it must be observed, cannot be ascertained very accurately anywhere,

different prices being often paid at the same place and for the same sort of labour, not only according to the

different abilities of the workmen, but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters. Where wages are

not regulated by law, all that we can pretend to determine is what are the most usual; and experience seems to

show that law can never regulate them properly, though it has often pretended to do so.

The real recompense of labour, the real quantity of the necessaries and conveniences of life which it can

procure to the labourer, has, during the course of the present century, increased perhaps in a still greater

proportion than its money price. Not only grain has become somewhat cheaper, but many other things from

which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food have become a great deal

cheaper. Potatoes, for example, do not at present, through the greater part of the kingdom, cost half the price

which they used to do thirty or forty years ago. The same thing may be said of turnips, carrots, cabbages;

things which were formerly never raised but by the spade, but which are now commonly raised by the

plough. All sort of garden stuff, too, has become cheaper. The greater part of the apples and even of the

onions consumed in Great Britain were in the last century imported from Flanders. The great improvements

in the coarser manufactures of both linen and woollen cloth furnish the labourers with cheaper and better

clothing; and those in the manufactures of the coarser metals, with cheaper and better instruments of trade, as

well as with many agreeable and convenient pieces of household furniture. Soap, salt, candles, leather, and

fermented liquors have, indeed, become a good deal dearer; chiefly from the taxes which have been laid upon

them. The quantity of these, however, which the labouring poor are under any necessity of consuming, is so

very small, that the increase in their price does not compensate the diminution in that of so many other things.

The common complaint that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the

labouring poor will not now be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging which satisfied them in

former times, may convince us that it is not the money price of labour only, but its real recompense, which

Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or

as an inconveniency to the society? The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and

workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves

the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can

surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but

equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share

of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.

Poverty, though it no doubt discourages, does not always prevent marriage. It seems even to be favourable to

generation. A halfstarved Highland woman frequently bears more than twenty children, while a pampered

fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three. Barrenness, so

frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station. Luxury in the fair sex, while

it inflames perhaps the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy altogether,

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children.

The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies. It is not

uncommon, I have been frequently told, in the Highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne twenty

children not to have two alive. Several officers of great experience have assured me, that so far from

recruiting their regiment, they have never been able to supply it with drums and fifes from all the soldiers'

children that were born in it. A greater number of fine children, however, is seldom seen anywhere than about

a barrack of soldiers. Very few of them, it seems, arrive at the age of thirteen or fourteen. In some places one

half the children born die before they are four years of age; in many places before they are seven; and in

almost all places before they are nine or ten. This great mortality, however, will everywhere be found chiefly

among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of

better station. Though their marriages are generally more fruitful than those of people of fashion, a smaller

proportion of their children arrive at maturity. In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by

parish charities, the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species

can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the

scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in

no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce.

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring

up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits. It deserves to be remarked, too, that it

necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. If this

demand is continually increasing, the reward of labour must necessarily encourage in such a manner the

marriage and multiplication of labourers, as may enable them to supply that continually increasing demand

by a continually increasing population. If the reward should at any time be less than what was requisite for

this purpose, the deficiency of hands would soon raise it; and if it should at any time be more, their excessive

multiplication would soon lower it to this necessary rate. The market would be so much understocked with

labour in the one case, and so much overstocked in the other, as would soon force back its price to that proper

rate which the circumstances of the society required. It is in this manner that the demand for men, like that for

any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men; quickens it when it goes on too slowly,

and stops it when it advances too fast. It is this demand which regulates and determines the state of

propagation in all the different countries of the world, in North America, in Europe, and in China; which

renders it rapidly progressive in the first, slow and gradual in the second, and altogether stationary in the last.

The wear and tear of a slave, it has been said, is at the expense of his master; but that of a free servant is at his

own expense. The wear and tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense of his master as

that of the former. The wages paid to journeymen and servants of every kind must be such as may enable

them, one with another, to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the increasing,

diminishing, or stationary demand of the society may happen to require. But though the wear and tear of a

free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave. The

fund destined for replacing or repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed

by a negligent master or careless overseer. That destined for performing the same office with regard to the

free man, is managed by the free man himself. The disorders which generally prevail in the economy of the

rich, naturally introduce themselves into the management of the former: the strict frugality and parsimonious

attention of the poor as naturally establish themselves in that of the latter. Under such different management,

the same purpose must require very different degrees of expense to execute it. It appears, accordingly, from

the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end

than that performed by slaves. It is found to do so even at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where the

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing

population. To complain of it is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public

It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the

further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the

labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard

in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the

hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The stationary is dull; the declining, melancholy.

The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common

people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality,

improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength

of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days perhaps in ease

and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall

always find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious than where they are low: in England, for

example, than in Scotland; in the neighbourhood of great towns than in remote country places. Some

workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be idle the

other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when

they are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to overwork themselves, and to ruin their health and

constitution in a few years. A carpenter in London, and in some other places, is not supposed to last in his

utmost vigour above eight years. Something of the same kind happens in many other trades, in which the

workmen are paid by the piece, as they generally are in manufactures, and even in country labour, wherever

wages are higher than ordinary. Almost every class of artificers is subject to some peculiar infirmity

occasioned by excessive application to their peculiar species of work. Ramuzzini, an eminent Italian

physician, has written a particular book concerning such diseases. We do not reckon our soldiers the most

industrious set of people among us. Yet when soldiers have been employed in some particular sorts of work,

and liberally paid by the piece, their officers have frequently been obliged to stipulate with the undertaker,

that they should not be allowed to earn above a certain sum every day, according to the rate at which they

were paid. Till this stipulation was made, mutual emulation and the desire of greater gain frequently

prompted them to overwork themselves, and to hurt their health by excessive labour. Excessive application

during four days of the week is frequently the real cause of the idleness of the other three, so much and so

loudly complained of. Great labour, either of mind or body, continued for several days together, is in most

men naturally followed by a great desire of relaxation, which, if not restrained by force or by some strong

necessity, is almost irresistible. It is the call of nature, which requires to be relieved by some indulgence,

sometimes of ease only, but sometimes, too, of dissipation and diversion. If it is not complied with, the

consequences are often dangerous, and sometimes fatal, and such as almost always, sooner or later, brings on

the peculiar infirmity of the trade. If masters would always listen to the dictates of reason and humanity, they

have frequently occasion rather to moderate than to animate the application of many of their workmen. It will

be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the man who works so moderately as to be able to work

constantly not only preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of the year, executes the greatest

In cheap years, it is pretended, workmen are generally more idle, and in dear ones more industrious than

ordinary. A plentiful subsistence, therefore, it has been concluded, relaxes, and a scanty one quickens their

industry. That a little more plenty than ordinary may render some workmen idle, cannot well be doubted; but

that it should have this effect upon the greater part, or that men in general should work better when they are

ill fed than when they are well fed, when they are disheartened than when they are in good spirits, when they

are frequently sick than when they are generally in good health, seems not very probable. Years of dearth, it

is to be observed, are generally among the common people years of sickness and mortality, which cannot fail

In years of plenty, servants frequently leave their masters, and trust their subsistence to what they can make

by their own industry. But the same cheapness of provisions, by increasing the fund which is destined for the

maintenance of servants, encourages masters, farmers especially, to employ a greater number. Farmers upon

such occasions expect more profit from their corn by maintaining a few more labouring servants than by

selling it at a low price in the market. The demand for servants increases, while the number of those who

offer to supply that demand diminishes. The price of labour, therefore, frequently rises in cheap years.

In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of subsistence make all such people eager to return to

service. But the high price of provisions, by diminishing the funds destined for the maintenance of servants,

disposes masters rather to diminish than to increase the number of those they have. In dear years, too, poor

independent workmen frequently consume the little stocks with which they had used to supply themselves

with the materials of their work, and are obliged to become journeymen for subsistence. More people want

employment than can easily get it; many are willing to take it upon lower terms than ordinary, and the wages

Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains with their servants in dear than in cheap years,

and find them more humble and dependent in the former than in the latter. They naturally, therefore,

commend the former as more favourable to industry. Landlords and farmers, besides, two of the largest

classes of masters, have another reason for being pleased with dear years. The rents of the one and the profits

of the other depend very much upon the price of provisions. Nothing can be more absurd, however, than to

imagine that men in general should work less when they work for themselves, than when they work for other

people. A poor independent workman will generally be more industrious than even a journeyman who works

by the piece. The one enjoys the whole produce of his own industry; the other shares it with his master. The

one, in his separate independent state, is less liable to the temptations of bad company, which in large

manufactories so frequently ruin the morals of the other. The superiority of the independent workman over

those servants who are hired by the month or by the year, and whose wages and maintenance are the same

whether they do much or do little, is likely to be still greater. Cheap years tend to increase the proportion of

independent workmen to journeymen and servants of all kinds, and dear years to diminish it.

A French author of great knowledge and ingenuity, Mr. Messance, receiver of the taillies in the election of St.

Etienne, endeavours to show that the poor do more work in cheap than in dear years, by comparing the

quantity and value of the goods made upon those different occasions in three different manufactures; one of

coarse woollens carried on at Elbeuf; one of linen, and another of silk, both which extend through the whole

generality of Rouen. It appears from his account, which is copied from the registers of the public offices, that

the quantity and value of the goods made in all those three manufactures has generally been greater in cheap

than in dear years; and that it has always been greatest in the cheapest, and least in the dearest years. All the

three seem to be stationary manufactures, or which, though their produce may vary somewhat from year to

The manufacture of linen in Scotland, and that of coarse woollens in the West Riding of Yorkshire, are

growing manufactures, of which the produce is generally, though with some variations, increasing both in

quantity and value. Upon examining, however, the accounts which have been published of their annual

produce, I have not been able to observe that its variations have had any sensible connection with the

dearness or cheapness of the seasons. In 1740, a year of great scarcity, both manufactures, indeed, appear to

have declined very considerably. But in 1756, another year of great scarcity, the Scotch manufacture made

more than ordinary advances. The Yorkshire manufacture, indeed, declined, and its produce did not rise to

what it had been in 1755 till 1766, after the repeal of the American Stamp Act. In that and the following year

it greatly exceeded what it had ever been before, and it has continued to advance ever since.

The produce of all great manufactures for distant sale must necessarily depend, not so much upon the

dearness or cheapness of the seasons in the countries where they are carried on as upon the circumstances

which affect the demand in the countries where they are consumed; upon peace or war, upon the prosperity or

declension of other rival manufactures, and upon the good or bad humour of their principal customers. A

great part of the extraordinary work, besides, which is probably done in cheap years, never enters the public

registers of manufactures. The men servants who leave their masters become independent labourers. The

women return to their parents, and commonly spin in order to make clothes for themselves and their families.

Even the independent workmen do not always work for public sale, but are employed by some of their

neighbours in manufactures for family use. The produce of their labour, therefore, frequently makes no figure

in those public registers of which the records are sometimes published with so much parade, and from which

our merchants and manufacturers would often vainly pretend to announce the prosperity or declension of the

Though the variations in the price of labour not only do not always correspond with those in the price of

provisions, but are frequently quite opposite, we must not, upon this account, imagine that the price of

provisions has no influence upon that of labour. The money price of labour is necessarily regulated by two

circumstances; the demand for labour, and the price of the necessaries and conveniences of life. The demand

for labour, according as it happens to be increasing, stationary, or declining, or to require an increasing,

stationary, or declining population, determines the quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which

must be given to the labourer; and the money price of labour is determined by what is requisite for purchasing

this quantity. Though the money price of labour, therefore, is sometimes high where the price of provisions is

low, it would be still higher, the demand continuing the same, if the price of provisions was high.

It is because the demand for labour increases in years of sudden and extraordinary plenty, and diminishes in

those of sudden and extraordinary scarcity, that the money price of labour sometimes rises in the one and

In a year of sudden and extraordinary plenty, there are funds in the hands of many of the employers of

industry sufficient to maintain and employ a greater number of industrious people than had been employed

the year before; and this extraordinary number cannot always be had. Those masters, therefore, who want

more workmen bid against one another, in order to get them, which sometimes raises both the real and the

The contrary of this happens in a year of sudden and extraordinary scarcity. The funds destined for

employing industry are less than they had been the year before. A considerable number of people are thrown

out of employment, who bid against one another, in order to get it, which sometimes lowers both the real and

the money price of labour. In 1740, a year of extraordinary scarcity, many people were willing to work for

bare subsistence. In the succeeding years of plenty, it was more difficult to get labourers and servants.

The scarcity of a dear year, by diminishing the demand for labour, tends to lower its price, as the high price

of provisions tends to raise it. The plenty of a cheap year, on the contrary, by increasing the demand, tends to

raise the price of labour, as the cheapness of provisions tends to lower it. In the ordinary variations of the

price of provisions those two opposite causes seem to counterbalance one another, which is probably in part

the reason why the wages of labour are everywhere so much more steady and permanent than the price of

The increase in the wages of labour necessarily increases the price of many commodities, by increasing that

part of it which resolves itself into wages, and so far tends to diminish their consumption both at home and

abroad. The same cause, however, which raises the wages of labour, the increase of stock, tends to increase

its productive powers, and to make a smaller quantity of labour produce a greater quantity of work. The

owner of the stock which employs a great number of labourers, necessarily endeavours, for his own

advantage, to make such a proper division and distribution of employment that they may be enabled to

produce the greatest quantity of work possible. For the same reason, he endeavours to supply them with the

best machinery which either he or they can think of. What takes place among the labourers in a particular

workhouse takes place, for the same reason, among those of a great society. The greater their number, the

more they naturally divide themselves into different classes and subdivisions of employment. More heads are

occupied in inventing the most proper machinery for executing the work of each, and it is, therefore, more

likely to be invented. There are many commodities, therefore, which, in consequence of these improvements,

come to be produced by so much less labour than before that the increase of its price is more than

THE rise and fall in the profits of stock depend upon the same causes with the rise and fall in the wages of

labour, the increasing or declining state of the wealth of the society; but those causes affect the one and the

The increase of stock, which raises wages, tends to lower profit. When the stocks of many rich merchants are

turned into the same trade, their mutual competition naturally tends to lower its profit; and when there is a

like increase of stock in all the different trades carried on in the same society, the same competition must

It is not easy, it has already been observed, to ascertain what are the average wages of labour even in a

particular place, and at a particular time. We can, even in this case, seldom determine more than what are the

most usual wages. But even this can seldom be done with regard to the profits of stock. Profit is so very

fluctuating that the person who carries on a particular trade cannot always tell you himself what is the

average of his annual profit. It is affected not only by every variation of price in the commodities which he

deals in, but by the good or bad fortune both of his rivals and of his customers, and by a thousand other

accidents to which goods when carried either by sea or by land, or even when stored in a warehouse, are

liable. It varies, therefore, not only from year to year, but from day to day, and almost from hour to hour. To

ascertain what is the average profit of all the different trades carried on in a great kingdom must be much

more difficult; and to judge of what it may have been formerly, or in remote periods of time, with any degree

But though it may be impossible to determine, with any degree of precision, what are or were the average

profits of stock, either in the present or in ancient times, some notion may be formed of them from the

interest of money. It may be laid down as a maxim, that wherever a great deal can be made by the use of

money, a great deal will commonly be given for the use of it; and that wherever little can be made by it, less

will commonly be given for it. According, therefore, as the usual market rate of interest varies in any country,

we may be assured that the ordinary profits of stock must vary with it, must sink as it sinks, and rise as it

rises. The progress of interest, therefore, may lead us to form some notion of the progress of profit.

By the 37th of Henry VIII all interest above ten per cent was declared unlawful. More, it seems, had

sometimes been taken before that. In the reign of Edward VI religious zeal prohibited all interest. This

prohibition, however, like all others of the same kind, is said to have produced no effect, and probably rather

increased than diminished the evil of usury. The statute of Henry VIII was revived by the 13th of Elizabeth,

c. 8, and ten per cent continued to be the legal rate of interest till the 21st of James I, when it was restricted to

eight per cent. It was reduced to six per cent soon after the Restoration, and by the 12th of Queen Anne to

five per cent. All these different statutory regulations seem to have been made with great propriety. They

seem to have followed and not to have gone before the market rate of interest, or the rate at which people of

good credit usually borrowed. Since the time of Queen Anne, five per cent seems to have been rather above

than below the market rate. Before the late war, the government borrowed at three per cent; and people of

good credit in the capital, and in many other parts of the kingdom, at three and a half, four, and four and a

Since the time of Henry VIII the wealth and revenue of the country have been continually advancing, and, in

the course of their progress, their pace seems rather to have been gradually accelerated than retarded. They

seem not only to have been going on, but to have been going on faster and faster. The wages of labour have

been continually increasing during the same period, and in the greater part of the different branches of trade

It generally requires a greater stock to carry on any sort of trade in a great town than in a country village. The

great stocks employed in every branch of trade, and the number of rich competitors, generally reduce the rate

of profit in the former below what it is in the latter But the wages of labour are generally higher in a great

town than in a country village. In a thriving town the people who have great stocks to employ frequently

cannot get the number of workmen they want, and therefore bid against one another in order to get as many

as they can, which raises the wages of labour, and lowers the profits of stock. In the remote parts of the

country there is frequently not stock sufficient to employ all the people, who therefore bid against one

another in order to get employment, which lowers the wages of labour and raises the profits of stock.

In Scotland, though the legal rate of interest is the same as in England, the market rate is rather higher. People

of the best credit there seldom borrow under five per cent. Even private bankers in Edinburgh give four per

cent upon their promissory notes, of which payment either in whole or in part may be demanded at pleasure.

Private bankers in London give no interest for the money which is deposited with them. There are few trades

which cannot be carried on with a smaller stock in Scotland than in England. The common rate of profit,

therefore, must be somewhat greater. The wages of labour, it has already been observed, are lower in

Scotland than in England. The country, too, is not only much poorer, but the steps by which it advances to a

better condition, for it is evidently advancing, seem to be much slower and more tardy.

The legal rate of interest in France has not, during the course of the present century, been always regulated by

the market rate. In 1720 interest was reduced from the twentieth to the fiftieth penny, or from five to two per

cent. In 1724 it was raised to the thirtieth penny, or to 3 1/3 per cent. In 1725 it was again raised to the

twentieth penny, or to five per cent. In 1766, during the administration of Mr. Laverdy, it was reduced to the

twentyfifth penny, or to four per cent. The Abbe Terray raised it afterwards to the old rate of five per cent.

The supposed purpose of many of those violent reductions of interest was to prepare the way for reducing

that of the public debts; a purpose which has sometimes been executed. France is perhaps in the present times

not so rich a country as England; and though the legal rate of interest has in France frequently been lower

than in England, the market rate has generally been higher; for there, as in other countries, they have several

very safe and easy methods of evading the law. The profits of trade, I have been assured by British merchants

who had traded in both countries, are higher in France than in England; and it is no doubt upon this account

that many British subjects choose rather to employ their capitals in a country where trade is in disgrace, than

in one where it is highly respected. The wages of labour are lower in France than in England. When you go

from Scotland to England, the difference which you may remark between the dress and countenance of the

common people in the one country and in the other sufficiently indicates the difference in their condition. The

contrast is still greater when you return from France. France, though no doubt a richer country than Scotland,

seems not to be going forward so fast. It is a common and even a popular opinion in the country that it is

going backwards; an opinion which, apprehend, is ill founded even with regard to France, but which nobody

can possibly entertain with regard to Scotland, who sees the country now, and who saw it twenty or thirty

The province of Holland, on the other hand, in proportion to the extent of its territory and the number of its

people, is a richer country than England. The government there borrows at two per cent, and private people of

good credit at three. The wages of labour are said to be higher in Holland than in England, and the Dutch, it is

well known, trade upon lower profits than any people in Europe. The trade of Holland, it has been pretended

by some people, is decaying, and it may perhaps be true some particular branches of it are so. But these

symptoms seem to indicate sufficiently that there is no general decay. When profit diminishes, merchants are

very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity,

or of a greater stock being employed in it than before. During the late war the Dutch gained the whole

carrying trade of France, of which they still retain a very large share. The great property which they possess

both in the French and English funds, about forty millions, it is said, in the latter (in which I suspect,

however, there is a considerable exaggeration); the great sums which they lend to private people in countries

where the rate of interest is higher than in their own, are circumstances which no doubt demonstrate the

redundancy of their stock, or that it has increased beyond what they can employ with tolerable profit in the

proper business of their own country: but they do not demonstrate that that has decreased. As the capital of a

private man, though acquired by a particular trade, may increase beyond what he can employ in it, and yet

that trade continue to increase too; so may likewise the capital of a great nation.

In our North American and West Indian colonies, not only the wages of labour, but the interest of money, and

consequently the profits of stock, are higher than in England. In the different colonies both the legal and the

market rate of interest run from six to eight per cent. High wages of labour and high profits of stock,

however, are things, perhaps, which scarce ever go together, except in the peculiar circumstances of new

colonies. A new colony must always for some time be more understocked in proportion to the extent of its

territory, and more underpeopled in proportion to the extent of its stock, than the greater part of other

countries. They have more land than they have stock to cultivate. What they have, therefore, is applied to the

cultivation only of what is most fertile and most favourably situated, the land near the sea shore, and along

the banks of navigable rivers. Such land, too, is frequently purchased at a price below the value even of its

natural produce. Stock employed in the purchase and improvement of such lands must yield a very large

profit, and consequently afford to pay a very large interest. Its rapid accumulation in so profitable an

employment enables the planter to increase the number of his hands faster than he can find them in a new

settlement. Those whom he can find, therefore, are very liberally rewarded. As the colony increases, the

profits of stock gradually diminish. When the most fertile and best situated lands have been all occupied, less

profit can be made by the cultivation of what is inferior both in soil and situation, and less interest can be

afforded for the stock which is so employed. In the greater part of our colonies, accordingly, both the legal

and the market rate of interest have been considerably reduced during the course of the present century. As

riches, improvement, and population have increased, interest has declined. The wages of labour do not sink

with the profits of stock. The demand for labour increases with the increase of stock whatever be its profits;

and after these are diminished, stock may not only continue to increase, but to increase much faster than

before. It is with industrious nations who are advancing in the acquisition of riches as with industrious

individuals. A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great

profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The

great difficulty is to get that little. The connection between the increase of stock and that of industry, or of the

demand for useful labour, has partly been explained already, but will be explained more fully hereafter in

The acquisition of new territory, or of new branches of trade, may sometimes raise the profits of stock, and

with them the interest of money, even in a country which is fast advancing in the acquisition of riches. The

stock of the country not being sufficient for the whole accession of business, which such acquisitions present

to the different people among whom it is divided, is applied to those particular branches only which afford

the greatest profit. Part of what had before been employed in other trades is necessarily withdrawn from

them, and turned into some of the new and more profitable ones. In all those old trades, therefore, the

competition comes to be less than before. The market comes to be less fully supplied with many different

sorts of goods. Their price necessarily rises more or less, and yields a greater profit to those who deal in them,

who can, therefore, afford to borrow at a higher interest. For some time after the conclusion of the late war,

not only private people of the best credit, but some of the greatest companies in London, commonly borrowed

at five per cent, who before that had not been used to pay more than four, and four and a half per cent. The

great accession both of territory and trade, by our acquisitions in North America and the West Indies, will

sufficiently account for this, without supposing any diminution in the capital stock of the society. So great an

accession of new business to be carried on by the old stock must necessarily have diminished the quantity

employed in a great number of particular branches, in which the competition being less, the profits must have

been greater. I shall hereafter have occasion to mention the reasons which dispose me to believe that the

capital stock of Great Britain was not diminished even by the enormous expense of the late war.

The diminution of the capital stock of the society, or of the funds destined for the maintenance of industry,

however, as it lowers the wages of labour, so it raises the profits of stock, and consequently the interest of

money. By the wages of labour being lowered, the owners of what stock remains in the society can bring their

goods at less expense to market than before, and less stock being employed in supplying the market than

before, they can sell them dearer. Their goods cost them less, and they get more for them. Their profits,

therefore, being augmented at both ends, can well afford a large interest. The great fortunes so suddenly and

so easily acquired in Bengal and the other British settlements in the East Indies may satisfy us that, as the

wages of labour are very low, so the profits of stock are very high in those ruined countries. The interest of

money is proportionably so. In Bengal, money is frequently lent to the farmers at forty, fifty, and sixty per

cent and the succeeding crop is mortgaged for the payment. As the profits which can afford such an interest

must eat up almost the whole rent of the landlord, so such enormous usury must in its turn eat up the greater

part of those profits. Before the fall of the Roman republic, a usury of the same kind seems to have been

common in the provinces, under the ruinous administration of their proconsuls. The virtuous Brutus lent

money in Cyprus at eightandforty per cent as we learn from the letters of Cicero.

In a country which had acquired that full complement of riches which the nature of its soil and climate, and

its situation with respect to other countries, allowed it to acquire; which could, therefore, advance no further,

and which was not going backwards, both the wages of labour and the profits of stock would probably be

very low. In a country fully peopled in proportion to what either its territory could maintain or its stock

employ, the competition for employment would necessarily be so great as to reduce the wages of labour to

what was barely sufficient to keep up the number of labourers, and, the country being already fully peopled,

that number could never be augmented. In a country fully stocked in proportion to all the business it had to

transact, as great a quantity of stock would be employed in every particular branch as the nature and extent of

the trade would admit. The competition, therefore, would everywhere be as great, and consequently the

But perhaps no country has ever yet arrived at this degree of opulence. China seems to have been long

stationary, and had probably long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent with the

nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and

institutions, the nature of its soil, climate, and situation might admit of. A country which neglects or despises

foreign commerce, and which admits the vessels of foreign nations into one or two of its ports only, cannot

transact the same quantity of business which it might do with different laws and institutions. In a country too,

where, though the rich or the owners of large capitals enjoy a good deal of security, the poor or the owners of

small capitals enjoy scarce any, but are liable, under the pretence of justice, to be pillaged and plundered at

any time by the inferior mandarins, the quantity of stock employed in all the different branches of business

transacted within it can never be equal to what the nature and extent of that business might admit. In every

different branch, the oppression of the poor must establish the monopoly of the rich, who, by engrossing the

whole trade to themselves, will be able to make very large profits. Twelve per cent accordingly is said to be

the common interest of money in China, and the ordinary profits of stock must be sufficient to afford this

A defect in the law may sometimes raise the rate of interest considerably above what the condition of the

country, as to wealth or poverty, would require. When the law does not enforce the performance of contracts,

it puts all borrowers nearly upon the same footing with bankrupts or people of doubtful credit in better

regulated countries. The uncertainty of recovering his money makes the lender exact the same usurious

interest which is usually required from bankrupts. Among the barbarous nations who overran the western

provinces of the Roman empire, the performance of contracts was left for many ages to the faith of the

contracting parties. The courts of justice of their kings seldom intermeddled in it. The high rate of interest

which took place in those ancient times may perhaps be partly accounted for from this cause.

When the law prohibits interest altogether, it does not prevent it. Many people must borrow, and nobody will

lend without such a consideration for the use of their money as is suitable not only to what can be made by

the use of it, but to the difficulty and danger of evading the law. The high rate of interest among all

Mahometan nations is accounted for by Mr. Montesquieu, not from their poverty, but partly from this, and

The lowest ordinary rate of profit must always be something more than what is sufficient to compensate the

occasional losses to which every employment of stock is exposed. It is this surplus only which is neat or clear

profit. What is called gross profit comprehends frequently, not only this surplus, but what is retained for

compensating such extraordinary losses. The interest which the borrower can afford to pay is in proportion to

The lowest ordinary rate of interest must, in the same manner, be something more than sufficient to

compensate the occasional losses to which lending, even with tolerable prudence, is exposed. Were it not

In a country which had acquired its full complement of riches, where in every particular branch of business

there was the greatest quantity of stock that could be employed in it, as the ordinary rate of clear profit would

be very small, so the usual market rate of interest which could be afforded out of it would be so low as to

render it impossible for any but the very wealthiest people to live upon the interest of their money. All people

of small or middling fortunes would be obliged to superintend themselves the employment of their own

stocks. It would be necessary that almost every man should be a man of business, or engage in some sort of

trade. The province of Holland seems to be approaching near to this state. It is there unfashionable not to be a

man of business. Necessity makes it usual for almost every man to be so, and custom everywhere regulates

fashion. As it is ridiculous not to dress, so is it, in some measure, not to be employed, like other people. As a

man of a civil profession seems awkward in a camp or a garrison, and is even in some danger of being

The highest ordinary rate of profit may be such as, in the price of the greater part of commodities, eats up the

whole of what should go to the rent of the land, and leaves only what is sufficient to pay the labour of

preparing and bringing them to market, according to the lowest rate at which labour can anywhere be paid,

the bare subsistence of the labourer. The workman must always have been fed in some way or other while he

was about the work; but the landlord may not always have been paid. The profits of the trade which the

servants of the East India Company carry on in Bengal may not perhaps be very far from this rate.

The proportion which the usual market rate of interest ought to bear to the ordinary rate of clear profit,

necessarily varies as profit rises or falls. Double interest is in Great Britain reckoned what the merchants call

a good, moderate, reasonable profit; terms which I apprehend mean no more than a common and usual profit.

In a country where the ordinary rate of clear profit is eight or ten per cent, it may be reasonable that one half

of it should go to interest, wherever business is carried on with borrowed money. The stock is at the risk of

the borrower, who, as it were, insures it to the lender; and four or five per cent may, in the greater part of

trades, be both a sufficient profit upon the risk of this insurance, and a sufficient recompense for the trouble

of employing the stock. But the proportion between interest and clear profit might not be the same in

countries where the ordinary rate of profit was either a good deal lower, or a good deal higher. If it were a

good deal lower, one half of it perhaps could not be afforded for interest; and more might be afforded if it

In countries which are fast advancing to riches, the low rate of profit may, in the price of many commodities,

compensate the high wages of labour, and enable those countries to sell as cheap as their less thriving

In reality high profits tend much more to raise the price of work than high wages. If in the linen manufacture,

for example, the wages of the different working people, the flaxdressers, the spinners, the weavers, etc.,

should, all of them, be advanced twopence a day; it would be necessary to heighten the price of a piece of

linen only by a number of twopences equal to the number of people that had been employed about it,

multiplied by the number of days during which they had been so employed. That part of the price of the

commodity which resolved itself into wages would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise

only in arithmetical proportion to this rise of wages. But if the profits of all the different employers of those

working people should be raised five per cent, that part of the price of the commodity which resolved itself

into profit would, through all the different stages of the manufacture, rise in geometrical proportion to this

rise of profit. The employer of the flaxdressers would in selling his flax require an additional five per cent

upon the whole value of the materials and wages which he advanced to his workmen. The employer of the

spinners would require an additional five per cent both upon the advanced price of the flax and upon the

wages of the spinners. And the employer of the weavers would require a like five per cent both upon the

advanced price of the linen yarn and upon the wages of the weavers. In raising the price of commodities the

rise of wages operates in the same manner as simple interest does in the accumulation of debt. The rise of

profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and mastermanufacturers complain much of the bad

effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and

abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the

pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.

THE whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock must, in

the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality. If in the same

neighbourhood, there was any employment evidently either more or less advantageous than the rest, so many

people would crowd into it in the one case, and so many would desert it in the other, that its advantages

would soon return to the level of other employments. This at least would be the case in a society where things

were left to follow their natural course, where there was perfect liberty, and where every man was perfectly

free both to choose what occupation he thought proper, and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every

man's interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous, and to shun the disadvantageous employment.

Pecuniary wages and profit, indeed, are everywhere in Europe extremely different according to the different

employments of labour and stock. But this difference arises partly from certain circumstances in the

employments themselves, which, either really, or at least in the imaginations of men, make up for a small

pecuniary gain in some, and counterbalance a great one in others; and partly from the policy of Europe,

The particular consideration of those circumstances and of that policy will divide this chapter into two parts.

THE five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for

a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others: first, the

agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or

the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them;

fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly, the

First, the wages of labour vary with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or

dishonourableness of the employment. Thus in most places, take the year round, a journeyman tailor earns

less than a journeyman weaver. His work is much easier. A journeyman weaver earns less than a journeyman

smith. His work is not always easier, but it is much cleanlier. A journeyman blacksmith, though an artificer,

seldom earns so much in twelve hours as a collier, who is only a labourer, does in eight. His work is not quite

so dirty, is less dangerous, and is carried on in daylight, and above ground. Honour makes a great part of the

reward of all honourable professions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things considered, they are generally

underrecompensed, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. Disgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a

butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of

common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the

Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of mankind in the rude state of society, become in its

advanced state their most agreeable amusements, and they pursue for pleasure what they once followed from

necessity. In the advanced state of society, therefore, they are all very poor people who follow as a trade what

other people pursue as a pastime. Fishermen have been so since the time of Theocritus. A poacher is

everywhere a very poor man in Great Britain. In countries where the rigour of the law suffers no poachers,

the licensed hunter is not in a much better condition. The natural taste for those employments makes more

people follow them than can live comfortably by them, and the produce of their labour, in proportion to its

quantity, comes always too cheap to market to afford anything but the most scanty subsistence to the

Disagreeableness and disgrace affect the profits of stock in the same manner as the wages of labour. The

keeper of an inn or tavern, who is never master of his own house, and who is exposed to the brutality of every

drunkard, exercises neither a very agreeable nor a very creditable business. But there is scarce any common

Secondly, the wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning

When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordinary work to be performed by it before it is worn out, it

must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it, with at least the ordinary profits. A man educated

at the expense of much labour and time to any of those employments which require extraordinary dexterity

and skill, may be compared to one of those expensive machines. The work which he learns to perform, it

must be expected, over and above the usual wages of common labour, will replace to him the whole expense

of his education, with at least the ordinary profits of an equally valuable capital. It must do this, too, in a

reasonable time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of human life, in the same manner as to the

The difference between the wages of skilled labour and those of common labour is founded upon this

The policy of Europe considers the labour of all mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as skilled labour;

and that of all country labourers as common labour. It seems to suppose that of the former to be of a more

nice and delicate nature than that of the latter. It is so perhaps in some cases; but in the greater part is it quite

otherwise, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. The laws and customs of Europe, therefore, in order to

qualify any person for exercising the one species of labour, impose the necessity of an apprenticeship, though

with different degrees of rigour in different places. They leave the other free and open to everybody. During

the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole labour of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the

meantime he must, in many cases, be maintained by his parents or relations, and in almost all cases must be

clothed by them. Some money, too, is commonly given to the master for teaching him his trade. They who

cannot give money give time, or become bound for more than the usual number of years; a consideration

which, though it is not always advantageous to the master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices, is

always disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour, on the contrary, the labourer, while he is

employed about the easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his own labour maintains him

through all the different stages of his employment. It is reasonable, therefore, that in Europe the wages of

mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers. They

are so accordingly, and their superior gains make them in most places be considered as a superior rank of

people. This superiority, however, is generally very small; the daily or weekly earnings of journeymen in the

more common sorts of manufactures, such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth, computed at an average,

are, in most places, very little more than the day wages of common labourers. Their employment, indeed, is

more steady and uniform, and the superiority of their earnings, taking the whole year together, may be

somewhat greater. It seems evidently, however, to be no greater than what is sufficient to compensate the

Education in the ingenious arts and in the liberal professions is still more tedious and expensive. The

pecuniary recompense, therefore, of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and physicians, ought to be much more

The profits of stock seem to be very little affected by the easiness or difficulty of learning the trade in which

it is employed. All the different ways in which stock is commonly employed in great towns seem, in reality,

to be almost equally easy and equally difficult to learn. One branch either of foreign or domestic trade cannot

Thirdly, the wages of labour in different occupations vary with the constancy or inconstancy of employment.

Employment is much more constant in some trades than in others. In the greater part of manufacturers, a

journeyman may be pretty sure of employment almost every day in the year that he is able to work. A mason

or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither in hard frost nor in foul weather, and his employment at all

other times depends upon the occasional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently

without any. What he earns, therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintain him while he is idle, but

make him some compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so precarious

a situation must sometimes occasion. Where the computed earnings of the greater part of manufacturers,

accordingly, are nearly upon a level with the day wages of common labourers, those of masons and

bricklayers are generally from one half more to double those wages. Where common labourers earn four and

five shillings a week, masons and bricklayers frequently earn seven and eight; where the former earn six, the

latter often earn nine and ten; and where the former earn nine and ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn

fifteen and eighteen. No species of skilled labour, however, seems more easy to learn than that of masons and

bricklayers. Chairmen in London, during the summer season, are said sometimes to be employed as

bricklayers. The high wages of those workmen, therefore, are not so much the recompense of their skill, as

A house carpenter seems to exercise rather a nicer and more ingenious trade than a mason. In most places,

however, for it is not universally so, his daywages are somewhat lower. His employment, though it depends

much, does not depend so entirely upon the occasional calls of his customers; and it is not liable to be

When the trades which generally afford constant employment happen in a particular place not to do so, the

wages of the workmen always rise a good deal above their ordinary proportion to those of common labour. In

London almost all journeymen artificers are liable to be called upon and dismissed by their masters from day

to day, and from week to week, in the same manner as daylabourers in other places. The lowest order of

artificers, journeymen tailors, accordingly, earn there half a crown aday, though eighteenpence may be

reckoned the wages of common labour. In small towns and country villages, the wages of journeymen tailors

frequently scarce equal those of common labour; but in London they are often many weeks without

When the inconstancy of employment is combined with the hardship, disagreeableness and dirtiness of the

work, it sometimes raises the wages of the most common labour above those of the most skilful artificers. A

collier working by the piece is supposed, at Newcastle, to earn commonly about double, and in many parts of

Scotland about three times the wages of common labour. His high wages arise altogether from the hardship,

disagreeableness, and dirtiness of his work. His employment may, upon most occasions, be as constant as he

pleases. The coalheavers in London exercise a trade which in hardship, dirtiness, and disagreeableness,

almost equals that of colliers; and from the unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coalships, the

employment of the greater part of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers, therefore, commonly earn

double and triple the wages of common labour, it ought not to seem unreasonable that coalheavers should

sometimes earn four and five times those wages. In the inquiry made into their condition a few years ago, it

was found that at the rate at which they were then paid, they could earn from six to ten shillings a day. Six

shillings are about four times the wages of common labour in London, and in every particular trade the lowest

common earnings may always be considered as those of the far greater number. How extravagant soever

those earnings may appear, if they were more than sufficient to compensate all the disagreeable

circumstances of the business, there would soon be so great a number of competitors as, in a trade which has

The constancy or inconstancy of employment cannot affect the ordinary profits of stock in any particular

trade. Whether the stock is or is not constantly employed depends. not upon the trade, but the trader.

Fourthly, the wages of labour vary accordingly to the small or great trust which must be reposed in the

The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere superior to those of many other workmen, not only of

equal, but of much superior ingenuity, on account of the precious materials with which they are intrusted.

We trust our health to the physician: our fortune and sometimes our life and reputation to the lawyer and

attorney. Such confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a very mean or low condition. Their

reward must be such, therefore, as may give them that rank in the society which so important a trust requires.

The long time and the great expense which must be laid out in their education, when combined with this

When a person employs only his own stock in trade, there is no trust; and the credit which he may get from

other people depends, not upon the nature of his trade, but upon their opinion of his fortune, probity, and

prudence. The different rates of profit, therefore, in the different branches of trade, cannot arise from the

Fifthly, the wages of labour in different. employments vary according to the probability or improbability of

The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the employment to which he is educated

is very different in different occupations. In the greater part of mechanic trades, success is almost certain; but

very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his

learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if ever he makes

such proficiency as will enable him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the

prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one

that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The

counselloratlaw who, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make something by his profession,

ought to receive the retribution, not only of his own so tedious and expensive education, but that of more than

twenty others who are never likely to make anything by it. How extravagant soever the fees of

counsellorsatlaw may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this. Compute in any

particular place what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the

different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the

former sum will generally exceed the latter. But make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors

and students of law, in all the different inns of court, and you will find that their annual gains bear but a very

small proportion to their annual expense, even though you rate the former as high, and the latter as low, as

can well be done. The lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and that, as

well as many other liberal and honourable professions, are, in point of pecuniary gain, evidently

Those professions keep their level, however, with other occupations, and, notwithstanding these

discouragements, all the most generous and liberal spirits are eager to crowd into them. Two different causes

contribute to recommend them. First, the desire of the reputation which attends upon superior excellence in

any of them; and, secondly, the natural confidence which every man has more or less, not only in his own

To excel in any profession, in which but few arrive at mediocrity, is the most decisive mark of what is called

genius or superior talents. The public admiration which attends upon such distinguished abilities makes

always a part of their reward; a greater or smaller in proportion as it is higher or lower in degree. It makes a

considerable part of that reward in the profession of physic; a still greater perhaps in that of law; in poetry

There are some very agreeable and beautiful talents of which the possession commands a certain sort of

admiration; but of which the exercise for the sake of gain is considered, whether from reason or prejudice, as

a sort of public prostitution. The pecuniary recompense, therefore, of those who exercise them in this manner

must be sufficient, not only to pay for the time, labour, and expense of acquiring the talents, but for the

discredit which attends the employment of them as the means of subsistence. The exorbitant rewards of

players, operasingers, operadancers, etc., are founded upon those two principles; the rarity and beauty of

the talents, and the discredit of employing them in this manner. It seems absurd at first sight that we should

despise their persons and yet reward their talents with the most profuse liberality. While we do the one,

however, we must of necessity do the other. Should the public opinion or prejudice ever alter with regard to

such occupations, their pecuniary recompense would quickly diminish. More people would apply to them,

and the competition would quickly reduce the price of their labour. Such talents, though far from being

common, are by no means so rare as is imagined. Many people possess them in great perfection, who disdain

to make this use of them; and many more are capable of acquiring them, if anything could be made

The overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their own abilities is an ancient evil remarked

by the philosophers and moralists of all ages. Their absurd presumption in their own good fortune has been

less taken notice of. It is, however, if possible, still more universal. There is no man living who, when in

tolerable health and spirits, has not some share of it. The chance of gain is by every man more or less

overvalued, and the chance of loss is by most men undervalued, and by scarce any man, who is in tolerable

That the chance of gain is naturally overvalued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries. The

world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery; or one in which the whole gain compensated

the whole loss; because the undertaker could make nothing by it. In the state lotteries the tickets are really not

worth the price which is paid by the original subscribers, and yet commonly sell in the market for twenty,

thirty, and sometimes forty per cent advance. The vain hope of gaining some of the great prizes is the sole

cause of this demand. The soberest people scarce look upon it as a folly to pay a small sum for the chance of

gaining ten or twenty thousand pounds; though they know that even that small sum is perhaps twenty or thirty

per cent more than the chance is worth. In a lottery in which no prize exceeded twenty pounds, though in

other respects it approached much nearer to a perfectly fair one than the common state lotteries, there would

not be the same demand for tickets. In order to have a better chance for some of the great prizes, some people

purchase several tickets, and others, small share in a still greater number. There is not, however, a more

certain proposition in mathematics than that the more tickets you adventure upon, the more likely you are to

be a loser. Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of

That the chance of loss is frequently undervalued, and scarce ever valued more than it is worth, we may learn

from a very moderate profit of insurers. In order to make insurance, either from fire or searisk, a trade at all,

the common premium must be sufficient to compensate the common losses, to pay the expense of

management, and to afford such a profit as might have been drawn from an equal capital employed in any

common trade. The person who pays no more than this evidently pays no more than the real value of the risk,

or the lowest price at which he can reasonably expect to insure it. But though many people have made a little

money by insurance, very few have made a great fortune; and from this consideration alone, it seems evident

enough that the ordinary balance of profit and loss is not more advantageous in this than in other common

trades by which so many people make fortunes. Moderate, however, as the premium of insurance commonly

is, many people despise the risk too much to care to pay it. Taking the whole kingdom at an average, nineteen

houses in twenty, or rather perhaps ninetynine in a hundred, are not insured from fire. Sea risk is more

alarming to the greater part of people, and the proportion of ships insured to those not insured is much

greater. Many fail, however, at all seasons, and even in time of war, without any insurance. This may

sometimes perhaps be done without any imprudence. When a great company, or even a great merchant, has

twenty or thirty ships at sea, they may, as it were, insure one another. The premium saved upon them all may

more than compensate such losses as they are likely to meet with in the common course of chances. The

neglect of insurance upon shipping, however, in the same manner as upon houses, is, in most cases, the effect

of no such nice calculation, but of mere thoughtless rashness and presumptuous contempt of the risk.

The contempt of risk and the presumptuous hope of success are in no period of life more active than at the

age at which young people choose their professions. How little the fear of misfortune is then capable of

balancing the hope of good luck appears still more evidently in the readiness of the common People to enlist

as soldiers, or to go to sea, than in the eagerness of those of better fashion to enter into what are called the

What a common soldier may lose is obvious enough. Without regarding the danger, however, young

volunteers never enlist so readily as at the beginning of a new war; and though they have scarce any chance

of preferment, they figure to themselves, in their youthful fancies, a thousand occasions of acquiring honour

and distinction which never occur. These romantic hopes make the whole price of their blood. Their pay is

less than that of common labourers, and in actual service their fatigues are much greater.

The lottery of the sea is not altogether so disadvantageous as that of the army. The son of a creditable

labourer or artificer may frequently go to sea with his father's consent; but if he enlists as a soldier, it is

always without it. Other people see some chance of his making something by the one trade: nobody but

himself sees any of his making anything by the other. The great admiral is less the object of public admiration

than the great general, and the highest success in the sea service promises a less brilliant fortune and

reputation than equal success in the land. The same difference runs through all the inferior degrees of

preferment in both. By the rules of precedency a captain in the navy ranks with a colonel in the army; but he

does not rank with him in the common estimation. As the great prizes in the lottery are less, the smaller ones

must be more numerous. Common sailors, therefore, more frequently get some fortune and preferment than

common soldiers; and the hope of those prizes is what principally recommends the trade. Though their skill

and dexterity are much superior to that of almost any artificers, and though their whole life is one continual

scene of hardship and danger, yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those hardships and dangers, while

they remain in the condition of common sailors, they receive scarce any other recompense but the pleasure of

exercising the one and of surmounting the other. Their wages are not greater than those of common labourers

at the port which regulates the rate of seamen's wages. As they are continually going from port to port, the

monthly pay of those who sail from all the different ports of Great Britain is more nearly upon a level than

that of any other workmen in those different places; and the rate of the port to and from which the greatest

number sail, that is the port of London, regulates that of all the rest. At London the wages of the greater part

of the different classes of workmen are about double those of the same classes at Edinburgh. But the sailors

who sail from the port of London seldom earn above three or four shillings a month more than those who sail

from the port of Leith, and the difference is frequently not so great. In time of peace, and in the merchant

service, the London price is from a guinea to about sevenandtwenty shillings the calendar month. A

common labourer in London, at the rate of nine or ten shillings a week, may earn in the calendar month from

forty to fiveandforty shillings. The sailor, indeed, over and above his pay, is supplied with provisions.

Their value, however, may not perhaps always exceed the difference between his pay and that of the common

labourer; and though it sometimes should, the excess will not be clear gain to the sailor, because he cannot

share it with his wife and family, whom he must maintain out of his wages at home.

The dangers and hairbreadth escapes of a life of adventures, instead of disheartening young people, seem

frequently to recommend a trade to them. A tender mother, among the inferior ranks of people, is of afraid to

send her son to school at a seaport town, lest the sight of the ships and the conversation and adventures of the

sailors should entice him to go to sea. The distant prospect of hazards, from which we can hope to extricate

ourselves by courage and address, is not disagreeable to us, and does not raise the wages of labour in any

employment. It is otherwise with those in which courage and address can be of no avail. In trades which are

known to be very unwholesome, the wages of labour are always remarkably high. Unwholesomeness is a

species of disagreeableness, and its effects upon the wages of labour are to be ranked under that general head.

In all the different employments of stock, the ordinary rate of profit varies more or less with the certainty or

uncertainty of the returns. These are in general less uncertain in the inland than in the foreign trade, and in

some branches of foreign trade than in others; in the trade to North America, for example, than in that to

Jamaica. The ordinary rate of profit always rises more or less with the risk. It does not, however, seem to rise

in proportion to it, or so as to compensate it completely. Bankruptcies are most frequent in the most

hazardous trades. The most hazardous of all trades, that of a smuggler, though when the adventure succeeds it

is likewise the most profitable, is the infallible road to bankruptcy. The presumptuous hope of success seems

to act here as upon all other occasions, and to entice so many adventurers into those hazardous trades, that

their competition reduces their profit below what is sufficient to compensate the risk. To compensate it

completely, the common returns ought, over and above the ordinary profits of stock, not only to make up for

all occasional losses, but to afford a surplus profit to the adventurers of the same nature with the profit of

insurers. But if the common returns were sufficient for all this, bankruptcies would not be more frequent in

Of the five circumstances, therefore, which vary the wages of labour, two only affect the profits of stock; the

agreeableness or disagreeableness of the business, and the risk or security with which it is attended. In point

of agreeableness, there is little or no difference in the far greater part of the different employments of stock;

but a great deal in those of labour; and the ordinary profit of stock, though it rises with the risk, does not

always seem to rise in proportion to it. It should follow from all this, that, in the same society or

neighbourhood, the average and ordinary rates of profit in the different employments of stock should be more

nearly upon a level than the pecuniary wages of the different sorts of labour. They are so accordingly. The

difference between the earnings of a common labourer and those of a well employed lawyer or physician, is

evidently much greater than that between the ordinary profits in any two different branches of trade. The

apparent difference, besides, in the profits of different trades, is generally a deception arising from our not

always distinguishing what ought to be considered as wages, from what ought to be considered as profit.

Apothecaries' profit is become a byeword, denoting something uncommonly extravagant. This great

apparent profit, however, is frequently no more than the reasonable wages of labour. The skill of an

apothecary is a much nicer and more delicate matter than that of any artificer whatever; and the trust which is

reposed in him is of much greater importance. He is the physician of the poor in all cases, and of the rich

when the distress or danger is not very great. His reward, therefore, ought to be suitable to his skill and his

trust, and it arises generally from the price at which he sells his drugs. But the whole drugs which the best

employed apothecary, in a large market town, will sell in a year, may not perhaps cost him above thirty or

forty pounds. Though he should sell them, therefore, for three or four hundred, or at a thousand per cent

profit, this may frequently be no more than the reasonable wages of his labour charged, in the only way in

which he can charge them, upon the price of his drugs. The greater part of the apparent profit is real wages

In a small seaport town, a little grocer will make forty or fifty per cent upon a stock of a single hundred

pounds, while a considerable wholesale merchant in the same place will scarce make eight or ten per cent

upon a stock of ten thousand. The trade of the grocer may be necessary for the conveniency of the

inhabitants, and the narrowness of the market may not admit the employment of a larger capital in the

business. The man, however, must not only live by his trade, but live by it suitably to the qualifications which

it requires. Besides possessing a little capital, he must be able to read, write, and account, and must be a

tolerable judge too of, perhaps, fifty or sixty different sorts of goods, their prices, qualities, and the markets

where they are to be had cheapest. He must have all the knowledge, in short, that is necessary for a great

merchant, which nothing hinders him from becoming but the want of a sufficient capital. Thirty or forty

pounds a year cannot be considered as too great a recompense for the labour of a person so Accomplished.

Deduct this from the seemingly great profits of his capital, and little more will remain, perhaps, than the

ordinary profits of stock. The greater part of the apparent profit is, in this case too, real wages.

The difference between the apparent profit of the retail and that of the wholesale trade, is much less in the

capital than in small towns and country villages. Where ten thousand pounds can be employed in the grocery

trade, the wages of the grocer's labour make but a very trifling addition to the real profits of so great a stock.

The apparent profits of the wealthy retailer, therefore, are there more nearly upon a level with those of the

wholesale merchant. It is upon this account that goods sold by retail are generally as cheap and frequently

much cheaper in the capital than in small towns and country villages. Grocery goods, for example, are

generally much cheaper; bread and butcher's meat frequently as cheap. It costs no more to bring grocery

goods to the great town than to the country village; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn and cattle, as

the greater part of them must be brought from a much greater distance. The prime cost of grocery goods,

therefore, being the same in both places, they are cheapest where the least profit is charged upon them. The

prime cost of bread and butcher's meat is greater in the great town than in the country village; and though the

profit is less, therefore, they are not always cheaper there, but often equally cheap. In such articles as bread

and butcher's meat, the same cause, which diminishes apparent profit, increases prime cost. The extent of the

market, by giving employment to greater stocks, diminishes apparent profit; but by requiring supplies from a

greater distance, it increases prime cost. This diminution of the one and increase of the other seem, in most

cases, nearly to counterbalance one another, which is probably the reason that, though the prices of corn and

cattle are commonly very different in different parts of the kingdom, those of bread and butcher's meat are

Though the profits of stock both in the wholesale and retail trade are generally less in the capital than in small

towns and country villages, yet great fortunes are frequently acquired from small beginnings in the former,

and scarce ever in the latter. In small towns and country villages, on account of the narrowness of the market,

trade cannot always be extended as stock extends. In such places, therefore, though the rate of a particular

person's profits may be very high, the sum or amount of them can never be very great, nor consequently that

of his annual accumulation. In great towns, on the contrary, trade can be extended as stock increases, and the

credit of a frugal and thriving man increases much faster than his stock. His trade is extended in proportion to

the amount of both, and the sum or amount of his profits is in proportion to the extent of his trade, and his

annual accumulation in proportion to the amount of his profits. It seldom happens, however, that great

fortunes are made even in great towns by any one regular, established, and wellknown branch of business,

but in consequence of a long life of industry, frugality, and attention. Sudden fortunes, indeed, are sometimes

made in such places by what is called the trade of speculation. The speculative merchant exercises no one

regular, established, or wellknown branch of business. He is a corn merchant this year, and a wine merchant

the next, and a sugar, tobacco, or tea merchant the year after. He enters into every trade when he foresees that

it is likely to be more than commonly profitable, and he quits it when he foresees that its profits are likely to

return to the level of other trades. His profits and losses, therefore, can bear no regular proportion to those of

any one established and wellknown branch of business. A bold adventurer may sometimes acquire a

considerable fortune by two or three successful speculations; but is just as likely to lose one by two or three

unsuccessful ones. This trade can be carried on nowhere but in great towns. It is only in places of the most

extensive commerce and correspondence that the intelligence requisite for it can be had.

The five circumstances above mentioned, though they occasion considerable inequalities in the wages of

labour and profits of stock, occasion none in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages, real or

imaginary, of the different employments of either. The nature of those circumstances is such that they make

up for a small pecuniary gain in some, and counterbalance a great one in others.

In order, however, that this equality may take place in the whole of their advantages or disadvantages, three

things are requisite even where there is the most perfect freedom. First, the employments must be well known

and long established in the neighbourhood; secondly, they must be in their ordinary, or what may be called

their natural state; and, thirdly, they must be the sole or principal employments of those who occupy them.

First, this equality can take place only in those employments which are well known, and have been long

Where all other circumstances are equal, wages are generally higher in new than in old trades. When a

projector attempts to establish a new manufacture, he must at first entice his workmen from other

employments by higher wages than they can either earn in their own trades, or than the nature of his work

would otherwise require, and a considerable time must pass away before he can venture to reduce them to the

common level. Manufactures for which the demand arises altogether from fashion and fancy are continually

changing, and seldom last long enough to be considered as old established manufactures. Those, on the

contrary, for which the demand arises chiefly from use or necessity, are less liable to change, and the same

form or fabric may continue in demand for whole centuries together. The wages of labour, therefore, are

likely to be higher in manufactures of the former than in those of the latter kind. Birmingham deals chiefly in

manufactures of the former kind; Sheffield in those of the latter; and the wages of labour in those two

different places are said to be suitable to this difference in the nature of their manufactures.

The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in

agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These

profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in

general they bear no regular proportion to those of other old trades in the neighbourhood. If the project

succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established

Secondly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of

labour and stock, can take place only in the ordinary, or what may be called the natural state of those

The demand for almost every different species of labour is sometimes greater and sometimes less than usual.

In the one case the advantages of the employment rise above, in the other they fall below the common level.

The demand for country labour is greater at haytime and harvest than during the greater part of the year; and

wages rise with the demand. In time of war, when forty or fifty thousand sailors are forced from the merchant

service into that of the king, the demand for sailors to merchant ships necessarily rises with their scarcity, and

their wages upon such occasions commonly rise from a guinea and sevenandtwenty shillings, to forty

shillings and three pounds a month. In a decaying manufacture, on the contrary, many workmen, rather than

quit their old trade, are contented with smaller wages than would otherwise be suitable to the nature of their

The profits of stock vary with the price of the commodities in which it is employed. As the price of any

commodity rises above the ordinary or average rate, the profits of at least some part of the stock that is

employed in bringing it to market, rise above their proper level, and as it falls they sink below it. All

commodities are more or less liable to variations of price, but some are much more so than others. In all

commodities which are produced by human industry, the quantity of industry annually employed is

necessarily regulated by the annual demand, in such a manner that the average annual produce may, as nearly

as possible, be equal to the average annual consumption. In some employments, it has already been observed,

the same quantity of industry will always produce the same, or very nearly the same quantity of commodities.

In the linen or woollen manufactures, for example, the same number of hands will annually work up very

nearly the same quantity of linen and woollen cloth. The variations in the market price of such commodities,

therefore, can arise only from some accidental variation in the demand. A public mourning raises the price of

black cloth. But as the demand for most sorts of plain linen and woollen cloth is pretty uniform, so is likewise

the price. But there are other employments in which the same quantity of industry will not always produce the

same quantity of commodities. The same quantity of industry, for example, will, in different years, produce

very different quantities of corn, wine, hops, sugar, tobacco, etc. The price of such commodities, therefore,

varies not only with the variations of demand, but with the much greater and more frequent variations of

quantity, and is consequently extremely fluctuating. But the profit of some of the dealers must necessarily

fluctuate with the price of the commodities. The operations of the speculative merchant are principally

employed about such commodities. He endeavours to buy them up when he foresees that their price is likely

Thirdly, this equality in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of

labour and stock can take only in such as are the sole or principal employments of those who occupy them.

When a person derives his subsistence from one employment, which does not occupy the greater part of his

time, in the intervals of his leisure he is often willing to work as another for less wages than would otherwise

There still subsists in many parts of Scotland a set of people called Cotters or Cottagers, though they were

more frequent some years ago than they are now. They are a sort of outservants of the landlords and farmers.

The usual reward which they receive from their masters is a house, a small garden for potherbs, as much

grass as will feed a cow, and, perhaps, an acre or two of bad arable land. When their master has occasion for

their labour, he gives them, besides, two pecks of oatmeal a week, worth about sixteenpence sterling. During

a great part of the year he has little or no occasion for their labour, and the cultivation of their own little

possession is not sufficient to occupy the time which is left at their own disposal. When such occupiers were

more numerous than they are at present, they are said to have been willing to give their spare time for a very

small recompense to anybody, and to have wrought for less wages than other labourers. In ancient times they

seem to have been common all over Europe. In countries ill cultivated and worse inhabited, the greater part of

landlords and farmers could not otherwise provide themselves with the extraordinary number of hands which

country labour requires at certain season. The daily or weekly recompense which such labourers occasionally

received from their masters was evidently not the whole price of their labour. Their small tenement made a

considerable part of it. This daily or weekly recompense, however, seems to have been considered as the

whole of it, by many writers who have collected the prices of labour and provisions in ancient times, and who

The produce of such labour comes frequently cheaper to market than would otherwise suitable to its nature.

Stockings in many parts of Scotland are knit much cheaper than they can anywhere be wrought upon the

loom. They are the work of servants and labourers, who derive the principal part of their subsistence from

some other employment. More than a thousand pair of Shetland stockings are annually imported into Leith,

of which the price is from fivepence to sevenpence a pair. At Lerwick, the small capital of the Shetland

Islands, tenpence a day, I have been assured, is a common price of common labour. In the same islands they

The spinning of linen yarn is carried on in Scotland nearly in the same way as the knitting of stockings by

servants, who are chiefly hired for other purposes. They earn but a very scanty subsistence, who endeavour to

get their whole livelihood by either of those trades. In most parts of Scotland she is a good spinner who can

In opulent countries the market is generally so extensive that any one trade is sufficient to employ the whole

labour and stock of those who occupy it. Instances of people's living by one employment, and at the same

time deriving some little advantage from another, occur chiefly in poor countries. The following instance,

however, of something of the same kind is to be found in the capital of a very rich one. There is no city in

Europe, I believe, in which houserent is dearer than in London, and yet I know no capital in which a

furnished apartment can be hired as cheap. Lodging is not only much cheaper in London than in Paris; it is

much cheaper than in Edinburgh of the same degree of goodness; and what may seem extraordinary, the

dearness of houserent is the cause of the cheapness of lodging. The dearness of houserent in London arises

not only from those causes which render it dear in all great capitals, the dearness of labour, the dearness of all

the materials of building, which must generally be brought from a great distance, and above all the dearness

of groundrent, every landlord acting the part the part of a monopolist, and frequently exacting a higher rent

for a single acre of bad land in a town than can be had for a hundred of the best in the country; but it arises in

part from the peculiar manners and customs of the people, which oblige every master of a family to hire a

whole house from top to bottom. A dwellinghouse in England means everything that is contained under the

same roof. In France, Scotland, and many other parts of Europe, it frequently means no more than a single

story. A tradesman in London is obliged to hire a whole house in that part of the town where his customers

live. His shop is upon the groundfloor, and he and his family sleep in the garret; and he endeavours to pay a

part of his houserent by letting the two middle stories to lodgers. He expects to maintain his family by his

trade, and not by his lodgers. Whereas, at Paris and Edinburgh, the people who let lodgings have commonly

no other means of subsistence and the price of the lodging must pay, not only the rent of the house, but the

SUCH are the inequalities in the whole of advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of

labour and stock, which the defect of any of the three requisites above mentioned must occasion, even where

there is the most perfect liberty. But the policy of Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions

It does this chiefly in the three following ways. First, by restraining the competition in some employments to

a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; secondly, by increasing it in others

beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and stock, both

First, the policy of Europe occasions a very important inequality in the whole of the advantages and

disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, by restraining the competition in some

employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them.

The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it makes use of for this purpose.

The exclusive privilege of an incorporated trade necessarily restrains the competition, in the town where it is

established, to those who are free of the trade. To have served an apprenticeship in the town, under a master

properly qualified, is commonly the necessary requisite for obtaining this freedom. The bye laws of the

corporation regulate sometimes the number of apprentices which any master is allowed to have, and almost

always the number of years which each apprentice is obliged to serve. The intention of both regulations is to

restrain the competition to a much smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into the trade.

The limitation of the number of apprentices restrains it directly. A long term of apprenticeship restrains it

In Sheffield no master cutler can have more than one apprentice at a time, by a bye law of the corporation. In

Norfolk and Norwich no master weaver can have more than two apprentices, under pain of forfeiting five

pounds a month to the king. No master hatter can have more than two apprentices anywhere in England, or in

the English plantations, under pain of forfeiting five pounds a month, half to the king and half to him who

shall sue in any court of record. Both these regulations, though they have been confirmed by a public law of

the kingdom, are evidently dictated by the same corporation spirit which enacted the byelaw of Sheffield.

The silk weavers in London had scarce been incorporated a year when they enacted a byelaw restraining

any master from having more than two apprentices at a time. It required a particular Act of Parliament to

Seven years seem anciently to have been, all over Europe, the usual term established for the duration of

apprenticeships in the greater part of incorporated trades. All such incorporations were anciently called

universities, which indeed is the proper Latin name for any incorporation whatever. The university of smiths,

the university of tailors, etc., are expressions which we commonly meet with in the old charters of ancient

towns. When those particular incorporations which are now peculiarly called universities were first

established, the term of years which it was necessary to study, in order to obtain the degree of master of arts,

appears evidently to have been copied from the terms of apprenticeship in common trades, of which the

incorporations were much more ancient. As to have wrought seven years under a master properly qualified

was necessary in order to entitle any person to become a master, and to have himself apprenticed in a

common trade; so to have studied seven years under a master properly qualified was necessary to entitle him

to become a master, teacher, or doctor (words anciently synonymous) in the liberal arts, and to have scholars

By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the Statute of Apprenticeship, it was enacted, that no person should

for the future exercise any trade, craft, or mystery at that time exercised in England, unless he had previously

served to it an apprenticeship of seven years at least; and what before had been the bye law of many

particular corporations became in England the general and public law of all trades carried on in market towns.

For though the words of the statute are very general, and seem plainly to include the whole kingdom, by

interpretation its operation has been limited to market towns, it having been held that in country villages a

person may exercise several different trades, though he has not served a seven years' apprenticeship to each,

they being necessary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the number of people frequently not being

By a strict interpretation of the words, too, the operation of this statute has been limited to those trades which

were established in England before the 5th of Elizabeth, and has never been extended to such as have been

introduced since that time. This limitation has given occasion to several distinctions which, considered as

rules of police, appear as foolish as can well be imagined. It has been adjudged, for example, that a

coachmaker can neither himself make nor employ journeymen to make his coachwheels, but must buy them

of a master wheelwright; this latter trade having been exercised in England before the 5th of Elizabeth. But

a wheelwright, though he has never served an apprenticeship to a coachmaker, may either himself make or

employ journeyman to make coaches; the trade of a coachmaker not being within the statute, because not

exercised in England at the time when it was made. The manufactures of Manchester, Birmingham, and

Wolverhampton, are many of them, upon this account, not within the statute, not having been exercised in

In France, the duration of apprenticeships is different in different towns and in different trades. In Paris, five

years is the term required in a great number; but before any person can be qualified to exercise the trade as a

master, he must, in many of them, serve five years more as a journeyman. During this latter term he is called

In Scotland there is no general law which regulates universally the duration of apprenticeships. The term is

different in different corporations. Where it is long, a part of it may generally be redeemed by paying a small

fine. In most towns, too, a very small fine is sufficient to purchase the freedom of any corporation. The

weavers of linen and hempen cloth, the principal manufactures of the country, as well as all other artificers

subservient to them, wheelmakers, reelmakers, etc., may exercise their trades in any town corporate

without paying any fine. In all towns corporate all persons are free to sell butcher's meat upon any lawful day

of the week. Three years in Scotland is a common term of apprenticeship, even in some very nice trades; and

in general I know of no country in Europe in which corporation laws are so little oppressive.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so

it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his

hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from

employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour is a

plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the

workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he

thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to

be employed may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The

affected anxiety of the lawgiver lest they should employ an improper person is evidently as impertinent as it

The institution of long apprenticeships can give no security that insufficient workmanship shall not frequently

be exposed to public sale. When this is done it is generally the effect of fraud, and not of inability; and the

longest apprenticeship can give no security against fraud. Quite different regulations are necessary to prevent

this abuse. The sterling mark upon plate, and the stamps upon linen and woollen cloth, give the purchaser

much greater security than any statute of apprenticeship. He generally looks at these, but never thinks it worth

The institution of long apprenticeships has no tendency to form a young people to industry. A journeyman

who works by the piece is likely to be industrious, because he derives a benefit from every exertion of his

industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and almost always is so, because he has no immediate interest to

be otherwise. In the inferior employments, the sweets of labour consist altogether in the recompense of

labour. They who are soonest in a condition to enjoy the sweets of it are likely soonest to conceive a relish for

it, and to acquire the early habit of industry. A young man naturally conceives an aversion to labour when for

a long time he receives no benefit from it. The boys who are put out apprentices from public charities are

generally bound for more than the usual number of years, and they generally turn out very idle and worthless.

Apprenticeships were altogether unknown to the ancients. The reciprocal duties of master and apprentice

make a considerable article in every modern code. The Roman law is perfectly silent with regard to them. I

know no Greek or Latin word (I might venture, I believe, to assert that there is none) which expresses the

idea we now annex to the word Apprentice, a servant bound to work at a particular trade for the benefit of a

master, during a term of years, upon condition that the master shall teach him that trade.

Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts, which are much superior to common trades, such

as those of making clocks and watches, contain no such mystery as to require a long course of instruction.

The first invention of such beautiful machines, indeed, and even that of some of the instruments employed in

making them, must, no doubt, have been the work of deep thought and long time, and may justly be

considered as among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when both have been fairly invented and

are well understood, to explain to any young man, in the completest manner, how to apply the instruments

and how to construct the machines, cannot well require more than the lessons of a few weeks: perhaps those

of a few days might be sufficient. In the common mechanic trades, those of a few days might certainly be

sufficient. The dexterity of hand, indeed, even in common trades, cannot be acquired without much practice

and experience. But a young man would practice with much more diligence and attention, if from the

beginning he wrought as a journeyman, being paid in proportion to the little work which he could execute,

and paying in his turn for the materials which he might sometimes spoil through awkwardness and

inexperience. His education would generally in this way be more effectual, and always less tedious and

expensive. The master, indeed, would be a loser. He would lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he

now saves, for seven years together. In the end, perhaps, the apprentice himself would be a loser. In a trade so

easily learnt he would have more competitors, and his wages, when he came to be a complete workman,

would be much less than at present. The same increase of competition would reduce the profits of the masters

as well as the wages of the workmen. The trades, the crafts, the mysteries, would all be losers. But the public

would be a gainer, the work of all artificers coming in this way much cheaper to market.

It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of wages and profit, by restraining that free

competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation

laws, have been established. In order to erect a corporation, no other authority in ancient times was requisite

in many parts of Europe, but that of the town corporate in which it was established. In England, indeed, a

charter from the king was likewise necessary. But this prerogative of the crown seems to have been reserved

rather for extorting money from the subject than for the defence of the common liberty against such

oppressive monopolies. Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter seems generally to have been readily

granted; and when any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as a corporation without a

charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but

obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges. The immediate

inspection of all corporations, and of the byelaws which they might think proper to enact for their own

government, belonged to the town corporate in which they were established; and whatever discipline was

exercised over them proceeded commonly, not from the king, but from the greater incorporation of which

The government of towns corporate was altogether in the hands of traders and artificers, and it was the

manifest interest of every particular class of them to prevent the market from being overstocked, as they

commonly express it, with their own particular species of industry, which is in reality to keep it always

understocked. Each class was eager to establish regulations proper for this purpose, and, provided it was

allowed to do so, was willing to consent that every other class should do the same. In consequence of such

regulations, indeed, each class was obliged to buy the goods they had occasion for from every other within

the town, somewhat dearer than they otherwise might have done. But in recompense, they were enabled to

sell their own just as much dearer; so that so far it was as broad as long, as they say; and in the dealings of the

different classes within the town with one another, none of them were losers by these regulations. But in their

dealings with the country they were all great gainers; and in these latter dealings consists the whole trade

Every town draws its whole subsistence, and all the materials of its industry, from the country. It pays for

these chiefly in two ways: first, by sending back to the country a part of those materials wrought up and

manufactured; in which case their price is augmented by the wages of the workmen, and the profits of their

masters or immediate employers; secondly, by sending to it a part both of the rude and manufactured

produce, either of other countries, or of distant parts of the same country, imported into the town; in which

case, too, the original price of those goods is augmented by the wages of the carriers or sailors, and by the

profits of the merchants who employ them. In what is gained upon the first of those two branches of

commerce consists the advantage which the town makes by its manufactures; in what is gained upon the

second, the advantage of its inland and foreign trade. The wages of the workmen, and the profits of their

different employers, make up the whole of what is gained upon both. Whatever regulations, therefore, tend to

increase those wages and profits beyond what they otherwise would be, tend to enable the town to purchase,

with a smaller quantity of its labour, the produce of a greater quantity of the labour of the country. They give

the traders and artificers in the town an advantage over the landlords, farmers, and labourers in the country,

and break down that natural equality which would otherwise take place in the commerce which is carried on

between them. The whole annual produce of the labour of the society is annually divided between those two

different sets of people. By means of those regulations a greater share of it is given to the inhabitants of the

The price which the town really pays for the provisions and materials annually imported into it is the quantity

of manufactures and other goods annually exported from it. The dearer the latter are sold, the cheaper the

former are bought. The industry of the town becomes more, and that of the country less advantageous.

That the industry which is carried on in towns is, everywhere in Europe, more advantageous than that which

is carried on in the country, without entering into any very nice computations, we may satisfy ourselves by

one very simple and obvious observation. In every country of Europe we find, at least, a hundred people who

have acquired great fortunes from small beginnings by trade and manufactures, the industry which properly

belongs to towns, for one who has done so by that which properly belongs to the country, the raising of rude

produce by the improvement and cultivation of land. Industry, therefore, must be better rewarded, the wages

of labour and the profits of stock must evidently be greater in the one situation than in the other. But stock

and labour naturally seek the most advantageous employment. They naturally, therefore, resort as much as

The inhabitants of a town, being collected into one place, can easily combine together. The most insignificant

trades carried on in towns have accordingly, in some place or other, been incorporated, and even where they

have never been incorporated, yet the corporation spirit, the jealousy of strangers, the aversion to take

apprentices, or to communicate the secret of their trade, generally prevail in them, and often teach them, by

voluntary associations and agreements, to prevent that free competition which they cannot prohibit by

byelaws. The trades which employ but a small number of hands run most easily into such combinations.

Half a dozen woolcombers, perhaps, are necessary to keep a thousand spinners and weavers at work. By

combining not to take apprentices they can not only engross the employment, but reduce the whole

manufacture into a sort of slavery to themselves, and raise the price of their labour much above what is due to

The inhabitants of the country, dispersed in distant places, cannot easily combine together. They have not

only never been incorporated, but the corporation spirit never has prevailed among them. No apprenticeship

has ever been thought necessary to qualify for husbandry, the great trade of the country. After what are called

the fine arts, and the liberal professions, however, there is perhaps no trade which requires so great a variety

of knowledge and experience. The innumerable volumes which have been written upon it in all languages

may satisfy us that, among the wisest and most learned nations, it has never been regarded as a matter very

easily understood. And from all those volumes we shall in vain attempt to collect that knowledge of its

various and complicated operations, which is commonly possessed even by the common farmer; how

contemptuously soever the very contemptible authors of some of them may sometimes affect to speak of him.

There is scarce any common mechanic trade, on the contrary, of which all the operations may not be as

completely and distinctly explained in a pamphlet of a very few pages, as it is possible for words illustrated

by figures to explain them. In the history of the arts, now publishing by the French Academy of Sciences,

several of them are actually explained in this manner. The direction of operations, besides, which must be

varied with every change of the weather, as well as with many other accidents, requires much more judgment

and discretion than that of those which are always the same or very nearly the same.

Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the operations of husbandry, but many inferior

branches of country labour require much more skin and experience than the greater part of mechanic trades.

The man who works upon brass and iron, works with instruments and upon materials of which the temper is

always the same, or very nearly the same. But the man who ploughs the ground with a team of horses or

oxen, works with instruments of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different upon different

occasions. The condition of the materials which he works upon, too, is as variable as that of the instruments

which he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment and discretion. The common

ploughman, though generally regarded as the pattern of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective in this

judgment and discretion. He is less accustomed, indeed, to social intercourse than the mechanic who lives in

a town. His voice and language are more uncouth and more difficult to be understood by those who are not

used to them. His understanding, however, being accustomed to consider a greater variety of objects, is

generally much superior to that of the other, whose whole attention from morning till night is commonly

occupied in performing one or two very simple operations. How much the lower ranks of people in the

country are really superior to those of the town is well known to every man whom either business or curiosity

has led to converse much with both. In China and Indostan accordingly both the rank and the wages of

country labourers are said to be superior to those of the greater part of artificers and manufacturers. They

would probably be so everywhere, if corporation laws and the corporation spirit did not prevent it.

The superiority which the industry of the towns has everywhere in Europe over that of the country is not

altogether owing to corporations and corporation laws. It is supported by many other regulations. The high

duties upon foreign manufactures and upon all goods imported by alien merchants, all tend to the same

purpose. Corporation laws enable the inhabitants of towns to raise their prices, without fearing to be

undersold by the free competition of their own countrymen. Those other regulations secure them equally

against that of foreigners. The enhancement of price occasioned by both is everywhere finally paid by the

landlords, farmers, and labourers of the country, who have seldom opposed the establishment of such

monopolies. They have commonly neither inclination nor fitness to enter into combinations; and the clamour

and sophistry of merchants and manufacturers easily persuade them that the private interest of a part, and of a

In Great Britain the superiority of the industry of the towns over that of the country seems to have been

greater formerly than in the present times. The wages of country labour approach nearer to those of

manufacturing labour, and the profits of stock employed in agriculture to those of trading and manufacturing

stock, than they are said to have done in the last century, or in the beginning of the present. This change may

be regarded as the necessary, though very late consequence of the extraordinary encouragement given to the

industry of the towns. The stock accumulated in them comes in time to be so great that it can no longer be

employed with the ancient profit in that species of industry which is peculiar to them. That industry has its

limits like every other; and the increase of stock, by increasing the competition, necessarily reduces the profit.

The lowering of profit in the town forces out stock to the country, where, by creating a new demand for

country labour, it necessarily raises its wages. It then spreads itself, if I may say so, over the face of the land,

and by being employed in agriculture is in part restored to the country, at the expense of which, in a great

measure, it had originally been accumulated in the town. That everywhere in Europe the greatest

improvements of the country have been owing to such overflowings of the stock originally accumulated in

the towns, I shall endeavour to show hereafter; and at the same time to demonstrate that, though some

countries have by this course attained to a considerable degree of opulence, it is in itself necessarily slow,

uncertain, liable to be disturbed and interrupted by innumerable accidents, and in every respect contrary to

the order of nature and of reason. The interests, prejudices, laws and customs, which have given occasion to

it, I shall endeavour to explain as fully and distinctly as I can in the third and fourth books of this Inquiry.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends

in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent

such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.

But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to

A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of

abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never otherwise be

known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a direction where to find every other man of it.

A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their

sick, their widows and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies

An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole.

In a free trade an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single

trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a

corporation can enact a byelaw with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and

The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government of the trade is without any foundation.

The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is not that of his corporation, but that of

his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.

An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline. A particular set of workmen must

then be employed, let them behave well or ill. It is upon this account that in many large incorporated towns

no tolerable workmen are to be found, even in some of the most necessary trades. If you would have your

work tolerably executed, it must be done in the suburbs, where the workmen, having no exclusive privilege,

have nothing but their character to depend upon, and you must then smuggle it into the town as well as you

It is in this manner that the policy of Europe, by restraining the competition in some employments to a

smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them, occasions a very important inequality in

the whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock.

Secondly, the policy of Europe, by increasing the competition in some employments beyond what it naturally

would be, occasions another inequality of an opposite kind in the whole of the advantages and disadvantages

It has been considered as of so much importance that a proper number of young people should be educated

for certain professions, that sometimes the public and sometimes the piety of private founders have

established many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc., for this purpose, which draw many more

people into those trades than could otherwise pretend to follow them. In all Christian countries, I believe, the

education of the greater part of churchmen is paid for in this manner. Very few of them are educated

altogether at their own expense. The long, tedious, and expensive education, therefore, of those who are, will

not always procure them a suitable reward, the church being crowded with people who, in order to get

employment, are willing to accept of a much smaller recompense than what such an education would

otherwise have entitled them to; and in this manner the competition of the poor takes away the reward of the

rich. It would be indecent, no doubt, to compare either a curate or a chaplain with a journeyman in any

common trade. The pay of a curate or chaplain, however, may very properly be considered as of the same

nature with the wages of a journeyman. They are, all three, paid for their work according to the contract

which they may happen to make with their respective superiors. Till after the middle of the fourteenth

century, five merks, containing about as much silver as ten pounds of our present money, was in England the

usual pay of a curate or a stipendiary parish priest, as we find it regulated by the decrees of several different

national councils. At the same period fourpence a day, containing the same quantity of silver as a shilling of

our present money, was declared to be the pay of a master mason, and threepence a day, equal to ninepence

of our present money, that of a journeyman mason. The wages of both these labourers, therefore, supposing

them to have been constantly employed, were much superior to those of the curate. The wages of the master

mason, supposing him to have been without employment one third of the year, would have fully equalled

them. By the 12th of Queen Anne, c. 12, it is declared, "That whereas for want of sufficient maintenance and

encouragement to curates, the cures have in several places been meanly supplied, the bishop is, therefore,

empowered to appoint by writing under his band and seal a sufficient certain stipend or allowance, not

exceeding fifty and not less than twenty pounds a year." Forty pounds a year is reckoned at present very good

pay for a curate, and notwithstanding this Act of Parliament there are many curacies under twenty pounds a

year. There are journeymen shoemakers in London who earn forty pounds a year, and there is scarce an

industrious workman of any kind in that metropolis who does not earn more than twenty. This last sum

indeed does not exceed what is frequently earned by common labourers in many country parishes. Whenever

the law has attempted to regulate the wages of workmen, it has always been rather to lower them than to raise

them. But the law has upon many occasions attempted to raise the wages of curates, and for the dignity of the

church, to oblige the rectors of parishes to give them more than the wretched maintenance which they

themselves might be willing to accept of. And in both cases the law seems to have been equally ineffectual,

and has never either been able to raise the wages of curates, or to sink those of labourers to the degree that

was intended; because it has never been able to hinder either the one from being willing to accept of less than

the legal allowance, on account of the indigence of their situation and the multitude of their competitors; or

the other from receiving more, on account of the contrary competition of those who expected to derive either

The great benefices and other ecclesiastical dignities support the honour of the church, notwithstanding the

mean circumstance of some of its inferior members. The respect paid to the profession, too, makes some

compensation even to them for the meanness of their pecuniary recompense. In England, and in all Roman

Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary. The

example of the churches of Scotland, of Geneva, and of several other Protestant churches, may satisfy us that

in so creditable a profession, in which education is so easily procured, the hopes of much more moderate

benefices will draw a sufficient number of learned, decent, and respectable men into holy orders.

In professions in which there are no benefices, such as law and physic, if an equal proportion of people were

educated at the public expense, the competition would soon be so great as to sink very much their pecuniary

reward. It might then not be worth any man's while to educate his son to either of those professions at his own

expense. They would be entirely abandoned to such as had been educated by those public charities, whose

numbers and necessities would oblige them in general to content themselves with a very miserable

recompense, to the entire degradation of the now respectable professions of law and physic.

That unprosperous race of men commonly called men of letters are pretty much in the situation which

lawyers and physicians probably would be in upon the foregoing supposition. In every part of Europe the

greater part of them have been educated for the church, but have been hindered by different reasons from

entering into holy orders. They have generally, therefore, been educated at the public expense, and their

numbers are everywhere so great as commonly to reduce the price of their labour to a very paltry

Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by which a man of letters could make

anything by his talents was that of a public or private teacher, or by communicating to other people the

curious and useful knowledge which he had acquired himself: and this is still surely a more honourable, a

more useful, and in general even a more profitable employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to

which the art of printing has given occasion. The time and study, the genius, knowledge, and application

requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest

practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the

lawyer or physician; because the trade of the one is crowded with indigent people who have been brought up

to it at the public expense; whereas those of the other two are encumbered with very few who have not been

educated at their own. The usual recompense, however, of public and private teachers, small as it may appear,

would undoubtedly be less than it is, if the competition of those yet more indigent men of letters who write

for bread was not taken out of the market. Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar

seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different governors of the universities before that time

In ancient times, before any charities of this kind had been established for the education of indigent people to

the learned professions, the rewards of eminent teachers appear to have been much more considerable.

Isocrates, in what is called his discourse against the sophists, reproaches the teachers of his own times with

inconsistency. "They make the most magnificent promises to their scholars," says he, "and undertake to teach

them to be wise, to be happy, and to be just, and in return for so important a service they stipulate the paltry

reward of four or five minae. They who teach wisdom," continues he, ought certainly to be wise themselves;

but if any man were to sell such a bargain for such a price, he would be convicted of the most evident folly."

He certainly does not mean here to exaggerate the reward, and we may be assured that it was not less than he

represents it. Four minae were equal to thirteen pounds six shillings and eightpence: five minae to sixteen

pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence. Something not less than the largest of those two sums, therefore,

must at that time have been usually paid to the most eminent teachers at Athens. Isocrates himself demanded

ten minae, or thirtythree pounds six shillings and eightpence, from each scholar. When he taught at Athens,

he is said to have had a hundred scholars. I understand this to be the number whom he taught at one time, or

who attended what we could call one course of lectures, a number which will not appear extraordinary from

so great a city to so famous a teacher, who taught, too, what was at that time the most fashionable of all

sciences, rhetoric. He must have made, therefore, by each course of lectures, a thousand minae, or L3333 6s.

8d. A thousand minae, accordingly, is said by Plutarch in another place, to have been his Didactron, or usual

price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in those times appear to have acquired great fortunes. Gorgias

made a present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold. We must not, I presume, suppose that

it was as large as the life. His way of living, as well as that of Hippias and Protagoras, two other eminent

teachers of those times, is represented by Plato as splendid even to ostentation. Plato himself is said to have

lived with a good deal of magnificence. Aristotle, after having been tutor to Alexander, and most

munificently rewarded, as it is universally agreed, both by him and his father Philip, thought it worth while,

notwithstanding, to return to Athens, in order to resume the teaching of his school. Teachers of the sciences

were probably in those times less common than they came to be in an age or two afterwards, when the

competition had probably somewhat reduced both the price of their labour and the admiration for their

persons. The most eminent of them, however, appear always to have enjoyed a degree of consideration much

superior to any of the like profession in the present times. The Athenians sent Carneades the Academic, and

Diogenes the Stoic, upon a solemn embassy to Rome; and though their city had then declined from its former

grandeur, it was still an independent and considerable republic. Carneades, too, was a Babylonian by birth,

and as there never was a people more jealous of admitting foreigners to public offices than the Athenians,

This inequality is upon the whole, perhaps, rather advantageous than hurtful to the public. It may somewhat

degrade the profession of a public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an advantage

which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency. The public, too, might derive still greater benefit from

it, if the constitution of those schools and colleges, in which education is carried on, was more reasonable

Thirdly, the policy of Europe, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and stock both from employment

to employment, and from place to place, occasions in some cases a very incovenient inequality in the whole

The Statute of Apprenticeship obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employment to another, even

in the same place. The exclusive privileges of corporations obstruct it from one place to another, even in the

It frequently happens that while high wages are given to the workmen in one manufacture, those in another

are obliged to content themselves with bare subsistence. The one is in an advancing state, and has, therefore,

a continual demand for new bands: the other is in a declining state, and the superabundance of hands is

continually increasing. Those two manufactures may sometimes be in the same town, and sometimes in the

same neighbourhood, without being able to lend the least assistance to one another. The Statute of

Apprenticeship may oppose it in the one case, and both that and an exclusive corporation in the other. In

many different manufactures, however, the operations are so much alike, that the workmen could easily

change trades with one another, if those absurd laws did not hinder them. The arts of weaving plain linen and

plain silk, for example, are almost entirely the same. That of weaving plain woollen is somewhat different;

but the difference is so insignificant that either a linen or a silk weaver might become a tolerable work in a

very few days. If any of those three capital manufactures, therefore, were decaying, the workmen might find a

resource in one of the other two which was in a more prosperous condition; and their wages would neither

rise too high in the thriving, nor sink too low in the decaying manufacture. The linen manufacture indeed is,

in England, by a particular statute, open to everybody; but as it is not much cultivated through the greater part

of the country, it can afford no general resource to the workmen of other decaying manufactures, who,

wherever the Statute of Apprenticeship takes place, have no other choice but either to come upon the parish,

or to work as common labourers, for which, by their habits, they are much worse qualified than for any sort

of manufacture that bears any resemblance to their own. They generally, therefore, choose to come upon the

Whatever obstructs the free circulation of labour from one employment to another obstructs that of stock

likewise; the quantity of stock which can be employed in any branch of business depending very much upon

that of the labour which can be employed in it. Corporation laws, however, give less obstruction to the free

circulation of stock from one place to another than to that of labour. It is everywhere much easier for a

wealthy merchant to obtain the privilege of trading in a town corporate, than for a poor artificer to obtain that

The obstruction which corporation laws give to the free circulation of labour is common, I believe, to every

part of Europe. That which is given to it by the Poor Laws is, so far as I know, peculiar to England. It consists

in the difficulty which a poor man finds in obtaining a settlement, or even in being allowed to exercise his

industry in any parish but that to which he belongs. It is the labour of artificers and manufacturers only of

which the free circulation is obstructed by corporation laws. The difficulty of obtaining settlements obstructs

even that of common labour. It may be worth while to give some account of the rise, progress, and present

When by the destruction of monasteries the poor had been deprived of the charity of those religious houses,

after some other ineffectual attempts for their relief, it was enacted by the 43rd of Elizabeth, c. 2, that every

parish should be bound to provide for its own poor; and that overseers of the poor should be annually

appointed, who, with the churchwardens, should raise by a parish rate competent sums for this purpose.

By this statute the necessity of providing for their own poor was indispensably imposed upon every parish.

Who were to be considered as the poor of each parish became, therefore, a question of some importance. This

question, after some variation, was at last determined by the 13th and 14th of Charles II when it was enacted,

that forty days' undisturbed residence should gain any person a settlement in any parish; but that within that

time it should be lawful for two justices of the peace, upon complaint made by the churchwardens or

overseers of the poor, to remove any new inhabitant to the parish where he was last legally settled; unless he

either rented a tenement of ten pounds a year, or could give such security for the discharge of the parish

Some frauds, it is said, were committed in consequence of this statute; parish officers sometimes bribing their

own poor to go clandestinely to another parish, and by keeping themselves concealed for forty days to gain a

settlement there, to the discharge of that to which they properly belonged. It was enacted, therefore, by the 1st

of James II that the forty days' undisturbed residence of any person necessary to gain a settlement should be

accounted only from the time of his delivering notice in writing, of the place of his abode and the number of

his family, to one of the churchwardens or overseers of the parish where he came to dwell.

But parish officers, it seems, were not always more honest with regard to their own, than they had been with

regard to other parishes, and sometimes connived at such intrusions, receiving the notice, and taking no

proper steps in consequence of it. As every person in a parish, therefore, was supposed to have an interest to

prevent as much as possible their being burdened by such intruders, it was further enacted by the 3rd of

William III that the forty days' residence should be accounted only from the publication of such notice in

"After all," says Doctor Burn, "this kind of settlement, by continuing forty days after publication of notice in

writing, is very seldom obtained; and the design of the acts is not so much for gaining of settlements, as for

the avoiding of them, by persons coming into a parish clandestinely: for the giving of notice is only putting a

force upon the parish to remove. But if a person's situation is such, that it is doubtful whether he is actually

removable or not, he shall by giving of notice compel the parish either to allow him a settlement uncontested,

by suffering him to continue forty days; or, by removing him, to try the right."

This statute, therefore, rendered it almost impracticable for a poor man to gain a new settlement in the old

way, by forty days' inhabitancy. But that it might not appear to preclude altogether the common people of one

parish from ever establishing themselves with security in another, it appointed four other ways by which a

settlement might be gained without any notice delivered or published. The first was, by being taxed to parish

rates and paying them; the second, by being elected into an annual parish office, and serving in it a year; the

third, by serving an apprenticeship in the parish; the fourth, by being hired into service there for a year, and

Nobody can gain a settlement by either of the two first ways, but by the public deed of the whole parish, who

are too well aware of the consequences to adopt any newcomer who has nothing but his labour to support

him, either by taxing him to parish rates, or by electing him into a parish office.

No married man can well gain any settlement in either of the two last ways. An apprentice is scarce ever

married; and it is expressly enacted that no married servant shall gain any settlement by being hired for a

year. The principal effect of introducing settlement by service has been to put out in a great measure the old

fashion of hiring for a year, which before had been so customary in England, that even at this day, if no

particular term is agreed upon, the law intends that every servant is hired for a year. But masters are not

always willing to give their servants a settlement by hiring them in this manner; and servants are not always

willing to be so hired, because, as every last settlement discharges all the foregoing, they might thereby lose

their original settlement in the places of their nativity, the habitation of their parents and relations.

No independent workman, it is evident, whether labourer or artificer, is likely to gain any new settlement

either by apprenticeship or by service. When such a person, therefore, carried his industry to a new parish, he

was liable to be removed, how healthy and industrious soever, at the caprice of any churchwarden or

overseer, unless he either rented a tenement of ten pounds a year, a thing impossible for one who has nothing

but his labour to live by; or could give such security for the discharge of the parish as two justices of the

peace should judge sufficient. What security they shall require, indeed, is left altogether to their discretion;

but they cannot well require less than thirty pounds, it having been enacted that the purchase even of a

freehold estate of less than thirty pounds' value shall not gain any person a settlement, as not being sufficient

for the discharge of the parish. But this is a security which scarce any man who lives by labour can give; and

In order to restore in some measure that free circulation of labour which those different statutes had almost

entirely taken away, the invention of certificates was fallen upon. By the 8th and 9th of William III it was

enacted that if any person should bring a certificate from the parish where he was last legally settled,

subscribed by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, and allowed by two justices of the peace, that

every other parish should be obliged to receive him; that he should not be removable merely upon account of

his being likely to become chargeable, but only upon his becoming actually chargeable, and that then the

parish which granted the certificate should be obliged to pay the expense both of his maintenance and of his

removal. And in order to give the most perfect security to the parish where such certificated man should come

to reside, it was further enacted by the same statute that he should gain no settlement there by any means

whatever, except either by renting a tenement of ten pounds a year, or by serving upon his own account in an

annual parish office for one whole year; and consequently neither by notice, nor by service, nor by

apprenticeship, nor by paying parish rates. By the 12th of Queen Anne, too, stat. 1, c. 18, it was further

enacted that neither the servants nor apprentices of such certificated man should gain any settlement in the

How far this invention has restored that free circulation of labour which the preceding statutes had almost

entirely taken away, we may learn from the following very judicious observation of Doctor Burn. "It is

obvious," says he, "that there are divers good reasons for requiring certificates with persons coming to settle

in any place; namely, that persons residing under them can gain no settlement, neither by apprenticeship, nor

by service, nor by giving notice, nor by paying parish rates; that they can settle neither apprentices nor

servants; that if they become chargeable, it is certainly known whither to remove them, and the parish shall

be paid for the removal, and for their maintenance in the meantime; and that if they fall sick, and cannot be

removed, the parish which gave the certificate must maintain them: none of all which can be without a

certificate. Which reasons will hold proportionably for parishes not granting certificates in ordinary cases; for

it is far more than an equal chance, but that they will have the certificated persons again, and in a worse

condition." The moral of this observation seems to be that certificates ought always to be required by the

parish where any poor man comes to reside, and that they ought very seldom to be granted by that which he

proposes to leave. "There is somewhat of hardship in this matter of certificates," says the same very

intelligent author in his History of the Poor Laws, "by putting it in the power of a parish officer to imprison a

man as it were for life; however inconvenient it may be for him to continue at that place where he has had the

misfortune to acquire what is called a settlement, or whatever advantage he may propose to himself by living

Though a certificate carries along with it no testimonial of good behaviour, and certifies nothing but that the

person belongs to the parish to which he really does belong, it is altogether discretionary in the parish officers

either to grant or to refuse it. A mandamus was once moved for, says Doctor Burn, to compel the

churchwardens and overseers to sign a certificate; but the court of King's Bench rejected the motion as a very

The very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in England in places at no great distance from one

another is probably owing to the obstruction which the law of settlements gives to a poor man who would

carry his industry from one parish to another without a certificate. A single man, indeed, who is healthy and

industrious, may sometimes reside by sufferance without one; but a man with a wife and family who should

attempt to do so would in most parishes be sure of being removed, and if the single man should afterwards

marry, he would generally be removed likewise. The scarcity of hands in one parish, therefore, cannot always

be relieved by their superabundance in another, as it is constantly in Scotland, and, I believe, in all other

countries where there is no difficulty of settlement. In such countries, though wages may sometimes rise a

little in the neighbourhood of a great town, or wherever else there is an extraordinary demand for labour, and

sink gradually as the distance from such places increases, till they fall back to the common rate of the

country; yet we never meet with those sudden and unaccountable differences in the wages of neighbouring

places which we sometimes find in England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the

artificial boundary of a parish than an arm of the sea or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which

To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour from the parish where he chooses to reside is an

evident violation of natural liberty and justice. The common people of England, however, so jealous of their

liberty, but like the common people of most other countries never rightly understanding wherein it consists,

have now for more than a century together suffered themselves to be exposed to this oppression without a

remedy. Though men of reflection, too, have sometimes complained of the law of settlements as a public

grievance; yet it has never been the object of any general popular clamour, such as that against general

warrants, an abusive practice undoubtedly, but such a one as was not likely to occasion any general

oppression. There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not in

some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this illcontrived law of settlements.

I shall conclude this long chapter with observing that, though anciently it was usual to rate wages, first by

general laws extending over the whole kingdom, and afterwards by particular orders of the justices of peace

in every particular county, both these practices have now gone entirely into disuse. "By the experience of

above four hundred years," says Doctor Burn, "it seems time to lay aside all endeavours to bring under strict

regulations, what in its own nature seems incapable of minute limitation; for if all persons in the same kind of

work were to receive equal wages, there would be no emulation, and no room left for industry or ingenuity."

Particular Acts of Parliament, however, still attempt sometimes to regulate wages in particular trades and in

particular places. Thus the 8th of George III prohibits under heavy penalties all master tailors in London, and

five miles round it, from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than two shillings and sevenpence

halfpenny a day, except in the case of a general mourning. Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the

differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation,

therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in

favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen

in money and not in goods is quite just and equitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the masters. It only

obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in

goods. This law is in favour of the workmen: but the 8th of George III is in favour of the masters. When

masters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private

bond or agreement not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter

into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law

would punish them very severely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner.

But the 8th of George III enforces by law that very regulation which masters sometimes attempt to establish

by such combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and most industrious upon the

In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits of merchants and other dealers, by rating

the price both of provisions and other goods. The assize of bread is, so far as I know, the only remnant of this

ancient usage. Where there is an exclusive corporation, it may perhaps be proper to regulate the price of the

first necessary of life. But where there is none, the competition will regulate it much better than any assize.

The method of fixing the assize of bread established by the 31st of George II could not be put in practice in

Scotland, on account of a defect in the law; its execution depending upon the office of a clerk of the market,

which does not exist there. This defect was not remedied till the 3rd of George III. The want of an assize

occasioned no sensible inconveniency, and the establishment of one, in the few places where it has yet taken

place, has produced no sensible advantage. In the greater part of the towns of Scotland, however, there is an

incorporation of bakers who claim exclusive privileges, though they are not very strictly guarded.

The proportion between the different rates both of wages and profit in the different employments of labour

and stock, seems not to be much affected, as has already been observed, by the riches or poverty, the

advancing, stationary, or declining state of the society. Such revolutions in the public welfare, though they

affect the general rates both of wages and profit, must in the end affect them equally in all different

employments. The proportion between them, therefore, must remain the same, and cannot well be altered, at

RENT, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to

pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to

leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes

the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together

with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with

which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any

more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price is over and above

this share, he naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest

the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more

frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat less than this portion; and

sometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more,

or to content himself with somewhat less than the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood.

This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally

The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid

out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it

can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the

supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent.

Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the

tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same

He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement. Kelp is a species of

seaweed, which, when burnt, yields an alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, and for several other

purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, particularly in Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie

within the high water mark, which are twice every day covered with the sea, and of which the produce,

therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a

The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish, which

makes a great part of the subsistence of their inhabitants. But in order to profit by the produce of the water,

they must have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what

the farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make both by the land and by the water. It is partly paid

in seafish; and one of the very few instances in which rent makes a part of the price of that commodity is to

The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly

price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land,

Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market of which the ordinary price is

sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary

profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of land. If it is

not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the

There are some parts of the produce of land for which the demand must always be such as to afford a greater

price than what is sufficient to bring them to market; and there are others for which it either may or may not

be such as to afford this greater price. The former must always afford a rent to the landlord. The latter

Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of the price of commodities in a different

way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent

is the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit must be paid, in order to bring a particular

commodity to market, that its price is high or low. But it is because its price is high or low; a great deal more,

or very little more, or no more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it affords a high

The particular consideration, first, of those parts of the produce of land which always afford some rent;

secondly, of those which sometimes may and sometimes may not afford rent; and, thirdly, of the variations

which, in the different periods of improvement, naturally take place in the relative value of those two

different sorts of rude produce, when compared both with one another and with manufactured commodities,

AS men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence, food is

always, more or less, in demand. It can always purchase or command a greater or smaller quantity of labour,

and somebody can always be found who is willing to do something in order to obtain it. The quantity of

labour, indeed, which it can purchase is not always equal to what it could maintain, if managed in the most

economical manner, on account of the high wages which are sometimes given to labour. But it can always

purchase such a quantity of labour as it can maintain, according to the rate at which the sort of labour is

But land, in almost any situation, produces a greater quantity of food than what is sufficient to maintain all

the labour necessary for bringing it to market in the most liberal way in which that labour is ever maintained.

The surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to replace the stock which employed that labour, together

with its profits. Something, therefore, always remains for a rent to the landlord.

The most desert moors in Norway and Scotland produce some sort of pasture for cattle, of which the milk and

the increase are always more than sufficient, not only to maintain all the labour necessary for tending them,

and to pay the ordinary profit to the farmer or owner of the herd or flock; but to afford some small rent to the

landlord. The rent increases in proportion to the goodness of the pasture. The same extent of ground not only

maintains a greater number of cattle, but as they are brought within a smaller compass, less labour becomes

requisite to tend them, and to collect their produce. The landlord gains both ways, by the increase of the

The rent of land not only varies with its fertility, whatever be its produce, but with its situation, whatever be

its fertility. Land in the neighbourhood of a town gives a greater rent than land equally fertile in a distant part

of the country. Though it may cost no more labour to cultivate the one than the other, it must always cost

more to bring the produce of the distant land to market. A greater quantity of labour, therefore, must be

maintained out of it; and the surplus, from which are drawn both the profit of the farmer and the rent of the

landlord, must be diminished. But in remote parts of the country the rate of profits, as has already been

shown, is generally higher than in the neighbourhood of a large town. A smaller proportion of this diminished

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the

country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account

the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the remote, which must always be the

most extensive circle of the country. They are advantageous to the town, by breaking down the monopoly of

the country in its neighbourhood. They are advantageous even to that part of the country. Though they

introduce some rival commodities into the old market, they open many new markets to its produce.

Monopoly, besides, is a great enemy to good management, which can never be universally established but in

consequence of that free and universal competition which forces everybody to have recourse to it for the sake

of selfdefence. It is not more than fifty years ago that some of the counties in the neighbourhood of London

petitioned the Parliament against the extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties. Those remoter

counties, they pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to sell their grass and corn cheaper in

the London market than themselves, and would thereby reduce their rents, and ruin their cultivation. Their

rents, however, have risen, and their cultivation has been improved since that time.

A cornfield of moderate fertility produces a much greater quantity of food for man than the best pasture of

equal extent. Though its cultivation requires much more labour, yet the surplus which remains after replacing

the seed and maintaining all that labour, is likewise much greater. If a pound of butcher's meat, therefore, was

never supposed to be worth more than a pound of bread, this greater surplus would everywhere be of greater

value, and constitute a greater fund both for the profit of the farmer and the rent of the landlord. It seems to

But the relative values of those two different species of food, bread and butcher's meat, are very different in

the different periods of agriculture. In its rude beginnings, the unimproved wilds, which then occupy the far

greater part of the country, are all abandoned to cattle. There is more butcher's meat than bread, and bread,

therefore, is the food for which there is the greatest competition, and which consequently brings the greatest

price. At Buenos Ayres, we are told by Ulloa, four reals, oneandtwenty pence halfpenny sterling, was,

forty or fifty years ago, the ordinary price of an ox, chosen from a herd of two or three hundred. He says

nothing of the price of bread, probably because he found nothing remarkable about it. An ox there, he says,

cost little more than the labour of catching him. But corn can nowhere be raised without a great deal of

labour, and in a country which lies upon the river Plate, at that time the direct road from Europe to the silver

mines of Potosi, the money price of labour could not be very cheap. It is otherwise when cultivation is

extended over the greater part of the country. There is then more bread than butcher's meat. The competition

changes its direction, and the price of butcher's meat becomes greater than the price of bread.

By the extension besides of cultivation, the unimproved wilds become insufficient to supply the demand for

butcher's meat. A great part of the cultivated lands must be employed in rearing and fattening cattle, of which

the price, therefore, must be sufficient to pay, not only the labour necessary for tending them, but the rent

which the landlord and the profit which the farmer could have drawn from such land employed in tillage. The

cattle bred upon the most uncultivated moors, when brought to the same market, are, in proportion to their

weight or goodness, sold at the same price as those which are reared upon the most improved land. The

proprietors of those moors profit by it, and raise the rent of their land in proportion to the price of their cattle.

It is not more than a century ago that in many parts of the highlands of Scotland, butcher's meat was as cheap

or cheaper than even bread made of oatmeal. The union opened the market of England to the highland cattle.

Their ordinary price is at present about three times greater than at the beginning of the century, and the rents

of many highland estates have been tripled and quadrupled in the same time. In almost every part of Great

Britain a pound of the best butcher's meat is, in the present times, generally worth more than two pounds of

the best white bread; and in plentiful years it is sometimes worth three or four pounds.

It is thus that in the progress of improvement the rent and profit of unimproved pasture come to be regulated

in some measure by the rent and profit of what is improved, and these again by the rent and profit of corn.

Corn is an annual crop. Butcher's meat, a crop which requires four or five years to grow. As an acre of land,

therefore, will produce a much smaller quantity of the one species of food than of the other, the inferiority of

the quantity must be compensated by the superiority of the price. If it was more than compensated, more corn

land would be turned into pasture; and if it was not compensated, part of what was in pasture would be

This equality, however, between the rent and profit of grass and those of corn; of the land of which the

immediate produce is food for cattle, and of that of which the immediate produce is food for men; must be

understood to take place only through the greater part of the improved lands of a great country. In some

particular local situations it is quite otherwise, and the rent and profit of grass are much superior to what can

Thus in the neighbourhood of a great town the demand for milk and for forage to horses frequently

contribute, together with the high price of butcher's meat, to raise the value of grass above what may be

called its natural proportion to that of corn. This local advantage, it is evident, cannot be communicated to the

Particular circumstances have sometimes rendered some countries so populous that the whole territory, like

the lands in the neighbourhood of a great town, has not been sufficient to produce both the grass and the corn

necessary for the subsistence of their inhabitants. Their lands, therefore, have been principally employed in

the production of grass, the more bulky commodity, and which cannot be so easily brought from a great

distance; and corn, the food of the great body of the people, has been chiefly imported from foreign countries.

Holland is at present in this situation, and a considerable part of ancient Italy seems to have been so during

the prosperity of the Romans. To feed well, old Cato said, as we are told by Cicero, was the first and most

profitable thing in the management of a private estate; to feed tolerably well, the second; and to feed ill, the

third. To plough, he ranked only in the fourth place of profit and advantage. Tillage, indeed, in that part of

ancient Italy which lay in the neighbourhood of Rome, must have been very much discouraged by the

distributions of corn which were frequently made to the people, either gratuitously, or at a very low price.

This corn was brought from the conquered provinces, of which several, instead of taxes, were obliged to

furnish a tenth part of their produce at a stated price, about sixpence a peck, to the republic. The low price at

which this corn was distributed to the people must necessarily have sunk the price of what could be brought

to the Roman market from Latium, or the ancient territory of Rome, and must have discouraged its

In an open country too, of which the principal produce is corn, a wellenclosed piece of grass will frequently

rent higher than any corn field in its neighbourhood. It is convenient for the maintenance of the cattle

employed in the cultivation of the corn, and its high rent is, in this case, not so properly paid from the value

of its own produce as from that of the corn lands which are cultivated by means of it. It is likely to fall, if ever

the neighbouring lands are completely enclosed. The present high rent of enclosed land in Scotland seems

owing to the scarcity of enclosure, and will probably last no longer than that scarcity. The advantage of

enclosure is greater for pasture than for corn. It saves the labour of guarding the cattle, which feed better, too,

But where there is no local advantage of this kind, the rent and profit of corn, or whatever else is the common

vegetable food or the people, must naturally regulate, upon the land which is fit for producing it, the rent and

The use of the artificial grasses, of turnips, carrots, cabbages, and the other expedients which have been fallen

upon to make an equal quantity of land feed a greater number of cattle than when in natural grass, should

somewhat reduce, it might be expected, the superiority which, in an improved country, the price of butcher's

meat naturally has over that of bread. It seems accordingly to have done so; and there is some reason for

believing that, at least in the London market, the price of butcher's meat in proportion to the price of bread is

a good deal lower in the present times than it was in the beginning of the last century.

In the appendix to the Life of Prince Henry, Doctor Birch has given us an account of the prices of butcher's

meat as commonly paid by that prince. It is there said that the four quarters of an ox weighing six hundred

pounds usually cost him nine pounds ten shillings, or thereabouts; that is, thirtyone shillings and eightpence

per hundred pounds weight. Prince Henry died on the 6th of November 1612, in the nineteenth year of his

In March 1764, there was a Parliamentary inquiry into the causes of the high price of provisions at that time.

It was then, among other proof to the same purpose, given in evidence by a Virginia merchant, that in March

1763, he had victualled his ships for twentyfour or twentyfive shillings the hundredweight of beef, which

he considered as the ordinary price; whereas, in that dear year, he had paid twentyseven shillings for the

same weight and sort. This high price in 1764 is, however, four shillings and eightpence cheaper than the

ordinary price paid by Prince Henry; and it is the best beef only, it must be observed, which is fit to be salted

The price paid by Prince Henry amounts to 3 3/4d. per pound weight of the whole carcase, coarse and choice

pieces taken together; and at that rate the choice pieces could not have been sold by retail for less than 4 1/2d.

In the Parliamentary inquiry in 1764, the witnesses stated the price of the choice pieces of the best beef to be

to the consumer 4d. and 4 1/4d. the pound; and the coarse pieces in general to be from seven farthings to 2

1/2d. and this they said was in general one halfpenny dearer than the same sort of pieces had usually been

sold in the month of March. But even this high price is still a good deal cheaper than what we can well

During the twelve first years of the last century, the average price of the best wheat at the Windsor market

But in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year, the average price of the same measure of the best

In the twelve first years of the last century, therefore, wheat appears to have been a good deal cheaper, and

butcher's meat a good deal dearer, than in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year.

In all great countries the greater part of the cultivated lands are employed in producing either food for men or

food for cattle. The rent and profit of these regulate the rent and profit of all other cultivated land. If any

particular produce afforded less, the land would soon be turned into corn or pasture; and if any afforded

more, some part of the lands in corn or pasture would soon be turned to that produce.

Those productions, indeed, which require either a greater original expense of improvement, or a greater

annual expense of cultivation, in order to fit the land for them, appear commonly to afford, the one a greater

rent, the other a greater profit than corn or pasture. This superiority, however, will seldom be found to

amount to more than a reasonable interest or compensation for this superior expense.

In a hop garden, a fruit garden, a kitchen garden, both the rent of the landlord, and the profit of the farmer, are

generally greater than in a corn or grass field. But to bring the ground into this condition requires more

expense. Hence a greater rent becomes due to the landlord. It requires, too, a more attentive and skilful

management. Hence a greater profit becomes due to the farmer. The crop too, at least in the hop and fruit

garden, is more precarious. Its price, therefore, besides compensating all occasional losses, must afford

something like the profit of insurance. The circumstances of gardeners, generally mean, and always

moderate, may satisfy us that their great ingenuity is not commonly overrecompensed. Their delightful art is

practised by so many rich people for amusement, that little advantage is to be made by those who practise it

for profit; because the persons who should naturally be their best customers supply themselves with all their

The advantage which the landlord derives from such improvements seems at no time to have been greater

than what was sufficient to compensate the original expense of making them. In the ancient husbandry, after

the vineyard, a wellwatered kitchen garden seems to have been the part of the farm which was supposed to

yield the most valuable produce. But Democritus, who wrote upon husbandry about two thousand years ago,

and who was regarded by the ancients as one of the fathers of the art, thought they did not act wisely who

enclosed a kitchen garden. The profit, he said, would not compensate the expense of a stone wall; and bricks

(he meant, I suppose, bricks baked in the sun) mouldered with the rain, and the winter storm, and required

continual repairs. Columella, who reports this judgment of Democritus, does not controvert it, but proposes a

very frugal method of enclosing with a hedge of brambles and briars, which, he says, he had found by

experience to be both a lasting and an impenetrable fence; but which, it seems, was not commonly known in

the time of Democritus. Palladius adopts the opinion of Columella, which had before been recommended by

Varro. In the judgment of those ancient improvers, the produce of a kitchen garden had, it seems, been little

more than sufficient to pay the extraordinary culture and the expense of watering; for in countries so near the

sun, it was thought proper, in those times as in the present, to have the command of a stream of water which

could be conducted to every bed in the garden. Through the greater part of Europe a kitchen garden is not at

present supposed to deserve a better enclosure than that recommended by Columella. In Great Britain, and

some other northern countries, the finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection but by the assistance of a wall.

Their price, therefore, in such countries must be sufficient to pay the expense of building and maintaining

what they cannot be had without. The fruitwall frequently surrounds the kitchen garden, which thus enjoys

That the vineyard, when properly planted and brought to perfection, was the most valuable part of the farm,

seems to have been an undoubted maxim in the ancient agriculture, as it is in the modern through all the wine

countries. But whether it was advantageous to plant a new vineyard was a matter of dispute among the

ancient Italian husbandmen, as we learn from Columella. He decides, like a true lover of all curious

cultivation, in favour of the vineyard, and endeavours to show, by a comparison of the profit and expense,

that it was a most advantageous improvement. Such comparisons, however, between the profit and expense

of new projects are commonly very fallacious, and in nothing more so than in agriculture. Had the gain

actually made by such plantations been commonly as great as he imagined it might have been, there could

have been no dispute about it. The same point is frequently at this day a matter of controversy in the wine

countries. Their writers on agriculture, indeed, the lovers and promoters of high cultivation, seem generally

disposed to decide with Columella in favour of the vineyard. In France the anxiety of the proprietors of the

old vineyards to prevent the planting of any new ones, seems to favour their opinion, and to indicate a

consciousness in those who must have the experience that this species of cultivation is at present in that

country more profitable than any other. It seems at the same time, however, to indicate another opinion, that

this superior profit can last no longer than the laws which at present restrain the free cultivation of the vine. In

1731, they obtained an order of council prohibiting both the planting of new vineyards and the renewal of

those old ones, of which the cultivation had been interrupted for two years, without a particular permission

from the king, to be granted only in consequence of an information from the intendant of the province,

certifying that he had examined the land, and that it was incapable of any other culture. The pretence of this

order was the scarcity of corn and pasture, and the superabundance of wine. But had this superabundance

been real, it would, without any order of council, have effectually prevented the plantation of new vineyards,

by reducing the profits of this species of cultivation below their natural proportion to those of corn and

pasture. With regard to the supposed scarcity of corn, occasioned by the multiplication of vineyards, corn is

nowhere in France more carefully cultivated than in the wine provinces, where the land is fit for producing it;

as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper Languedoc. The numerous hands employed in the one species of

cultivation necessarily encourage the other, by affording a ready market for its produce. To diminish the

number of those who are capable of paying for it is surely a most unpromising expedient for encouraging the

cultivation of corn. It is like the policy which would promote agriculture by discouraging manufactures.

The rent and profit of those productions, therefore, which require either a greater original expense of

improvement in order to fit the land for them, or a greater annual expense of cultivation, though often much

superior to those of corn and pasture, yet when they do no more than compensate such extraordinary expense,

It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantity of land, which can be fitted for some particular produce, is

too small to supply the effectual demand. The whole produce can be disposed of to those who are willing to

give somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages, and profit necessary for raising and

bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, or according to the rates at which they are paid in the

greater part of other cultivated land. The surplus part of the price which remains after defraying the whole

expense of improvement and cultivation may commonly, in this case, and in this case only, bear no regular

proportion to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but may exceed it in almost any degree; and the greater part

The usual and natural proportion, for example, between the rent and profit of wine and those of corn and

pasture must be understood to take place only with regard to those vineyards which produce nothing but good

common wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere, upon any light, gravelly, or sandy soil, and which has

nothing to recommend it but its strength and wholesomeness. It is with such vineyards only that the common

land of the country can be brought into competition; for with those of a peculiar quality it is evident that it

The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other fruit tree. From some it derives a flavour

which no culture or management can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real or imaginary, is

sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards; sometimes it extends through the greater part of a

small district, and sometimes through a considerable part of a large province. The whole quantity of such

wines that is brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, or the demand of those who would be

willing to pay the whole rent, profit, and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing them thither, according

to the ordinary rate, or according to the rate at which they are paid in common vineyards. The whole quantity,

therefore, can be disposed of to those who are willing to pay more, which necessarily raises the price above

that of common wine. The difference is greater or less according as the fashionableness and scarcity of the

wine render the competition of the buyers more or less eager. Whatever it be, the greater part of it goes to the

rent of the landlord. For though such vineyards are in general more carefully cultivated than most others, the

high price of the wine seems to be not so much the effect as the cause of this careful cultivation. In so

valuable a produce the loss occasioned by negligence is so great as to force even the most careless to

attention. A small part of this high price, therefore, is sufficient to pay the wages of the extraordinary labour

bestowed upon their cultivation, and the profits of the extraordinary stock which puts that labour into motion.

The sugar colonies possessed by the European nations in the West Indies may be compared to those precious

vineyards. Their whole produce falls short of the effectual demand of Europe, and can be disposed of to those

who are willing to give more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, profit, and wages necessary for

preparing and bringing it to market, according to the rate at which they are commonly paid by any other

produce. In Cochin China the finest white sugar commonly sells for three piasters the quintal, about thirteen

shillings and sixpence of our money, as we are told by Mr. Poivre, a very careful observer of the agriculture

of that country. What is there called the quintal weighs from a hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris pounds,

or a hundred and seventyfive Paris pounds at a medium, which reduces the price of the hundredweight

English to about eight shillings sterling, not a fourth part of what is commonly paid for the brown or

muskavada sugars imported from our colonies, and not a sixth part of what is paid for the finest white sugar.

The greater part of the cultivated lands in Cochin China are employed in producing corn and rice, the food of

the great body of the people. The respective prices of corn, rice, and sugar, are there probably in the natural

proportion, or in that which naturally takes place in the different crops of the greater part of cultivated land,

and which recompenses the landlord and farmer, as nearly as can be computed according to what is usually

the original expense of improvement and the annual expense of cultivation. But in our sugar colonies the

price of sugar bears no such proportion to that of the produce of a rice or corn field either in Europe or in

America. It is commonly said that a sugar planter expects that the rum and molasses should defray the whole

expense of his cultivation, and that his sugar should be all clear profit. If this be true, for I pretend not to

affirm it, it is as if a corn farmer expected to defray the expense of his cultivation with the chaff and the

straw, and that the grain should be all clear profit. We see frequently societies of merchants in London and

other trading town's purchase waste lands in our sugar colonies, which they expect to improve and cultivate

with profit by means of factors and agents, notwithstanding the great distance and the uncertain returns from

the defective administration of justice in those countries. Nobody will attempt to improve and cultivate in the

same manner the most fertile lands of Scotland, Ireland, or the corn provinces of North America, though from

the more exact administration of justice in these countries more regular returns might be expected.

In Virginia and Maryland the cultivation of tobacco is preferred, as more profitable, to that of corn. Tobacco

might be cultivated with advantage through the greater part of Europe; but in almost every part of Europe it

has become a principal subject of taxation, and to collect a tax from every different farm in the country where

this plant might happen to be cultivated would be more difficult, it has been supposed, than to levy one upon

its importation at the customhouse. The cultivation of tobacco has upon this account been most absurdly

prohibited through the greater part of Europe, which necessarily gives a sort of monopoly to the countries

where it is allowed; and as Virginia and Maryland produce the greatest quantity of it, they share largely,

though with some competitors, in the advantage of this monopoly. The cultivation of tobacco, however,

seems not to be so advantageous as that of sugar. I have never even heard of any tobacco plantation that was

improved and cultivated by the capital of merchants who resided in Great Britain, and our tobacco colonies

send us home no such wealthy planters as we see frequently arrive from our sugar islands. Though from the

preference given in those colonies to the cultivation of tobacco above that of corn, it would appear that the

effectual demand of Europe for tobacco is not completely supplied, it probably is more nearly so than that for

sugar; and though the present price of tobacco is probably more than sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages,

and profit necessary for preparing and bring it to market, according to the rate at which they are commonly

paid in corn land, it must not be so much more as the present price of sugar. Our tobacco planters,

accordingly, have shown the same fear of the superabundance of tobacco which the proprietors of the old

vineyards in France have of the superabundance of wine. By act of assembly they have restrained its

cultivation to six thousand plants, supposed to yield a thousand weight of tobacco, for every negro between

sixteen and sixty years of age. Such a negro, over and above this quantity of tobacco, can manage, they

reckon, four acres of Indian corn. To prevent the market from being overstocked, too, they have sometimes,

in plentiful years, we are told by Dr. Douglas (I suspect he has been ill informed), burnt a certain quantity of

tobacco for every negro, in the same manner as the Dutch are said to do of spices. If such violent methods are

necessary to keep up the present price of tobacco, the superior advantage of its culture over that of corn, if it

It is in this manner that the rent of the cultivated land, of which the produce is human food, regulates the rent

of the greater part of other cultivated land. No particular produce can long afford less; because the land would

immediately be turned to another use. And if any particular produce commonly affords more, it is because the

quantity of land which can be fitted for it is too small to supply the effectual demand.

In Europe, corn is the principal produce of land which serves immediately for human food. Except in

particular situations, therefore, the rent of corn land regulates in Europe that of all other cultivated land.

Britain need envy neither the vineyards of France nor the olive plantations of Italy. Except in particular

situations, the value of these is regulated by that of corn, in which the fertility of Britain is not much inferior

If in any country the common and favourite vegetable food of the people should be drawn from a plant of

which the most common land, with the same or nearly the same culture, produced a much greater quantity

than the most fertile does of corn, the rent of the landlord, or the surplus quantity of food which would remain

to him, after paying the labour and replacing the stock of the farmer, together with its ordinary profits, would

necessarily be much greater. Whatever was the rate at which labour was commonly maintained in that

country, this greater surplus could always maintain a greater quantity of it, and consequently enable the

landlord to purchase or command a greater quantity of it. The real value of his rent, his real power and

authority, his command of the necessaries and conveniencies of life with which the labour of other people

A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most fertile corn field. Two crops in the year

from thirty to sixty bushels each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an acre. Though its cultivation,

therefore, requires more labour, a much greater surplus remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice

countries, therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, and where the

cultivators are chiefly maintained with it, a greater share of this greater surplus should belong to the landlord

than in corn countries. In Carolina, where the planters, as in other British colonies, are generally both farmers

and landlords, and where rent consequently is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice is found to be

more profitable than that of corn, though their fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the

prevalence of the customs of Europe, rice is not there the common and favourite vegetable food of the people.

A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered with water. It is unfit either for corn,

or pasture, or vineyard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very useful to men; and the lands

which are fit for those purposes are not fit for rice. Even in the rice countries, therefore, the rent of rice lands

cannot regulate the rent of the other cultivated land, which can never be turned to that produce.

The food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quantity to that produced by a field of rice, and

much superior to what is produced by a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of potatoes from an acre of

land is not a greater produce than two thousand weight of wheat. The food or solid nourishment, indeed,

which can be drawn from each of those two plants, is not altogether in proportion to their weight, on account

of the watery nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, half the weight of this root to go to water, a very large

allowance, such an acre of potatoes will still produce six thousand weight of solid nourishment, three times

the quantity produced by the acre of wheat. An acre of potatoes is cultivated with less expense than an acre of

wheat; the fallow, which generally precedes the sowing of wheat, more than compensating the hoeing and

other extraordinary culture which is always given to potatoes. Should this root ever become in any part of

Europe, like rice in some rice countries, the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, so as to

occupy the same proportion of the lands in tillage which wheat and other sorts of grain for human food do at

present, the same quantity of cultivated land would maintain a much greater number of people, and the

labourers being generally fed with potatoes, a greater surplus would remain after replacing all the stock and

maintaining all the labour employed in cultivation. A greater share of this surplus, too, would belong to the

landlord. Population would increase, and rents would rise much beyond what they are at present.

The land which is fit for potatoes is fit for almost every other useful vegetable. If they occupied the same

proportion of cultivated land which corn does at present, they would regulate, in the same manner, the rent of

In some parts of Lancashire it is pretended, I have been told, that bread of oatmeal is a heartier food for

labouring people than wheaten bread, and I have frequently heard the same doctrine held in Scotland. I am,

however, somewhat doubtful of the truth of it. The common people in Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal,

are in general neither so strong, nor so handsome as the same rank of people in England who are fed with

wheaten bread. They neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same difference between

the people of fashion in the two countries, experience would seem to show that the food of the common

people in Scotland is not so suitable to the human constitution as that of their neighbours of the same rank in

England. But it seems to be otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coalheavers in London, and

those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps

in the British dominions, are said to be the greater part of them from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who

are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its

It is difficult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impossible to store them like corn, for two or three

years together. The fear of not being able to sell them before they rot discourages their cultivation, and is,

perhaps, the chief obstacle to their ever becoming in any great country, like bread, the principal vegetable

HUMAN food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the

landlord. Other sorts of produce sometimes may and sometimes may not, according to different

Land in its original rude state can afford the materials of clothing and lodging to a much greater number of

people than it can feed. In its improved state it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than it can

supply with those materials; at least in the way in which they require them, and are willing to pay for them. In

the one state, therefore, there is always a superabundance of those materials, which are frequently, upon that

account, of little or no value. In the other there is often a scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In

the one state a great part of them is thrown away as useless, and the price of what is used is considered as

equal only to the labour and expense of fitting it for use, and can, therefore, afford no rent to the landlord. In

the other they are all made use of, and there is frequently a demand for more than can be had. Somebody is

always willing to give more for every part of them than what is sufficient to pay the expense of bringing them

The skins of the larger animals were the original materials of clothing. Among nations of hunters and

shepherds, therefore, whose food consists chiefly in the flesh of those animals, every man, by providing

himself with food, provides himself with the materials of more clothing than he can wear. If there was no

foreign commerce, the greater part of them would be thrown away as things of no value. This was probably

the case among the hunting nations of North America before their country was discovered by the Europeans,

with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry for blankets, firearms, and brandy, which gives it some

value. In the present commercial state of the known world, the most barbarous nations, I believe, among

whom land property is established, have some foreign commerce of this kind, and find among their wealthier

neighbours such a demand for all the materials of clothing which their land produces, and which can neither

be wrought up nor consumed at home, as raises their price above what it costs to send them to those wealthier

neighbours. It affords, therefore, some rent to the landlord. When the greater part of the highland cattle were

consumed on their own hills, the exportation of their hides made the most considerable article of the

commerce of that country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some addition to the rent of the

highland estates. The wool of England, which in old times could neither be consumed nor wrought up at

home, found a market in the then wealthier and more industrious country of Flanders, and its price afforded

something to the rent of the land which produced it. In countries not better cultivated than England was then,

or than the highlands of Scotland are now, and which had no foreign commerce, the materials of clothing

would evidently be so superabundant that a great part of them would be thrown away as useless, and no part

The materials of lodging cannot always be transported to so great a distance as those of clothing, and do not

so readily become an object of foreign commerce. When they are superabundant in the country which

produces them, it frequently happens, even in the present commercial state of the world, that they are of no

value to the landlord. A good stone quarry in the neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable rent.

In many parts of Scotland and Wales it affords none. Barren timber for building is of great value in a

populous and wellcultivated country, and the land which produces it affords a considerable rent. But in

many parts of North America the landlord would be much obliged to anybody who would carry away the

greater part of his large trees. In some parts of the highlands of Scotland the bark is the only part of the wood

which, for want of roads and watercarriage, can be sent to market. The timber is left to rot upon the ground.

When the materials of lodging are so superabundant, the part made use of is worth only the labour and

expense of fitting it for that use. It affords no rent to the landlord, who generally grants the use of it to

whoever takes the trouble of asking it. The demand of wealthier nations, however, sometimes enables him to

get a rent for it. The paving of the streets of London has enabled the owners of some barren rocks on the coast

of Scotland to draw a rent from what never afforded any before. The woods of Norway and of the coasts of

the Baltic find a market in many parts of Great Britain which they could not find at home, and thereby afford

Countries are populous not in proportion to the number of people whom their produce can clothe and lodge,

but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary

clothing and lodging. But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find food. In some parts even

of the British dominions what is called a house may be built by one day's labour of one man. The simplest

species of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to dress and prepare them for use.

They do not, however, require a great deal. Among savage and barbarous nations, a hundredth or little more

than a hundredth part of the labour of the whole year will be sufficient to provide them with such clothing

and lodging as satisfy the greater part of the people. All the other ninetynine parts are frequently no more

But when by the improvement and cultivation of land the labour of one family can provide food for two, the

labour of half the society becomes sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at

least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants and

fancies of mankind. Clothing and lodging, household furniture, and what is called Equipage, are the principal

objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich man consumes no more food than his poor

neighbour. In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art;

but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one with

the hovel and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the difference between their clothing,

lodging, and household furniture is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of food is limited

in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments

of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary. Those,

therefore, who have the command of more food than they themselves can consume, are always willing to

exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of this other kind. What is

over and above satisfying the limited desire is given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be

satisfied, but seem to be altogether endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert themselves to gratify

those fancies of the rich, and to obtain it more certainly they vie with one another in the cheapness and

perfection of their work. The number of workmen increases with the increasing quantity of food, or with the

growing improvement and cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost

subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up increases in a much greater

proportion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can

employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils

and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth; the precious metals, and the precious stones.

Food is in this manner not only the original source of rent, but every other part of the produce of land which

afterwards affords rent derives that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in

Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford rent, do not afford it always. Even

in improved and cultivated countries, the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than

what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with it ordinary profits, the stock which must be

employed in bringing them to market. Whether it is or is not such depends upon different circumstances.

Whether a coalmine, for example, can afford any rent depends partly upon its fertility, and partly upon its

A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according as the quantity of mineral which can

be brought from it by a certain quantity of labour is greater or less than what can be brought by an equal

Some coalmines advantageously situated cannot be wrought on account of their barrenness. The produce

There are some of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with it

ordinary profits, the stock employed in working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker of the work,

but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being

himself undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary profit of the capital which he employs in it. Many

coalmines in Scotland are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no other. The landlord will allow

nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any.

Other coalmines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be wrought on account of their situation. A

quantity of mineral sufficient to defray the expense of working could be brought from the mine by the

ordinary, or even less than the ordinary, quantity of labour; but in an inland country, thinly inhabited, and

Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said, too, to be less wholesome. The expense of coals,

therefore, at the place where they are consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.

The price of wood again varies with the state of agriculture, nearly in the same manner, and exactly for the

same reason, as the price of cattle. In its rude beginnings the greater part of every country is covered with

wood, which is then a mere encumberance of no value to the landlord, who would gladly give it to anybody

for the cutting. As agriculture advances, the woods are partly cleared by the progress of tillage, and partly go

to decay in consequence of the increased number of cattle. These, though they do not increase in the same

proportion as corn, which is altogether the acquisition of human industry, yet multiply under the care and

protection of men, who store up in the season of plenty what may maintain them in that of scarcity, who

through the whole year furnish them with a greater quantity of food than uncultivated nature provides for

them, and who by destroying and extirpating their enemies, secure them in the free enjoyment of all that she

provides. Numerous herds of cattle, when allowed to wander through the woods, though they do not destroy

the old trees, hinder any young ones from coming up so that in the course of a century or two the whole forest

goes to ruin. The scarcity of wood then raises its price. It affords a good rent, and the landlord sometimes

finds that he can scarce employ his best lands more advantageously than in growing barren timber, of which

the greatness of the profit often compensates the lateness of the returns. This seems in the present times to be

nearly the state of things in several parts of Great Britain, where the profit of planting is found to be equal to

that of either corn or pasture. The advantage which the landlord derives from planting can nowhere exceed, at

least for any considerable time, the rent which these could afford him; and in an inland country which is

highly cultivated, it will frequently not fall much short of this rent. Upon the seacoast of a well improved

country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be had for fuel, it may sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timber

for building from less cultivated foreign countries than to raise it at home. In the new town of Edinburgh,

built within these few years, there is not, perhaps, a single stick of Scotch timber.

Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals is such that the expense of a coal fire is nearly equal to

that of a wood one, we may be assured that at that place, and in these circumstances, the price of coals is as

high as it can be. It seems to be so in some of the inland parts of England, particularly in Oxfordshire, where

it is usual, even in the fires of the common people, to mix coals and wood together, and where the difference

Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere much below this highest price. If they were not, they could not

bear the expense of a distant carriage, either by land or by water. A small quantity only could be sold, and the

coal masters and coal proprietors find it more for their interest to sell a great quantity at a price somewhat

above the lowest, than a small quantity at the highest. The most fertile coalmine, too, regulates the price of

coals at all the other mines in its neighbourhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker of the work find, the

one that he can get a greater rent, the other that he can get a greater profit, by somewhat underselling all their

neighbours. Their neighbours are soon obliged to sell at the same price, though they cannot so well afford it,

and though it always diminishes, and sometimes takes away altogether both their rent and their profit. Some

works are abandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can be wrought only by the proprietor.

The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any considerable time is, like that of all other commodities,

the price which is barely sufficient to replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be

employed in bringing them to market. At as coalmine for which the landlord can get no rent, but which he

must either work himself or let it alone altogether, the price of coals must generally be nearly about this price.

Rent, even where coals afford one, has generally a smaller share in their prices than in that of most other parts

of the rude produce of land. The rent of an estate above ground commonly amounts to what is supposed to be

a third of the gross produce; and it is generally a rent certain and independent of the occasional variations in

the crop. In coalmines a fifth of the gross produce is a very great rent; a tenth the common rent, and it is

seldom a rent certain, but depends upon the occasional variations in the produce. These are so great that, in a

country where thirty years' purchase is considered as a moderate price for the property of a landed estate, ten

The value of a coalmine to the proprietor frequently depends as much upon its situation as upon its fertility.

That of a metallic mine depends more upon its fertility, and less upon its situation. The coarse, and still more

the precious metals, when separated from the ore, are so valuable that they can generally bear the expense of

a very long land, and of the most distant sea carriage. Their market is not confined to the countries in the

neighbourhood of the mine, but extends to the whole world. The copper of Japan makes an article of

commerce in Europe; the iron of Spain in that of Chili and Peru. The silver of Peru finds its way, not only to

The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can have little effect on their price at Newcastle; and their

price in the Lionnois can have none at all. The productions of such distant coalmines can never be brought

into competition with one another. But the productions of the most distant metallic mines frequently may, and

in fact commonly are. The price, therefore, of the coarse, and still more that of the precious metals, at the

most fertile mines in the world, must necessarily more or less affect their price at every other in it. The price

of copper in Japan must have some influence upon its price at the copper mines in Europe. The price of silver

in Peru, or the quantity either of labour or of other goods which it will purchase there, must have some

influence on its price, not only at the silver mines of Europe, but at those of China. After the discovery of the

mines of Peru, the silver mines of Europe were, the greater part of them, abandoned. The value of was so

much reduced that their produce could no longer pay the expense of working them, or replace, with a profit,

the food, clothes, lodging, and other necessaries which were consumed in that operation. This was the case,

too, with the mines of Cuba and St. Domingo, and even with the ancient mines of Peru, after the discovery of

The price of every metal at every mine, therefore, being regulated in some measure by its price at the most

fertile mine in the world that is actually wrought, it can at the greater part of mines do very little more than

pay the expense of working, and can seldom afford a very high rent to the landlord. Rent, accordingly, seems

at the greater part of mines to have but a small share in the price of the coarse, and a still smaller in that of the

A sixth part of the gross produce may be reckoned the average rent of the tin mines of Cornwall the most

fertile that are known in the world, as we are told by the Reverend Mr. Borlace, vicewarden of the

stannaries. Some, he says, afford more, and some do not afford so much. A sixth part of the gross produce is

In the silver mines of Peru, we are told by Frezier and Ulloa, the proprietor frequently exacts no other

acknowledgment from the undertaker of the mine, but that he will grind the ore at his mill, paying him the

ordinary multure or price of grinding. Till 1736, indeed, the tax of the King of Spain amounted to onefifth

of the standard silver, which till then might be considered as the real rent of the greater part of the silver

mines of Peru, the richest which have been known in the world. If there had been no tax this fifth would

naturally have belonged to the landlord, and many mines might have been wrought which could not then be

wrought, because they could not afford this tax. The tax of the Duke of Cornwall upon tin is supposed to

amount to more than five per cent or onetwentieth part of the value, and whatever may be his proportion, it

would naturally, too, belong to the proprietor of the mine, if tin was duty free. But if you add onetwentieth

to onesixth, you will find that the whole average rent of the tin mines of Cornwall was to the whole average

rent of the silver mines of Peru as thirteen to twelve. But the silver mines of Peru are not now able to pay

even this low rent, and the tax upon silver was, in 1736, reduced from onefifth to onetenth. Even this tax

upon silver, too, gives more temptation to smuggling than the tax of onetwentieth upon tin; and smuggling

must be much easier in the precious than in the bulky commodity. The tax of the King of Spain accordingly is

said to be very ill paid, and that of the Duke of Cornwall very well. Rent, therefore, it is probable, makes a

greater part of the price of tin at the most fertile tin mines than it does of silver at the most fertile silver mines

in the world. After replacing the stock employed in working those different mines, together with its ordinary

profits, the residue which remains to the proprietor is greater, it seems, in the coarse than in the precious

Neither are the profits of the undertakers of silver mines commonly very great in Peru. The same most

respectable and wellinformed authors acquaint us, that when any person undertakes to work a new mine in

Peru, he is universally looked upon as a man destined to bankruptcy and ruin, and is upon that account

shunned and avoided by everybody. Mining, it seems, is considered there in the same light as here, as a

lottery, in which the prizes do not compensate the blanks, though the greatness of some tempts many

As the sovereign, however, derives a considerable part of his revenue from the produce of silver mines, the

law in Peru gives every possible encouragement to the discovery and working of new ones. Whoever

discovers a new mine is entitled to measure off two hundred and fortysix feet in length, according to what

he supposes to be the direction of the vein, and half as much in breadth. He becomes proprietor of this portion

of the mine, and can work it without paying any acknowledgment to the landlord. The interest of the Duke of

Cornwall has given occasion to a regulation nearly of the same kind in that ancient duchy. In waste and

unenclosed lands any person who discovers a tin mine may mark its limits to a certain extent, which is called

bounding a mine. The bounder becomes the real proprietor of the mine, and may either work it himself, or

give it in lease to another, without the consent of the owner of the land, to whom, however, a very small

acknowledgment must be paid upon working it. In both regulations the sacred rights of private property are

The same encouragement is given in Peru to the discovery and working of new gold mines; and in gold the

king's tax amounts only to a twentieth part of the standard metal. It was once a fifth, and afterwards a tenth,

as in silver; but it was found that the work could not bear even the lowest of these two taxes. If it is rare,

however, say the same authors, Frezier and Ulloa, to find a person who has made his fortune by a silver, it is

still much rarer to find one who has done so by a gold mine. This twentieth part seems to be the whole rent

which is paid by the greater part of the gold mines in Chili and Peru. Gold, too, is much more liable to be

smuggled than even silver; not only on account of the superior value of the metal in proportion to its bulk, but

on account of the peculiar way in which nature produces it. Silver is very seldom found virgin, but, like most

other metals, is generally mineralized with some other body, from which it is impossible to separate it in such

quantities as will pay for the expense, but by a very laborious and tedious operation, which cannot well be

carried on but in workhouses erected for the purpose, and therefore exposed to the inspection of the king's

officers. Gold, on the contrary, is almost always found virgin. It is sometimes found in pieces of some bulk;

and even when mixed in small and almost insensible particles with sand, earth, and other extraneous bodies,

it can be separated from them by a very short and simple operation, which can be carried on in any private

house by anybody who is possessed of a small quantity of mercury. If the king's tax, therefore, is but ill paid

upon silver, it is likely to be much worse paid upon gold; and rent, must make a much smaller part of the

The lowest price at which the precious metals can be sold, or the smallest quantity of other goods for which

they can be exchanged during any considerable time, is regulated by the same principles which fix the lowest

ordinary price of all other goods. The stock which must commonly be employed, the food, the clothes, and

lodging which must commonly be consumed in bringing them from the mine to the market, determine it. It

Their highest price, however, seems not to be necessarily determined by anything but the actual scarcity or

plenty of those metals themselves. It is not determined by that of any other commodity, in the same manner

as the price of coals is by that of wood, beyond which no scarcity can ever raise it. Increase the scarcity of

gold to a certain degree, and the smallest bit of it may become more precious than a diamond, and exchange

The demand for those metals arises partly from their utility and partly from their beauty. If you except iron,

they are more useful than, perhaps, any other metal. As they are less liable to rust and impurity, they can

more easily be kept clean, and the utensils either of the table or the kitchen are often upon that account more

agreeable when made of them. A silver boiler is more cleanly than a lead, copper, or tin one; and the same

quality would render a gold boiler still better than a silver one. Their principal merit, however, arises from

their beauty, which renders them peculiarly fit for the ornaments of dress and furniture. No paint or dye can

give so splendid a colour as gilding. The merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity. With the

greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is

never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can

possess but themselves. In their eyes the merit of an object which is in any degree either useful or beautiful is

greatly enhanced by its scarcity, or by the great labour which it requires to collect any considerable quantity

of it, a labour which nobody can afford to pay but themselves. Such objects they are willing to purchase at a

higher price than things much more beautiful and useful, but more common. These qualities of utility, beauty,

and scarcity, are the original foundation of the high price of those metals, or of the great quantity of other

goods for which they can everywhere be exchanged. This value was antecedent to and independent of their

being employed as coin, and was the quality which fitted them for that employment. That employment,

however, by occasioning a new demand, and by diminishing the quantity which could be employed in any

The demand for the precious stones arises altogether from their beauty. They are of no use but as ornaments;

and the merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the difficulty and expense of getting

them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly make up, upon most occasions, almost the whole of their

high price. Rent comes in but for a very small share; frequently for no share; and the most fertile mines only

afford any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a jeweller, visited the diamond mines of Golconda and

Visiapour, he was informed that the sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought, had

ordered all of them to be shut up, except those which yield the largest and finest stones. The others, it seems,

As the price both of the precious metals and of the precious stones is regulated all over the world by their

price at the most fertile mine in it, the rent which a mine of either can afford to its proprietor is in proportion,

not to its absolute, but to what may be called its relative fertility, or to its superiority over other mines of the

same kind. If new mines were discovered as much superior to those of Potosi as they were superior to those

Europe, the value of silver might be so much degraded as to render even the mines of Potosi not worth the

working. Before the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, the most fertile mines in Europe may have

afforded as great a rent to their proprietor as the richest mines in Peru do at present. Though the quantity of

silver was much less, it might have exchanged for an equal quantity of other goods, and the proprietor's share

might have enabled him to purchase or command an equal quantity either of labour or of commodities. The

value both of the produce and of the rent, the real revenue which they afforded both to the public and to the

The most abundant mines either of the precious metals or of the precious stones could add little to the wealth

of the world. A produce of which the value is principally derived from its scarcity, is necessarily degraded by

its abundance. A service of plate, and the other frivolous ornaments of dress and furniture, could be

purchased for a smaller quantity of labour, or for a smaller quantity of commodities; and in this would consist

It is otherwise in estates above ground. The value both of their produce and of their rent is in proportion to

their absolute, and not to their relative fertility. The land which produces a certain quantity of food, clothes,

and lodging, can always feed, clothe, and lodge a certain number of people; and whatever may be the

proportion of the landlord, it will always give him a proportionable command of the labour of those people,

and of the commodities with which that labour can supply him. The value of the most barren lands is not

diminished by the neighbourhood of the most fertile. On the contrary, it is generally increased by it. The great

number of people maintained by the fertile lands afford a market to many parts of the produce of the barren,

which they could never have found among those whom their own produce could maintain.

Whatever increases the fertility of land in producing food increases not only the value of the lands upon

which the improvement is bestowed, but contributes likewise to increase that of many other lands by creating

a new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of which, in consequence of the improvement of

land, many people have the disposal beyond what they themselves can consume, is the great cause of the

demand both for the precious metals and the precious stone, as well as for every other conveniency and

ornament of dress, lodging, household furniture, and equipage. Food not only constitutes the principal part of

the riches of the world, but it is the abundance of food which gives the principal part of their value to many

other sorts of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba and St. Domingo, when they were first discovered by the

Spaniards, used to wear little bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other parts of their dress. They

seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to

consider them as just worth the picking up, but not worth the refusing to anybody who asked them. They

gave them to their new guests at the first request, without seeming to think that they had made them any very

valuable present. They were astonished to observe the rage of the Spaniards to obtain them; and had no

notion that there could anywhere be a country in which many people had the disposal of so great a superfluity

of food, so scanty always among themselves, that for a very small quantity of those glittering baubles they

would willingly give as much as might maintain a whole family for many years. Could they have been made

THE increasing abundance of food, in consequence of increasing improvement and cultivation, must

necessarily increase the demand for every part of the produce of land which is not food, and which can be

applied either to use or to ornament. In the whole progress of improvement, it might therefore be expected,

there should be only one variation in the comparative values of those two different sorts of produce. The

value of that sort which sometimes does and sometimes does not afford rent, should constantly rise in

proportion to that which always affords some rent. As art and industry advance, the materials of clothing and

lodging, the useful fossils and minerals of the earth, the precious metals and the precious stones should

gradually come to be more and more in demand, should gradually exchange for a greater and a greater

quantity of food, or in other words, should gradually become dearer and dearer. This accordingly has been the

case with most of these things upon most occasions, and would have been the case with all of them upon all

occasions, if particular accidents had not upon some occasions increased the supply of some of them in a still

The value of a freestone quarry, for example, will necessarily increase with the increasing improvement and

population of the country round about it, especially if it should be the only one in the neighbourhood. But the

value of a silver mine, even though there should not be another within a thousand miles of it, will not

necessarily increase with the improvement of the country in which it is situated. The market for the produce

of a freestone quarry can seldom extend more than a few miles round about it, and the demand must generally

be in proportion to the improvement and population of that small district. But the market for the produce of a

silver mine may extend over the whole known world. Unless the world in general, therefore, be advancing in

improvement and population, the demand for silver might not be at all increased by the improvement even of

a large country in the neighbourhood of the mine. Even though the world in general were improving, yet if, in

the course of its improvement, new mines should be discovered, much more fertile than any which had been

known before, though the demand for silver would necessarily increase, yet the supply might increase in so

much a greater proportion that the real price of that metal might gradually fall; that is, any given quantity, a

pound weight of it, for example, might gradually purchase or command a smaller and a smaller quantity of

labour, or exchange for a smaller and a smaller quantity of corn, the principal part of the subsistence of the

If by the general progress of improvement the demand of this market should increase, while at the same time

the supply did not increase in the same proportion, the value of silver would gradually rise in proportion to

that of corn. Any given quantity of silver would exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in

other words, the average money price of corn would gradually become cheaper and cheaper.

If, on the contrary, the supply by some accident should increase for many years together in a greater

proportion than the demand, that metal would gradually become cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the

average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, gradually become dearer and dearer.

But if, on the other hand, the supply of the metal should increase nearly in the same proportion as the

demand, it would continue to purchase or exchange for nearly the same quantity of corn, and the average

money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, continue very nearly the same.

These three seem to exhaust all the possible combinations of events which can happen in the progress of

improvement; and during the course of the four centuries preceding the present, if we may judge by what has

happened both in France and Great Britain, each of those three different combinations seem to have taken

place in the European market, and nearly in the same order, too, in which I have here set them down.

In 1350, and for some time before, the average price of the quarter of wheat in England seems not to have

been estimated lower than four ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal to about twenty shillings of our present

money. From this price it seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces of silver, equal to about ten shillings

of our present money, the price at which we find it estimated in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and at

In 1350, being the 25th of Edward III, was enacted what is called The Statute of Labourers. In the preamble it

complains much of the insolence of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their masters. It

therefore ordains that all servants and labourers should for the future be contented with the same wages and

liveries (liveries in those times signified not only clothes but provisions) which they had been accustomed to

receive in the 20th year of the king, and the four preceding years; that upon this account their livery wheat

should nowhere be estimated higher than tenpence a bushel, and that it should always be in the option of the

master to deliver them either the wheat or the money. Tenpence a bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th of

Edward III, been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, since it required a particular statute to oblige

servants to accept of it in exchange for their usual livery of provisions; and it had been reckoned a reasonable

price ten years before that, or in the 16th year of the king, the term to which the statute refers. But in the 16th

year of Edward III, tenpence contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower weight, and was nearly equal to

halfacrown of our present money. Four ounces of silver, Tower weight, therefore, equal to six shillings and

eightpence of the money of those times, and to near twenty shillings of that of the present, must have been

This statute is surely a better evidence of what was reckoned in those times a moderate price of grain than the

prices of some particular years which have generally been recorded by historians and other writers on account

of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, and from which, therefore, it is difficult to form any judgment

concerning what may have been the ordinary price. There are, besides, other reasons for believing that in the

beginning of the fourteenth century, and for some time before, the common price of wheat was not less than

In 1309, Ralph de Born, prior of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, gave a feast upon his installationday, of which

William Thorn has preserved not only the bill of fare but the prices of many particulars. In that feast were

consumed, first, fiftythree quarters of wheat, which cost nineteen pounds, or seven shillings and twopence a

quarter, equal to about oneandtwenty shillings and sixpence of our present money; secondly, fiftyeight

quarters of malt, which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings, or six shillings a quarter, equal to about eighteen

shillings of our present money; thirdly, twenty quarters of oats, which cost four pounds, or four shillings a

quarter, equal to about twelve shillings of our present money. The prices of malt and oats seem here to be

These prices are not recorded on account of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, but are mentioned

accidentally as the prices actually paid for large quantities of grain consumed at a feast which was famous for

In 1262, being the 51st of Henry M, was revived an ancient statute called The Assize of Bread and Ale,

which the king says in the preamble had been made in the times of his progenitors, sometime kings of

England. It is probably, therefore, as old at least as the time of his grandfather Henry H, and may have been

as old as the Conquest. It regulates the price of bread according as the prices of wheat may happen to be,

from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of those times. But statutes of this kind are

generally presumed to provide with equal care for all deviations from the middle price, for those below it as

well as for those above it. Ten shillings, therefore, containing six ounces of silver, Tower weight, and equal to

about thirty shillings of our present money, must, upon this supposition, have been reckoned the middle price

of the quarter of wheat when this statute was first enacted, and must have continued to be so in the 51st of

Henry III. We cannot therefore be very wrong in supposing that the middle price was not less than onethird

of the highest price at which this statute regulates the price of bread, or than six shillings and eightpence of

From these different facts, therefore, we seem to have some reason to conclude that, about the middle of the

fourteenth century, and for a considerable time before, the average or ordinary price of the quarter of wheat

From about the middle of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, what was reckoned the

reasonable and moderate, that is the ordinary or average price of wheat, seems to have sunk gradually to

about onehalf of this price; so as at last to have fallen to about two ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal to

about ten shillings of our present money. It continued to be estimated at this price till about 1570.

In the household book of Henry, the fifth Earl of Northumberland, drawn up in 1512, there are two different

estimations of wheat. In one of them it is computed at six shillings and eightpence the quarter, in the other at

five shillings and eightpence only. In 1512, six shillings and eightpence contained only two ounces of silver,

From the 25th of Edward III to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, during the space of more than two

hundred years, six shillings and eightpence, it appears from several different statutes, had continued to be

considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable, that is the ordinary or average price of wheat. The

quantity of silver, however, contained in that nominal sum was, during the course of this period, continually

diminishing, in consequence of some alterations which were made in the coin. But the increase of the value

of silver had, it seems, so far compensated the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the same nominal

sum that the legislature did not think it worth while to attend to this circumstance.

Thus in 1436 it was enacted that wheat might be exported without a licence when the price was so low as six

shillings and eightpence; and in 1463 it was enacted that no wheat should be imported if the price was not

above six shillings and eightpence the quarter. The legislature had imagined that when the price was so low

there could be no inconveniency in exportation, but that when it rose higher it became prudent to allow

importation. Six shillings and eightpence, therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as thirteen

shillings and fourpence of our present money (one third part less than the same nominal sum contained in the

time of Edward III), had in those times been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable price

In 1554, by the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary; and in 1558, by the 1st of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat

was in the same manner prohibited, whenever the price of the quarter should exceed six shillings and

eightpence, which did not then contain two pennyworth more silver than the same nominal sum does at

present. But it had soon been found that to restrain the exportation of wheat till the price was so very low

was, in reality, to prohibit it altogether. In 1562, therefore, by the 5th of Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat

was allowed from certain ports whenever the price of the quarter should not exceed ten shillings, containing

nearly the same quantity of silver as the like nominal sum does at present. This price had at this time,

therefore, been considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable price of wheat. It agrees nearly with

That in France the average price of grain was, in the same manner, much lower in the end of the fifteenth and

beginning of the sixteenth century than in the two centuries preceding has been observed both by Mr. Dupre

de St. Maur, and by the elegant author of the Essay on the police of grain. Its price, during the same period,

This rise in the value of silver in proportion to that of corn, may either have been owing altogether to the

increase of the demand for that metal, in consequence of increasing improvement and cultivation, the supply

in the meantime continuing the same as before; or, the demand continuing the same as before, it may have

been owing altogether to the gradual diminution of the supply; the greater part of the mines which were then

known in the world being much exhausted, and consequently the expense of working them much increased;

or it may have been owing partly to the other of those two circumstances. In the end of the fifteenth and

beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the greater part of Europe was approaching towards a more settled form

of government than it had enjoyed for several ages before. The increase of security would naturally increase

industry and improvement; and the demand for the precious metals, as well as for every other luxury and

ornament, would naturally increase with the increase of riches. A greater annual produce would require a

greater quantity of coin to circulate it; and a greater number of rich people would require a greater quantity of

plate and other ornaments of silver. It is natural to suppose, too, that the greater part of the mines which then

supplied the European market with silver might be a good deal exhausted, and have become more expensive

It has been the opinion, however, of the greater part of those who have written upon the price of commodities

in ancient times that, from the Conquest, perhaps from the invasion of Julius Caesar till the discovery of the

mines of America, the value of silver was continually diminishing. This opinion they seem to have been led

into, partly by the observations which they had occasion to make upon the prices both of corn and of some

other parts of the rude produce of land; and partly by the popular notion that as the quantity of silver naturally

increases in every country with the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as its quantity increases.

In their observations upon the prices of corn, three different circumstances seem frequently to have misled

First, in ancient times almost all rents were paid in kind; in a certain quantity of corn, cattle, poultry, etc. It

sometimes happened, however, that the landlord would stipulate that he should be at liberty to demand of the

tenant, either the annual payment in kind, or a certain sum of money instead of it. The price at which the

payment in kind was in this manner exchanged for a certain sum of money is in Scotland called the

conversion price. As the option is always in the landlord to take either the substance or the price, it is

necessary for the safety of the tenant that the conversion price should rather be below than above the average

market price. In many places, accordingly, it is not much above onehalf of this price. Through the greater

part of Scotland this custom still continues with regard to poultry, and in some places with regard to cattle. It

might probably have continued to take place, too, with regard to corn, had not the institution of the public

fiars put an end to it. These are annual valuations, according to the judgment of an assize, of the average price

of all the different sorts of grain, and of all the different qualities of each, according to the actual market price

in every different county. This institution rendered it sufficiently safe for the tenant, and much more

convenient for the landlord, to convert, as they call it, the corn rent, rather at what should happen to be the

price of the fiars of each year, than at any certain fixed price. But the writers who have collected the prices of

corn in ancient times seem frequently to have mistaken what is called in Scotland the conversion price for the

actual market price. Fleetwood acknowledges, upon one occasion, that he had made this mistake. As he wrote

his book, however, for a particular purpose, he does not think proper to make this acknowledgment till after

transcribing this conversion price fifteen times. The price is eight shillings the quarter of wheat. This sum in

1423, the year at which he begins with it, contained the same quantity of silver as sixteen shillings of our

present money. But in 1562, the year at which he ends with it, it contained no more than the same nominal

Secondly, they have been misled by the slovenly manner in which some ancient statutes of assize had been

sometimes transcribed by lazy copiers; and sometimes perhaps actually composed by the legislature.

The ancient statutes of assize seem to have begun always with determining what ought to be the price of

bread and ale when the price of wheat and barley were at the lowest, and to have proceeded gradually to

determine what it ought to be, according as the prices of those two sorts of grain should gradually rise above

this lowest price. But the transcribers of those statutes seem frequently to have thought it sufficient to copy

the regulation as far as the three or four first and lowest prices, saving in this manner their own labour, and

judging, I suppose, that this was enough to show what proportion ought to be observed in all higher prices.

Thus in the Assize of Bread and Ale, of the 51st of Henry III, the price of bread was regulated according to

the different prices of wheat, from one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter, of the money of those times.

But in the manuscripts from which all the different editions of the statutes, preceding that of Mr. Ruffhead,

were printed, the copiers had never transcribed this regulation beyond the price of twelve shillings. Several

writers, therefore, being misled by this faulty transcription, very naturally concluded that the middle price, or

six shillings the quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money, was the ordinary or average

In the Statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enacted nearly about the same time, the price of ale is regulated

according to every sixpence rise in the price of barley, from two shillings to four shillings the quarter. That

four shillings, however, was not considered as the highest price to which barley might frequently rise in those

times, and that these prices were only given as an example of the proportion which ought to be observed in all

other prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer from the last words of the statute: et sic deinceps

crescetur vel diminuetur per sex denarios. The expression is very slovenly, but the meaning is plain enough:

"That the price of ale is in this manner to be increased or diminished according to every sixpence rise or fall

in the price of barley." In the composition of this statute the legislature itself seems to have been as negligent

In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem, an old Scotch law book, there is a statute of assize in

which the price of bread is regulated according to all the different prices of wheat, from tenpence to three

shillings the Scotch boll, equal to about half an English quarter. Three shillings Scotch, at the time when this

assize is supposed to have been enacted were equal to about nine shillings sterling of our present money. Mr.

Ruddiman seems to conclude from this, that three shillings was the highest price to which wheat ever rose in

those times, and that tenpence, a shilling, or at most two shillings, were the ordinary prices. Upon consulting

the manuscript, however, it appears evidently that all these prices are only set down as examples of the

proportion which ought to be observed between the respective prices of wheat and bread. The last words of

the statute are: reliqua judicabis secundum proescripta habendo respectum ad pretium bladi. "You shall judge

of the remaining cases according to what is above written, having a respect to the price of corn."

Thirdly, they seem to have been misled, too, by the very low price at which wheat was sometimes sold in

very ancient times; and to have imagined that as its lowest price was then much lower than in later times, its

ordinary price must likewise have been much lower. They might have found, however, that in those ancient

times its highest price was fully as much above, as its lowest price was below anything that had even been

known in later times. Thus in 1270, Fleetwood gives us two prices of the quarter of wheat. The one is four

pounds sixteen shillings of the money of those times, equal to fourteen pounds eight shillings of that of the

present; the other is six pounds eight shillings, equal to nineteen pounds four shillings of our present money.

No price can be found in the end of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth century, which approaches to

the extravagance of these. The price of corn, though at all times liable to variation, varies most in those

turbulent and disorderly societies, in which the interruption of all commerce and communication hinders the

plenty of one part of the country from relieving the scarcity of another. In the disorderly state of England

under the Plantagenets, who governed it from about the middle of the twelfth till towards the end of the

fifteenth century, one district might be in plenty, while another at no great distance, by having its crop

destroyed either by some accident of the seasons, or by the incursion of some neighbouring baron, might be

suffering all the horrors of a famine; and yet if the lands of some hostile lord were interposed between them,

the one might not be able to give the least assistance to the other. Under the vigorous administration of the

Tudors, who governed England during the latter part of the fifteenth and through the whole of the sixteenth

The reader will find at the end of this chapter all the prices of wheat which have been collected by Fleetwood

from 1202 to 1597, both inclusive, reduced to the money of the present times, and digested according to the

order of time, into seven divisions of twelve years each. At the end of each division, too, he will find the

average price of the twelve years of which it consists. In that long period of time, Fleetwood has been able to

collect the prices of no more than eighty years, so that four years are wanting to make out the last twelve

years. I have added, therefore, from the accounts of Eton college, the prices of 1598, 1599, 1600, and 1601. It

is the only addition which I have made. The reader will see that from the beginning of the thirteenth till after

the middle of the sixteenth century the average price of each twelve years grows gradually lower and lower;

and that towards the end of the sixteenth century it begins to rise again. The prices, indeed, which Fleetwood

has been able to collect, seem to have been those chiefly which were remarkable for extraordinary dearness

or cheapness; and I do not pretend that any very certain conclusion can be drawn from them. So far, however,

as they prove anything at all, they confirm the account which I have been endeavouring to give. Fleetwood

himself, however, seems, with most other writers, to have believed that during all this period the value of

silver, in consequence of its increasing abundance, was continually diminishing. The prices of corn which he

himself has collected certainly do not agree with this opinion. They agree perfectly with that of Mr. Dupre de

St. Maur, and with that which I have been endeavouring to explain. Bishop Fleetwood and Mr. Dupre de St.

Maur are the two authors who seem to have collected, with the greatest diligence and fidelity, the prices of

things in ancient times. It is somewhat curious that, though their opinions are so very different, their facts, so

far as they relate to the price of corn at least, should coincide so very exactly.

It is not, however, so much from the low price of corn as from that of some other parts of the rude produce of

land that the most judicious writers have inferred the great value of silver in those very ancient times. Corn, it

has been said, being a sort of manufacture, was, in those rude ages, much dearer in proportion than the greater

part of other commodities; it is meant, I suppose, than the greater part of unmanufactured commodities, such

as cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc. That in those times of poverty and barbarism these were

proportionably much cheaper than corn is undoubtedly true. But this cheapness was not the effect of the high

value of silver, but of the low value of those commodities. It was not because silver would in such times

purchase or represent a greater quantity of labour, but because such commodities would purchase or represent

a much smaller quantity than in times of more opulence and improvement. Silver must certainly be cheaper in

Spanish America than in Europe; in the country where it is produced than in the country to which it is

brought, at the expense of a long carriage both by land and by sea, of a freight and an insurance.

Oneandtwenty pence halfpenny sterling, however, we are told by Ulloa, was, not many years ago, at

Buenos Ayres, the price of an ox chosen from a herd of three or four hundred. Sixteen shillings sterling, we

are told by Mr. Byron was the price of a good horse in the capital of Chili. In a country naturally fertile, but

of which the far greater part is altogether uncultivated, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc., as they can be

acquired with a very small quantity of labour, so they will purchase or command but a very small quantity.

The low money price for which they may be sold is no proof that the real value of silver is there very high,

Labour, it must always be remembered, and not any particular commodity or set of commodities, is the real

But in countries almost waste, or but thinly inhabited, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc., as they are the

spontaneous productions of nature, so she frequently produces them in much greater quantities than the

consumption of the inhabitants requires. In such a state of things the supply commonly exceeds the demand.

In different states of society, in different stages of improvement, therefore, such commodities will represent,

In every state of society, in every stage of improvement, corn is the production of human industry. But the

average produce of every sort of industry is always suited, more or less exactly, to the average consumption;

the average supply to the average demand. In every different stage of improvement, besides, the raising of

equal quantities of corn in the same soil and climate will, at an average, require nearly equal quantities of

labour; or what comes to the same thing, the price of nearly equal quantities; the continual increase of the

productive powers of labour in an improving state of cultivation being more or less counterbalanced by the

continually increasing price of cattle, the principal instruments of agriculture. Upon all these accounts,

therefore, we may rest assured that equal quantities of corn will, in every state of society, in every stage of

improvement, more nearly represent, or be equivalent to, equal quantities of labour than equal quantities of

any other part of the rude produce of land. Corn, accordingly, it has already been observed, is, in all the

different stages of wealth and improvement, a more accurate measure of value than any other commodity or

set of commodities. In all those different stages, therefore, we can judge better of the real value of silver by

comparing it with corn than by comparing it with any other commodity or set of commodities.

Corn, besides, or whatever else is the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, constitutes, in

every civilised country, the principal part of the subsistence of the labourer. In consequence of the extension

of agriculture, the land of every country produces a much greater quantity of vegetable than of animal food,

and the labourer everywhere lives chiefly upon the wholesome food that is cheapest and most abundant.

Butcher's meat, except in the most thriving countries, or where labour is most highly rewarded, makes but an

insignificant part of his subsistence; poultry makes a still smaller part of it, and game no part of it. In France,

and even in Scotland, where labour is somewhat better rewarded than in France, the labouring poor seldom

eat butcher's meat, except upon holidays, and other extraordinary occasions. The money price of labour,

therefore, depends much more upon the average money price of corn, the subsistence of the labourer, than

upon that of butcher's meat, or of any other part of the rude produce of land. The real value of gold and silver,

therefore, the real quantity of labour which they can purchase or command, depends much more upon the

quantity of corn which they can purchase or command than upon that of butcher's meat, or any other part of

Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either of corn or of other commodities, would not

probably have misled so many intelligent authors had they not been influenced, at the same time, by the

popular notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every country with the increase of so its

value diminishes as its quantity increases. This notion, however, seems to be altogether groundless.

The quantity of the precious metals may increase in any country from two different causes; either, first, from

the increased abundance of the mines which supply it; or, secondly, from the increased wealth of the people,

from the increased produce of their annual labour. The first of these causes is no doubt necessarily connected

When more abundant mines are discovered, a greater quantity of the precious metals is brought to market,

and the quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life for which they must be exchanged being the

same as before, equal quantities of the metals must be exchanged for smaller quantities of commodities. So

far, therefore, as the increase of the quantity of the precious metals in any country arises from the increased

abundance of the mines, it is necessarily connected with some diminution of their value.

When, on the contrary, the wealth of any country increases, when the annual produce of its labour becomes

gradually greater and greater, a greater quantity of coin becomes necessary in order to circulate a greater

quantity of commodities; and the people, as they can afford it, as they have more commodities to give for it,

will naturally purchase a greater and a greater quantity of plate. The quantity of their coin will increase from

necessity; the quantity of their plate from vanity and ostentation, or from the same reason that the quantity of

fine statues, pictures, and of every other luxury and curiosity, is likely to increase among them. But as

statuaries and painters are not likely to be worse rewarded in times of wealth and prosperity than in times of

The price of gold and silver, when the accidental discovery of more abundant mines does not keep it down, as

it naturally rises with the wealth of every country, so, whatever be the state of the mines, it is at all times

naturally higher in a rich than in a poor country. Gold and silver, like all other commodities, naturally seek

the market where the best price is given for them, and the best price is commonly given for every thing in the

country which can best afford it. Labour, it must be remembered, is the ultimate price which is paid for

everything, and in countries where labour is equally well regarded, the money price of labour will be in

proportion to that of the subsistence of the labourer. But gold and silver will naturally exchange for a greater

quantity of subsistence in a rich than in a poor country, in a country which abounds with subsistence than in

one which is but indifferently supplied with it. If the two countries are at a great distance, the difference may

be very great; because though the metals naturally fly from the worse to the better market, yet it may be

difficult to transport them in such quantities as to bring their price nearly to a level in both. If the countries

are near, the difference will be smaller, and may sometimes be scarce perceptible; because in this case the

transportation will be easy. China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, and the difference

between the price of subsistence in China and in Europe is very great. Rice in China is much cheaper than

wheat is anywhere in Europe. England is a much richer country than Scotland; but the difference between the

moneyprice of corn in those two countries is much smaller, and is but just perceptible. In proportion to the

quantity or measure, Scotch corn generally appears to be a good deal cheaper than English; but in proportion

to its quality, it is certainly somewhat dearer. Scotland receives almost every year very large supplies from

England, and every commodity must commonly be somewhat dearer in the country to which it is brought

than in that from which it comes. English corn, therefore, must be dearer in Scotland than in England, and yet

in proportion to its quality, or to the quantity and goodness of the flour or meal which can be made from it, it

cannot commonly be sold higher there than the Scotch corn which comes to market in competition with it.

The difference between the money price of labour in China and in Europe is still greater than that between the

money price of subsistence; because the real recompense of labour is higher in Europe than in China, the

greater part of Europe being in an improving state, while China seems to be standing still. The money price of

labour is lower in Scotland than in England because the real recompense of labour is much lower; Scotland,

though advancing to greater wealth, advancing much more slowly than England. The frequency of emigration

from Scotland, and the rarity of it from England, sufficiently prove that the demand for labour is very

different in the two countries. The proportion between the real recompense of labour in different countries, it

must be remembered, is naturally regulated not by their actual wealth or poverty, but by their advancing,

Gold and silver, as they are naturally of the greatest value among the richest, so they are naturally of the least

value among the poorest nations. Among savages, the poorest of all nations, they are of scarce any value.

In great towns corn is always dearer than in remote parts of the country. This, however, is the effect, not of

the real cheapness of silver, but of the real dearness of corn. It does not cost less labour to bring silver to the

great town than to the remote parts of the country; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn.

In some very rich and commercial countries, such as Holland and the territory of Genoa, corn is dear for the

same reason that it is dear in great towns. They do not produce enough to maintain their inhabitants. They are

rich in the industry and skill of their artificers and manufacturers; in every sort of machinery which can

facilitate and abridge labour; in shipping, and in all the other instruments and means of carriage and

commerce: but they are poor in corn, which, as it must be brought to them from distant countries, must, by an

addition to its price, pay for the carriage from those countries. It does not cost less labour to bring silver to

Amsterdam than to Dantzic; but it costs a great deal more to bring corn. The real cost of silver must be nearly

the same in both places; but that of corn must be very different. Diminish the real opulence either of Holland

or of the territory of Genoa, while the number of their inhabitants remains the same: diminish their power of

supplying themselves from distant countries; and the price of corn, instead of sinking with that diminution in

the quantity of their silver, which must necessarily accompany this declension either as its cause or as its

effect, will rise to the price of a famine. When we are in want of necessaries we must part with all

superfluities, of which the value, as it rises in times of opulence and prosperity, so it sinks in times of poverty

and distress. It is otherwise with necessaries. Their real price, the quantity of labour which they can purchase

or command, rises in times of poverty and distress, and sinks in times of opulence and prosperity, which are

always times of great abundance; for they could not otherwise be times of opulence and prosperity. Corn is a

Whatever, therefore, may have been the increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which, during the

period between the middle of the fourteenth and that of the sixteenth century, arose from the increase of

wealth and improvement, it could have no tendency to diminish their value either in Great Britain or in any

other part of Europe. If those who have collected the prices of things in ancient times, therefore, had, during

this period, no reason to infer the diminution of the value of silver, from any observations which they had

made upon the prices either of corn or of other commodities, they had still less reason to infer it from any

But how various soever may have been the opinions of the learned concerning the progress of the value of

silver during this first period, they are unanimous concerning it during the second.

From about 1570 to about 1640, during a period of about seventy years, the variation in the proportion

between the value of silver and that of corn held a quite opposite course. Silver sunk in its real value, or

would exchange for a smaller quantity of labour than before; and corn rose in its nominal price, and instead

of being commonly sold for about two ounces of silver the quarter, or about ten shillings of our present

money, came to be sold for six and eight ounces of silver the quarter, or about thirty and forty shillings of our

The discovery of the abundant mines of America seems to have been the sole cause of this diminution in the

value of silver in proportion to that of corn. It is accounted for accordingly in the same manner by everybody;

and there never has been any dispute either about the fact or about the cause of it. The greater part of Europe

was, during this period, advancing in industry and improvement, and the demand for silver must

consequently have been increasing. But the increase of the supply had, it seems, so far exceeded that of the

demand, that the value of that metal sunk considerably. The discovery of the mines of America, it is to be

observed, does not seem to have had any very sensible effect upon the prices of things in England till after

1570; though even the mines of Potosi had been discovered more than twenty years before.

From 1595 to 1620, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at

Windsor market appears, from the accounts of Eton College, to have been L2 1s. 6 3/4d. From which sum,

neglecting the fraction, and deducting a ninth, or 4s. 7 1\3d., the price of the quarter of eight bushels comes

out to have been L1 16s. 10 2/3d. And from this sum, neglecting likewise the fraction, and deducting a ninth,

or 4s. 1d., for the difference between the price of the best wheat and that of the middle wheat, the price of the

middle wheat comes out to have been about L1 12s. 9d., or about six ounces and onethird of an ounce of

From 1621 to 1636, both inclusive, the average price of the same measure of the best wheat at the same

market appears, from the same accounts, to have been L2 10s.; from which making the like deductions as in

the foregoing case, the average price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out to have been

Between 1630 and 1640, or about 1636, the effect of the discovery of the mines of America in reducing the

value of silver appears to have been completed, and the value of that metal seems never to have sunk lower in

proportion to that of corn than it was about that time. It seems to have risen somewhat in the course of the

present century, and it had probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the last.

From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, being the sixtyfour last years of the last century, the average price of the

quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market appears, from the same accounts, to have been

L2 11s. O 1\3d., which is only 1s O 1\3d. dearer than it had been during the sixteen years before. But in the

course of these sixtyfour years there happened two events which must have produced a much greater

scarcity of corn than what the course of the seasons would otherwise have occasioned, and which, therefore,

without supposing any further reduction in the value of silver, will much more than account for this very

The first of these events was the civil war, which, by discouraging tillage and interrupting commerce, must

have raised the price of corn much above what the course of the seasons would otherwise have occasioned. It

must have had this effect more or less at all the different markets in the kingdom, but particularly at those in

the neighbourhood of London, which require to be supplied from the greatest distance. In 1648, accordingly,

the price of the best wheat at Windsor market appears, from the same accounts, to have been L4 5s., and in

1649 to have been L4 the quarter of nine bushels. The excess of those two years above L2 10s. (the average

price of the sixteen years preceding 1637) is L3 5s.; which divided among the sixtyfour last years of the last

century will alone very nearly account for that small enhancement of price which seems to have taken place

in them. These, however, though the highest, are by no means the only high prices which seem to have been

The second event was the bounty upon the exportation of corn granted in 1688. The bounty, it has been

thought by many people, by encouraging tillage, may, in a long course of years, have occasioned a greater

abundance, and consequently a greater cheapness of corn in the homemarket than what would otherwise

have taken place there. How far the bounty could produce this effect at any time, I shall examine hereafter; I

shall only observe at present that, between 1688 and 1700, it had not time to produce any such effect. During

this short period its only effect must have been, by encouraging the exportation of the surplus produce of

every year, and thereby hindering the abundance of one year from compensating the scarcity of another, to

raise the price in the homemarket. The scarcity which prevailed in England from 1693 to 1699, both

inclusive, though no doubt principally owing to the badness of the seasons, and, therefore, extending through

a considerable part of Europe, must have been somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, the

There was a third event which occurred in the course of the same period, and which, though it could not

occasion any scarcity of corn, nor, perhaps, any augmentation in the real quantity of silver which was usually

paid for it, must necessarily have occasioned some augmentation in the nominal sum. This event was the

great debasement of the silver coin, by clipping and wearing. This evil had begun in the reign of Charles II

and had gone on continually increasing till 1695; at which time, as we may learn from Mr. Lowndes, the

current silver coin was, at an average, near fiveandtwenty per cent below its standard value. But the

nominal sum which constitutes the market price of every commodity is necessarily regulated, not so much by

the quantity of silver, which, according to the standard, ought to be contained in it, as by that which, it is

found by experience, actually is contained in it. This nominal sum, therefore, is necessarily higher when the

coin is much debased by clipping and wearing than when near to its standard value.

In the course of the present century, the silver coin has not at any time been more below its standard weight

than it is at present. But though very much defaced, its value has been kept up by that of the gold coin for

which it is exchanged. For though before the late recoinage, the gold coin was a good deal defaced too, it was

less so than the silver. In 1695, on the contrary, the value of the silver coin was not kept up by the gold coin;

a guinea then commonly exchanging for thirty shillings of the worn and clipt silver. Before the late recoinage

of the gold, the price of silver bullion was seldom higher than five shillings and sevenpence an ounce, which

is but fivepence above the mint price. But in 1695, the common price of silver bullion was six shillings and

fivepence an ounce, which is fifteenpence above the mint price. Even before the late recoinage of the gold,

therefore, the coin, gold and silver together, when compared with silver bullion, was not supposed to be more

than eight per cent below its standard value. In 1695, on the contrary, it had been supposed to be near

fiveandtwenty per cent below that value. But in the beginning of the present century, that is, immediately

after the great recoinage in King William's time. the greater part of the current silver coin must have been still

nearer to its standard weight than it is at present. In the course of the present century, too, there has been no

great public calamity, such as the civil war, which could either discourage tillage, or interrupt the interior

commerce of the country. And though the bounty, which has taken place through the greater part of this

century, must always raise the price of corn somewhat higher than it otherwise would be in the actual state of

tillage; yet as, in the course of this century, the bounty has had full time to produce all the good effects

commonly imputed to it, to encourage tillage, and thereby to increase the quantity of corn in the home

market, it may, upon the principles of a system which I shall explain and examine hereafter, be supposed to

have done something to lower the price of that commodity the one way, as well as to raise it the other. It is by

many people supposed to have done more. In the sixtyfour first years of the present century accordingly the

average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market appears, by the accounts of

Eton College, to have been L2 os. 6 1/2d., which is about ten shillings and sixpence, or more than

fiveandtwenty per cent, cheaper than it had been during the sixtyfour last years of the last century; and

about 9s. 6d. cheaper than it had been during the sixteen years preceding 1636, when the discovery of the

abundant mines of America may be supposed to have produced its full effect; and about one shilling cheaper

than it had been in the twentysix years preceding 1620, before that discovery can well be supposed to have

produced its full effect. According to this account, the average price of middle wheat, during these sixtyfour

first years of the present century, comes out to have been about thirtytwo shillings the quarter of eight

The value of silver, therefore, seems to have risen somewhat in proportion to that of corn during the course of

the present century, and it had probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the last.

In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market was L1 5s. 2d. the

In 1688, Mr. Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in matters of this kind, estimated the average

price of wheat in years of moderate plenty to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel, or eightandtwenty

shillings the quarter. The grower's price I understand to be the same with what is sometimes called the

contract price, or the price at which a farmer contracts for a certain number of years to deliver a certain

quantity of corn to a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the farmer the expense and trouble of marketing,

the contract price is generally lower than what is supposed to be the average market price. Mr. King had

judged eightandtwenty shillings the quarter to be at that time the ordinary contract price in years of

moderate plenty. Before the scarcity occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad seasons, it was, I

In 1688 was granted the Parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn. The country gentlemen, who

then composed a still greater proportion of the legislature than they do at present, had felt that the money

price of corn was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the high price at which it had

frequently been sold in the times of Charles I and III. It was to take place, therefore, till wheat was so high as

fortyeight shillings the quarter, that is, twenty shillings, or fivesevenths dearer than Mr. King had in that

very year estimated the grower's price to be in times of moderate plenty. If his calculations deserve any part

of the reputation which they have obtained very universally, eightandforty shillings the quarter was a price

which, without some such expedient as the bounty, could not at that time be expected, except in years of

extraordinary scarcity. But the government of King William was not then fully settled. It was in no condition

to refuse anything to the country gentlemen, from whom it was at that very time soliciting the first

The value of silver, therefore, in proportion to that of corn, had probably risen somewhat before the end of

the last century; and it seems to have continued to do so during the course of the greater part of the present;

though the necessary operation of the bounty must have hindered that rise from being so sensible as it

In plentiful years the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary exportation, necessarily raises the price of corn

above what it otherwise would be in those years. To encourage tillage, by keeping up the price of corn even

In years of great scarcity, indeed, the bounty has generally been suspended. It must, however, have had some

effect even upon the prices of many of those years. By the extraordinary exportation which it occasions in

years of plenty, it must frequently hinder the plenty of one year from compensating the scarcity of another.

Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the bounty raises the price of corn above what it

naturally would be in the actual state of tillage. If, during the sixtyfour first years of the present century,

therefore, the average price has been lower than during the sixtyfour last years of the last century, it must, in

the same state of tillage, have been much more so, had it not been for this operation of the bounty.

But without the bounty, it may be said, the state of tillage would not have been the same. What may have

been the effects of this institution upon the agriculture of the country, I shall endeavour to explain hereafter,

when I come to treat particularly of bounties. I shall only observe at present that this rise in the value of

silver, in proportion to that of corn, has not been peculiar to England. It has been observed to have taken

place in France, during the same period, and nearly in the same proportion too, by three very faithful,

diligent, and laborious collectors of the prices of corn, Mr. Dupre de St. Maur, Mr. Messance, and the author

of the Essay on the police of grain. But in France, till 1764, the exportation of grain was by law prohibited;

and it is somewhat difficult to suppose that nearly the same diminution of price which took place in one

country, notwithstanding this prohibition, should in another be owing to the extraordinary encouragement

It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in the average money price of corn as the effect

rather of some gradual rise in the real value of silver in the European market than of any fall in the real

average value of corn. Corn, it has already been observed, is at distant periods of time a more accurate

measure of value than either silver, or perhaps any other commodity. When, after the discovery of the

abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its former money price, this change was

universally ascribed, not to any rise in the real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of silver. If during

the sixtyfour first years of the present century, therefore, the average money price of corn has fallen

somewhat below what it had been during the greater part of the last century, we should in the same manner

impute this change, not to any fall in the real value of corn, but to some rise in the real value of silver in the

The high price of corn during these ten or twelve years past, indeed, has occasioned a suspicion that the real

value of silver still continues to fall in the European market. This high price of corn, however, seems

evidently to have been the effect of the extraordinary unfavourableness of the seasons, and ought therefore to

be regarded, not as a permanent, but as a transitory and occasional event. The seasons for these ten or twelve

years past have been unfavourable through the greater part of Europe; and the disorders of Poland have very

much increased the scarcity in all those countries which, in dear years, used to be supplied from that market.

So long a course of bad seasons, though not a very common event, is by no means a singular one; and

whoever has inquired much into the history of the prices of corn in former times will be at no loss to recollect

several other examples of the same kind. Ten years of extraordinary scarcity, besides, are not more wonderful

than ten years of extraordinary plenty. The low price of corn from 1741 to 1750, both inclusive, may very

well be set in opposition to its high price during these last eight or ten years. From 1741 to 1750, the average

price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market, it appears from the accounts of Eton

College, was only L1 13s. 9 1/2d., which is nearly 6s. 3d. below the average price of the sixtyfour first years

of the present century. The average price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out,

according to this account, to have been, during these ten years, only 51 6s. 8d.

Between 1741 and 1750, however, the bounty must have hindered the price of corn from falling so low in the

home market as it naturally would have done. During these ten years the quantity of all sorts of grain

exported, it appears from the customhouse books, amounted to no less than eight millions twentynine

thousand one hundred and fiftysix quarters one bushel. The bounty paid for this amounted to L1,514,962

17s. 4 1/2d. In 1749 accordingly, Mr. Pelham, at that time Prime Minister, observed to the House of

Commons that for the three years preceding a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for the

exportation of corn. He had good reason to make this observation, and in the following year he might have

had still better. In that single year the bounty paid amounted to no less than L324,176 10s. 6d. It is

unnecessary to observe how much this forced exportation must have raised the price of corn above what it

At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader will find the particular account of those ten

years separated from the rest. He will find there, too, the particular account of the preceding ten years, of

which the average is likewise below, though not so much below, the general average of the sixtyfour first

years of the century. The year 1740, however, was a year of extraordinary scarcity. These twenty years

preceding 1750 may very well be set in opposition to the twenty preceding 1770. As the former were a good

deal below the general average of the century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear years; so

the latter have been a good deal above it, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two cheap ones, of 1759,

for example. If the former have not been as much below the general average as the latter have been above it,

we ought probably to impute it to the bounty. The change has evidently been too sudden to be ascribed to any

change in the value of silver, which is always slow and gradual. The suddenness of the effect can be

accounted for only by a cause which can operate suddenly, the accidental variation of the seasons.

The money price of labour in Great Britain has, indeed, risen during the course of the present century. This,

however, seems to be the effect, not so much of any diminution in the value of silver in the European market,

as of an increase in the demand for labour in Great Britain, arising from the great, and almost universal

prosperity of the country. In France, a country not altogether so prosperous, the money price of labour has,

since the middle of the last century, been observed to sink gradually with the average money price of corn.

Both in the last century and in the present the daywages of common labour are there said to have been pretty

uniformly about the twentieth part of the average price of the septier of wheat, a measure which contains a

little more than four Winchester bushels. In Great Britain the real recompense of labour, it has already been

shown, the real quantities of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which are given to the labourer, has

increased considerably during the course of the present century. The rise in its money price seems to have

been the effect, not of any diminution of the value of silver in the general market of Europe, but of a rise in

the real price of labour in the particular market of Great Britain, owing to the peculiarly happy circumstances

For some time after the first discovery of America, silver would continue to sell at its former, or not much

below its former price. The profits of mining would for some time be very great, and much above their

natural rate. Those who imported that metal into Europe, however, would soon find that the whole annual

importation could not be disposed of at this high price. Silver would gradually exchange for a smaller and a

smaller quantity of goods. Its price would sink gradually lower and lower till it fell to its natural price, or to

what was just sufficient to pay, according to their natural rates, the wages of the labour, the profits of the

stock, and the rent of the land, which must be paid in order to bring it from the mine to the market. In the

greater part of the silver mines of Peru, the tax of the King of Spain, amounting to a tenth of the gross

produce, eats up, it has already been observed, the whole rent of the land. This tax was originally a half; it

soon afterwards fell to a third, then to a fifth, and at last to a tenth, at which rate it still continues. In the

greater part of the silver mines of Peru this, it seems, is all that remains after replacing the stock of the

undertaker of the work, together with its ordinary profits; and it seems to be universally acknowledged that

these profits, which were once very high, are now as low as they can well be, consistently with carrying on

The tax of the King of Spain was reduced to a fifth part of the registered silver in 1504, oneandforty years

before 1545, the date of the discovery of the mines of Potosi. In the course of ninety years, or before 1636,

these mines, the most fertile in all America, had time sufficient to produce their full effect, or to reduce the

value of silver in the European market as low as it could well fall, while it continued to pay this tax to the

King of Spain. Ninety years is time sufficient to reduce any commodity, of which there is no monopoly, to its

natural price, or to the lowest price at which, while it pays a particular tax, it can continue to be sold for any

The price of silver in the European market might perhaps have fallen still lower, and it might have become

necessary either to reduce the tax upon it, not only to one tenth, as in 1736, but to one twentieth, in the same

manner as that upon gold, or to give up working the greater part of the American mines which are now

wrought. The gradual increase of the demand for silver, or the gradual enlargement of the market for the

produce of the silver mines of America, is probably the cause which has prevented this from happening, and

which has not only kept up the value of silver in the European market, but has perhaps even raised it

Since the first discovery of America, the market for the produce of its silver mines has been growing

First, the market of Europe has become gradually more and more extensive. Since the discovery of America,

the greater part of Europe has been much improved. England, Holland, France, and Germany; even Sweden,

Denmark, and Russia, have all advanced considerably both in agriculture and in manufactures. Italy seems

not to have gone backwards. The fall of Italy preceded the conquest of Peru. Since that time it seems rather to

have recovered a little. Spain and Portugal, indeed, are supposed to have gone backwards. Portugal, however,

is but a very small part of Europe, and the declension of Spain is not, perhaps, so great as is commonly

imagined. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain was a very poor country, even in comparison with

France, which has been so much improved since that time. It was the well known remark of the Emperor

Charles V, who had travelled so frequently through both countries, that everything abounded in France, but

that everything was wanting in Spain. The increasing produce of the agriculture and manufactures of Europe

must necessarily have required a gradual increase in the quantity of silver coin to circulate it; and the

increasing number of wealthy individuals must have required the like increase in the quantity of their plate

Secondly, America is itself a new market for the produce of its own silver mines; and as its advances in

agriculture, industry, and population are much more rapid than those of the most thriving countries in Europe,

its demand must increase much more rapidly. The English colonies are altogether a new market, which, partly

for coin and partly for plate, requires a continually augmenting supply of silver through a great continent

where there never was any demand before. The greater part, too, of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies are

altogether new markets. New Granada, the Yucatan, Paraguay, and the Brazils were, before discovered by the

Europeans, inhabited by savage nations who had neither arts nor agriculture. A considerable degree of both

has now been introduced into all of them. Even Mexico and Peru, though they cannot be considered as

altogether new markets, are certainly much more extensive ones than they ever were before. After all the

wonderful tales which have been published concerning the splendid state of those countries in ancient times,

whoever reads, with any degree of sober judgment, the history of their first discovery and conquest, will

evidently discern that, in arts, agriculture, and commerce, their inhabitants were much more ignorant than the

Tartars of the Ukraine are at present. Even the Peruvians, the more civilised nation of the two, though they

made use of gold and silver as ornaments, had no coined money of any kind. Their whole commerce was

carried on by barter, and there was accordingly scarce any division of labour among them. Those who

cultivated the ground were obliged to build their own houses, to make their own household furniture, their

own clothes, shoes, and instruments of agriculture. The few artificers among them are said to have been all

maintained by the sovereign, the nobles, and the priests, and were probably their servants or slaves. All the

ancient arts of Mexico and Peru have never furnished one single manufacture to Europe. The Spanish armies,

though they scarce ever exceeded five hundred men, and frequently did not amount to half that number,

found almost everywhere great difficulty in procuring subsistence. The famines which they are said to have

occasioned almost wherever they went, in countries, too, which at the same time are represented as very

populous and well cultivated, sufficiently demonstrate that the story of this populousness and high cultivation

is in a great measure fabulous. The Spanish colonies are under a government in many respects less favourable

to agriculture, improvement, and population than that of the English colonies. They seem, however, to be

advancing in all these much more rapidly than any country in Europe. In a fertile soil and happy climate, the

great abundance and cheapness of land, a circumstance common to all new colonies, is, it seems, so great an

advantage as to compensate many defects in civil government. Frezier, who visited Peru in 1713, represents

Lima as containing between twentyfive and twentyeight thousand inhabitants. Ulloa, who resided in the

same country between 1740 and 1746, represents it as containing more than fifty thousand. The difference in

their accounts of the populousness of several other principal towns in Chili and Peru is nearly the same; and

as there seems to be no reason to doubt of the good information of either, it marks an increase which is scarce

inferior to that of the English colonies. America, therefore, is a new market for the produce of its own silver

mines, of which the demand must increase much more rapidly than that of the most thriving country in

Thirdly, the East Indies is another market for the produce of the silver mines of America, and a market which,

from the time of the first discovery of those mines, has been continually taking off a greater and a greater

quantity of silver. Since that time, the direct trade between America and the East Indies, which is carried on

by means of the Acapulco ships, has been continually augmenting, and the indirect intercourse by the way of

Europe has been augmenting in a still greater proportion. During the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were

the only European nation who carried on any regular trade to the East Indies. In the last years of that century

the Dutch begun to encroach upon this monopoly, and in a few years expelled them from their principal

settlements in India. During the greater part of the last century those two nations divided the most

considerable part of the East India trade between them; the trade of the Dutch continually augmenting in a

still greater proportion than that of the Portuguese declined. The English and French carried on some trade

with India in the last century, but it has been greatly augmented in the course of the present. The East India

trade of the Swedes and Danes began in the course of the present century. Even the Muscovites now trade

regularly with China by a sort of caravans which go overland through Siberia and Tartary to Pekin. The East

India trade of all these nations, if we except that of the French, which the last war had well nigh annihilated,

had been almost continually augmenting. The increasing consumption of East India goods in Europe is, it

seems, so great as to afford a gradual increase of employment to them all. Tea, for example, was a drug very

little used in Europe before the middle of the last century. At present the value of the tea annually imported

by the English East India Company, for the use of their own countrymen, amounts to more than a million and

a half a year; and even this is not enough; a great deal more being constantly smuggled into the country from

the ports of Holland, from Gottenburgh in Sweden, and from the coast of France too, as long as the French

East India Company was in prosperity. The consumption of the porcelain of China, of the spiceries of the

Moluccas, of the piece goods of Bengal, and of innumerable other articles, has increased very nearly in a like

proportion. The tonnage accordingly of all the European shipping employed in the East India trade, at any

one time during the last century, was not, perhaps, much greater than that of the English East India Company

But in the East Indies, particularly in China and Indostan, the value of the precious metals, when the

Europeans first began to trade to those countries, was much higher than in Europe; and it still continues to be

so. In rice countries, which generally yield two, sometimes three crops in the year, each of them more

plentiful than any common crop of corn, the abundance of food must be much greater than in any corn

country of equal extent. Such countries are accordingly much more populous. In them, too, the rich, having a

greater superabundance of food to dispose of beyond what they themselves can consume, have the means of

purchasing a much greater quantity of the labour of other people. The retinue of a grandee in China or

Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects

in Europe. The same superabundance of food, of which they have the disposal, enables them to give a greater

quantity of it for all those singular and rare productions which nature furnishes but in very small quantities;

such as the precious metals and the precious stones, the great objects of the competition of the rich. Though

the mines, therefore, which supplied the Indian market had been as abundant as those which supplied the

European, such commodities would naturally exchange for a greater quantity of food in India than in Europe.

But the mines which supplied the Indian market with the precious metals seem to have been a good deal less

abundant, and those which supplied it with the precious stones a good deal more so, than the mines which

supplied the European. The precious metals, therefore, would naturally exchange in India for somewhat a

greater quantity of the precious stones, and for a much greater quantity of food than in Europe. The money

price of diamonds, the greatest of all superfluities, would be somewhat lower, and that of food, the first of all

necessaries, a great deal lower in the one country than in the other. But the real price of labour, the real

quantity of the necessaries of life which is given to the labourer, it has already been observed, is lower both in

China and Indostan, the two great markets of India, than it is through the greater part of Europe. The wages of

the labourer will there purchase a smaller quantity of food; and as the money price of food is much lower in

India than in Europe, the money price of labour is there lower upon a double account; upon account both of

the small quantity of food which it will purchase, and of the low price of that food. But in countries of equal

art and industry, the money price of the greater part of manufactures will be in proportion to the money price

of labour; and in manufacturing art and industry, China and Indostan, though inferior, seem not to be much

inferior to any part of Europe. The money price of the greater part of manufactures, therefore, will naturally

be much lower in those great empires than it is anywhere in Europe. Through the greater part of Europe, too,

the expense of landcarriage increases very much both the real and nominal price of most manufactures. It

costs more labour, and therefore more money, to bring first the materials, and afterwards the complete

manufacture to market. In China and Indostan the extent and variety of inland navigation save the greater part

of this labour, and consequently of this money, and thereby reduce still lower both the real and the nominal

price of the greater part of their manufactures. Upon all those accounts the precious metals axe a commodity

which it always has been, and still continues to be, extremely advantageous to carry from Europe to India.

There is scarce any commodity which brings a better price there; or which, in proportion to the quantity of

labour and commodities which it costs in Europe, will purchase or command a greater quantity of labour and

commodities in India. It is more advantageous, too, to carry silver thither than gold; because in China, and the

greater part of the other markets of India, the proportion between fine silver and fine gold is but as ten, or at

most as twelve, to one; whereas in Europe it is as fourteen or fifteen to one. In China, and the greater part of

the other markets of India, ten, or at most twelve, ounces of silver will purchase an ounce of gold; in Europe

it requires from fourteen to fifteen ounces. In the cargoes, therefore, of the greater part of European ships

which sail to India, silver has generally been one of the most valuable articles. It is the most valuable article

in the Acapulco ships which sail to Manilla. The silver of the new continent seems in this manner to be one of

the principal commodities by which the commerce between the two extremities of the old one is carried on,

and it is by means of it, in a great measure, that those distant parts of the world are connected with one

In order to supply so very widely extended a market, the quantity of silver annually brought from the mines

must not only be sufficient to support that continual increase both of coin and of plate which is required in all

thriving countries; but to repair that continual waste and consumption of silver which takes place in all

The continual consumption of the precious metals in coin by wearing, and in plate both by wearing and

cleaning, is very sensible, and in commodities of which the use is so very widely extended, would alone

require a very great annual supply. The consumption of those metals in some particular manufactures, though

it may not perhaps be greater upon the whole than this gradual consumption, is, however, much more

sensible, as it is much more rapid. In the manufactures of Birmingham alone the quantity of gold and silver

annually employed in gilding and plating, and thereby disqualified from ever afterwards appearing in the

shape of those metals, is said to amount to more than fifty thousand pounds sterling. We may from thence

form some notion how great must be the annual consumption in all the different parts of the world either in

manufactures of the same kind with those of Birmingham, or in laces, embroideries, gold and silver stuffs, the

gilding of books, furniture, etc. A considerable quantity, too, must be annually lost in transporting those

metals from one place to another both by sea and by land. In the greater part of the governments of Asia,

besides, the almost universal custom of concealing treasures in the bowels of the earth, of which the

knowledge frequently dies with the person who makes the concealment, must occasion the loss of a still

The quantity of gold and silver imported at both Cadiz and Lisbon (including not only what comes under

According to Mr. Meggens the annual importation of the precious metals into Spain, at an average of six

years, viz., from 1748 to 1753, both inclusive; and into Portugal, at an average of seven years, viz., from 1747

to 1753, both inclusive, amounted in silver to 1,101,107 pounds weight; and in gold to 29,940 pounds weight.

The silver, at sixtytwo shillings the pound Troy, amounts to L3,413,431 10s. sterling. The gold, at

fortyfour guineas and a half the pound Troy, amounts to L2,333,446 14s. sterling. Both together amount to

L5,746,878 4s. sterling. The account of what was imported under register he assures us is exact. He gives us

the detail of the particular places from which the gold and silver were brought, and of the particular quantity

of each metal, which, according to the register, each of them afforded. He makes an allowance, too, for the

quantity of each metal which he supposes may have been smuggled. The great experience of this judicious

According to the eloquent and, sometimes, wellinformed author of the Philosophical and Political History of

the Establishment of the Europeans in the two Indies, the annual importation of registered gold and silver into

Spain, at an average of eleven years, viz., from 1754 to 1764, both inclusive, amounted to 13,984,185 3/4

piastres of ten reals. On account of what may have been smuggled, however, the whole annual importation,

he supposes, may have amounted to seventeen millions of piastres, which, at 4s. 6d. the piastre, is equal to

L3,825,000 sterling. He gives the detail, too, of the particular places from which the gold and silver were

brought, and of the particular quantities of each metal which, according to the register, each of them afforded.

He informs us, too, that if we were to judge of the quantity of gold annually imported from the Brazils into

Lisbon by the amount of the tax paid to the King of Portugal, which it seems is onefifth of the standard

metal, we might value it at eighteen millions of cruzadoes, or fortyfive millions of French livres, equal to

about two millions sterling. On account of what may have been smuggled, however, we may safely, he says,

add to the sum an eighth more, or L250,000 sterling, so that the whole will amount to L2,250,000 sterling.

According to this account, therefore, the whole annual importation of the precious metals into both Spain and

Several other very well authenticated, though manuscript, accounts, I have been assured, agree in making this

whole annual importation amount at an average to about six millions sterling; sometimes a little more,

The annual importation of the precious metals into Cadiz and Lisbon, indeed, is not equal to the whole annual

produce of the mines of America. Some part is sent annually by the Acapulco ships to Manilla; some part is

employed in the contraband trade which the Spanish colonies carry on with those of other European nations;

and some part, no doubt remains in the country. The mines of America, besides, are by no means the only

gold and silver mines in the world. They are, however, by far the most abundant. The produce of all the other

mines which are known is insignificant, it is acknowledged, in comparison with theirs; and the far greater part

of their produce, it is likewise acknowledged, is annually imported into Cadiz and Lisbon. But the

consumption of Birmingham alone, at the rate of fifty thousand pounds a year, is equal to the

hundredandtwentieth part of this annual importation at the rate of six millions a year. The whole annual

consumption of gold and silver, therefore, in all the different countries of the world where those metals are

used, may perhaps be nearly equal to the whole annual produce. The remainder may be no more than

sufficient to supply the increasing demand of all thriving countries. It may even have fallen so far short of

time demand as somewhat to raise the price of those metals in the European market.

The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the market is out of all proportion greater

than that of gold and silver. We do not, however, upon this account, imagine that those coarse metals are

likely to multiply beyond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper and cheaper. Why should we imagine

that the precious metals are likely to do so? The coarse metals, indeed, though harder, are put to much harder

uses, and, as they are of less value, less care is employed in their preservation. The precious metals, however,

are not necessarily immortal any more than they, but are liable, too, to be lost, wasted, and consumed in a

The price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradual variations, varies less from year to year than that of

almost any other part of the rude produce of land; and the price of the precious metals is even less liable to

sudden variations than that of the coarse ones. The durableness of metals is the foundation of this

extraordinary steadiness of price. The corn which was brought to market last year will be all or almost all

consumed long before the end of this year. But some part of the iron which was brought from the mine two or

three hundred years ago may be still in use, and perhaps some part of the gold which was brought from it two

or three thousand years ago. The different masses of corn which in different years must supply the

consumption of the world will always be nearly in proportion to the respective produce of those different

years. But the proportion between the different masses of iron which may be in use in two different years will

be very little affected by any accidental difference in the produce of the iron mines of those two years; and

the proportion between the masses of gold will be still less affected by any such difference in the produce of

the gold mines. Though the produce of the greater part of metallic mines, therefore, varies, perhaps, still more

from year to year than that of the greater part of corn fields, those variations have not the same effect upon

Before the discovery of the mines of America, the value of fine gold to fine silver was regulated in the

different mints of Europe between the proportions of one to ten and one to twelve; that is, an ounce of fine

gold was supposed to be worth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver. About the middle of the last century

it came to be regulated, between the proportions of one to fourteen and one to fifteen; that is, an ounce of fine

gold came to be supposed to be worth between fourteen and fifteen ounces of fine silver. Gold rose in its

nominal value, or in the quantity of silver which was given for it. Both metals sunk in their real value, or in

the quantity of labour which they could purchase; but silver sunk more than gold. Though both the gold and

silver mines of America exceeded in fertility all those which had ever been known before, the fertility of the

silver mines had, it seems, been proportionably still greater than that of the gold ones.

The great quantities of silver carried annually from Europe to India have, in some of the English settlements,

gradually reduced the value of that metal in proportion to gold. In the mint of Calcutta an ounce of fine gold

is supposed to be worth fifteen ounces of fine silver, in the same manner as in Europe. It is in the mint

perhaps rated too high for the value which it bears in the market of Bengal. In China, the proportion of gold

to silver still continues as one to ten, or one to twelve. In Japan it is said to be as one to eight.

The proportion between the quantities of gold and silver annually imported into Europe, according to Mr.

Meggens's account, is as one to twentytwo nearly; that is, for one ounce of gold there are imported a little

more than twentytwo ounces of silver. The great quantity of silver sent annually to the East Indies reduces,

he supposes, the quantities of those metals which remain in Europe to the proportion of one to fourteen or

fifteen, the proportion of their values. The proportion between their values, he seems to think, must

necessarily be the same as that between their quantities, and would therefore be as one to twentytwo, were it

But the ordinary proportion between the respective values of two commodities is not necessarily the same as

that between the quantities of them which are commonly in the market. The price of an ox, reckoned at ten

guineas, is about threescore times the price of a lamb, reckoned at 3s. 6d. It would be absurd, however, to

infer from thence that there are commonly in the market threescore lambs for one ox: and it would be just as

absurd to infer, because an ounce of gold will commonly purchase from fourteen to fifteen ounces of silver,

that there are commonly in the market only fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver for one ounce of gold.

The quantity of silver commonly in the market, it is probable is much greater in proportion to that of gold

than the value of a certain quantity of gold is to that of an equal quantity of silver. The whole quantity of a

cheap commodity brought to market is commonly not only greater, but of greater value, than the whole

quantity of a dear one. The whole quantity of bread annually brought to market is not only greater, but of

greater value than the whole quantity of butcher's meat; the whole quantity of butcher's meat, than the whole

quantity of poultry; and the whole quantity of wild fowl. There are so many more purchasers for the cheap

than for the dear commodity that not only a greater quantity of it, but a greater value, can commonly be

disposed of. The whole quantity, therefore, of the cheap commodity must commonly be greater in proportion

to the whole quantity of the dear one than the value of a certain quantity of the dear one is to the value of an

equal quantity of the cheap one. When we compare the precious metals with one another, silver is a cheap

and gold a dear commodity. We ought naturally to expect, therefore, that there should always be in the

market not only a greater quantity, but a greater value of silver than of gold. Let any man who has a little of

both compare his own silver with his gold plate, and he will probably find that, not only the quantity, but the

value of the former greatly exceeds that of the latter. Many people, besides, have a good deal of silver who

have no gold plate, which, even with those who have it, is generally confined to watchcases, snuffboxes,

and such like trinkets, of which the whole amount is seldom of great value. In the British coin, indeed, the

value of the gold preponderates greatly, but it is not so in that of all countries. In the coin of some countries

the value of the two metals is nearly equal. In the Scotch coin, before the union with England, the gold

preponderated very little, though it did somewhat, as it appears by the accounts of the mint. In the coin of

many countries the silver preponderates. In France, the largest sums are commonly paid in that metal, and it

is there difficult to get more gold than what is necessary to carry about in your pocket. The superior value,

however, of the silver plate above that of the gold, which takes place in all countries, will much more than

compensate the preponderancy of the gold coin above the silver, which takes place only in some countries.

Though, in one sense of the word, silver always has been, and probably always will be, much cheaper than

gold; yet in another sense gold may, perhaps, in the present state of the Spanish market, be said to be

somewhat cheaper than silver. A commodity may be said to be dear or cheap, not only according to the

absolute greatness or smallness of its usual price, but according as that price is more or less above the lowest

for which it is possible to bring it to market for any considerable time together. This lowest price is that

which barely replaces, with a moderate profit, the stock which must be employed in bringing the commodity

thither. It is the price which affords nothing to the landlord, of which rent makes not any component part, but

which resolves itself altogether into wages and profit. But, in the present state of the Spanish market, gold is

certainly somewhat nearer to this lowest price than silver. The tax of the King of Spain upon gold is only

onetwentieth part of the standard metal, or five per cent; whereas his tax upon silver amounts to onetenth

part of it, or to ten per cent. In these taxes too, it has already been observed, consists the whole rent of the

greater part of the gold and silver mines of Spanish America; and that upon gold is still worse paid than that

upon silver. The profits of the undertakers of gold mines too, as they more rarely make a fortune, must, in

general, be still more moderate than those of the undertakers of silver mines. The price of Spanish gold,

therefore, as it affords both less rent and less profit, must, in the Spanish market, be somewhat nearer to the

lowest price for which it is possible to bring it thither than the price of Spanish silver. When all expenses are

computed, the whole quantity of the one metal, it would seem, cannot, in the Spanish market, be disposed of

so advantageously as the whole quantity of the other. The tax, indeed, of the King of Portugal upon the gold

of the Brazils is the same with the ancient tax of the King of Spain upon the silver of Mexico and Peru; or

onefifth part of the standard metal. It may, therefore, be uncertain whether to the general market of Europe

the whole mass of American gold comes at a price nearer to the lowest for which it is possible to bring it

The price of diamonds and other precious stones may, perhaps, be still nearer to the lowest price at which it is

Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax, which is not only imposed upon one of the most proper

subjects of taxation, a mere luxury and superfluity, but which affords so very important a revenue as the tax

upon silver, will ever be given up as long as it is possible to pay it; yet the same impossibility of paying it,

which in 1736 made it necessary to reduce it from onefifth to onetenth, may in time make it necessary to

reduce it still further; in the same manner as it made it necessary to reduce the tax upon gold to

onetwentieth. That the silver mines of Spanish America, like all other mines, become gradually more

expensive in the working, on account of the greater depths at which it is necessary to carry on the works, and

of the greater expense of drawing out the water and of supplying them with fresh air at those depths, is

These causes, which are equivalent to a growing scarcity of silver (for a commodity may be said to grow

scarcer when it becomes more difficult and expensive to collect a certain quantity of it) must, in time,

produce one or other of the three following events. The increase of the expense must either, first, be

compensated altogether by a proportionable increase in the price of the metal; or, secondly, it must be

compensated altogether by a proportionable diminution of the tax upon silver; or, thirdly, it must be

compensated partly by the one, and partly by the other of those two expedients. This third event is very

possible. As gold rose in its price in proportion to silver, notwithstanding a great diminution of the tax upon

gold, so silver might rise in its price in proportion to labour and commodities, notwithstanding an equal

Such successive reductions of the tax, however, though they may not prevent altogether, must certainly

retard, more or less, the rise of the value of silver in the European market. In consequence of such reductions

many mines may be wrought which could not be wrought before, because they could not afford to pay the old

tax; and the quantity of silver annually brought to market must always be somewhat greater, and, therefore,

the value of any given quantity somewhat less, than it otherwise would have been. In consequence of the

reduction in 1736, the value of silver in the European market, though it may not at this day be lower than

before that reduction, is, probably, at least ten per cent lower than it would have been had the Court of Spain

That, notwithstanding this reduction, the value of silver has, during the course of the present century, begun

to rise somewhat in the European market, the facts and arguments which have been alleged above dispose me

to believe, or more properly to suspect and conjecture; for the best opinion which I can form upon this subject

scarce, perhaps, deserves the name of belief. The rise, indeed, supposing there has been any, has hitherto been

so very small that after all that has been said it may, perhaps, appear to many people uncertain, not only

whether this event has actually taken place; but whether the contrary may not have taken place, or whether

It must be observed, however, that whatever may be the supposed annual importation of gold and silver, there

must be a certain period at which the annual consumption of those metals will be equal to that annual

importation. Their consumption must increase as their mass increases, or rather in a much greater proportion.

As their mass increases, their value diminishes. They are more used and less cared for, and their consumption

consequently increases in a greater proportion than their mass. After a certain period, therefore, the annual

consumption of those metals must, in this manner, become equal to their annual importation, provided that

importation is not continually increasing; which, in the present times, is not supposed to be the case.

If, when the annual consumption has become equal to the annual importation, the annual importation should

gradually diminish, the annual consumption may, for some time, exceed the annual importation. The mass of

those metals may gradually and insensibly diminish, and their value gradually and insensibly rise, till the

annual importation become again stationary, the annual consumption will gradually and insensibly

The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion that, as the quantity of the precious metals

naturally increases with the increase of wealth so their value diminishes as their quantity increases, may,

perhaps, dispose many people to believe that their value still continues to fall in the European market; and the

still gradually increasing price of many parts of the rude produce of land may confirm them still further in

That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which arises in any country from the increase of

wealth, has no tendency to diminish their value, I have endeavoured to show already. Gold and silver

naturally resort to a rich country, for the same reason that all sorts of luxuries and curiosities resort to it; not

because they are cheaper there than in poorer countries, but because they are dearer, or because a better price

is given for them. It is the superiority of price which attracts them, and as soon as that superiority ceases, they

If you except corn and such other vegetables as are raised altogether by human industry, that all other sorts of

rude produce, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, the useful fossils and minerals of the earth, etc., naturally

grow dearer as the society advances in wealth and improvement, I have endeavoured to show already.

Though such commodities, therefore, come to exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it will not

from thence follow that silver has become really cheaper, or will purchase less labour than before, but that

such commodities have become really dearer, or will purchase more labour than before. It is not their nominal

price only, but their real price which rises in the progress of improvement. The rise of their nominal price is

the effect, not of any degradation of the value of silver, but of the rise in their real price.

These different sorts of rude produce may be divided into three classes. The first comprehends those which it

is scarce in the power of human industry to multiply at all. The second, those which it can multiply in

proportion to the demand. The third, those in which the efficacy of industry is either limited or uncertain. In

the progress of wealth and improvement, the real price of the first may rise to any degree of extravagance,

and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. That of the second, though it may rise greatly, has,

however, a certain boundary beyond which it cannot well pass for any considerable time together. That of the

third, though its natural tendency is to rise in the progress of improvement, yet in the same degree of

improvement it may sometimes happen even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, and sometimes to rise

more or less, according as different accidents render the efforts of human industry, in multiplying this sort of

The first sort of rude produce of which the price rises in the progress of improvement is that which it is scarce

in the power of human industry to multiply at all. It consists in those things which nature produces only in

certain quantities, and which, being of a very perishable nature, it is impossible to accumulate together the

produce of many different seasons. Such are the greater part of rare and singular birds and fishes, many

different sorts of game, almost all wildfowl, all birds of passage in particular, as well as many other things.

When wealth and the luxury which accompanies it increase, the demand for these is likely to increase with

them, and no effort of human industry may be able to increase the supply much beyond what it was before

this increase of the demand. The quantity of such commodities, therefore, remaining the same, or nearly the

same, while the competition to purchase them is continually increasing, their price may rise to any degree of

extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. If W.s should become so

fashionable as to sell for twenty guineas apiece, no effort of human industry could increase the number of

those brought to market much beyond what it is at present. The high price paid by the Romans, in the time of

their greatest grandeur, for rare birds and fishes, may in this manner easily be accounted for. These prices

were not the effects of the low value of silver in those times, but of the high value of such rarities and

curiosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure. The real value of silver was higher at Rome, for

some time before and after the fall of the republic, than it is through the greater part of Europe at present.

Three sestertii, equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price which the republic paid for the modius or peck

of the tithe wheat of Sicily. This price, however, was probably below the average market price, the obligation

to deliver their wheat at this rate being considered as a tax upon the Sicilian farmers. When the Romans,

therefore, had occasion to order more corn than the tithe of wheat amounted to, they were bound by

capitulation to pay for the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or eightpence sterling, the peck; and this had

probably been reckoned the moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average contract price of those

times; it is equal to about oneandtwenty shillings the quarter. Eightandtwenty shillings the quarter was,

before the late years of scarcity, the ordinary contract price of English wheat, which in quality is inferior to

the Sicilian, and generally sells for a lower price in the European market. The value of silver, therefore, in

those ancient times, must have been to its value in the present as three to four inversely; that is, three ounces

of silver would then have purchased the same quantity of labour and commodities which four ounces will do

at present. When we read in Pliny, therefore, that Seius bought a white nightingale, as a present for the

Empress Agrippina, at a price of six thousand sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our present money; and

that Asinius Celer purchased a surmullet at the price of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixtysix

pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence of our present money, the extravagance of those prices, how much

soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding, to appear to us about onethird less than it really was.

Their real price, the quantity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them, was about onethird

more than their nominal price is apt to express to us in the present times. Seius gave for the nightingale the

command of a quantity of labour and subsistence equal to what L66 13s. 4d. would purchase in the present

times; and Asinius Celer gave for the surmullet the command of a quantity equal to what L88 9 1/2d. would

purchase. What occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much the abundance of silver as

the abundance of labour and subsistence of which those Romans had the disposal beyond what was necessary

for their own use. The quantity of silver of which they had the disposal was a good deal less than what the

command of the same quantity of labour and subsistence would have procured to them in the present times.

The second sort of rude procedure of which the price rises in the progress of improvement is that which

human industry can multiply in proportion to the demand. It consists in those useful plants and animals

which, in uncultivated countries, nature produces with such profuse abundance that they are of little or no

value, and which, as cultivation advances are therefore forced to give place to some more profitable produce.

During a long period in the progress of improvement, the quantity of these is continually diminishing, while

at the same time the demand for them is continually increasing. Their real value, therefore, the real quantity

of labour which they will purchase or command, gradually rises, till at last it gets so high as to render them as

profitable a produce as anything else which human industry can raise upon the most fertile and best cultivated

land. When it has got so high it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land and more industry would soon be

When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high that it is as profitable to cultivate land in order to raise

food for them as in order to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn land would soon

be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the

quantity of butcher's meat which the country naturally produces without labour or cultivation, and by

increasing the number of those who have either corn, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to

give in exchange for it, increases the demand. The price of butcher's meat, therefore, and consequently of

cattle, must gradually rise till it gets so high that it becomes as profitable to employ the most fertile and best

cultivated lands in raising food for them as in raising corn. But it must always be late in the progress of

improvement before tillage can be so far extended as to raise the price of cattle to this height; and till it has

got to this height, if the country is advancing at all, their price must be continually rising. There are, perhaps,

some parts of Europe in which the price of cattle has not yet got to this height. It had not got to this height in

any part of Scotland before the union. Had the Scotch cattle been always confined to the market of Scotland,

in a country in which the quantity of land which can be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle is

so great in proportion to what can be applied to other purposes, it is scarce possible, perhaps, that their price

could ever have risen so high as to render it profitable to cultivate land for the sake of feeding them. In

England, the price of cattle, it has already been observed, seems, in the neighbourhood of London, to have got

to this height about the beginning of the last century; but it was much later probably before it got to it through

the greater part of the remoter counties; in some of which, perhaps, it may scarce yet have got to it. Of all the

different substances, however, which compose this second sort of rude produce, cattle is, perhaps, that of

Till the price of cattle, indeed, has got to this height, it seems scarce possible that the greater part, even of

those lands which are capable of the highest cultivation, can be completely cultivated. In all farms too distant

from any town to carry manure from it, that is, in the far greater part of those of every extensive country, the

quantity of wellcultivated land must be in proportion to the quantity of manure which the farm itself

produces; and this again must be in proportion to the stock of cattle which are maintained upon it. The land is

manured either by pasturing the cattle upon it, or by feeding them in the stable, and from thence carrying out

their dung to it. But unless the price of the cattle be sufficient to pay both the rent and profit of cultivated

land, the farmer cannot afford to pasture them upon it; and he can still less afford to feed them in the stable. It

is with the produce of improved and cultivated land only that cattle can be fed in the stable; because to collect

the scanty and scattered produce of waste and unimproved lands would require too much labour and be too

expensive. If the price of cattle, therefore, is not sufficient to pay for the produce of improved and cultivated

land, when they are allowed to pasture it, that price will be still less sufficient to pay for that produce when it

must be collected with a good deal of additional labour, and brought into the stable to them. In these

circumstances, therefore, no more cattle can, with profit, be fed in the stable than what are necessary for

tillage. But these can never afford manure enough for keeping constantly in good condition all the lands

which they are capable of cultivating. What they afford being insufficient for the whole farm will naturally be

reserved for the lands to which it can be most advantageously or conveniently applied; the most fertile, or

those, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of the farmyard. These, therefore, will be kept constantly in good

condition and fit for tillage. The rest will, the greater part of them, be allowed to lie waste, producing scarce

anything but some miserable pasture, just sufficient to keep alive a few straggling, halfstarved cattle; the

farm, though much understocked in proportion to what would be necessary for its complete cultivation, being

very frequently overstocked in proportion to its actual produce. A portion of this waste land, however, after

having been pastured in this wretched manner for six or seven years together, may be ploughed up, when it

will yield, perhaps, a poor crop or two of bad oats, or of some other coarse grain, and then, being entirely

exhausted, it must be rested and pastured again as before and another portion ploughed up to be in the same

manner exhausted and rested again in its turn. Such accordingly was the general system of management all

over the low country of Scotland before the union. The lands which were kept constantly well manured and in

good condition seldom exceeded a third or a fourth part of the whole farm, and sometimes did not amount to

a fifth or a sixth part of it. The rest were never manured, but a certain portion of them was in its turn,

notwithstanding, regularly cultivated and exhausted. Under this system of management, it is evident, even

that part of the land of Scotland which is capable of good cultivation could produce but little in comparison

of what it may be capable of producing. But how disadvantageous soever this system may appear, yet before

the union the low price of cattle seems to have rendered it almost unavoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise

in their price, it still continues to prevail through a considerable part of the country, it is owing, in many

places, no doubt, to ignorance and attachment to old customs, but in most places to the unavoidable

obstructions which the natural course of things opposes to the immediate or speedy establishment of a better

system: first, to the poverty of the tenants, to their not having yet had time to acquire a stock of cattle

sufficient to cultivate their lands more completely, the same rise of price which would render it advantageous

for them to maintain a greater stock rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it; and, secondly, to their

not having yet had time to put their lands in condition to maintain this greater stock properly, supposing they

were capable of acquiring it. The increase of stock and the improvement of land are two events which must

go hand in hand, and of which the one can nowhere much outrun the other. Without some increase of stock

there can be scarce any improvement of land, but there can be no considerable increase of stock but in

consequence of a considerable improvement of land; because otherwise the land could not maintain it. These

natural obstructions to the establishment of a better system cannot be removed but by a long course of

frugality and industry; and half a century or a century more, perhaps, must pass away before the old system,

which is wearing out gradually, can be completely abolished through all the different parts of the country. Of

all the commercial advantages, however, which Scotland has derived from the union with England, this rise

in the price of cattle is, perhaps, the greatest. It has not only raised the value of all highland estates, but it has,

In all new colonies the great quantity of waste land, which can for many years be applied to no other purpose

but the feeding of cattle, soon renders them extremely abundant, and in everything great cheapness is the

necessary consequence of great abundance. Though all the cattle of the European colonies in America were

originally carried from Europe, they soon multiplied so much there, and became of so little value that even

horses were allowed to run wild in the woods without any owner thinking it worth while to claim them. It

must be a long time, after the first establishment of such colonies, before it can become profitable to feed

cattle upon the produce of cultivated land. The same causes, therefore, the want of manure, and the

disproportion between the stock employed in cultivation, and the land which it is destined to cultivate, are

likely to introduce there a system of husbandry not unlike that which still continues to take place in so many

parts of Scotland. Mr. Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when he gives an account of the husbandry of some of the

English colonies in North America, as he found it in 1749, observes, accordingly, that he can with difficulty

discover there the character of the English nation, so well skilled in all the different branches of agriculture.

They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says; but when one piece of ground has been exhausted

by continual cropping, they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is exhausted,

proceed to the third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through the woods and other uncultivated grounds,

where they are halfstarved; having long ago extirpated almost all the annual grasses by cropping them too

early in the spring, before they had time to form their flowers, or to shed their seeds. The annual grasses

were, it seems, the best natural grasses in that part of North America; and when the Europeans first settled

there, they used to grow very thick, and to rise three or four feet high. A piece of ground which, when he

wrote, could not maintain one cow, would in former times, he was assured, have maintained four, each of

which would have given four times the quantity of milk which that one was capable of giving. The poorness

of the pasture had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their cattle, which degenerated sensibly from

one generation to another. They were probably not unlike that stunted breed which was common all over

Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and which is now so much mended through the greater part of the low

country, not so much by a change of the breed, though that expedient has been employed in some places, as

Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement before cattle can bring such a price as to render it

profitable to cultivate land for the sake of feeding them; yet of all the different parts which compose this

second sort of rude produce, they are perhaps the first which bring this price; because till they bring it, it

seems impossible that improvement can be brought near even to that degree of perfection to which it has

As cattle are among the first, so perhaps venison is among the last parts of this sort of rude produce which

bring this price. The price of venison in Great Britain, how extravagant soever it may appear, is not near

sufficient to compensate the expense of a deer park, as is well known to all those who have had any

experience in the feeding of deer. If it was otherwise, the feeding of deer would soon become an article of

common farming, in the same manner as the feeding of those small birds called Turdi was among the ancient

Romans. Varro and Columella assure us that it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans, birds

of passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in some parts of France. If venison continues in

fashion, and the wealth and luxury of Great Britain increase as they have done for some time past, its price

Between that period in the progress of improvement which brings to its height the price of so necessary an

article as cattle, and that which brings to it the price of such a superfluity as venison, there is a very long

interval, in the course of which many other sorts of rude produce gradually arrive at their highest price, some

Thus in every farm the offals of the barn and stables will maintain a certain number of poultry. These, as they

are fed with what would otherwise be lost, are a mere saveall; and as they cost the farmer scarce anything,

so he can afford to sell them for very little. Almost all that he gets is pure gain, and their price can scarce be

so low as to discourage him from feeding this number. But in countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly

inhabited, the poultry, which are thus raised without expense, are often fully sufficient to supply the whole

demand. In this state of things, therefore, they are often as cheap as butcher's meat, or any other sort of

animal food. But the whole quantity of poultry, which the farm in this manner produces without expense,

must always be much smaller than the whole quantity of butcher's meat which is reared upon it; and in times

of wealth and luxury what is rare, with only nearly equal merit, is always preferred to what is common. As

wealth and luxury increase, therefore, in consequence of improvement and cultivation, the price of poultry

gradually rises above that of butcher's meat, till at last it gets so high that it becomes profitable to cultivate

land for the sake of feeding them. When it has got to this height it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land

would soon be turned to this purpose. In several provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered as a

very important article in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable to encourage the farmer to raise a

considerable quantity of Indian corn and buckwheat for this purpose. A middling farmer will there

sometimes have four hundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet to be generally

considered as a matter of so much importance in England. They are certainly, however, dearer in England

than in France, as England receives considerable supplies from France. In the progress of improvement, the

period at which every particular sort of animal food is dearest must naturally be that which immediately

precedes the general practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it. For some time before this practice

becomes general, the scarcity must necessarily raise the price. After it has become general, new methods of

feeding are commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer to raise upon the same quantity of ground a much

greater quantity of that particular sort of animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sell cheaper, but in

consequence of these improvements he can afford to sell cheaper; for if he could not afford it, the plenty

would not be of long continuance. It has been probably in this manner that the introduction of clover, turnips,

carrots, cabbage, etc., has contributed to sink the common price of butcher's meat in the London market

The hog, that finds his food among ordure and greedily devours many things rejected by every other useful

animal, is, like poultry, originally kept as a saveall. As long as the number of such animals, which can thus

be reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient to supply the demand, this sort of butcher's meat comes to

market at a much lower price than any other. But when the demand rises beyond what this quantity can

supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose for feeding and fattening hogs, in the same

manner as for feeding and fattening other cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes proportionably

higher or lower than that of other butcher's meat, according as the nature of the country, and the state of its

agriculture, happen to render the feeding of hogs more or less expensive than that of other cattle. In France,

according to Mr. Buffon, the price of pork is nearly equal to that of beef. In most parts of Great Britain it is at

The great rise in the price of both hogs and poultry has in Great Britain been frequently imputed to the

diminution of the number of cottagers and other small occupiers of land; an event which has in every part of

Europe been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better cultivation, but which at the same time

may have contributed to raise the price of those articles both somewhat sooner and somewhat faster than it

would otherwise have risen. As the poorest family can often maintain a cat or a dog without any expense, so

the poorest occupiers of land can commonly maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few pigs, at very little.

The little offals of their own table, their whey, skimmed milk, and buttermilk, supply those animals with a

part of their food, and they find the rest in the neighbouring fields without doing any sensible damage to

anybody. By diminishing the number of those small occupiers, therefore, the quantity of this sort of

provisions, which is thus produced at little or no expense, must certainly have been a good deal diminished,

and their price must consequently have been raised both sooner and faster than it would otherwise have risen.

Sooner or later, however, in the progress of improvement, it must at any rate have risen to the utmost height

to which it is capable of rising; or to the price which pays the labour and expense of cultivating the land

which furnishes them with food as well as these are paid upon the greater part of other cultivated land.

The business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs and poultry, is originally carried on as a saveall. The

cattle necessarily kept upon the farm produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young or the

consumption of the farmer's family requires; and they produce most at one particular season. But of all the

productions of land, milk is perhaps the most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most abundant, it

will scarce keep fourandtwenty hours. The farmer, by making it into fresh butter, stores a small part of it

for a week: by making it into salt butter, for a year: and by making it into cheese, he stores a much greater

part of it for several years. Part of all these is reserved for the use of his own family. The rest goes to market,

in order to find the best price which is to be had, and which can scarce be so low as to discourage him from

sending thither whatever is over and above the use of his own family. If it is very low, indeed, he will be

likely to manage his dairy in a very slovenly and dirty manner, and will scarce perhaps think it worth while to

have a particular room or building on purpose for it, but will suffer the business to be carried on amidst the

smoke, filth, and nastiness of his own kitchen; as was the case of almost all the farmers' dairies in Scotland

thirty or forty years ago, and as is the case of many of them still. The same causes which gradually raise the

price of butcher's meat, the increase of the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the country,

the diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no expense, raise, in the same manner, that of the

produce of the dairy, of which the price naturally connects with that of butcher's meat, or with the expense of

feeding cattle. The increase of price pays for more labour, care, and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more

worthy of the farmer's attention, and the quality of its produce gradually improves. The price at last gets so

high that it becomes worth while to employ some of the most fertile and best cultivated lands in feeding cattle

merely for the purpose of the dairy; and when it has got to this height, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more

land would soon be turned to this purpose. It seems to have got to this height through the greater part of

England, where much good land is commonly employed in this manner. If you except the neighbourhood of a

few considerable towns, it seems not yet to have got to this height anywhere in Scotland, where common

farmers seldom employ much good land in raising food for cattle merely for the purpose of the dairy. The

price of the produce, though it has risen very considerably within these few years, is probably still too low to

admit of it. The inferiority of the quality, indeed, compared with that of the produce of English dairies, is

fully equal to that of the price. But this inferiority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this lowness of

price than the cause of it. Though the quality was much better, the greater part of what is brought to market

could not, I apprehend, in the present circumstances of the country, be disposed of at a much better price; and

the present price, it is probable would not pay the expense of the land and labour necessary for producing a

much better quality. Though the greater part of England, notwithstanding the superiority of price, the dairy is

not reckoned a more profitable employment of land than the raising of corn, or the fattening of cattle, the two

great objects of agriculture. Through the greater part of Scotland, therefore, it cannot yet be even so

The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be completely cultivated and improved till once the price of

every produce, which human industry is obliged to raise upon them, has got so high as to pay for the expense

of complete improvement and cultivation. In order to do this, the price of each particular produce must be

sufficient, first, to pay the rent of good corn land, as it is that which regulates the rent of the greater part of

other cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the labour and expense of the farmer as well as they are

commonly paid upon good corn land; or, in other words, to replace with the ordinary profits the stock which

he employs about it. This rise in the price of each particular produce must evidently be previous to the

improvement and cultivation of the land which is destined for raising it. Gain is the end of all improvement,

and nothing could deserve that name of which loss was to be the necessary consequence. But loss must be the

necessary consequence of improving land for the sake of a produce of which the price could never bring back

the expense. If the complete improvement and cultivation of the country be, as it most certainly is, the

greatest of all public advantages, this rise in the price of all those different sorts of rude produce, instead of

being considered as a public calamity, ought to be regarded as the necessary forerunner and attendant of the

This rise, too, in the nominal or moneyprice of all those different sorts of rude produce has been the effect,

not of any degradation in the value of silver, but of a rise in their real price. They have become worth, not

only a greater quantity of silver, but a greater quantity of labour and subsistence than before. As it costs a

greater quantity of labour and subsistence to bring them to market, so when they are brought thither, they

The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the price naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is

that in which the efficacy of human industry, in augmenting the quantity, is either limited or uncertain.

Though the real price of this sort of rude produce, therefore, naturally tends to rise in the progress of

improvement, yet, according as different accidents happen to render the efforts of human industry more or

less successful in augmenting the quantity, it may happen sometimes even to fall, sometimes to continue the

same in very different periods of improvement, and sometimes to rise more or less in the same period.

There are some sorts of rude produce which nature has rendered a kind of appendages to other sorts; so that

the quantity of the one which any country can afford, is necessarily limited by that of the other. The quantity

of wool or of raw hides, for example, which any country can afford is necessarily limited by the number of

great and small cattle that are kept in it. The state of its improvement, and the nature of its agriculture, again

The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise the price of butcher's meat, should

have the same effect, it may be thought, upon the prices of wool and raw hides, and raise them, too, nearly in

the same proportion. It probably would be so if, in the rude beginnings of improvement, the market for the

latter commodities was confined within as narrow bounds as that for the former. But the extent of their

The market for butcher's meat is almost everywhere confined to the country which produces it. Ireland, and

some part of British America indeed, carry on a considerable trade in salt provisions; but they are, I believe,

the only countries in the commercial world which do so, or which export to other countries any considerable

The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is in the rude beginnings of improvement very seldom

confined to the country which produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries, wool

without any preparation, and raw hides with very little: and as they are the materials of many manufactures,

the industry of other countries may occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces

In countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the price of the wool and the hide bears always a

much greater proportion to that of the whole beast than in countries where, improvement and population

being further advanced, there is more demand for butcher's meat. Mr. Hume observes that in the Saxon times

the fleece was estimated at twofifths of the value of the whole sheep, and that this was much above the

proportion of its present estimation. In some provinces of Spain, I have been assured, the sheep is frequently

killed merely for the sake of the fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often left to rot upon the ground, or to

be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. If this sometimes happens even in Spain, it happens almost

constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres, and in many other parts of Spanish America, where the horned cattle are

almost constantly killed merely for the sake of the hide and the tallow. This, too, used to happen almost

constantly in Hispaniola, while it was infested by the Buccaneers, and before the settlement, improvement,

and populousness of the French plantations (which now extend round the coast of almost the whole western

half of the island) had given some value to the cattle of the Spaniards, who still continue to possess, not only

the eastern part of the coast, but the whole inland and mountainous part of the country.

Though in the progress of improvement and population the price of the whole beast necessarily rises, yet the

price of the carcase is likely to be much more affected by this rise than that of the wool and the hide. The

market for the carcase, being in the rude state of society confined always to the country which produces it,

must necessarily be extended in proportion to the improvement and population of that country. But the

market for the wool and the hides even of a barbarous country often extending to the whole commercial

world, it can very seldom be enlarged in the same proportion. The state of the whole commercial world can

seldom be much affected by the improvement of any particular country; and the market for such commodities

may remain the same or very nearly the same after such improvements as before. It should, however, in the

natural course of things rather upon the whole be somewhat extended in consequence of them. If the

manufactures, especially, of which those commodities are the materials should ever come to flourish in the

country, the market, though it might not be much enlarged, would at least be brought much nearer to the

place of growth than before; and the price of those materials might at least be increased by what had usually

been the expense of transporting them to distant countries. Though it might not rise therefore in the same

proportion as that of butcher's meat, it ought naturally to rise somewhat, and it ought certainly not to fall.

In England, however, notwithstanding the flourishing state of its woollen manufacture, the price of English

wool has fallen very considerably since the time of Edward III. There are many authentic records which

demonstrate that during the reign of that prince (towards the middle of the fourteenth century, or about 1339)

what was reckoned the moderate and reasonable price of the tod, or twentyeight pounds of English wool,

was not less than ten shillings of the money of those times, containing at the rate of twentypence the ounce,

six ounces of silver Tower weight, equal to about thirty shillings of our present money. In the present times,

oneandtwenty shillings the tod may be reckoned a good price for very good English wool. The

moneyprice of wool, therefore, in the time of Edward III, was to its moneyprice in the present times as ten

to seven. The superiority of its real price was still greater. At the rate of six shillings and eightpence the

quarter, ten shillings was in those ancient times the price of twelve bushels of wheat. At the rate of

twentyeight shillings the quarter, oneandtwenty shillings is in the present times the price of six bushels

only. The proportion between the real prices of ancient and modern times, therefore, is as twelve to six, or as

two to one. In those ancient times a tod of wool would have purchased twice the quantity of subsistence

which it will purchase at present; and consequently twice the quantity of labour, if the real recompense of

This degradation both in the real and nominal value of wool could never have happened in consequence of

the natural course of things. It has accordingly been the effect of violence and artifice: first, of the absolute

prohibition of exporting wool from England; secondly, of the permission of importing it from Spain duty

free; thirdly, of the prohibition of exporting it from Ireland to any other country but England. In consequence

of these regulations the market for English wool, instead of being somewhat extended in consequence of the

improvement of England, has been confined to the home market, where the wool of several other countries is

allowed to come into competition with it, and where that of Ireland is forced into competition with it. As the

woollen manufactures, too, of Ireland are fully as much discouraged as is consistent with justice and fair

dealing, the Irish can work up but a small part of their own wool at home, and are, therefore, obliged to send

I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the price of raw hides in ancient times.

Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in

some degree, what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to have been the case with raw hides.

Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425, between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons,

gives us their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion, viz., five ox hides at twelve

shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old at nine

shillings; sixteen calves skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelve shillings contained about the same quantity of

silver as fourandtwenty shillings of our present money. An ox hide, therefore, was in this account valued at

the same quantity of silver as 4s. fourfifths of our present money. Its nominal price was a good deal lower

than at present. But at the rate of six shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve shillings would in those

times have purchased fourteen bushels and fourfifths of a bushel of wheat, which, at three and sixpence the

bushel, would in the present times cost 51s. 4d. An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchased

as much corn as ten shillings and threepence would purchase at present. Its real value was equal to ten

shillings and threepence of our present money. In those ancient times, when the cattle were half starved

during the greater part of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of a very large size. An ox hide which

weighs four stone of sixteen pounds avoirdupois is not in the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those

ancient times would probably have been reckoned a very good one. But at halfacrown the stone, which at

this moment (February 1773) I understand to be the common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten

shillings. Though its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present than it was in those ancient times, its

real price, the real quantity of subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower. The

price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in the common proportion to that of ox hides.

That of sheep skins is a good deal above it. They had probably been sold with the wool. That of calves skins,

on the contrary, is greatly below it. In countries where the price of cattle is very low, the calves, which are not

intended to be reared in order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young; as was the case in

Scotland twenty or thirty years ago. It saves the milk, which their price would not pay for. Their skins,

The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few years ago, owing probably to the

taking off the duty upon sealskins, and to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides from

Ireland and from the plantations duty free, which was done in 1769. Take the whole of the present century at

an average, their real price has probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient times. The nature

of the commodity renders it not quite so proper for being transported to distant markets as wool. It suffers

more by keeping. A salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells for a lower price. This

circumstance must necessarily have some tendency to sink the price of raw hides produced in a country

which does not manufacture them, but is obliged to export them; and comparatively to raise that of those

produced in a country which does manufacture them. It must have some tendency to sink their price in a

barbarous, and to raise it in an improved and manufacturing country. It must have had some tendency,

therefore, to sink it in ancient and to raise it in modern times. Our tanners, besides, have not been quite so

successful as our clothiers in convincing the wisdom of the nation that the safety of the commonwealth

depends upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture. They have accordingly been much less favoured.

The exportation of raw hides has, indeed, been prohibited, and declared a nuisance; but their importation

from foreign countries has been subjected to a duty; and though this duty has been taken off from those of

Ireland and the plantations (for the limited time of five years only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the

market of Great Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those which are not manufactured at home. The

hides of common cattle have but within these few years been put among the enumerated commodities which

the plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country; neither has the commerce of Ireland been in this

Whatever regulations tend to sink the price either of wool or of raw hides below what it naturally would be

must, in an improved and cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher's meat. The

price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to

pay the rent which the landlord and the profit which the farmer has reason to expect from improved and

cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed them. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not

paid by the wool and the hide must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one, the more must

be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be divided upon the different parts of the beast is

indifferent to the landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and cultivated country,

therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their

interest as consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It would be quite otherwise, however, in an

unimproved and uncultivated country, where the greater part of the lands could be applied to no other

purpose but the feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the hide made the principal part of the value of

those cattle. Their interest as landlords and farmers would in this case be very deeply affected by such

regulations, and their interest as consumers very little. The fall in the price of wool and the hide would not in

this case raise the price of the carcase, because the greater part of the lands of the country being applicable to

no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, the same number would still continue to be fed. The same quantity

of butcher's meat would still come to market. The demand for it would be no greater than before. Its price,

therefore, would be the same as before. The whole price of cattle would fall, and along with it both the rent

and the profit of all those lands of which cattle was the principal produce, that is, of the greater part of the

lands of the country. The perpetual prohibition of the exportation of wool, which is commonly, but very

falsely, ascribed to Edward III, would, in the then circumstances of the country, have been the most

destructive regulation which could well have been thought of. It would not only have reduced the actual value

of the greater part of the lands of the kingdom, but by reducing the price of the most important species of

The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence of the union with England, by which

it was excluded from the great market of Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain. The value

of the greater part of the lands in the southern counties of Scotland, which are chiefly a sheep country, would

have been very deeply affected by this event, had not the rise in the price of butcher's meat fully compensated

As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing the quantity either of wool or of raw hides, is limited, so far

as it depends upon the produce of the country where it is exerted; so it is uncertain so far as it depends upon

the produce of other countries. It so far depends, not so much upon the quantity which they produce, as upon

that which they do not manufacture; and upon the restraints which they may or may not think proper to

impose upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce. These circumstances, as they are altogether

independent of domestic industry, so they necessarily render the efficacy of its efforts more or less uncertain.

In multiplying this sort of rude produce, therefore, the efficacy of human industry is not only limited, but

In multiplying another very important sort of rude produce, the quantity of fish that is brought to market, it is

likewise both limited and uncertain. It is limited by the local situation of the country, by the proximity or

distance of its different provinces from the sea, by the number of its lakes and rivers, and by what may be

called the fertility or barrenness of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this sort of rude produce. As population

increases, as the annual produce of the land and labour of the country grows greater and greater, there come

to be more buyers of fish, and those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and variety of other goods, or, what

is the same thing, the price of a greater quantity and variety of other goods to buy with. But it will generally

be impossible to supply the great and extended market without employing a quantity of labour greater than in

proportion to what had been requisite for supplying the narrow and confined one. A market which, from

requiring only one thousand, comes to require annually ten thousand tons of fish, can seldom be supplied

without employing more than ten times the quantity of labour which had before been sufficient to supply it.

The fish must generally be fought for at a greater distance, larger vessels must be employed, and more

expensive machinery of every kind made use of. The real price of this commodity, therefore, naturally rises

in the progress of improvement. It has accordingly done so, I believe, more or less in every country.

Though the success of a particular day's fishing may be a very uncertain matter, yet, the local situation of the

country being supposed, the general efficacy of industry in bringing a certain quantity of fish to market,

taking the course of a year, or of several years together, it may perhaps be thought is certain enough; and it no

doubt is so. As it depends more, however, upon the local situation of the country than upon the state of its

wealth and industry; as upon this account it may in different countries be the same in very different periods of

improvement, and very different in the same period; its connection with the state of improvement is

In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals which are drawn from the bowels of the earth,

that of the more precious ones particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems not to be limited, but to be

The quantity of the precious metals which is to be found in any country is not limited by anything in its local

situation, such as the fertility or barrenness of its own mines. Those metals frequently abound in countries

which possess no mines. Their quantity in every particular country seems to depend upon two different

circumstances; first, upon its power of purchasing, upon the state of its industry, upon the annual produce of

its land and labour, in consequence of which it can afford to employ a greater or a smaller quantity of labour

and subsistence in bringing or purchasing such superfluities as gold and silver, either from its own mines or

from those of other countries; and, secondly, upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen

at any particular time to supply the commercial world with those metals. The quantity of those metals in the

countries most remote from the mines must be more or less affected by this fertility or barrenness, on account

of the easy and cheap transportation of those metals, of their small bulk and great value. Their quantity in

China and Indostan must have been more or less affected by the abundance of the mines of America.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the former of those two circumstances (the

power of purchasing), their real price, like that of all other luxuries and superfluities, is likely to rise with the

wealth and improvement of the country, and to fall with its poverty and depression. Countries which have a

great quantity of labour and subsistence to spare can afford to purchase any particular quantity of those

metals at the expense of a greater quantity of labour and subsistence than countries which have less to spare.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the latter of those two circumstances (the

fertility or barrenness of the mines which happen to supply the commercial world), their real price, the real

quantity of labour and subsistence which they will purchase or exchange for, will, no doubt, sink more or less

in proportion to the fertility, and rise in proportion to the barrenness of those mines.

The fertility or barrenness of the mines, however, which may happen at any particular time to supply the

commercial world, is a circumstance which, it is evident, may have no sort of connection with the state of

industry in a particular country. It seems even to have no very necessary connection with that of the world in

general. As arts and commerce, indeed, gradually spread themselves over a greater and a greater part of the

earth, the search for new mines, being extended over a wider surface, may have somewhat a better chance for

being successful than when confined within narrower bounds. The discovery of new mines, however, as the

old ones come to be gradually exhausted, is a matter of the greatest uncertainty, and such as no human skill or

industry can ensure. All indications, it is acknowledged, are doubtful, and the actual discovery and successful

working of a new mine can alone ascertain the reality of its value, or even of its existence. In this search there

seem to be no certain limits either to the possible success or to the possible disappointment of human

industry. In the course of a century or two, it is possible that new mines may be discovered more fertile than

any that have ever yet been known; and it is just equally possible the most fertile mine then known may be

more barren than any that was wrought before the discovery of the mines of America. Whether the one or the

other of those two events may happen to take place is of very little importance to the real wealth and

prosperity of the world, to the real value of the annual produce of the land and labour of mankind. Its nominal

value, the quantity of gold and silver by which this annual produce could be expressed or represented, would,

no doubt, be very different; but its real value, the real quantity of labour which it could purchase or

command, would be precisely the same. A shilling might in the one case represent no more labour than a

penny does at present; and a penny in the other might represent as much as a shilling does now. But in the

one case he who had a shilling in his pocket would be no richer than he who has a penny at present; and in

the other he who had a penny would be just as rich as he who has a shilling now. The cheapness and

abundance of gold and silver plate would be the sole advantage which the world could derive from the one

event, and the dearness and scarcity of those trifling superfluities the only inconveniency it could suffer from

The greater part of the writers who have collected the money prices of things in ancient times seem to have

considered the low moneyprice of corn, and of goods in general, or, in other words, the high value of gold

and silver, as a proof, not only of the scarcity of those metals, but of the poverty and barbarism of the country

at the time when it took place. This notion is connected with the system of political economy which

represents national wealth as consisting in the abundance, and national poverty in the scarcity of gold and

silver; a system which I shall endeavour to explain and examine at great length in the fourth book of this

inquiry. I shall only observe at present that the high value of the precious metals can be no proof of the

poverty or barbarism of any particular country at the time when it took place. It is a proof only of the

barrenness of the mines which happened at that time to supply the commercial world. A poor country, as it

cannot afford to buy more, so it can as little afford to pay dearer for gold and silver than a rich one; and the

value of those metals, therefore, is not likely to be higher in the former than in the latter. In China, a country

much richer than any part of Europe, the value of the precious metals is much higher than in any part of

Europe. As the wealth of Europe, indeed, has increased greatly since the discovery of the mines of America,

so the value of gold and silver has gradually diminished. This diminution of their value, however, has not

been owing to the increase of the real wealth of Europe, of the annual produce of its land and labour, but to

the accidental discovery of more abundant mines than any that were known before. The increase of the

quantity of gold and silver in Europe, and the increase of its manufactures and agriculture, are two events

which, though they have happened nearly about the same time, yet have arisen from very different causes,

and have scarce any natural connection with one another. The one has arisen from a mere accident, in which

neither prudence nor policy either had or could have any share. The other from the fall of the feudal system,

and from the establishment of a government which afforded to industry the only encouragement which it

requires, some tolerable security that it shall enjoy the fruits of its own labour. Poland, where the feudal

system still continues to take place, is at this day as beggarly a country as it was before the discovery of

America. The money price of corn, however, has risen; the real value of the precious metals has fallen in

Poland, in the same manner as in other parts of Europe. Their quantity, therefore, must have increased there

as in other places, and nearly in the same proportion to the annual produce of its land and labour. This

increase of the quantity of those metals, however, has not, it seems, increased that annual produce, has neither

improved the manufactures and agriculture of the country, nor mended the circumstances of its inhabitants.

Spain and Portugal, the countries which possess the mines, are, after Poland, perhaps, the two most beggarly

countries in Europe. The value of the precious metals, however, must be lower in Spain and Portugal than in

any other part of Europe; as they come from those countries to all other parts of Europe, loaded, not only with

a freight and an insurance, but with the expense of smuggling, their exportation being either prohibited, or

subjected to a duty. In proportion to the annual produce of the land and labour, therefore, their quantity must

be greater in those countries than in any other part of Europe. Those countries, however, are poorer than the

greater part of Europe. Though the feudal system has been abolished in Spain and Portugal, it has not been

As the low value of gold and silver, therefore, is no proof of the wealth and flourishing state of the country

where it takes place; so neither is their high value, or the low money price either of goods in general, or of

But though the low money price either of goods in general, or of corn in particular, be no proof of the poverty

or barbarism of the times, the low money price of some particular sorts of goods, such as cattle, poultry, game

of all kinds, etc., in proportion to that of corn, is a most decisive one. It clearly demonstrates, first, their great

abundance in proportion to that of corn, and consequently the great extent of the land which they occupied in

proportion to what was occupied by corn; and, secondly, the low value of this land in proportion to that of

corn land, and consequently the uncultivated and unimproved state of the far greater part of the lands of the

country. It clearly demonstrates that the stock and population of the country did not bear the same proportion

to the extent of its territory which they commonly do in civilised countries, and that society was at that time,

and in that country, but in its infancy. From the high or low money price either of goods in general, or of corn

in particular, we can infer only that the mines which at that time happened to supply the commercial world

with gold and silver were fertile or barren, not that the country was rich or poor. But from the high or low

money price of some sorts of goods in proportion to that of others, we can infer, with a degree of probability

that approaches almost to certainty, that it was rich or poor, that the greater part of its lands were improved or

unimproved, and that it was either in a more or less barbarous state, or in a more or less civilised one.

Any rise in the money price of goods which proceeded altogether from the degradation of the value of silver

would affect all sorts of goods equally, and raise their price universally a third, or a fourth, or a fifth part

higher, according as silver happened to lose a third, or a fourth, or a fifth part of its former value. But the rise

in the price of provisions, which has been the subject of so much reasoning and conversation, does not affect

all sorts of provisions equally. Taking the course of the present century at an average, the price of corn, it is

acknowledged, even by those who account for this rise by the degradation of the value of silver, has risen

much less than that of some other sorts of provisions. The rise in the price of those other sorts of provisions,

therefore, cannot be owing altogether to the degradation of the value of silver. Some other causes must be

taken into the account, and those which have been above assigned will, perhaps, without having recourse to

the supposed degradation of the value of silver, sufficiently explain this rise in those particular sorts of

As to the price of corn itself, it has, during the sixtyfour first years of the present century, and before the late

extraordinary course of bad seasons, been somewhat lower than it was during the sixtyfour last years of the

preceding century. This fact is attested, not only by the accounts of Windsor market, but by the public fiars of

all the different counties of Scotland, and by the accounts of several different markets in France, which have

been collected with great diligence and fidelity by Mr. Messance and by Mr. Dupre de St. Maur. The

evidence is more complete than could well have been expected in a matter which is naturally so very difficult

As to the high price of corn during these last ten or twelve years, it can be sufficiently accounted for from the

badness of the seasons, without supposing any degradation in the value of silver. The opinion, therefore, that

silver is continually sinking in its value, seems not to be founded upon any good observations, either upon the

The same quantity of silver, it may, perhaps, be said, will in the present times, even according to the account

which has been here given, purchase a much smaller quantity of several sorts of provisions than it would have

done during some part of the last century; and to ascertain whether this change be owing to a rise in the value

of those goods, or to a fall in the value of silver, is only to establish a vain and useless distinction, which can

be of no sort of service to the man who has only a certain quantity of silver to go to market with, or a certain

fixed revenue in money. I certainly do not pretend that the knowledge of this distinction will enable him to

It may be of some use to the public by affording an easy proof of the prosperous condition of the country. If

the rise in the price of some sorts of provisions be owing altogether to a fall in the value of silver, it is owing

to a circumstance from which nothing can be inferred but the fertility of the American mines. The real wealth

of the country, the annual produce of its land and labour, may, notwithstanding this circumstance, be either

gradually declining, as in Portugal and Poland; or gradually advancing, as in most other parts of Europe. But

if this rise in the price of some sorts of provisions be owing to a rise in the real value of the land which

produces them, to its increased fertility, or, in consequence of more extended improvement and good

cultivation, to its having been rendered fit for producing corn; it is owing to a circumstance which indicates in

the clearest manner the prosperous and advancing state of the country. The land constitutes by far the

greatest, the most important, and the most durable part of the wealth of every extensive country. It may surely

be of some use, or, at least, it may give some satisfaction to the public, to have so decisive a proof of the

increasing value of by far the greatest, the most important, and the most durable part of its wealth.

It may, too, be of some use to the public in regulating the pecuniary reward of some of its inferior servants. If

this rise in the price of some sorts of provisions be owing to a fall in the value of silver, their pecuniary

reward, provided it was not too large before, ought certainly to be augmented in proportion to the extent of

this fall. If it is not augmented, their real recompense will evidently be so much diminished. But if this rise of

price is owing to the increased value, in consequence of the improved fertility of the land which produces

such provisions, it becomes a much nicer matter to judge either in what proportion any pecuniary reward

ought to be augmented, or whether it ought to be augmented at all. The extension of improvement and

cultivation, as it necessarily raises more or less, in proportion to the price of corn, that of every sort of animal

food, so it as necessarily lowers that of, I believe, every sort of vegetable food. It raises the price of animal

food; because a great part of the land which produces it, being rendered fit for producing corn, must afford to

the landlord and farmer the rent and profit of cornland. It lowers the price of vegetable food; because, by

increasing the fertility of the land, it increases its abundance. The improvements of agriculture, too, introduce

many sorts of vegetable food, which, requiring less land and not more labour than corn, come much cheaper

to market. Such are potatoes and maize, or what is called Indian corn, the two most important improvements

which the agriculture of Europe, perhaps, which Europe itself has received from the great extension of its

commerce and navigation. Many sorts of vegetable food, besides, which in the rude state of agriculture are

confined to the kitchengarden, and raised only by the spade, come in its improved state to be introduced into

common fields, and to be raised by the plough: such as turnips, carrots, cabbages, etc. If in the progress of

improvement, therefore, the real price of one species of food necessarily rises, that of another as necessarily

falls, and it becomes a matter of more nicety to judge how far the rise in the one may be compensated by the

fall in the other. When the real price of butcher's meat has once got to its height (which, with regard to every

sort, except, perhaps, that of hogs' flesh, it seems to have done through a great part of England more than a

century ago), any rise which can afterwards happen in that of any other sort of animal food cannot much

affect the circumstances of the inferior ranks of people. The circumstances of the poor through a great part of

England cannot surely be so much distressed by any rise in the price of poultry, fish, wildfowl, or venison,

In the present season of scarcity the high price of corn no doubt distresses the poor. But in times of moderate

plenty, when corn is at its ordinary or average price, the natural rise in the price of any other sort of rude

produce cannot much affect them. They suffer more, perhaps, by the artificial rise which has been occasioned

by taxes in the price of some manufactured commodities; as of salt, soap, leather, candles, malt, beer, and ale,

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all

manufactures. That of the manufacturing workmanship diminishes, perhaps, in all of them without exception.

In consequence of better machinery, of greater dexterity, and of a more proper division and distribution of

work, all of which are the natural effects of improvement, a much smaller quantity of labour becomes

requisite for executing any particular piece of work, and though, in consequence of the flourishing

circumstances of the society, the real price of labour should rise very considerably, yet the great diminution

of the quantity will generally much more than compensate the greatest rise which can happen in the price.

There are, indeed, a few manufactures in which the necessary rise in the real price of the rude materials will

more than compensate all the advantages which improvement can introduce into the execution of the work. In

carpenters' and joiners' work, and in the coarser sort of cabinet work, the necessary rise in the real price of

barren timber, in consequence of the improvement of land, will more than compensate all the advantages

which can be derived from the best machinery, the greatest dexterity, and the most proper division and

But in all cases in which the real price of the rude materials either does not rise at all, or does not rise very

This diminution of price has, in the course of the present and preceding century, been most remarkable in

those manufactures of which the materials are the coarser metals. A better movement of a watch, that about

the middle of the last century could have been bought for twenty pounds, may now perhaps be had for twenty

shillings. In the work of cutiers and locksmiths, in all the toys which are made of the coarser metals, and in

all those goods which are commonly known by the name of Birmingham and Sheffield ware, there has been,

during the same period, a very great reduction of price, though not altogether so great as in watchwork. It

has, however, been sufficient to astonish the workmen of every other part of Europe, who in many cases

acknowledge that they can produce no work of equal goodness for double, or even for triple the price. There

are perhaps no manufactures in which the division of labour can be carried further, or in which the machinery

employed admits of a greater variety of improvements, than those of which the materials are the coarser

In the clothing manufacture there has, during the same period, been no such sensible reduction of price. The

price of superfine cloth, I have been assured, on the contrary, has, within these fiveandtwenty or thirty

years, risen somewhat in proportion to its quality; owing, it was said, to a considerable rise in the price of the

material, which consists altogether of Spanish wool. That of the Yorkshire cloth, which is made altogether of

English wool, is said indeed, during the course of the present century, to have fallen a good deal in proportion

to its quality. Quality, however, is so very disputable a matter that I look upon all information of this kind as

somewhat uncertain. In the clothing manufacture, the division of labour is nearly the same now as it was a

century ago, and the machinery employed is not very different. There may, however, have been some small

But the reduction will appear much more sensible and undeniable if we compare the price of this manufacture

in the present times with what it was in a much remoter period, towards the end of the fifteenth century, when

the labour was probably much less subdivided, and the machinery employed much more imperfect, than it is

In 1487, being the 4th of Henry VII, it was enacted that "whosoever shall sell by retail a broad yard of the

finest scarlet grained, or of other grained cloth of the finest making, above sixteen shillings, shall forfeit forty

shillings for every yard so sold." Sixteen shillings, therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as

fourandtwenty shillings of our present money, was, at that time, reckoned not an unreasonable price for a

yard of the finest cloth; and as this is a sumptuary law, such cloth, it is probable, had usually been sold

somewhat dearer. A guinea may be reckoned the highest price in the present times. Even though the quality

of the cloths, therefore, should be supposed equal, and that of the present times is most probably much

superior, yet, even upon this supposition, the money price of the finest cloth appears to have been

considerably reduced since the end of the fifteenth century. But its real price has been much more reduced.

Six shillings and eightpence was then, and long afterwards, reckoned the average price of a quarter of wheat.

Sixteen shillings, therefore, was the price of two quarters and more than three bushels of wheat. Valuing a

quarter of wheat in the present times at eightandtwenty shillings, the real price of a yard of fine cloth must,

in those times, have been equal to at least three pounds six shillings and sixpence of our present money. The

man who bought it must have parted with the command of a quantity of labour and subsistence equal to what

The reduction in the real price of the coarse manufacture, though considerable, has not been so great as in that

In 1643, being the 3rd of Edward IV, it was enacted that "no servant in husbandry, nor common labourer, nor

servant to any artificer inhabiting out of a city or burgh shall use or wear in their clothing any cloth above two

shillings the broad yard." In the 3rd of Edward IV, two shillings contained very nearly the same quantity of

silver as four of our present money. But the Yorkshire cloth which is now sold at four shillings the yard is

probably much superior to any that was then made for the wearing of the very poorest order of common

servants. Even the money price of their clothing, therefore, may, in proportion to the quality, be somewhat

cheaper in the present than it was in those ancient times. The real price is certainly a good deal cheaper.

Tenpence was then reckoned what is called the moderate and reasonable price of a bushel of wheat. Two

shillings, therefore, was the price of two bushels and near two pecks of wheat, which in the present times, at

three shillings and sixpence the bushel, would be worth eight shillings and ninepence. For a yard of this cloth

the poor servant must have parted with the power of purchasing a quantity of subsistence equal to what eight

shillings and ninepence would purchase in the present times. This is a sumptuary law too, restraining the

luxury and extravagance of the poor. Their clothing, therefore, had commonly been much more expensive.

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from wearing hose, of which the price should

exceed fourteenpence the pair, equal to about eightandtwentypence of our present money. But

fourteenpence was in those times the price of a bushel and near two pecks of wheat, which, in the present

times, at three and sixpence the bushel, would cost five shillings and threepence. We should in the present

times consider this as a very high price for a pair of stockings, to a servant of the poorest and lowest order.

He must, however, in those times have paid what was really equivalent to this price for them.

In the time of Edward IV the art of knitting stockings was probably not known in any part of Europe. Their

hose were made of common cloth, which may have been one of the causes of their dearness. The first person

that wore stockings in England is said to have been Queen Elizabeth. She received them as a present from the

Both in the coarse and in the fine woollen manufacture, the machinery employed was much more imperfect

in those ancient than it is in the present times. It has since received three very capital improvements, besides,

probably, many smaller ones of which it may be difficult to ascertain either the number or the importance.

The three capital improvements are: first, the exchange of the rock and spindle for the spinningwheel,

which, with the same quantity of labour, will perform more than double the quantity of work. Secondly, the

use of several very ingenious machines which facilitate and abridge in a still greater proportion the winding

of the worsted and woollen yarn, or the proper arrangement of the warp and woof before they are put into the

loom; an operation which, previous to the invention of those machines, must have been extremely tedious and

troublesome. Thirdly, the employment of the fulling mill for thickening the cloth, instead of treading it in

water. Neither wind nor water mills of any kind were known in England so early as the beginning of the

sixteenth century, nor, so far as I know, in any other part of Europe north of the Alps. They had been

The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure explain to us why the real price

both of the coarse and of the fine manufacture was so much higher in those ancient than it is in the present

times. It cost a greater quantity of labour to bring the goods to market. When they were brought thither,

therefore, they must have purchased or exchanged for the price of a greater quantity.

The coarse manufacture probably was, in those ancient times, carried on in England, in the same manner as it

always has been in countries where arts and manufactures are in their infancy. It was probably a household

manufacture, in which every different part of the work was occasionally performed by all the different

members of almost every private family; but so as to be their work only when they had nothing else to do,

and not to be the principal business from which any of them derived the greater part of their subsistence. The

work which is performed in this manner, it has already been observed, comes always much cheaper to market

than that which is the principal or sole fund of the workman's subsistence. The fine manufacture, on the other

hand, was not in those times carried on in England, but in the rich and commercial country of Flanders; and it

was probably conducted then, in the same manner as now, by people who derived the whole, or the principal

part of their subsistence from it. It was, besides, a foreign manufacture, and must have paid some duty, the

ancient custom of tonnage and poundage at least, to the king. This duty, indeed, would not probably be very

great. It was not then the policy of Europe to restrain, by high duties, the importation of foreign

manufactures, but rather to encourage it, in order that merchants might be enabled to supply, at as easy a rate

as possible, the great men with the conveniences and luxuries which they wanted, and which the industry of

The consideration of these circumstances may perhaps in some measure explain to us why, in those ancient

times, the real price of the coarse manufacture was, in proportion to that of the fine, so much lower than in

I shall conclude this very long chapter with observing that every improvement in the circumstances of the

society tends either directly or indirectly to raise the real rent of land, to increase the real wealth of the

landlord, his power of purchasing the labour, or the produce of the labour of other people.

The extension of improvement and cultivation tends to raise it directly. The landlord's share of the produce

That rise in the real price of those parts of the rude produce of land, which is first the effect of extended

improvement and cultivation, and afterwards the cause of their being still further extended, the rise in the

price of cattle, for example, tends too to raise the rent of land directly, and in a still greater proportion. The

real value of the landlord's share, his real command of the labour of other people, not only rises with the real

value of the produce, but the proportion of his share to the whole produce rises with it. That produce, after the

rise in its real price, requires no more labour to collect it than before. A smaller proportion of it will,

therefore, be sufficient to replace, with the ordinary profit, the stock which employs that labour. A greater

All those improvements in the productive powers of labour, which tend directly to reduce the real price of

manufactures, tend indirectly to raise the real rent of land. The landlord exchanges that part of his rude

produce, which is over and above his own consumption, or what comes to the same thing, the price of that

part of it, for manufactured produce. Whatever reduces the real price of the latter, raises that of the former.

An equal quantity of the former becomes thereby equivalent to a greater quantity of the latter; and the

landlord is enabled to purchase a greater quantity of the conveniences, ornaments, or luxuries, which he has

Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed

within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land. A certain proportion of this labour naturally goes to the

land. A greater number of men and cattle are employed in its cultivation, the produce increases with the

increase of the stock which is thus employed in raising it, and the rent increases with the produce.

The contrary circumstances, the neglect of cultivation and improvement, the fall in the real price of any part

of the rude produce of land, the rise in the real price of manufactures from the decay of manufacturing art and

industry, the declension of the real wealth of the society, all tend, on the other hand, to lower the real rent of

land, to reduce the real wealth of the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either the labour, or the

The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, or what comes to the same thing, the

whole price of that annual produce, naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the

rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and constitutes a revenue to three different orders

of people; to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are

the three great, original, and constituent orders of every civilised society, from whose revenue that of every

The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what has been just now said, is strictly and

inseparably connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one,

necessarily promotes or obstructs the other. When the public deliberates concerning any regulation of

commerce or police, the proprietors of land never can mislead it, with a view to promote the interest of their

own particular order; at least, if they have any tolerable knowledge of that interest. They are, indeed, too

often defective in this tolerable knowledge. They are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs

them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or

project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation,

renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind which is necessary in

The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of

the society as that of the first. The wages of the labourer, it has already been shown, are never so high as

when the demand for labour is continually rising, or when the quantity employed is every year increasing

considerably. When this real wealth of the society becomes stationary, his wages are soon reduced to what is

barely enough to enable him to bring up a family, or to continue the race of labourers. When the society

declines, they fall even below this. The order of proprietors may, perhaps, gain more by the prosperity of the

society than that of labourers: but there is no order that suffers so cruelly from its decline. But though the

interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of comprehending

that interest or of understanding its connection with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the

necessary information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render him unfit to judge even

though he was fully informed. In the public deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded,

except upon some particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on and supported by his employers,

His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for

the sake of profit which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and

projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is

the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with

the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high

in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this

third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other

two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ

the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration.

As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of

understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly

exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society,

their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is

much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter.

Their superiority over the country gentleman is not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in

their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of

their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both

his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not

his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or

manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen

the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may

frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be

against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would

be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellowcitizens. The proposal of any

new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great

precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with

the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is

never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress

the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

IN that rude state of society in which there is no division of labour, in which exchanges are seldom made, and

in which every man provides everything for himself, it is not necessary that any stock should be accumulated

or stored up beforehand in order to carry on the business of the society. Every man endeavours to supply by

his own industry his own occasional wants as they occur. When he is hungry, he goes to the forest to hunt;

when his coat is worn out, he clothes himself with the skin of the first large animal he kills: and when his hut

begins to go to ruin, he repairs it, as well as he can, with the trees and the turf that are nearest it.

But when the division of labour has once been thoroughly introduced, the produce of a man's own labour can

supply but a very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the produce

of other men's labour, which he purchases with the produce, or, what is the same thing, with the price of the

produce of his own. But this purchase cannot be made till such time as the produce of his own labour has not

only been completed, but sold. A stock of goods of different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere

sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work till such time, at least,

as both these events can be brought about. A weaver cannot apply himself entirely to his peculiar business,

unless there is beforehand stored up somewhere, either in his own possession or in that of some other person,

a stock sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work, till he has not

only completed, but sold his web. This accumulation must, evidently, be previous to his applying his industry

As the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour, so labour can

be more and more subdivided in proportion only as stock is previously more and more accumulated. The

quantity of materials which the same number of people can work up, increases in a great proportion as labour

comes to be more and more subdivided; and as the operations of each workman are gradually reduced to a

greater degree of simplicity, a variety of new machines come to be invented for facilitating and abridging

those operations. As the division of labour advances, therefore, in order to give constant employment to an

equal number of workmen, an equal stock of provisions, and a greater stock of materials and tools than what

would have been necessary in a ruder state of things, must be accumulated beforehand. But the number of

workmen in every branch of business generally increases with the division of labour in that branch, or rather

it is the increase of their number which enables them to class and subdivide themselves in this manner.

As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying on this great improvement in the productive

powers of labour, so that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person who employs his

stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a

quantity of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore, both to make among his workmen the most proper

distribution of employment, and to furnish them with the best machines which he can either invent or afford

to purchase. His abilities in both these respects are generally in proportion to the extent of his stock, or to the

number of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every

country with the increase of the stock which employs it, but, in consequence of that increase, the same

Such are in general the effects of the increase of stock upon industry and its productive powers.

In the following book I have endeavoured to explain the nature of stock, the effects of its accumulation into

capitals of different kinds, and the effects of the different employments of those capitals. This book is divided

into five chapters. In the first chapter, I have endeavoured to show what are the different parts or branches

into which the stock, either of an individual, or of a great society, naturally divides itself. In the second, I

have endeavoured to explain the nature and operation of money considered as a particular branch of the

general stock of the society. The stock which is accumulated into a capital, may either be employed by the

person to whom it belongs, or it may be lent to some other person. In the third and fourth chapters, I have

endeavoured to examine the manner in which it operates in both these situations. The fifth and last chapter

treats of the different effects which the different employments of capital immediately produce upon the

quantity both of national industry, and of the annual produce of land and labour.

WHEN the stock which a man possesses is no more than sufficient to maintain him for a few days or a few

weeks, he seldom thinks of deriving any revenue from it. He consumes it as sparingly as he can, and

endeavours by his labour to acquire something which may supply its place before it be consumed altogether.

His revenue is, in this case, derived from his labour only. This is the state of the greater part of the labouring

But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for months or years, he naturally endeavours to derive

a revenue from the greater part of it; reserving only so much for his immediate consumption as may maintain

him till this revenue begins to come in. His whole stock, therefore, is distinguished into two parts. That part

which, he expects, is to afford him this revenue, is called his capital. The other is that which supplies his

immediate consumption; and which consists either, first, in that portion of his whole stock which was

originally reserved for this purpose; or, secondly, in his revenue, from whatever source derived, as it

gradually comes in; or, thirdly, in such things as had been purchased by either of these in former years, and

which are not yet entirely consumed; such as a stock of clothes, household furniture, and the like. In one, or

other, or all of these three articles, consists the stock which men commonly reserve for their own immediate

There are two different ways in which a capital may be employed so as to yield a revenue or profit to its

First, it may be employed in raising, manufacturing, or purchasing goods, and selling them again with a

profit. The capital employed in this manner yields no revenue or profit to its employer, while it either remains

in his possession, or continues in the same shape. The goods of the merchant yield him no revenue or profit

till he sells them for money, and the money yields him as little till it is again exchanged for goods. His capital

is continually going from him in one shape, and returning to him in another, and it is only by means of such

circulation, or successive exchanges, that it can yield him any profit. Such capitals, therefore, may very

Secondly, it may be employed in the improvement of land, in the purchase of useful machines and

instruments of trade, or in suchlike things as yield a revenue or profit without changing masters, or circulating

any further. Such capitals, therefore, may very properly be called fixed capitals.

Different occupations require very different proportions between the fixed and circulating capitals employed

The capital of a merchant, for example, is altogether a circulating capital. He has occasion for no machines or

Some part of the capital of every master artificer or manufacturer must be fixed in the instruments of his

trade. This part, however, is very small in some, and very great in others. A master tailor requires no other

instruments of trade but a parcel of needles. Those of the master shoemaker are a little, though but a very

little, more expensive. Those of the weaver rise a good deal above those of the shoemaker. The far greater

part of the capital of all such master artificers, however, is circulated, either in the wages of their workmen, or

in the price of their materials, and repaid with a profit by the price of the work.

In other works a much greater fixed capital is required. In a great ironwork, for example, the furnace for

melting the ore, the forge, the slittmill, are instruments of trade which cannot be erected without a very great

expense. In coalworks and mines of every kind, the machinery necessary both for drawing out the water and

That part of the capital of the farmer which is employed in the instruments of agriculture is a fixed, that

which is employed in the wages and maintenance of his labouring servants, is a circulating capital. He makes

a profit of the one by keeping it in his own possession, and of the other by parting with it. The price or value

of his labouring cattle is a fixed capital in the same manner as that of the instruments of husbandry. Their

maintenance is a circulating capital in the same manner as that of the labouring servants. The farmer makes

his profit by keeping the labouring cattle, and by parting with their maintenance. Both the price and the

maintenance of the cattle which are brought in and fattened, not for labour, but for sale, are a circulating

capital. The farmer makes his profit by parting with them. A flock of sheep or a herd of cattle that, in a

breeding country, is bought in, neither for labour, nor for sale, but in order to make a profit by their wool, by

their milk, and by their increase, is a fixed capital. The profit is made by keeping them. Their maintenance is

a circulating capital. The profit is made by parting with it; and it comes back with both its own profit and the

profit upon the whole price of the cattle, in the price of the wool, the milk, and the increase. The whole value

of the seed, too, is properly a fixed capital. Though it goes backwards and forwards between the ground and

the granary, it never changes masters, and therefore does not properly circulate. The farmer makes his profit,

The general stock of any country or society is the same with that of all its inhabitants or members, and

therefore naturally divides itself into the same three portions, each of which has a distinct function or office.

The first is that portion which is reserved for immediate consumption, and of which the characteristic is, that

it affords no revenue or profit. It consists in the stock of food, clothes, household furniture, etc., which have

been purchased by their proper consumers, but which are not yet entirely consumed. The whole stock of mere

dwellinghouses too, subsisting at any one time in the country, make a part of this first portion. The stock

that is laid out in a house, if it is to be the dwellinghouse of the proprietor, ceases from that moment to serve

in the function of a capital, or to afford any revenue to its owner. A dwellinghouse, as such, contributes

nothing to the revenue of its inhabitant; and though it is, no doubt, extremely useful to him, it is as his clothes

and household furniture are useful to him, which, however, makes a part of his expense, and not of his

revenue. If it is to be let to a tenant for rent, as the house itself can produce nothing, the tenant must always

pay the rent out of some other revenue which he derives either from labour, or stock, or land. Though a

house, therefore, may yield a revenue to its proprietor, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to him, it

cannot yield any to the public, nor serve in the function of a capital to it, and the revenue of the whole body

of the people can never be in the smallest degree increased by it. Clothes, and household furniture, in the

same manner, sometimes yield a revenue, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to particular persons.

In countries where masquerades are common, it is a trade to let out masquerade dresses for a night.

Upholsterers frequently let furniture by the month or by the year. Undertakers let the furniture of funerals by

the day and by the week. Many people let furnished houses, and get a rent, not only for the use of the house,

but for that of the furniture. The revenue, however, which is derived from such things must always be

ultimately drawn from some other source of revenue. Of all parts of the stock, either of an individual, or of a

society, reserved for immediate consumption, what is laid out in houses is most slowly consumed. A stock of

clothes may last several years: a stock of furniture half a century or a century: but a stock of houses, well

built and properly taken care of, may last many centuries. Though the period of their total consumption,

however, is more distant, they are still as really a stock reserved for immediate consumption as either clothes

The second of the three portions into which the general stock of the society divides itself, is the fixed capital,

of which the characteristic is, that it affords a revenue or profit without circulating or changing masters. It

First, of all useful machines and instruments of trade which facilitate and abridge labour:

Secondly, of all those profitable buildings which are the means of procuring a revenue, not only to their

proprietor who lets them for a rent, but to the person who possesses them and pays that rent for them; such as

shops, warehouses, workhouses, farmhouses, with all their necessary buildings; stables, granaries, etc. These

are very different from mere dwelling houses. They are a sort of instruments of trade, and may be considered

Thirdly, of the improvements of land, of what has been profitably laid out in clearing, draining, enclosing,

manuring, and reducing it into the condition most proper for tillage and culture. An improved farm may very

justly be regarded in the same light as those useful machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and by

means of which an equal circulating capital can afford a much greater revenue to its employer. An improved

farm is equally advantageous and more durable than any of those machines, frequently requiring no other

repairs than the most profitable application of the farmer's capital employed in cultivating it:

Fourthly, of the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the society. The acquisition

of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always

costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person. Those talents, as they

make a part of his fortune, so do they likewise of that of the society to which he belongs. The improved

dexterity of a workman may be considered in the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which

facilitates and abridges labour, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays that expense with a profit.

The third and last of the three portions into which the general stock of the society naturally divides itself, is

the circulating capital; of which the characteristic is, that it affords a revenue only by circulating or changing

First, of the money by means of which all the other three are circulated and distributed to their proper

Secondly, of the stock of provisions which are in the possession of the butcher, the grazier, the farmer, the

cornmerchant, the brewer, etc., and from the sale of which they expect to derive a profit:

Thirdly, of the materials, whether altogether rude, or more or less manufactured, of clothes, furniture, and

building, which are not yet made up into any of those three shapes, but which remain in the hands of the

growers, the manufacturers, the mercers and drapers, the timber merchants, the carpenters and joiners, the

Fourthly, and lastly, of the work which is made up and completed, but which is still in the hands of the

merchant or manufacturer, and not yet disposed of or distributed to the proper consumers; such as the

finished work which we frequently find readymade in the shops of the smith, the cabinetmaker, the

goldsmith, the jeweller, the chinamerchant, etc. The circulating capital consists in this manner, of the

provisions, materials, and finished work of all kinds that are in the hands of their respective dealers, and of

the money that is necessary for circulating and distributing them to those who are finally to use or to consume

Of these four parts, three provisions, materials, and finished work are, either annually, or in a longer or

shorter period, regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed capital or in the stock reserved for

Every fixed capital is both originally derived from, and requires to be continually supported by a circulating

capital. All useful machines and instruments of trade are originally derived from a circulating capital, which

furnishes the materials of which they are made, and the maintenance of the workmen who make them. They

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital. The most useful machines and

instruments of trade will produce nothing without the circulating capital which affords the materials they are

employed upon, and the maintenance of the workmen who employ them. Land, however improved, will yield

no revenue without a circulating capital, which maintains the labourers who cultivate and collect its produce.

To maintain and augment the stock which may be reserved for immediate consumption is the sole end and

purpose both of the fixed and circulating capitals. It is this stock which feeds, clothes, and lodges the people.

Their riches or poverty depends upon the abundant or sparing supplies which those two capitals can afford to

So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the

other two branches of the general stock of the society; it must in its turn require continual supplies, without

which it would soon cease to exist. These supplies are principally drawn from three sources, the produce of

land, of mines, and of fisheries. These afford continual supplies of provisions and materials, of which part is

afterwards wrought up into finished work, and by which are replaced the provisions, materials, and finished

work continually withdrawn from the circulating capital. From mines, too, is drawn what is necessary for

maintaining and augmenting that part of it which consists in money. For though, in the ordinary course of

business, this part is not, like the other three, necessarily withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other

two branches of the general stock of the society, it must, however, like all other things, be wasted and worn

out at last, and sometimes, too, be either lost or sent abroad, and must, therefore, require continual, though,

Land, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and a circulating capital to cultivate them; and their

produce replaces with a profit, not only those capitals, but all the others in the society. Thus the farmer

annually replaces to the manufacturer the provisions which he had consumed and the materials which be had

wrought up the year before; and the manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had

wasted and worn out in the same time. This is the real exchange that is annually made between those two

orders of people, though it seldom happens that the rude produce of the one and the manufactured produce of

the other, are directly bartered for one another; because it seldom happens that the farmer sells his corn and

his cattle, his flax and his wool, to the very same person of whom he chooses to purchase the clothes,

furniture, and instruments of trade which he wants. He sells, therefore, his rude produce for money, with

which he can purchase, wherever it is to be had, the manufactured produce he has occasion for. Land even

replaces, in part at least, the capitals with which fisheries and mines are cultivated. It is the produce of land

which draws the fish from the waters; and it is the produce of the surface of the earth which extracts the

The produce of land, mines, and fisheries, when their natural fertility is equal, is in proportion to the extent

and proper application of the capitals employed about them. When the capitals are equal and equally well

In all countries where there is tolerable security, every man of common understanding will endeavour to

employ whatever stock he can command in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit. If it is

employed in procuring present enjoyment, it is a stock reserved for immediate consumption. If it is employed

in procuring future profit, it must procure this profit either staying with him, or by going from him. In the one

case it is fixed, in the other it is a circulating capital. A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is

tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands, whether be his own or borrowed of

In those unfortunate countries, indeed, where men are continually afraid of the violence of their superiors,

they frequently bury and conceal a great part of their stock, in order to have it always at hand to carry with

them to some place of safety, in case of their being threatened with any of those disasters to which they

consider themselves as at all times exposed. This is said to be a common practice in Turkey, in Indostan, and,

I believe, in most other governments of Asia. It seems to have been a common practice among our ancestors

during the violence of the feudal government. Treasuretrove was in those times considered as no

contemptible part of the revenue of the greatest sovereigns in Europe. It consisted in such treasure as was

found concealed in the earth, and to which no particular person could prove any right. This was regarded in

those times as so important an object, that it was always considered as belonging to the sovereign, and neither

to the finder nor to the proprietor of the land, unless the right to it had been conveyed to the latter by an

express clause in his charter. It was put upon the same footing with gold and silver mines, which, without a

special clause in the charter, were never supposed to be comprehended in the general grant of the lands,

though mines of lead, copper, tin, and coal were as things of smaller consequence.

CHAPTER II. Of Money considered as a particular Branch of the general Stock of the Society, or of the

IT has been shown in the first book, that the price of the greater part of commodities resolves itself into three

parts, of which one pays the wages of the labour, another the profits of the stock, and a third the rent of the

land which had been employed in producing and bringing them to market: that there are, indeed, some

commodities of which the price is made up of two of those parts only, the wages of labour, and the profits of

stock: and a very few in which it consists altogether in one, the wages of labour: but that the price of every

commodity necessarily resolves itself into some one, or other, or all of these three parts; every part of it

Since this is the case, it has been observed, with regard to every particular commodity, taken separately, it

must be so with regard to all the commodities which compose the whole annual produce of the land and

labour of every country, taken complexly. The whole price or exchangeable value of that annual produce

must resolve itself into the same three parts, and be parcelled out among the different inhabitants of the

country, either as the wages of their labour, the profits of their stock, or the rent of their land.

But though the whole value of the annual produce of the land and labour of every country is thus divided

among and constitutes a revenue to its different inhabitants, yet as in the rent of a private estate we

distinguish between the gross rent and the net rent, so may we likewise in the revenue of all the inhabitants of

The gross rent of a private estate comprehends whatever is paid by the farmer; the net rent, what remains free

to the landlord, after deducting the expense of management, of repairs, and all other necessary charges; or

what, without hurting his estate, he can afford to place in his stock reserved for immediate consumption, or to

spend upon his table, equipage, the ornaments of his house and furniture, his private enjoyments and

amusements. His real wealth is in proportion, not to his gross, but to his net rent.

The gross revenue of all the inhabitants of a great country comprehends the whole annual produce of their

land and labour; the net revenue, what remains free to them after deducting the expense of maintaining first,

their fixed, and, secondly, their circulating capital; or what, without encroaching upon their capital, they can

place in their stock reserved for immediate consumption, or spend upon their subsistence, conveniencies, and

amusements. Their real wealth, too, is in proportion, not to their gross, but to their net revenue.

The whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital must evidently be excluded from the net revenue of the

society. Neither the materials necessary for supporting their useful machines and instruments of trade, their

profitable buildings, etc., nor the produce of the labour necessary for fashioning those materials into the

proper form, can ever make any part of it. The price of that labour may indeed make a part of it; as the

workmen so employed may place the whole value of their wages in their stock reserved for immediate

consumption. But in other sorts of labour, both the price and the produce go to this stock, the price to that of

the workmen, the produce to that of other people, whose subsistence, conveniences, and amusements, are

The intention of the fixed capital is to increase the productive powers of labour, or to enable the same number

of labourers to perform a much greater quantity of work. In a farm where all the necessary buildings, fences,

drains, communications, etc., are in the most perfect good order, the same number of labourers and labouring

cattle will raise a much greater produce than in one of equal extent and equally good ground, but not

furnished with equal conveniencies. In manufactures the same number of hands, assisted with the best

machinery, will work up a much greater quantity of goods than with more imperfect instruments of trade. The

expense which is properly laid out upon a fixed capital of any kind, is always repaid with great profit, and

increases the annual produce by a much greater value than that of the support which such improvements

require. This support, however, still requires a certain portion of that produce. A certain quantity of materials,

and the labour of a certain number of workmen, both of which might have been immediately employed to

augment the food, clothing and lodging, the subsistence and conveniencies of the society, are thus diverted to

another employment, highly advantageous indeed, but still different from this one. It is upon this account that

all such improvements in mechanics, as enable the same number of workmen to perform an equal quantity of

work, with cheaper and simpler machinery than had been usual before, are always regarded as advantageous

to every society. A certain quantity of materials, and the labour of a certain number of workmen, which had

before been employed in supporting a more complex and expensive machinery, can afterwards be applied to

augment the quantity of work which that or any other machinery is useful only for performing. The

undertaker of some great manufactory who employs a thousand a year in the maintenance of his machinery, if

he can reduce this expense to five hundred will naturally employ the other five hundred in purchasing an

additional quantity of materials to be wrought up by an additional number of workmen. The quantity of that

work, therefore, which his machinery was useful only for performing, will naturally be augmented, and with

it all the advantage and conveniency which the society can derive from that work.

The expense of maintaining the fixed capital in a great country may very properly be compared to that of

repairs in a private estate. The expense of repairs may frequently be necessary for supporting the produce of

the estate, and consequently both the gross and the net rent of the landlord. When by a more proper direction,

however, it can be diminished without occasioning any diminution of produce, the gross rent remains at least

But though the whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital is thus necessarily excluded from the net

revenue of the society, it is not the same case with that of maintaining the circulating capital. Of the four parts

of which this latter capital is composed money, provisions, materials, and finished work the three last, it

has already been observed, are regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed capital of the

society, or in their stock reserved for immediate consumption. Whatever portion of those consumable goods

is employed in maintaining the former, goes all to the latter, and makes a part of the net revenue of the

society. The maintenance of those three parts of the circulating capital, therefore, withdraws no portion of the

annual produce from the net revenue of the society, besides what is necessary for maintaining the fixed

The circulating capital of a society is in this respect different from that of an individual. That of an individual

is totally excluded from making any part of his net revenue, which must consist altogether in his profits. But

though the circulating capital of every individual makes a part of that of the society to which he belongs, it is

not upon that account totally excluded from making a part likewise of their net revenue. Though the whole

goods in a merchant's shop must by no means be placed in his own stock reserved for immediate

consumption, they may in that of other people, who, from a revenue derived from other funds, may regularly

replace their value to him, together with its profits, without occasioning any diminution either of his capital

Money, therefore, is the only part of the circulating capital of a society, of which the maintenance can

The fixed capital, and that part of the circulating capital which consists in money, so far as they affect the

First, as those machines and instruments of trade, etc., require a certain expense, first to erect them, and

afterwards to support them, both which expenses, though they make a part of the gross, are deductions from

the net revenue of the society; so the stock of money which circulates in any country must require a certain

expense, first to collect it, and afterwards to support it, both which expenses, though they make a part of the

gross, are, in the same manner, deductions from the net revenue of the society. A certain quantity of very

valuable materials, gold and silver, and of very curious labour, instead of augmenting the stock reserved for

immediate consumption, the subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements of individuals, is employed in

supporting that great but expensive instrument of commerce, by means of which every individual in the

society has his subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements regularly distributed to him in their proper

Secondly, as the machines and instruments of a trade, etc., which compose the fixed capital either of an

individual or of a society, make no part either of the gross or of the net revenue of either; so money, by means

of which the whole revenue of the society is regularly distributed among all its different members, makes

itself no part of that revenue. The great wheel of circulation is altogether different from the goods which are

circulated by means of it. The revenue of the society consists altogether in those goods, and not in the wheel

which circulates them. In computing either the gross or the net revenue of any society, we must always, from

their whole annual circulation of money and goods, deduct the whole value of the money, of which not a

It is the ambiguity of language only which can make this proposition appear either doubtful or paradoxical.

When we talk of any particular sum of money, we sometimes mean nothing but the metal pieces of which it is

composed; and sometimes we include in our meaning some obscure reference to the goods which can be had

in exchange for it, or to the power of purchasing which the possession of it conveys. Thus when we say that

the circulating money of England has been computed at eighteen millions, we mean only to express the

amount of the metal pieces, which some writers have computed, or rather have supposed to circulate in that

country. But when we say that a man is worth fifty or a hundred pounds a year, we mean commonly to

express not only the amount of the metal pieces which are annually paid to him, but the value of the goods

which he can annually purchase or consume. We mean commonly to ascertain what is or ought to be his way

of living, or the quantity and quality of the necessaries and conveniencies of life in which he can with

When, by any particular sum of money, we mean not only to express the amount of the metal pieces of which

it is composed, but to include in its signification some obscure reference to the goods which can be had in

exchange for them, the wealth or revenue which it in this case denotes, is equal only to one of the two values

which are thus intimated somewhat ambiguously by the same word, and to the latter more properly than to

Thus if a guinea be the weekly pension of a particular person, he can in the course of the week purchase with

it a certain quantity of subsistence, conveniencies, and amusements. In proportion as this quantity is great or

small, so are his real riches, his real weekly revenue. His weekly revenue is certainly not equal both to the

guinea, and to what can be purchased with it, but only to one or other of those two equal values; and to the

latter more properly than to the former, to the guinea's worth rather than to the guinea.

If the pension of such a person was paid to him, not in gold, but in a weekly bill for a guinea, his revenue

surely would not so properly consist in the piece of paper, as in what he could get for it. A guinea may be

considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and conveniencies upon all the tradesmen in the

neighbourhood. The revenue of the person to whom it is paid, does not so properly consist in the piece of

gold, as in what he can get for it, or in what he can exchange it for. If it could be exchanged for nothing, it

would, like a bill upon a bankrupt, be of no more value than the most useless piece of paper.

Though the weekly or yearly revenue of all the different inhabitants of any country, in the same manner, may

be, and in reality frequently is paid to them in money, their real riches, however, the real weekly or yearly

revenue of all of them taken together, must always be great or small in proportion to the quantity of

consumable goods which they can all of them purchase with this money. The whole revenue of all of them

taken together is evidently not equal to both the money and the consumable goods; but only to one or other of

Though we frequently, therefore, express a person's revenue by the metal pieces which are annually paid to

him, it is because the amount of those pieces regulates the extent of his power of purchasing, or the value of

the goods which he can annually afford to consume. We still consider his revenue as consisting in this power

But if this is sufficiently evident even with regard to an individual, it is still more so with regard to a society.

The amount of the metal pieces which are annually paid to an individual, is often precisely equal to his

revenue, and is upon that account the shortest and best expression of its value. But the amount of the metal

pieces which circulate in a society can never be equal to the revenue of all its members. As the same guinea

which pays the weekly pension of one man today, may pay that of another tomorrow, and that of a third

the day thereafter, the amount of the metal pieces which annually circulate in any country must always be of

much less value than the whole money pensions annually paid with them. But the power of purchasing, or the

goods which can successively be bought with the whole of those money pensions as they are successively

paid, must always be precisely of the same value with those pensions; as must likewise be the revenue of the

different persons to whom they are paid. That revenue, therefore, cannot consist in those metal pieces, of

which the amount is so much inferior to its value, but in the power of purchasing, in the goods which can

Money, therefore, the great wheel of circulation, the great instrument of commerce, like all other instruments

of trade, though it makes a part and a very valuable part of the capital, makes no part of the revenue of the

society to which it belongs; and though the metal pieces of which it is composed, in the course of their annual

circulation, distribute to every man the revenue which properly belongs to him, they make themselves no part

Thirdly, and lastly, the machines and instruments of trade, etc., which compose the fixed capital, bear this

further resemblance to that part of the circulating capital which consists in money; that as every saving in the

expense of erecting and supporting those machines, which does not diminish the productive powers of labour,

is an improvement of the net revenue of the society, so every saving in the expense of collecting and

supporting that part of the circulating capital which consists in money, is an improvement of exactly the same

It is sufficiently obvious, and it has partly, too, been explained already, in what manner every saving in the

expense of supporting the fixed capital is an improvement of the net revenue of the society. The whole capital

of the undertaker of every work is necessarily divided between his fixed and his circulating capital. While his

whole capital remains the same, the smaller the one part, the greater must necessarily be the other. It is the

circulating capital which furnishes the materials and wages of labour, and puts industry into motion. Every

saving, therefore, in the expense of maintaining the fixed capital, which does not diminish the productive

powers of labour, must increase the fund which puts industry into motion, and consequently the annual

The substitution of paper in the room of gold and silver money, replaces a very expensive instrument of

commerce with one much less costly, and sometimes equally convenient. Circulation comes to be carried on

by a new wheel, which it costs less both to erect and to maintain than the old one. But in what manner this

operation is performed, and in what manner it tends to increase either the gross or the net revenue of the

society, is not altogether so obvious, and may therefore require some further explication.

There are several different sorts of paper money; but the circulating notes of banks and bankers are the

When the people of any particular country have such confidence in the fortune, probity, and prudence of a

particular banker, as to believe that he is always ready to pay upon demand such of his promissory notes as

are likely to be at any time presented to him; those notes come to have the same currency as gold and silver

A particular banker lends among his customers his own promissory notes, to the extent, we shall suppose, of

a hundred thousand pounds. As those notes serve all the purposes of money, his debtors pay him the same

interest as if he had lent them so much money. This interest is the source of his gain. Though some of those

notes are continually coming back upon him for payment, part of them continue to circulate for months and

years together. Though he has generally in circulation, therefore, notes to the extent of a hundred thousand

pounds, twenty thousand pounds in gold and silver may frequently be a sufficient provision for answering

occasional demands. By this operation, therefore, twenty thousand pounds in gold and silver perform all the

functions which a hundred thousand could otherwise have performed. The same exchanges may be made, the

same quantity of consumable goods may be circulated and distributed to their proper consumers, by means of

his promissory notes, to the value of a hundred thousand pounds, as by an equal value of gold and silver

money. Eighty thousand pounds of gold and silver, therefore, can, in this manner, be spared from the

circulation of the country; and if different operations of the same kind should, at the same time, be carried on

by many different banks and bankers, the whole circulation may thus be conducted with a fifth part only of

Let us suppose, for example, that the whole circulating money of some particular country amounted, at a

particular time, to one million sterling, that sum being then sufficient for circulating the whole annual

produce of their land and labour. Let us suppose, too, that some time thereafter, different banks and bankers

issued promissory notes, payable to the bearer, to the extent of one million, reserving in their different coffers

two hundred thousand pounds for answering occasional demands. There would remain, therefore, in

circulation, eight hundred thousand pounds in gold and silver, and a million of bank notes, or eighteen

hundred thousand pounds of paper and money together. But the annual produce of the land and labour of the

country had before required only one million to circulate and distribute it to its proper consumers, and that

annual produce cannot be immediately augmented by those operations of banking. One million, therefore,

will be sufficient to circulate it after them. The goods to be bought and sold being precisely the same as

before, the same quantity of money will be sufficient for buying and selling them. The channel of circulation,

if I may be allowed such an expression, will remain precisely the same as before. One million we have

supposed sufficient to fill that channel. Whatever, therefore, is poured into it beyond this sum cannot run in it,

but must overflow. One million eight hundred thousand pounds are poured into it. Eight hundred thousand

pounds, therefore, must overflow, that sum being over and above what can be employed in the circulation of

the country. But though this sum cannot be employed at home, it is too valuable to be allowed to lie idle. It

will, therefore, be sent abroad, in order to seek that profitable employment which it cannot find at home. But

the paper cannot go abroad; because at a distance from the banks which issue it, and from the country in

which payment of it can be exacted by law, it will not be received in common payments. Gold and silver,

therefore, to the amount of eight hundred thousand pounds will be sent abroad, and the channel of home

circulation will remain filled with a million of paper, instead of the million of those metals which filled it

But though so great a quantity of gold and silver is thus sent abroad, we must not imagine that it is sent

abroad for nothing, or that its proprietors make a present of it to foreign nations. They will exchange it for

foreign goods of some kind or another, in order to supply the consumption either of some other foreign

If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign country in order to supply the consumption of another,

or in what is called the carrying trade, whatever profit they make will be an addition to the net revenue of

their own country. It is like a new fund, created for carrying on a new trade; domestic business being now

transacted by paper, and the gold and silver being converted into a fund for this new trade.

If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they may either, first, purchase such

goods as are likely to be consumed by idle people who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks,

etc.; or, secondly, they may purchase an additional stock of materials, tools, and provisions, in order to

maintain and employ an additional number of industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, the value of

So far as it is employed in the first way, it promotes prodigality, increases expense and consumption without

increasing production, or establishing any permanent fund for supporting that expense, and is in every respect

So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes industry; and though it increases the consumption of

the society, it provides a permanent fund for supporting that consumption, the people who consume

reproducing, with a profit, the whole value of their annual consumption. The gross revenue of the society, the

annual produce of their land and labour, is increased by the whole value which the labour of those workmen

adds to the materials upon which they are employed; and their net revenue by what remains of this value,

after deducting what is necessary for supporting the tools and instruments of their trade.

That the greater part of the gold and silver which, being forced abroad by those operations of banking, is

employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, is and must be employed in purchasing those

of this second kind, seems not only probable but almost unavoidable. Though some particular men may

sometimes increase their expense very considerably though their revenue does not increase at all, we may be

assured that no class or order of men ever does so; because, though the principles of common prudence do

not always govern the conduct of every individual, they always influence that of the majority of every class

or order. But the revenue of idle people, considered as a class or order, cannot, in the smallest degree, be

increased by those operations of banking. Their expense in general, therefore, cannot be much increased by

them, though that of a few individuals among them may, and in reality sometimes is. The demand of idle

people, therefore, for foreign goods being the same, or very nearly the same, as before, a very small part of

the money, which being forced abroad by those operations of banking, is employed in purchasing foreign

goods for home consumption, is likely to be employed in purchasing those for their use. The greater part of it

will naturally be destined for the employment of industry, and not for the maintenance of idleness.

When we compute the quantity of industry which the circulating capital of any society can employ, we must

always have regard to those parts of it only which consist in provisions, materials, and finished work: the

other, which consists in money, and which serves only to circulate those three, must always be deducted. In

order to put industry into motion, three things are requisite; materials to work upon, tools to work with, and

the wages or recompense for the sake of which the work is done. Money is neither a material to work upon,

nor a tool to work with; and though the wages of the workman are commonly paid to him in money, his real

revenue, like that of all other men, consists, not in money, but in the money's worth; not in the metal pieces,

The quantity of industry which any capital can employ must, evidently, be equal to the number of workmen

whom it can supply with materials, tools, and a maintenance suitable to the nature of the work. Money may

be requisite for purchasing the materials and tools of the work, as well as the maintenance of the workmen.

But the quantity of industry which the whole capital can employ is certainly not equal both to the money

which purchases, and to the materials, tools, and maintenance, which are purchased with it; but only to one or

When paper is substituted in the room of gold and silver money, the quantity of the materials, tools, and

maintenance, which the whole circulating capital can supply, may be increased by the whole value of gold

and silver which used to be employed in purchasing them. The whole value of the great wheel of circulation

and distribution is added to the goods which are circulated and distributed by means of it. The operation, in

some measure, resembles that of the undertaker of some great work, who, in consequence of some

improvement in mechanics, takes down his old machinery, and adds the difference between its price and that

of the new to his circulating capital, to the fund from which he furnishes materials and wages to his workmen.

What is the proportion which the circulating money of any country bears to the whole value of the annual

produce circulated by means of it, it is, perhaps, impossible to determine. It has been computed by different

authors at a fifth, at a tenth, at a twentieth, and at a thirtieth part of that value. But how small soever the

proportion which the circulating money may bear to the whole value of the annual produce, as but a part, and

frequently but a small part, of that produce, is ever destined for the maintenance of industry, it must always

bear a very considerable proportion to that part. When, therefore, by the substitution of paper, the gold and

silver necessary for circulation is reduced to, perhaps, a fifth part of the former quantity, if the value of only

the greater part of the other fourfifths be added to the funds which are destined for the maintenance of

industry, it must make a very considerable addition to the quantity of that industry, and, consequently, to the

An operation of this kind has, within these fiveandtwenty or thirty years, been performed in Scotland, by

the erection of new banking companies in almost every considerable town, and even in some country

villages. The effects of it have been precisely those above described. The business of the country is almost

entirely carried on by means of the paper of those different banking companies, with which purchases and

payments of kinds are commonly made. Silver very seldom appears except in the change of a twenty shillings

bank note, and gold still seldomer. But though the conduct of all those different companies has not been

unexceptionable, and has accordingly required an act of Parliament to regulate it, the country,

notwithstanding, has evidently derived great benefit from their trade. I have heard it asserted, that the trade of

the city of Glasgow doubled in about fifteen years after the first erection of the banks there; and that the trade

of Scotland has more than quadrupled since the first erection of the two public banks at Edinburgh, of which

the one, called the Bank of Scotland, was established by act of Parliament in 1695; the other, called the Royal

Bank, by royal charter in 1727. Whether the trade, either of Scotland in general, or the city of Glasgow in

particular, has really increased in so great a proportion, during so short a period, I do not pretend to know. If

either of them has increased in this proportion, it seems to be an effect too great to be accounted for by the

sole operation of this cause. That the trade and industry of Scotland, however, have increased very

considerably during this period, and that the banks have contributed a good deal to this increase, cannot be

The value of the silver money which circulated in Scotland before the union, in 1707, and which,

immediately after it, was brought into the Bank of Scotland in order to be recoined, amounted to L411,117

10s. 9d. sterling. No account has been got of the gold coin; but it appears from the ancient accounts of the

mint of Scotland, that the value of the gold annually coined somewhat exceeded that of the silver. There were

a good many people, too, upon this occasion, who, from a diffidence of repayment, did not bring their silver

into the Bank of Scotland: and there was, besides, some English coin which was not called in. The whole

value of the gold and silver, therefore, which circulated in Scotland before the union, cannot be estimated at

less than a million sterling. It seems to have constituted almost the whole circulation of that country; for

though the circulation of the Bank of Scotland, which had then no rival, was considerable, it seems to have

made but a very small part of the whole. In the present times the whole circulation of Scotland cannot be

estimated at less than two millions, of which that part which consists in gold and silver most probably does

not amount to half a million. But though the circulating gold and silver of Scotland have suffered so great a

diminution during this period, its real riches and prosperity do not appear to have suffered any. Its agriculture,

manufactures, and trade, on the contrary, the annual produce of its land and labour, have evidently been

It is chiefly by discounting bills of exchange, that is, by advancing money upon them before they are due, that

the greater part of banks and bankers issue their promissory notes. They deduct always, upon whatever sum

they advance, the legal interest till the bill shall become due. The payment of the bill, when it becomes due,

replaces to the bank the value of what had been advanced, together with a clear profit of the interest. The

banker who advances to the merchant whose bill he discounts, not gold and silver, but his own promissory

notes, has the advantage of being able to discount to a greater amount, by the whole value of his promissory

notes, which he finds by experience are commonly in circulation. He is thereby enabled to make his clear

The commerce of Scotland, which at present is not very great, was still more inconsiderable when the two

first banking companies were established, and those companies would have had but little trade had they

confined their business to the discounting of bills of exchange. They invented, therefore, another method of

issuing their promissory notes; by granting what they called cash accounts, that is by giving credit to the

extent of a certain sum (two or three thousand pounds, for example) to any individual who could procure two

persons of undoubted credit and good landed estate to become surety for him, that whatever money should be

advanced to him, within the sum for which the credit had been given, should be repaid upon demand, together

with the legal interest. Credits of this kind are, I believe, commonly granted by banks and bankers in all

different parts of the world. But the easy terms upon which the Scotch banking companies accept of

repayment are, so far as I know, peculiar to them, and have, perhaps, been the principal cause, both of the

great trade of those companies and of the benefit which the country has received from it.

Whoever has a credit of this kind with one of those companies, and borrows a thousand pounds upon it, for

example, may repay this sum piecemeal, by twenty and thirty pounds at a time, the company discounting a

proportionable part of the interest of the great sum from the day on which each of those small sums is paid in

till the whole be in this manner repaid. All merchants, therefore, and almost all men of business, find it

convenient to keep such cash accounts with them, and are thereby interested to promote the trade of those

companies, by readily receiving their notes in all payments, and by encouraging all those with whom they

have any influence to do the same. The banks, when their customers apply to them for money, generally

advance it to them in their own promissory notes. These the merchants pay away to the manufacturers for

goods, the manufacturers to the farmers for materials and provisions, the farmers to their landlords for rent,

the landlords repay them to the merchants for the conveniencies and luxuries with which they supply them,

and the merchants again return them to the banks in order to balance their cash accounts, or to replace what

they may have borrowed of them; and thus almost the whole money business of the country is transacted by

By means of those cash accounts every merchant can, without imprudence, carry on a greater trade than he

otherwise could do. If there are two merchants, one in London and the other in Edinburgh, who employ equal

stocks in the same branch of trade, the Edinburgh merchant can, without imprudence, carry on a greater trade

and give employment to a greater number of people than the London merchant. The London merchant must

always keep by him a considerable sum of money, either in his own coffers, or in those of his banker, who

gives him no interest for it, in order to answer the demands continually coming upon him for payment of the

goods which he purchases upon credit. Let the ordinary amount of this sum be supposed five hundred pounds.

The value of the goods in his warehouse must always be less by five hundred pounds than it would have been

had he not been obliged to keep such a sum unemployed. Let us suppose that he generally disposes of his

whole stock upon hand, or of goods to the value of his whole stock upon hand, once in the year. By being

obliged to keep so great a sum unemployed, he must sell in a year five hundred pounds' worth less goods than

he might otherwise have done. His annual profits must be less by all that he could have made by the sale of

five hundred pounds worth more goods; and the number of people employed in preparing his goods for the

market must be less by all those that five hundred pounds more stock could have employed. The merchant in

Edinburgh, on the other hand, keeps no money unemployed for answering such occasional demands. When

they actually come upon him, he satisfies them from his cash account with the bank, and gradually replaces

the sum borrowed with the money or paper which comes in from the occasional sales of his goods. With the

same stock, therefore, he can, without imprudence, have at all times in his warehouse a larger quantity of

goods than the London merchant; and can thereby both make a greater profit himself, and give constant

employment to a greater number of industrious people who prepare those goods for the market. Hence the

The facility of discounting bills of exchange it may be thought indeed, gives the English merchants a

conveniency equivalent to the cash accounts of the Scotch merchants. But the Scotch merchants, it must be

remembered, can discount their bills of exchange as easily as the English merchants; and have, besides, the

The whole paper money of every kind which can easily circulate in any country never can exceed the value of

the gold and silver, of which it supplies the place, or which (the commerce being supposed the same) would

circulate there, if there was no paper money. If twenty shilling notes, for example, are the lowest paper

money current in Scotland, the whole of that currency which can easily circulate there cannot exceed the sum

of gold and silver which would be necessary for transacting the annual exchanges of twenty shillings value

and upwards usually transacted within that country. Should the circulating paper at any time exceed that sum,

as the excess could neither be sent abroad nor be employed in the circulation of the country, it must

immediately return upon the banks to be exchanged for gold and silver. Many people would immediately

perceive that they had more of this paper than was necessary for transacting their business at home, and as

they could not send it abroad, they would immediately demand payment of it from the banks. When this

superfluous paper was converted into gold and silver, they could easily find a use for it by sending it abroad;

but they could find none while it remained in the shape of paper. There would immediately, therefore, be a

run upon the banks to the whole extent of this superfluous paper, and, if they showed any difficulty or

backwardness in payment, to a much greater extent; the alarm which this would occasion necessarily

Over and above the expenses which are common to every branch of trade; such as the expense of houserent,

the wages of servants, clerks, accountants, etc.; the expenses peculiar to a bank consist chiefly in two articles:

first, in the expense of keeping at all times in its coffers, for answering the occasional demands of the holders

of its notes, a large sum of money, of which it loses the interest; and, secondly, in the expense of replenishing

A banking company, which issues more paper than can be employed in the circulation of the country, and of

which the excess is continually returning upon them for payment, ought to increase the quantity of gold and

silver, which they keep at all times in their coffers, not only in proportion to this excessive increase of their

circulation, but in a much greater proportion; their notes returning upon them much faster than in proportion

to the excess of their quantity. Such a company, therefore, ought to increase the first article of their expense,

not only in proportion to this forced increase of their business, but in a much greater proportion.

The coffers of such a company too, though they ought to be filled much fuller, yet must empty themselves

much faster than if their business was confined within more reasonable bounds, and must require, not only a

more violent, but a more constant and uninterrupted exertion of expense in order to replenish them. The coin

too, which is thus continually drawn in such large quantities from their coffers, cannot be employed in the

circulation of the country. It comes in place of a paper which is over and above what can be employed in that

circulation, and is therefore over and above what can be employed in it too. But as that coin will not be

allowed to lie idle, it must, in one shape or another, be sent abroad, in order to find that profitable

employment which it cannot find at home; and this continual exportation of gold and silver, by enhancing the

difficulty, must necessarily enhance still further the expense of the bank, in finding new gold and silver in

order to replenish those coffers, which empty themselves so very rapidly. Such a company, therefore, must, in

proportion to this forced increase of their business, increase the second article of their expense still more than

Let us suppose that all the paper of a particular bank, which the circulation of the country can easily absorb

and employ, amounts exactly to forty thousand pounds; and that for answering occasional demands, this bank

is obliged to keep at all times in its coffers ten thousand pounds in gold and silver. Should this bank attempt

to circulate fortyfour thousand pounds, the four thousand pounds which are over and above what the

circulation can easily absorb and employ, will return upon it almost as fast as they are issued. For answering

occasional demands, therefore, this bank ought to keep at all times in its coffers, not eleven thousand pounds

only, but fourteen thousand pounds. It will thus gain nothing by the interest of the four thousand pounds'

excessive circulation; and it will lose the whole expense of continually collecting four thousand pounds in

gold and silver, which will be continually going out of its coffers as fast as they are brought into them.

Had every particular banking company always understood and attended to its own particular interest, the

circulation never could have been overstocked with paper money. But every particular banking company has

not always understood or attended to its own particular interest, and the circulation has frequently been

By issuing too great a quantity of paper, of which the excess was continually returning, in order to be

exchanged for gold and silver, the Bank of England was for many years together obliged to coin gold to the

extent of between eight hundred thousand pounds and a million a year; or at an average, about eight hundred

and fifty thousand pounds. For this great coinage the bank (in consequence of the worn and degraded state

into which the gold coin had fallen a few years ago) was frequently obliged to purchase gold bullion at the

high price of four pounds an ounce, which it soon after issued in coin at 53 17s. 10 1/2d. an ounce, losing in

this manner between two and a half and three per cent upon the coinage of so very large a sum. Though the

bank therefore paid no seignorage, though the government was properly at the expense of the coinage, this

The Scotch banks, in consequence of an excess of the same kind, were all obliged to employ constantly

agents at London to collect money for them, at an expense which was seldom below one and a half or two per

cent. This money was sent down by the waggon, and insured by the carriers at an additional expense of three

quarters per cent or fifteen shillings on the hundred pounds. Those agents were not always able to replenish

the coffers of their employers so fast as they were emptied. In this case the resource of the banks was to draw

upon their correspondents in London bills of exchange to the extent of the sum which they wanted. When

those correspondents afterwards drew upon them for the payment of this sum, together with the interest and a

commission, sonic of those banks, from the distress into which their excessive circulation had thrown them,

had sometimes no other means of satisfying this draught but by drawing a second set of bills either upon the

same, or upon some other correspondents in London; and the same sum, or rather bills for the same sum,

would in this manner make sometimes more than two or three journeys, the debtor, bank, paying always the

interest and commission upon the whole accumulated sum. Even those Scotch banks which never

distinguished themselves by their extreme imprudence, were sometimes obliged to employ this ruinous

The gold coin which was paid out either by the Bank of England, or by the Scotch banks, in exchange for that

part of their paper which was over and above what could be employed in the circulation of the country, being

likewise over and above what could be employed in that circulation, was sometimes sent abroad in the shape

of coin, sometimes melted down and sent abroad in the shape of bullion, and sometimes melted down and

sold to the Bank of England at the high price of four pounds an ounce. It was the newest, the heaviest, and the

best pieces only which were carefully picked out of the whole coin, and either sent abroad or melted down.

At home, and while they remained in the shape of coin, those heavy pieces were of no more value than the

light. But they were of more value abroad, or when melted down into bullion, at home. The Bank of England,

notwithstanding their great annual coinage, found to their astonishment that there was every year the same

scarcity of coin as there had been the year before; and that notwithstanding the great quantity of good and

new coin which was every year issued from the bank, the state of the coin, instead of growing better and

better, became every year worse and worse. Every year they found themselves under the necessity of coining

nearly the same quantity of gold as they had coined the year before, and from the continual rise in the price of

gold bullion, in consequence of the continual wearing and clipping of the coin, the expense of this great

annual coinage became every year greater and greater. The Bank of England, it is to be observed, by

supplying its own coffers with coin, is indirectly obliged to supply the whole kingdom, into which coin is

continually flowing from those coffers in a great variety of ways. Whatever coin therefore was wanted to

support this excessive circulation both of Scotch and English paper money, whatever vacuities this excessive

circulation occasioned in the necessary coin of the kingdom, the Bank of England was obliged to supply

them. The Scotch banks, no doubt, paid all of them very dearly for their own imprudence and inattention. But

the Bank of England paid very dearly, not only for its own imprudence, but for the much greater imprudence

The overtrading of some bold projectors in both parts of the United Kingdom was the original cause of this

What a bank can with propriety advance to a merchant or undertaker of any kind, is not either the whole

capital with which he trades, or even any considerable part of that capital; but that part of it only which he

would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed, and in ready money for answering occasional

demands. If the paper money which the bank advances never exceeds this value, it can never exceed the value

of the gold and silver which would necessarily circulate in the country if there was no paper money; it can

never exceed the quantity which the circulation of the country can easily absorb and employ.

When a bank discounts to a merchant a real bill of exchange drawn by a real creditor upon a real debtor, and

which, as soon as it becomes due, is really paid by that debtor, it only advances to him a part of the value

which he would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed and in ready money for answering

occasional demands. The payment of the bill, when it becomes due, replaces to the bank the value of what it

had advanced, together with the interest. The coffers of the bank, so far as its dealings are confined to such

customers, resemble a water pond, from which, though a stream is continually running out, yet another is

continually running in, fully equal to that which runs out; so that, without any further care or attention, the

pond keeps always equally, or very near equally full. Little or no expense can ever be necessary for

A merchant, without overtrading, may frequently have occasion for a sum of ready money, even when he has

no bills to discount. When a bank, besides discounting his bills, advances him likewise upon such occasions

such sums upon his cash account, and accepts of a piecemeal repayment as the money comes in from the

occasional sale of his goods, upon the easy terms of the banking companies of Scotland; it dispenses him

entirely from the necessity of keeping any part of his stock by him unemployed and in ready money for

answering occasional demands. When such demands actually come upon him, he can answer them

sufficiently from his cash account. The bank, however, in dealing with such customers, ought to observe with

great attention, whether in the course of some short period (of four, five, six, or eight months for example) the

sum of the repayments which it commonly receives from them is, or is not, fully equal to that of the advances

which it commonly makes to them. If, within the course of such short periods, the sum of the repayments

from certain customers is, upon most occasions, fully equal to that of the advances, it may safely continue to

deal with such customers. Though the stream which is in this case continually running out from its coffers

may be very large, that which is continually running into them must be at least equally large; so that without

any further care or attention those coffers are likely to be always equally or very near equally full; and scarce

ever to require any extraordinary expense to replenish them. If, on the contrary, the sum of the repayments

from certain other customers falls commonly very much short of the advances which it makes to them, it

cannot with any safety continue to deal with such customers, at least if they continue to deal with it in this

manner. The stream which is in this case continually running out from its coffers is necessarily much larger

than that which is continually running in; so that, unless they are replenished by some great and continual

The banking companies of Scotland, accordingly, were for a long time very careful to require frequent and

regular repayments from all their customers, and did not care to deal with any person, whatever might be his

fortune or credit, who did not make, what they called, frequent and regular operations with them. By this

attention, besides saving almost entirely the extraordinary expense of replenishing their coffers, they gained

First, by this attention they were enabled to make some tolerable judgment concerning the thriving or

declining circumstances of their debtors, without being obliged to look out for any other evidence besides

what their own books afforded them; men being for the most part either regular or irregular in their

repayments, according as their circumstances are either thriving or declining. A private man who lends out

his money to perhaps half a dozen or a dozen of debtors, may, either by himself or his agents, observe and

inquire both constantly and carefully into the conduct and situation of each of them. But a banking company,

which lends money to perhaps five hundred different people, and of which the attention is continually

occupied by objects of a very different kind, can have no regular information concerning the conduct and

circumstances of the greater part of its debtors beyond what its own books afford it. In requiring frequent and

regular repayments from all their customers, the banking companies of Scotland had probably this advantage

Secondly, by this attention they secured themselves from the possibility of issuing more paper money than

what the circulation of the country could easily absorb and employ. When they observed that within moderate

periods of time the repayments of a particular customer were upon most occasions fully equal to the advances

which they had made to him, they might be assured that the paper money which they had advanced to him

had not at any time exceeded the quantity of gold and silver which he would otherwise have been obliged to

keep by him for answering occasional demands; and that, consequently, the paper money, which they had

circulated by his means, had not at any time exceeded the quantity of gold and silver which would have

circulated in the country had there been no paper money. The frequency, regularity, and amount of his

repayments would sufficiently demonstrate that the amount of their advances had at no time exceeded that

part of his capital which he would otherwise have been obliged to keep by him unemployed and in ready

money for answering occasional demands; that is, for the purpose of keeping the rest of his capital in constant

employment. It is this part of his capital only which, within moderate periods of time, is continually returning

to every dealer in the shape of money, whether paper or coin, and continually going from him in the same

shape. If the advances of the bank had commonly exceeded this part of his capital, the ordinary amount of his

repayments could not, within moderate periods of time, have equalled the ordinary amount of its advances.

The stream which, by means of his dealings, was continually running into the coffers of the bank, could not

have been equal to the stream which, by means of the same dealings, was continually running out. The

advances of the bank paper, by exceeding the quantity of gold and silver which, had there been no such

advances, he would have been obliged to keep by him for answering occasional demands, might soon come

to exceed the whole quantity of gold and silver which (the commerce being supposed the same) would have

circulated in the country had there been no paper money; and consequently to exceed the quantity which the

circulation of the country could easily absorb and employ; and the excess of this paper money would

immediately have returned upon the bank in order to be exchanged for gold and silver. This second

advantage, though equally real, was not perhaps so well understood by all the different banking companies of

When, partly by the conveniency of discounting bills, and partly by that of cash accounts, the creditable

traders of any country can be dispensed from the necessity of keeping any part of their stock by them

unemployed and in ready money for answering occasional demands, they can reasonably expect no farther

assistance from banks and bankers, who, when they have gone thus far, cannot, consistently with their own

interest and safety, go farther. A bank cannot, consistently with its own interest, advance to a trader the whole

or even the greater part of the circulating capital with which he trades; because, though that capital is

continually returning to him in the shape of money, and going from him in the same shape, yet the whole of

the returns is too distant from the whole of the outgoings, and the sum of his repayments could not equal the

sum of its advances within such moderate periods of time as suit the conveniency of a bank. Still less, could a

bank afford to advance him any considerable part of his fixed capital; of the capital which the undertaker of

an iron forge, for example, employs in erecting his forge and smeltinghouse, his workhouses and

warehouses, the dwellinghouses of his workmen, etc.; of the capital which the undertaker of a mine employs

in sinking his shafts, in erecting engines for drawing out the water, in making roads and waggonways, etc.;

of the capital which the person who undertakes to improve land employs in clearing, draining, enclosing,

manuring, and ploughing waste and uncultivated fields, in building farmhouses, with all their necessary

appendages of stables, granaries, etc. The returns of the fixed capital are in almost all cases much slower than

those of the circulating capital; and such expenses, even when laid out with the greatest prudence and

judgment, very seldom return to the undertaker till after a period of many years, a period by far too distant to

suit the conveniency of a bank. Traders and other undertakers may, no doubt, with great propriety, carry on a

very considerable part of their projects with borrowed money. In justice to their creditors, however, their own

capital ought, in this case, to be sufficient to ensure, if I may say so, the capital of those creditors; or to render

it extremely improbable that those creditors should incur any loss, even though the success of the project

should fall very much short of the expectation of the projectors. Even with this precaution too, the money

which is borrowed, and which it is meant should not be repaid till after a period of several years, ought not to

be borrowed of a bank, but ought to be borrowed upon bond or mortgage of such private people as propose to

live upon the interest of their money without taking the trouble themselves to employ the capital, and who are

upon that account willing to lend that capital to such people of good credit as are likely to keep it for several

years. A bank, indeed, which lends its money without the expense of stamped paper, or of attorneys' fees for

drawing bonds and mortgages, and which accepts of repayment upon the easy terms of the banking

companies of Scotland, would, no doubt, be a very convenient creditor to such traders and undertakers. But

such traders and undertakers would, surely, be most inconvenient debtors to such a bank.

It is now more than fiveandtwenty years since the paper money issued by the different banking companies

of Scotland was fully equal, or rather was somewhat more than fully equal, to what the circulation of the

country could easily absorb and employ. Those companies, therefore, had so long ago given all the assistance

to the traders and other undertakers of Scotland which it is possible for banks and bankers, consistently with

their own interest, to give. They had even done somewhat more. They had overtraded a little, and had brought

upon themselves that loss, or at least that diminution of profit, which in this particular business never fails to

attend the smallest degree of overtrading. Those traders and other undertakers, having got so much assistance

from banks and bankers, wished to get still more. The banks, they seem to have thought, could extend their

credits to whatever sum might be wanted, without incurring any other expense besides that of a few reams of

paper. They complained of the contracted views and dastardly spirit of the directors of those banks, which did

not, they said, extend their credits in proportion to the extension of the trade of the country; meaning, no

doubt, by the extension of that trade the extension of their own projects beyond what they could carry on,

either with their own capital, or with what they had credit to borrow of private people in the usual way of

bond or mortgage. The banks, they seem to have thought, were in honour bound to supply the deficiency, and

to provide them with all the capital which they wanted to trade with. The banks, however, were of a different

opinion, and upon their refusing to extend their credits, some of those traders had recourse to an expedient

which, for a time, served their purpose, though at a much greater expense, yet as effectually as the utmost

extension of bank credits could have done. This expedient was no other than the wellknown shift of drawing

and redrawing; the shift to which unfortunate traders have sometimes recourse when they are upon the brink

of bankruptcy. The practice of raising money in this manner had been long known in England, and during the

course of the late war, when the high profits of trade afforded a great temptation to overtrading, is said to

have carried on to a very great extent. From England it was brought into Scotland, where, in proportion to the

very limited commerce, and to the very moderate capital of the country, it was soon carried on to a much

The practice of drawing and redrawing is so well known to all men of business that it may perhaps be thought

unnecessary to give an account of it. But as this book may come into the hands of many people who are not

men of business, and as the effects of this practice upon the banking trade are not perhaps generally

understood even by men of business themselves, I shall endeavour to explain it as distinctly as I can.

The customs of merchants, which were established when the barbarous laws of Europe did not enforce the

performance of their contracts, and which during the course of the two last centuries have been adopted into

the laws of all European nations, have given such extraordinary privileges to bills of exchange that money is

more readily advanced upon them than upon any other species of obligation, especially when they are made

payable within so short a period as two or three months after their date. If, when the bill becomes due, the

acceptor does not pay it as soon as it is presented, he becomes from that moment a bankrupt. The bill is

protested, and returns upon the drawer, who, if he does not immediately pay it, becomes likewise a bankrupt.

If, before it came to the person who presents it to the acceptor for payment, it had passed through the hands of

several other persons, who had successively advanced to one another the contents of it either in money or

goods, and who to express that each of them had in his turn received those contents, had all of them in their

order endorsed, that is, written their names upon the back of the bill; each endorser becomes in his turn liable

to the owner of the bill for those contents, and, if he fails to pay, he becomes too from that moment a

bankrupt. Though the drawer, acceptor, and endorsers of the bill should, all of them, be persons of doubtful

credit; yet still the shortness of the date gives some security to the owner of the bill. Though all of them may

be very likely to become bankrupts, it is a chance if they all become so in so short a time. The house is crazy,

says a weary traveller to himself, and will not stand very long; but it is a chance if it falls tonight, and I will

The trader A in Edinburgh, we shall suppose, draws a bill upon B in London, payable two months after date.

In reality B in London owes nothing to A in Edinburgh; but he agrees to accept of A's bill, upon condition

that before the term of payment he shall redraw upon A in Edinburgh for the same sum, together with the

interest and a commission, another bill, payable likewise two months after date. B accordingly, before the

expiration of the first two months, redraws this bill upon A in Edinburgh; who again, before the expiration of

the second two months, draws a second bill upon B in London, payable likewise two months after date; and

before the expiration of the third two months, B in London redraws upon A in Edinburgh another bill,

payable also two months after date. This practice has sometimes gone on, not only for several months, but for

several years together, the bill always returning upon A in Edinburgh, with the accumulated interest and

commission of all the former bills. The interest was five per cent in the year, and the commission was never

less than one half per cent on each draft. This commission being repeated more than six times in the year,

whatever money A might raise by this expedient must necessarily have, cost him something more than eight

per cent in the year, and sometimes a great deal more; when either the price of the commission happened to

rise, or when he was obliged to pay compound interest upon the interest and commission of former bills. This

In a country where the ordinary profits of stock in the greater part of mercantile projects are supposed to run

between six and ten per cent, it must have been a very fortunate speculation of which the returns could not

only repay the enormous expense at which the money was thus borrowed for carrying it on; but afford,

besides, a good surplus profit to the projector. Many vast and extensive projects, however, were undertaken,

and for several years carried on without any other fund to support them besides what was raised at this

enormous expense. The projectors, no doubt, had in their golden dreams the most distinct vision of this great

profit. Upon their awaking, however, either at the end of their projects, or when they were no longer able to

The bills A in Edinburgh drew upon B in London, he regularly discounted two months before they were due

with some bank or banker in Edinburgh; and the bills which B in London redrew upon A in Edinburgh, he as

regularly discounted either with the Bank of England, or with some other bankers in London. Whatever was

advanced upon such circulating bills, was, in Edinburgh, advanced in the paper of the Scotch banks, and in

London, when they were discounted at the Bank of England, in the paper of that bank. Though the bills upon

which this paper had been advanced were all of them repaid in their turn as soon as they became due; yet the

value which had been really advanced upon the first bill, was never really returned to the banks which

advanced it; because, before each bill became due, another bill was always drawn to somewhat a greater

amount than the bill which was soon to be paid; and the discounting of this other bill was essentially

necessary towards the payment of that which was soon to be due. This payment, therefore, was altogether

fictitious. The stream, which, by means of those circulating bills of exchange, had once been made to run out

from the coffers of the banks, was never replaced by any stream which really run into them.

The paper which was issued upon those circulating bills of exchange, amounted, upon many occasions, to the

whole fund destined for carrying on some vast and extensive project of agriculture, commerce, or

manufactures; and not merely to that part of it which, had there been no paper money, the projector would

have been obliged to keep by him, unemployed and in ready money for answering occasional demands. The

greater part of this paper was, consequently, over and above the value of the gold and silver which would

have circulated in the country, had there been no paper money. It was over and above, therefore, what the

circulation of the country could easily absorb and employ, and upon that account, immediately returned upon

the banks in order to be exchanged for gold and silver, which they were to find as they could. It was a capital

which those projectors had very artfully contrived to draw from those banks, not only without their

knowledge or deliberate consent, but for some time, perhaps, without their having the most distant suspicion

When two people, who are continually drawing and redrawing upon one another, discount their bills always

with the same banker, he must immediately discover what they are about, and see clearly that they are

trading, not with any capital of their own, but with the capital which he advances to them. But this discovery

is not altogether so easy when they discount their bills sometimes with one banker, and sometimes with

another, and when the same two persons do not constantly draw and redraw upon one another, but

occasionally run the round of a great circle of projectors, who find it for their interest to assist one another in

this method of raising money, and to render it, upon that account, as difficult as possible to distinguish

between a real and fictitious bill of exchange; between a bill drawn by a real creditor upon a real debtor, and

a bill for which there was properly no real creditor but the bank which discounted it, nor any real debtor but

the projector who made use of the money. When a banker had even made this discovery, he might sometimes

make it too late, and might find that he had already discounted the bills of those projectors to so great an

extent that, by refusing to discount any more, he would necessarily make them all bankrupts, and thus, by

ruining them, might perhaps ruin himself. For his own interest and safety, therefore, he might find it

necessary, in this very perilous situation, to go on for some time, endeavouring, however, to withdraw

gradually, and upon that account making every day greater and greater difficulties about discounting, in order

to force those projectors by degrees to have recourse, either to other bankers, or to other methods of raising

money; so that he himself might, as soon as possible, get out of the circle. The difficulties, accordingly,

which the Bank of England, which the principal bankers in London, and which even the more prudent Scotch

banks began, after a certain time, and when all of them had already gone too far, to make about discounting,

not only alarmed, but enraged in the highest degree those projectors. Their own distress, of which this

prudent and necessary reserve of the banks was, no doubt, the immediate occasion, they called the distress of

the country; and this distress of the country, they said, was altogether owing to the ignorance, pusillanimity,

and bad conduct of the banks, which did not give a sufficiently liberal aid to the spirited undertakings of

those who exerted themselves in order to beautify, improve, and enrich the country. It was the duty of the

banks, they seemed to think, to lend for as long a time, and to as great an extent as they might wish to

borrow. The banks, however, by refusing in this manner to give more credit to those to whom they had

already given a great deal too much, took the only method by which it was now possible to save either their

In the midst of this clamour and distress, a new bank was established in Scotland for the express purpose of

relieving the distress of the country. The design was generous; but the execution was imprudent, and the

nature and causes of the distress which it meant to relieve were not, perhaps, well understood. This bank was

more liberal than any other had ever been, both in granting cash accounts, and in discounting bills of

exchange. With regard to the latter, it seems to have made scarce any distinction between real and circulating

bills, but to have discounted all equally. It was the avowed principle of this bank to advance, upon any

reasonable security, the whole capital which was to be employed in those improvements of which the returns

are the most slow and distant, such as the improvements of land. To promote such improvements was even

said to be the chief of the publicspirited purposes for which it was instituted. By its liberality in granting

cash accounts, and in discounting bills of exchange, it, no doubt, issued great quantities of its bank notes. But

those bank notes being, the greater part of them, over and above what the circulation of the country could

easily absorb and employ, returned upon it, in order to be exchanged for gold and silver as fast as they were

issued. Its coffers were never well filled. The capital which had been subscribed to this bank at two different

subscriptions, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of which eighty per cent only was paid

up. This sum ought to have been paid in at several different instalments. A great part of the proprietors, when

they paid in their first instalment, opened a cash account with the bank; and the directors, thinking themselves

obliged to treat their own proprietors with the same liberality with which they treated all other men, allowed

many of them to borrow upon this cash account what they paid in upon all their subsequent instalments. Such

payments, therefore, only put into one coffer what had the moment before been taken out of another. But had

the coffers of this bank been filled ever so well, its excessive circulation must have emptied them faster than

they could have been replenished by any other expedient but the ruinous one of drawing upon London, and

when the bill became due, paying it, together with interest and commission, by another draft upon the same

place. Its coffers having been filled so very ill, it is said to have been driven to this resource within a very few

months after it began to do business. The estates of the proprietors of this bank were worth several millions,

and by their subscription to the original bond or contract of the bank, were really pledged for answering all its

engagements. By means of the great credit which so great a pledge necessarily gave it, it was,

notwithstanding its too liberal conduct, enabled to carry on business for more than two years. When it was

obliged to stop, it had in the circulation about two hundred thousand pounds in bank notes. In order to

support the circulation of those notes which were continually returning upon it as fast they were issued, it had

been constantly in the practice of drawing bills of exchange upon London, of which the number and value

were continually increasing, and, when it stopped, amounted to upwards of six hundred thousand pounds.

This bank, therefore, had, in little more than the course of two years, advanced to different people upwards of

eight hundred thousand pounds at five per cent. Upon the two hundred thousand pounds which it circulated in

bank notes, this five per cent might, perhaps, be considered as clear gain, without any other deduction besides

the expense of management. But upon upwards of six hundred thousand pounds, for which it was continually

drawing bills of exchange upon London, it was paying, in the way of interest and commission, upwards of

eight per cent, and was consequently losing more than three per cent upon more than threefourths of all its

The operations of this bank seem to have produced effects quite opposite to those which were intended by the

particular persons who planned and directed it. They seem to have intended to support the spirited

undertakings, for as such they considered them, which were at that time carrying on in different parts of the

country; and at the same time, by drawing the whole banking business to themselves, to supplant all the other

Scotch banks, particularly those established in Edinburgh, whose backwardness in discounting bills of

exchange had given some offence. This bank, no doubt, gave some temporary relief to those projectors, and

enabled them to carry on their projects for about two years longer than they could otherwise have done. But it

thereby only enabled them to get so much deeper into debt, so that, when ruin came, it fell so much the

heavier both upon them and upon their creditors. The operations of this bank, therefore, instead of relieving,

in reality aggravated in the longrun the distress which those projectors had brought both upon themselves

and upon their country. It would have been much better for themselves, their creditors, and their country, had

the greater part of them been obliged to stop two years sooner than they actually did. The temporary relief,

however, which this bank afforded to those projectors, proved a real and permanent relief to the other Scotch

banks. All the dealers in circulating bills of exchange, which those other banks had become so backward in

discounting, had recourse to this new bank, where they were received with open arms. Those other banks,

therefore, were enabled to get very easily out of that fatal circle, from which they could not otherwise have

disengaged themselves without incurring a considerable loss, and perhaps too even some degree of discredit.

In the longrun, therefore, the operations of this bank increased the real distress of the country which it meant

to relieve; and effectually relieved from a very great distress those rivals whom it meant to supplant.

At the first setting out of this bank, it was the opinion of some people that how fast soever its coffers might

be emptied, it might easily replenish them by raising money upon the securities of those to whom it had

advanced its paper. Experience, I believe, soon convinced them that this method of raising money was by

much too slow to answer their purpose; and that coffers which originally were so ill filled, and which emptied

themselves so very fast, could be replenished by no other expedient but the ruinous one of drawing bills upon

London, and when they became due, paying them by other drafts upon the same place with accumulated

interest and commission. But though they had been able by this method to raise money as fast as they wanted

it, yet, instead of making a profit, they must have suffered a loss by every such operation; so that in the

longrun they must have ruined themselves as a mercantile company, though, perhaps, not so soon as by the

more expensive practice of drawing and redrawing. They could still have made nothing by the interest of the

paper, which, being over and above what the circulation of the country could absorb and employ, returned

upon them, in order to be exchanged for gold and silver, as fast as they issued it; and for the payment of

which they were themselves continually obliged to borrow money. On the contrary, the whole expense of this

borrowing, of employing agents to look out for people who had money to lend, of negotiating with those

people, and of drawing the proper bond or assignment, must have fallen upon them, and have been so much

clear loss upon the balance of their accounts. The project of replenishing their coffers in this manner may be

compared to that of a man who had a waterpond from which a stream was continually running out, and into

which no stream was continually running, but who proposed to keep it always equally full by employing a

number of people to go continually with buckets to a well at some miles distance in order to bring water to

But though this operation had proved not only practicable but profitable to the bank as a mercantile company,

yet the country could have derived no benefit from it; but, on the contrary, must have suffered a very

considerable loss by it. This operation could not augment in the smallest degree the quantity of money to be

lent. It could only have erected this bank into a sort of general loan office for the whole country. Those who

wanted to borrow must have applied to this bank instead of applying to the private persons who had lent it

their money. But a bank which lends money perhaps to five hundred different people, the greater part of

whom its directors can know very little about, is not likely to be more judicious in the choice of its debtors

than a private person who lends out his money among a few people whom he knows, and in whose sober and

frugal conduct he thinks he has good reason to confide. The debtors of such a bank as that whose conduct I

have been giving some account of were likely, the greater part of them, to be chimerical projectors, the

drawers and redrawers of circulating bills of exchange, who would employ the money in extravagant

undertakings, which, with all the assistance that could be given them, they would probably never be able to

complete, and which, if they should be completed, would never repay the expense which they had really cost,

would never afford a fund capable of maintaining a quantity of labour equal to that which had been employed

about them. The sober and frugal debtors of private persons, on the contrary, would be more likely to employ

the money borrowed in sober undertakings which were proportioned to their capitals, and which, though they

might have less of the grand and the marvellous, would have more of the solid and the profitable, which

would repay with a large profit whatever had been laid out upon them, and which would thus afford a fund

capable of maintaining a much greater quantity of labour than that which had been employed about them. The

success of this operation, therefore, without increasing in the smallest degree the capital of the country, would

only have transferred a great part of it from prudent and profitable to imprudent and unprofitable

That the industry of Scotland languished for want of money to employ it was the opinion of the famous Mr.

Law. By establishing a bank of a particular kind, which he seems to have imagined might issue paper to the

amount of the whole value of all the lands in the country, he proposed to remedy this want of money. The

Parliament of Scotland, when he first proposed his project, did not think proper to adopt it. It was afterwards

adopted, with some variations, by the Duke of Orleans, at that time Regent of France. The idea of the

possibility of multiplying paper to almost any extent was the real foundation of what is called the Mississippi

scheme, the most extravagant project both of banking and stockjobbing that, perhaps, the world ever saw.

The different operations of this scheme are explained so fully, so clearly, and with so much order and

distinctness, by Mr. du Verney, in his Examination of the Political Reflections upon Commerce and Finances

of Mr. du Tot, that I shall not give any account of them. The principles upon which it was founded are

explained by Mr. Law himself, in a discourse concerning money and trade, which he published in Scotland

when he first proposed his project. The splendid but visionary ideas which are set forth in that and some other

works upon the same principles still continue to make an impression upon many people, and have, perhaps, in

part, contributed to that excess of banking which has of late been complained of both in Scotland and in other

The Bank of England is the greatest bank of circulation in Europe. It was incorporated, in pursuance of an act

of Parliament, by a charter under the Great Seal, dated the 27th of July, 1694. It at that time advanced to

government the sum of one million two hundred thousand pounds, for an annuity of one hundred thousand

pounds; or for L96,000 a year interest, at the rate of eight per cent, and L4000 a year for the expense of

management. The credit of the new government, established by the Revolution, we may believe, must have

In 1697 the bank was allowed to enlarge its capital stock by an engraftment of L1,001,171 10s. Its whole

capital stock therefore, amounted at this time to L2,201,171 10s. This engraftment is said to have been for the

support of public credit. In 1696, tallies had been at forty, and fifty, and sixty per cent discount, and bank

notes at twenty per cent. During the great recoinage of the silver, which was going on at this time, the bank

had thought proper to discontinue the payment of its notes, which necessarily occasioned their discredit.

In pursuance of the 7th Anne, c. 7, the bank advanced and paid into the exchequer the sum of L400,000;

making in all the sum of L1,600,000 which it had advanced upon its original annuity of L96,000 interest and

L4000 for expense of management. In 1708, therefore, the credit of government was as good as that of

private persons, since it could borrow at six per cent interest the common legal and market rate of those

times. In pursuance of the same act, the bank cancelled exchequer bills to the amount of L1,775,027 17s. 10

1/2d. at six per cent interest, and was at the same time allowed to take in subscriptions for doubling its

capital. In 1708, therefore, the capital of the bank amounted to L4,402,343; and it had advanced to

By a call of fifteen per cent in 1709, there was paid in and made stock L656,204 Is. 9d.; and by another of ten

per cent in 1710, L501,448 12s. 11d. In consequence of those two calls, therefore, the bank capital amounted

In pursuance of the 3rd George I, c. 8, the bank delivered up two millions of exchequer bills to be cancelled.

It had at this time, therefore, advanced to government 17s. 10d. In pursuance of the 8th George 1, c. 21, the

bank purchased of the South Sea Company stock to the amount of 14,000,000; and in 1722, in consequence

of the subscriptions which it had taken in for enabling it to make this purchase, its capital stock was increased

by L3,400,000. At this time, therefore, the bank had advanced to the public L9,375,027 17s. 10 1/2d.; and its

capital stock amounted only to L8,959,995 14s. 8d. It was upon this occasion that the sum which the bank

had advanced to the public, and for which it received interest, began first to exceed its capital stock, or the

sum for which it paid a dividend to the proprietors of bank stock; or, in other words, that the bank began to

have an undivided capital, over and above its divided one. It has continued to have an undivided capital of the

same kind ever since. In 1746, the bank had, upon different occasions, advanced to the public L11,686,800

and its divided capital had been raised by different calls and subscriptions to L10,780,000. The state of those

two sums has continued to be the same ever since. In pursuance of the 4th of George III, c. 25, the bank

agreed to pay to government for the renewal of its charter L110,000 without interest or repayment. This sum,

The dividend of the bank has varied according to the variations in the rate of the interest which it has, at

different times, received for the money it had advanced to the public, as well as according to other

circumstances. This rate of interest has gradually been reduced from eight to three per cent. For some years

The stability of the Bank of England is equal to that of the British government. All that it has advanced to the

public must be lost before its creditors can sustain any loss. No other banking company in England can be

established by act of Parliament, or can consist of more than six members. It acts, not only as an ordinary

bank, but as a great engine of state. It receives and pays the greater part of the annuities which are due to the

creditors of the public, it circulates exchequer bills, and it advances to government the annual amount of the

land and malt taxes, which are frequently not paid up till some years thereafter. In those different operations,

its duty to the public may sometimes have obliged it, without any fault of its directors, to overstock the

circulation with paper money. It likewise discounts merchants' bills, and has, upon several different

occasions, supported the credit of the principal houses, not only of England, but of Hamburg and Holland.

Upon one occasion, in 1763, it is said to have advanced for this purpose, in one week, about L1,600,000, a

great part of it in bullion. I do not, however, pretend to warrant either the greatness of the sum, or the

shortness of the time. Upon other occasions, this great company has been reduced to the necessity of paying

It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and

productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the

industry of the country. That part of his capital which a dealer is obliged to keep by him unemployed, and in

ready money, for answering occasional demands, is so much dead stock, which, so long as it remains in this

situation, produces nothing either to him or to his country. The judicious operations of banking enable him to

convert this dead stock into active and productive stock; into materials to work upon, into tools to work with,

and into provisions and subsistence to work for; into stock which produces something both to himself and to

his country. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country, and by means of which the produce

of its land and labour is annually circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, is, in the same manner as

the ready money of the dealer, all dead stock. It is a very valuable part of the capital of the country, which

produces nothing to the country. The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a

great part of this gold and silver, enables the country to convert a great part of this dead stock into active and

productive stock; into stock which produces something to the country. The gold and silver money which

circulates in any country may very properly be compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries

to market all the grass and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile of either. The judicious

operations of banking, by providing, if I may be allowed so violent a metaphor, a sort of waggonway

through the air, enable the country to convert, as it were, a great part of its highways into good pastures and

cornfields, and thereby to increase very considerably the annual produce of its land and labour. The

commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat

augmented, cannot be altogether so secure when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian

wings of paper money as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver. Over and above the

accidents to which they are exposed from the unskillfulness of the conductors of this paper money, they are

liable to several others, from which no prudence or skill of those conductors can guard them.

An unsuccessful war, for example, in which the enemy got possession of the capital, and consequently of that

treasure which supported the credit of the paper money, would occasion a much greater confusion in a

country where the whole circulation was carried on by paper, than in one where the greater part of it was

carried on by gold and silver. The usual instrument of commerce having lost its value, no exchanges could be

made but either by barter or upon credit. All taxes having been usually paid in paper money, the prince would

not have wherewithal either to pay his troops, or to furnish his magazines; and the state of the country would

be much more irretrievable than if the greater part of its circulation had consisted in gold and silver. A prince,

anxious to maintain his dominions at all times in the state in which he can most easily defend them, ought,

upon this account, to guard, not only against that excessive multiplication of paper money which ruins the

very banks which issue it; but even against that multiplication of it which enables them to fill the greater part

The circulation of every country may be considered as divided into two different branches: the circulation of

the dealers with one another, and the circulation between the dealers and the consumers. Though the same

pieces of money, whether paper or metal, may be employed sometimes in the one circulation and sometimes

in the other, yet as both are constantly going on at the same time, each requires a certain stock of money of

one kind or another to carry it on. The value of the goods circulated between the different dealers, never can

exceed the value of those circulated between the dealers and the consumers; whatever is bought by the

dealers, being ultimately destined to be sold to the consumers. The circulation between the dealers, as it is

carried on by wholesale, requires generally a pretty large sum for every particular transaction. That between

the dealers and the consumers, on the contrary, as it is generally carried on by retail, frequently requires but

very small ones, a shilling, or even a halfpenny, being often sufficient. But small sums circulate much faster

than large ones. A shilling changes masters more frequently than a guinea, and a halfpenny more frequently

than a shilling. Though the annual purchases of all the consumers, therefore, are at least equal in value to

those of all the dealers, they can generally be transacted with a much smaller quantity of money; the same

pieces, by a more rapid circulation, serving as the instrument of many more purchases of the one kind than of

Paper money may be so regulated as either to confine itself very much to the circulation between the different

dealers, or to extend itself likewise to a great part of that between the dealers and the consumers. Where no

bank notes are circulated under ten pounds value, as in London, paper money confines itself very much to the

circulation between the dealers. When a ten pound bank note comes into the hands of a consumer, he is

generally obliged to change it at the first shop where he has occasion to purchase five shillings' worth of

goods, so that it often returns into the hands of a dealer before the consumer has spent the fortieth part of the

money. Where bank notes are issued for so small sums as twenty shillings, as in Scotland, paper money

extends itself to a considerable part of the circulation between dealers and consumers. Before the Act of

Parliament, which put a stop to the circulation of ten and five shilling notes, it filled a still greater part of that

circulation. In the currencies of North America, paper was commonly issued for so small a sum as a shilling,

and filled almost the whole of that circulation. In some paper currencies of Yorkshire, it was issued even for

Where the issuing of bank notes for such very small sums is allowed and commonly practised, many mean

people are both enabled and encouraged to become bankers. A person whose promissory note for five

pounds, or even for twenty shillings, would be rejected by everybody, will get it to be received without

scruple when it is issued for so small a sum as a sixpence. But the frequent bankruptcies to which such

beggarly bankers must be liable may occasion a very considerable inconveniency, and sometimes even a very

It were better, perhaps, that no bank notes were issued in any part of the kingdom for a smaller sum than five

pounds. Paper money would then, probably, confine itself, in every part of the kingdom, to the circulation

between the different dealers, as much as it does at present in London, where no bank notes are issued under

ten pounds' value; five pounds being, in most parts of the kingdom, a sum which, though it will purchase,

little more than half the quantity of goods, is as much considered, and is as seldom spent all at once, as ten

Where paper money, it is to be observed, is pretty much confined to the circulation between dealers and

dealers, as at London, there is always plenty of gold and silver. Where it extends itself to a considerable part

of the circulation between dealers and consumers, as in Scotland, and still more in North America, it banishes

gold and silver almost entirely from the country; almost all the ordinary transactions of its interior commerce

being thus carried on by paper. The suppression of ten and five shilling bank notes somewhat relieved the

scarcity of gold and silver in Scotland; and the suppression of twenty shilling notes would probably relieve it

still more. Those metals are said to have become more abundant in America since the suppression of some of

their paper currencies. They are said, likewise, to have been more abundant before the institution of those

Though paper money should be pretty much confined to the circulation between dealers and dealers, yet

banks and bankers might still be able to give nearly the same assistance to the industry and commerce of the

country as they had done when paper money filled almost the whole circulation. The ready money which a

dealer is obliged to keep by him, for answering occasional demands, is destined altogether for the circulation

between himself and other dealers of whom he buys goods. He has no occasion to keep any by him for the

circulation between himself and the consumers, who are his customers, and who bring ready money to him,

instead of taking any from him. Though no paper money, therefore, was allowed to be issued but for such

sums as would confine it pretty much to the circulation between dealers and dealers, yet, partly by

discounting real bills of exchange, and partly by lending upon cash accounts, banks and bankers might still be

able to relieve the greater part of those dealers from the necessity of keeping any considerable part of their

stock by them, unemployed and in ready money, for answering occasional demands. They might still be able

to give the utmost assistance which banks and bankers can, with propriety, give to traders of every kind.

To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker, for

any sum whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them, or to restrain a banker

from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept of them, is a manifest violation of that

natural liberty which it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such regulations may, no

doubt, be considered as in some respects a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural

liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be,

restrained by the laws of all governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical. The obligation of

building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty exactly of

the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.

A paper money consisting in bank notes, issued by people of undoubted credit, payable upon demand without

any condition, and in fact always readily paid as soon as presented, is, in every respect, equal in value to gold

and silver money; since gold and silver money can at any time be had for it. Whatever is either bought or sold

for such paper must necessarily be bought or sold as cheap as it could have been for gold and silver.

The increase of paper money, it has been said, by augmenting the quantity, and consequently diminishing the

value of the whole currency, necessarily augments the money price of commodities. But as the quantity of

gold and silver, which is taken from the currency, is always equal to the quantity of paper which is added to

it, paper money does not necessarily increase the quantity of the whole currency. From the beginning of the

last century to the present time, provisions never were cheaper in Scotland than in 1759, though, from the

circulation of ten and five shilling bank notes, there was then more paper money in the country than at

present. The proportion between the price of provisions in Scotland and that in England is the same now as

before the great multiplication of banking companies in Scotland. Corn is, upon most occasions, fully as

cheap in England as in France; though there is a great deal of paper money in England, and scarce any in

France. In 1751 and in 1752, when Mr. Hume published his Political Discourses, and soon after the great

multiplication of paper money in Scotland, there was a very sensible rise in the price of provisions, owing,

probably, to the badness of the seasons, and not to the multiplication of paper money.

It would be otherwise, indeed, with a paper money consisting in promissory notes, of which the immediate

payment depended, in any respect, either upon the good will of those who issued them, or upon a condition

which the holder of the notes might not always have it in his power to fulfil; or of which the payment was not

exigible till after a certain number of years, and which in the meantime bore no interest. Such a paper money

would, no doubt, fall more or less below the value of gold and silver, according as the difficulty or

uncertainty of obtaining immediate payment was supposed to be greater or less; or according to the greater or

Some years ago the different banking companies of Scotland were in the practice of inserting into their bank

notes, what they called an Optional Clause, by which they promised payment to the bearer, either as soon as

the note should be presented, or, in the option of the directors, six months after such presentment, together

with the legal interest for the said six months. The directors of some of those banks sometimes took

advantage of this optional clause, and sometimes threatened those who demanded gold and silver in exchange

for a considerable number of their notes that they Would take advantage of it, unless such demanders would

content themselves with a part of what they demanded. The promissory notes of those banking companies

constituted at that time the far greater part of the currency of Scotland, which this uncertainty of payment

necessarily degraded below the value of gold and silver money. During the continuance of this abuse (which

prevailed chiefly in 1762, 1763, and 1764), while the exchange between London and Carlisle was at par, that

between London and Dumfries would sometimes be four per cent against Dumfries, though this town is not

thirty miles distant from Carlisle. But at Carlisle, bills were paid in gold and silver; whereas at Dumfries they

were paid in Scotch bank notes, and the uncertainty of getting those bank notes exchanged for gold and silver

coin had thus degraded them four per cent below the value of that coin. The same Act of Parliament which

suppressed ten and five shilling bank notes suppressed likewise this optional clause, and thereby restored the

exchange between England and Scotland to its natural rate, or to what the course of trade and remittances

In the paper currencies of Yorkshire, the payment of so small a sum as a sixpence sometimes depended upon

the condition that the holder of the note should bring the change of a guinea to the person who issued it; a

condition which the holders of such notes might frequently find it very difficult to fulfil, and which must

have degraded this currency below the value of gold and silver money. An Act of Parliament accordingly

declared all such clauses unlawful, and suppressed, in the same manner as in Scotland, all promissory notes,

The paper currencies of North America consisted, not in bank notes payable to the bearer on demand, but in

government paper, of which the payment was not exigible till several years after it was issued; and though the

colony governments paid no interest to the holders of this paper, they declared it to be, and in fact rendered it,

a legal tender of payment for the full value for which it was issued. But allowing the colony security to be

perfectly good, a hundred pounds payable fifteen years hence, for example, in a country where interest at six

per cent, is worth little more than forty pounds ready money. To oblige a creditor, therefore, to accept of this

as full payment for a debt of a hundred pounds actually paid down in ready money was an act of such violent

injustice as has scarce, perhaps, been attempted by the government of any other country which pretended to

be free. It bears the evident marks of having originally been, what the honest and downright Doctor Douglas

assures us it was, a scheme of fraudulent debtors to cheat their creditors. The government of Pennsylvania,

indeed, pretended, upon their first emission of paper money, in 1722, to render their paper of equal value with

gold and silver by enacting penalties against all those who made any difference in the price of their goods

when they sold them for a colony paper, and when they sold them for gold and silver; a regulation equally

tyrannical, but much less effectual than that which it was meant to support. A positive law may render a

shilling a legal tender for guinea, because it may direct the courts of justice to discharge the debtor who has

made that tender. But no positive law can oblige a person who sells goods, and who is at liberty to sell or not

to sell as he pleases, to accept of a shilling as equivalent to a guinea in the price of them. Notwithstanding any

regulation of this kind, it appeared by the course of exchange with Great Britain, that a hundred pounds

sterling was occasionally considered as equivalent, in some of the colonies, to a hundred and thirty pounds,

and in others to so great a sum as eleven hundred pounds currency; this difference in the value arising from

the difference in the quantity of paper emitted in the different colonies, and in the distance and probability of

No law, therefore, could be more equitable than the Act of Parliament, so unjustly complained of in the

colonies, which declared that no paper currency to be emitted there in time coming should be a legal tender of

Pennsylvania was always more moderate in its emissions of paper money than any other of our colonies. Its

paper currency, accordingly, is said never to have sunk below the value of the gold and silver which was

current in the colony before the first emission of its paper money. Before that emission, the colony had raised

the denomination of its coin, and had, by act of assembly, ordered five shillings sterling to pass in the colony

for six and threepence, and afterwards for six and eightpence. A pound colony currency, therefore, even when

that currency was gold and silver, was more than thirty per cent below the value of a pound sterling, and

when that currency was turned into paper it was seldom much more than thirty per cent below that value. The

pretence for raising the denomination of the coin, was to prevent the exportation of gold and silver, by

making equal quantities of those metals pass for greater sums in the colony than they did in the mother

country. It was found, however, that the price of all goods from the mother country rose exactly in proportion

as they raised the denomination of their coin, so that their gold and silver were exported as fast as ever.

The paper of each colony being received in the payment of the provincial taxes, for the full value for which it

had been issued, it necessarily derived from this use some additional value over and above what it would

have had from the real or supposed distance of the term of its final discharge and redemption. This additional

value was greater or less, according as the quantity of paper issued was more or less above what could be

employed in the payment of the taxes of the particular colony which issued it. It was in all the colonies very

A prince who should enact that a certain proportion of his taxes should be paid in a paper money of a certain

kind might thereby give a certain value to this paper money, even though the term of its final discharge and

redemption should depend altogether upon the will of the prince. If the bank which issued this paper was

careful to keep the quantity of it always somewhat below what could easily be employed in this manner, the

demand for it might be such as to make it even bear a premium, or sell for somewhat more in the market than

the quantity of gold or silver currency for which it was issued. Some people account in this manner for what

is called the Agio of the bank of Amsterdam, or for the superiority of bank money over current money;

though this bank money, as they pretend, cannot be taken out of the bank at the will of the owner. The greater

part of foreign bills of exchange must be paid in bank money, that is, by a transfer in the books of the bank;

and the directors of the bank, they allege, are careful to keep the whole quantity of bank money always below

what this use occasions a demand for. It is upon this account, they say, that bank money sells for a premium,

or bears an agio of four or five per cent above the same nominal sum of the gold and silver currency of the

country. This account of the bank of Amsterdam, however, it will appear hereafter, is in a great measure

A paper currency which falls below the value of gold and silver coin does not thereby sink the value of those

metals, or occasion equal quantities of them to exchange for a smaller quantity of goods of any other kind.

The proportion between the value of gold and silver and that of goods of any other kind depends in all cases

not upon the nature or quantity of any particular paper money, which may be current in any particular

country, but upon the richness or poverty of the mines, which happen at any particular time to supply the

great market of the commercial world with those metals. It depends upon the proportion between the quantity

of labour which is necessary in order to bring a certain quantity of gold and silver to market, and that which is

necessary in order to bring thither a certain quantity of any other sort of goods.

If bankers are restrained from issuing any circulating bank notes, or notes payable to the bearer, for less than

a certain sum, and if they are subjected to the obligation of an immediate and unconditional payment of such

bank notes as soon as presented, their trade may, with safety to the public, be rendered in all other respects

perfectly free. The late multiplication of banking companies in both parts of the United Kingdom, an event by

which many people have been much alarmed, instead of diminishing, increases the security of the public. It

obliges all of them to be more circumspect in their conduct, and, by not extending their currency beyond its

due proportion to their cash, to guard themselves against those malicious runs which the rivalship of so many

competitors is always ready to bring upon them. It restrains the circulation of each particular company within

a narrower circle, and reduces their circulating notes to a smaller number. By dividing the whole circulation

into a greater number of parts, the failure of any one company, an accident which, in the course of things,

must sometimes happen, becomes of less consequence to the public. This free competition, too, obliges all

bankers to be more liberal in their dealings with their customers, lest their rivals should carry them away. In

general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more

CHAPTER III. Of the Accumulation of Capital, or of Productive and Unproductive Labour

THERE is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed: there is

another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter,

unproductive labour. Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which

he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labour of a menial servant, on the

contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Though the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his

master, he, in reality, costs him no expense, the value of those wages being generally restored, together with a

profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which his labour is bestowed. But the maintenance of a

menial servant never is restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers: he grows

poor by maintaining a multitude of menial servants. The labour of the latter, however, has its value, and

deserves its reward as well as that of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and realizes itself in

some particular subject or vendible commodity, which lasts for some time at least after that labour is past. It

is, as it were, a certain quantity of labour stocked and stored up to be employed, if necessary, upon some

other occasion. That subject, or what is the same thing, the price of that subject, can afterwards, if necessary,

put into motion a quantity of labour equal to that which had originally produced it. The labour of the menial

servant, on the contrary, does not fix or realize itself in any particular subject or vendible commodity. His

services generally perish in the very instant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace or value behind

The labour of some of the most respectable orders in the society is, like that of menial servants, unproductive

of any value, and does not fix or realize itself in any permanent subject; or vendible commodity, which

endures after that labour is past, and for which an equal quantity of labour could afterwards be procured. The

sovereign, for example, with all the officers both of justice and war who serve under him, the whole army and

navy, are unproductive labourers. They are the servants of the public, and are maintained by a part of the

annual produce of the industry of other people. Their service, how honourable, how useful, or how necessary

soever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity of service can afterwards be procured. The protection,

security, and defence of the commonwealth, the effect of their labour this year will not purchase its

protection, security, and defence for the year to come. In the same class must be ranked, some both of the

gravest and most important, and some of the most frivolous professions: churchmen, lawyers, physicians,

men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons, musicians, operasingers, operadancers, etc. The labour of the

meanest of these has a certain value, regulated by the very same principles which regulate that of every other

sort of labour; and that of the n oblest and most useful, 50 produces nothing which could afterwards purchase

or procure an equal quantity of labour. Like the declamation of the actor, the harangue of the orator, or the

tune of the musician, the work of all of them perishes in the very instant of its production.

Both productive and unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all equally maintained by

the annual produce of the land and labour of the country. This produce, how great soever, can never be

infinite, but must have certain limits. According, therefore, as a smaller or greater proportion of it is in any

one year employed in maintaining unproductive hands, the more in the one case and the less in the other will

remain for the productive, and the next year's produce will be greater or smaller accordingly; the whole

annual produce, if we except the spontaneous productions of the earth, being the effect of productive labour.

Though the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country is, no doubt, ultimately destined

for supplying the consumption of its inhabitants, and for procuring a revenue to them, yet when it first comes

either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, it naturally divides itself into two parts.

One of them, and frequently the largest, is, in the first place, destined for replacing a capital, or for renewing

the provisions, materials, and finished work, which had been withdrawn from a capital; the other for

constituting a revenue either to the owner of this capital, as the profit of his stock, or to some other person, as

the rent of his land. Thus, of the produce of land, one part replaces the capital of the farmer; the other pays his

profit and the rent of the landlord; and thus constitutes a revenue both to the owner of this capital, as the

profits of his stock; and to some other person, as the rent of his land. Of the produce of a great manufactory,

in the same manner, one part, and that always the largest, replaces the capital of the undertaker of the work;

the other pays his profit, and thus constitutes a revenue to the owner of this capital.

That part of the annual produce of the land and labour of any country which replaces a capital never is

immediately employed to maintain any but productive hands. It pays the wages of productive labour only.

That which is immediately destined for constituting a revenue, either as profit or as rent, may maintain

Whatever part of his stock a man employs as a capital, he always expects is to be replaced to him with a

profit. He employs it, therefore, in maintaining productive bands only; and after having served in the function

of a capital to him, it constitutes a revenue to them. Whenever he employs any part of it in maintaining

unproductive hands of any kind, that part is, from that moment, withdrawn from his capital, and placed in his

Unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all maintained by revenue; either, first, by

that part of the annual produce which is originally destined for constituting a revenue to some particular

persons, either as the rent of land or as the profits of stock; or, secondly, by that part which, though originally

destined for replacing a capital and for maintaining productive labourers only, yet when it comes into their

hands whatever part of it is over and above their necessary subsistence may be employed in maintaining

indifferently either productive or unproductive hands. Thus, not only the great landlord or the rich merchant,

but even the common workman, if his wages are considerable, may maintain a menial servant; or he may

sometimes go to a play or a puppetshow, and so contribute his share towards maintaining one set of

unproductive labourers; or he may pay some taxes, and thus help to maintain another set, more honourable

and useful indeed, but equally unproductive. No part of the annual produce, however, which had been

originally destined to replace a capital, is ever directed towards maintaining unproductive hands till after it

has put into motion its full complement of productive labour, or all that it could put into motion in the way in

which it was employed. The workman must have earned his wages by work done before he can employ any

part of them in this manner. That part, too, is generally but a small one. It is his spare revenue only, of which

productive labourers have seldom a great deal. They generally have some, however; and in the payment of

taxes the greatness of their number may compensate, in some measure, the smallness of their contribution.

The rent of land and the profits of stock are everywhere, therefore, the principal sources from which

unproductive hands derive their subsistence. These are the two sorts of revenue of which the owners have

generally most to spare. They might both maintain indifferently either productive or unproductive hands.

They seem, however, to have some predilection for the latter. The expense of a great lord feeds generally

more idle than industrious people. The rich merchant, though with his capital he maintains industrious people

only, yet by his expense, that is, by the employment of his revenue, he feeds commonly the very same sort as

The proportion, therefore, between the productive and unproductive hands, depends very much in every

country upon the proportion between that part of the annual produce, which, as soon as it comes either from

the ground or from the hands of the productive labourers, is destined for replacing a capital, and that which is

destined for constituting a revenue, either as rent or as profit. This proportion is very different in rich from

Thus, at present, in the opulent countries of Europe, a very large, frequently the largest portion of the produce

of the land is destined for replacing the capital of the rich and independent farmer; the other for paying his

profits and the rent of the landlord. But anciently, during the prevalency of the feudal government, a very

small portion of the produce was sufficient to replace the capital employed in cultivation. It consisted

commonly in a few wretched cattle, maintained altogether by the spontaneous produce of uncultivated land,

and which might, therefore, be considered as a part of that spontaneous produce. It generally, too, belonged to

the landlord, and was by him advanced to the occupiers of the land. All the rest of the produce properly

belonged to him too, either as rent for his land, or as profit upon this paltry capital. The occupiers of land

were generally bondmen, whose persons and effects were equally his property. Those who were not bondmen

were tenants at will, and though the rent which they paid was often nominally little more than a quitrent, it

really amounted to the whole produce of the land. Their lord could at all times command their labour in peace

and their service in war. Though they lived at a distance from his house, they were equally dependent upon

him as his retainers who lived in it. But the whole produce of the land undoubtedly belongs to him who can

dispose of the labour and service of all those whom it maintains. In the present state of Europe, the share of

the landlord seldom exceeds a third, sometimes not a fourth part of the whole produce of the land. The rent of

land, however, in all the improved parts of the country, has been tripled and quadrupled since those ancient

times; and this third or fourth part of the annual produce is, it seems, three or four times greater than the

whole had been before. In the progress of improvement, rent, though it increases in proportion to the extent,

In the opulent countries of Europe, great capitals are at present employed in trade and manufactures. In the

ancient state, the little trade that was stirring, and the few homely and coarse manufactures that were carried

on, required but very small capitals. These, however, must have yielded very large profits. The rate of interest

was nowhere less than ten per cent, and their profits must have been sufficient to afford this great interest. At

present the rate of interest, in the improved parts of Europe, is nowhere higher than six per cent, and in some

of the most improved it is so low as four, three, and two per cent. Though that part of the revenue of the

inhabitants which is derived from the profits of stock is always much greater in rich than in poor countries, it

is because the stock is much greater: in proportion to the stock the profits are generally much less.

That part of the annual produce, therefore, which, as soon as it comes either from the ground or from the

hands of the productive labourers, is destined for replacing a capital, is not only much greater in rich than in

poor countries, but bears a much greater proportion to that which is immediately destined for constituting a

revenue either as rent or as profit. The funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour are not only

much greater in the former than in the latter, but bear a much greater proportion to those which, though they

may be employed to maintain either productive or unproductive hands, have generally a predilection for the

The proportion between those different funds necessarily determines in every country the general character of

the inhabitants as to industry or idleness. We are more industrious than our forefathers; because in the present

times the funds destined for the maintenance of industry are much greater in proportion to those which are

likely to be employed in the maintenance of idleness than they were two or three centuries ago. Our ancestors

were idle for want of a sufficient encouragement to industry. It is better, says the proverb, to play for nothing

than to work for nothing. In mercantile and manufacturing towns, where the inferior ranks of people are

chiefly maintained by the employment of capital, they are in general industrious, sober, and thriving; as in

many English, and in most Dutch towns. In those towns which are principally supported by the constant or

occasional residence of a court, and in which the inferior ranks of people are chiefly maintained by the

spending of revenue, they are in general idle, dissolute, and poor; as at Rome, Versailles, Compiegne, and

Fontainebleu. If you except Rouen and Bordeaux, there is little trade or industry in any of the parliament

towns of France; and the inferior ranks of people, being elderly maintained by the expense of the members of

the courts of justice, and of those who come to plead before them, are in general idle and poor. The great

trade of Rouen and Bordeaux seems to be altogether the effect of their situation. Rouen is necessarily the

entrepot of almost all the goods which are brought either from foreign countries, or from the maritime

provinces of France, for the consumption of the great city of Paris. Bordeaux is in the same manner the

entrepot of the wines which grow upon the banks of the Garonne, and of the rivers which run into it, one of

the richest wine countries in the world, and which seems to produce the wine fittest for exportation, or best

suited to the taste of foreign nations. Such advantageous situations necessarily attract a great capital by the

great employment which they afford it; and the employment of this capital is the cause of the industry of

those two cities. In the other parliament towns of France, very little more capital seems to be employed than

what is necessary for supplying their own consumption; that is, little more than the smallest capital which can

be employed in them. The same thing may be said of Paris, Madrid, and Vienna. Of those three cities, Paris is

by far the most industrious; but Paris itself is the principal market of all the manufactures established at Paris,

and its own consumption is the principal object of all the trade which it carries on. London, Lisbon, and

Copenhagen, are, perhaps, the only three cities in Europe which are both the constant residence of a court,

and can at the same time be considered as trading cities, or as cities which trade not only for their own

consumption, but for that of other cities and countries. The situation of all the three is extremely

advantageous, and naturally fits them to be the entrepots of a great part of the goods destined for the

consumption of distant places. In a city where a great revenue is spent, to employ with advantage a capital for

any other purpose than for supplying the consumption of that city is probably more difficult than in one in

which the inferior ranks of people have no other maintenance but what they derive from the employment of

such a capital. The idleness of the greater part of the people who are maintained by the expense of revenue

corrupts, it is probable, the industry of those who ought to be maintained by the employment of capital, and

renders it less advantageous to employ a capital there than in other places. There was little trade or industry in

Edinburgh before the union. When the Scotch Parliament was no longer to be assembled in it, when it ceased

to be the necessary residence of the principal nobility and gentry of Scotland, it became a city of some trade

and industry. It still continues, however, to be the residence of the principal courts of justice in Scotland, of

the Boards of Customs and Excise, etc. A considerable revenue, therefore, still continues to be spent in it. In

trade and industry it is much inferior to Glasgow, of which the inhabitants are chiefly maintained by the

employment of capital. The inhabitants of a large village, it has sometimes been observed, after having made

considerable progress in manufactures, have become idle and poor in consequence of a great lord having

The proportion between capital and revenue, therefore, seems everywhere to regulate the proportion between

industry and idleness. Wherever capital predominates, industry prevails: wherever revenue, idleness. Every

increase or diminution of capital, therefore, naturally tends to increase or diminish the real quantity of

industry, the number of productive hands, and consequently the exchangeable value of the annual produce of

the land and labour of the country, the real wealth and revenue of all its inhabitants.

Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and misconduct.

Whatever a person saves from his revenue he adds to his capital, and either employs it himself in maintaining

an additional number of productive hands, or enables some other person to do so, by lending it to him for an

interest, that is, for a share of the profits. As the capital of an individual can be increased only by what he

saves from his annual revenue or his annual gains, so the capital of a society, which is the same with that of

Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the

subject which parsimony accumulates. But whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and

Parsimony, by increasing the fund which is destined for the maintenance of productive hands, tends to

increase the number of those hands whose labour adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed.

It tends, therefore, to increase the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the

country. It puts into motion an additional quantity of industry, which gives an additional value to the annual

What is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent, and nearly in the same time too;

but it is consumed by a different set of people. That portion of his revenue which a rich man annually spends

is in most cases consumed by idle guests and menial servants, who leave nothing behind them in return for

their consumption. That portion which he annually saves, as for the sake of the profit it is immediately

employed as a capital, is consumed in the same manner, and nearly in the same time too, but by a different set

of people, by labourers, manufacturers, and artificers, who reproduce with a profit the value of their annual

consumption. His revenue, we shall suppose, is paid him in money. Had he spent the whole, the food,

clothing, and lodging, which the whole could have purchased, would have been distributed among the former

set of people. By saving a part of it, as that part is for the sake of the profit immediately employed as a capital

either by himself or by some other person, the food, clothing, and lodging, which may be purchased with it,

are necessarily reserved for the latter. The consumption is the same, but the consumers are different.

By what a frugal man annually saves, he not only affords maintenance to an additional number of productive

hands, for that or the ensuing year, but, like the founder of a public workhouse, he establishes as it were a

perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come. The perpetual allotment and

destination of this fund, indeed, is not always guarded by any positive law, by any trustright or deed of

mortmain. It is always guarded, however, by a very powerful principle, the plain and evident interest of every

individual to whom any share of it shall ever belong. No part of it can ever afterwards be employed to

maintain any but productive hands without an evident loss to the person who thus perverts it from its proper

The prodigal perverts it in this manner. By not confining his expense within his income, he encroaches upon

his capital. Like him who perverts the revenues of some pious foundation to profane purposes, he pays the

wages of idleness with those funds which the frugality of his forefathers had, as it were, consecrated to the

maintenance of industry. By diminishing the funds destined for the employment of productive labour, he

necessarily diminishes, so far as it depends upon him, the quantity of that labour which adds a value to the

subject upon which it is bestowed, and, consequently, the value of the annual produce of the land and labour

of the whole country, the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. If the prodigality of some was not

compensated by the frugality of others, the conduct of every prodigal, by feeding the idle with the bread of

the industrious, tends not only to beggar himself, but to impoverish his country.

Though the expense of the prodigal should be altogether in homemade, and no part of it in foreign

commodities, its effect upon the productive funds of the society would still be the same. Every year there

would still be a certain quantity of food and clothing, which ought to have maintained productive, employed

in maintaining unproductive hands. Every year, therefore, there would still be some diminution in what

would otherwise have been the value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country.

This expense, it may be said indeed, not being in foreign goods, and not occasioning any exportation of gold

and silver, the same quantity of money would remain in the country as before. But if the quantity of food and

clothing, which were thus consumed by unproductive, had been distributed among productive hands, they

would have reproduced, together with a profit, the full value of their consumption. The same quantity of

money would in this case equally have remained in the country, and there would besides have been a

reproduction of an equal value of consumable goods. There would have been two values instead of one.

The same quantity of money, besides, cannot long remain in any country in which the value of the annual

produce diminishes. The sole use of money is to circulate consumable goods. By means of it, provisions,

materials, and finished work, are bought and sold, and distributed to their proper consumers. The quantity of

money, therefore, which can be annually employed in any country must be determined by the value of the

consumable goods annually circulated within it. These must consist either in the immediate produce of the

land and labour of the country itself, or in something which had been, purchased with some part of that

produce. Their value, therefore, must diminish as the value of that produce diminishes, and along with it the

quantity of money which can be employed in circulating them. But the money which by this annual

diminution of produce is annually thrown out of domestic circulation will not be allowed to lie idle. The

interest of whoever possesses it requires that it should be employed. But having no employment at home, it

will, in spite of all laws and prohibitions, be sent abroad, and employed in purchasing consumable goods

which may be of some use at home. Its annual exportation will in this manner continue for some time to add

something to the annual consumption of the country beyond the value of its own annual produce. What in the

days of its prosperity had been saved from that annual produce, and employed in purchasing gold and silver,

will contribute for some little time to support its consumption in adversity. The exportation of gold and silver

is, in this case, not the cause, but the effect of its declension, and may even, for some little time, alleviate the

The quantity of money, on the contrary, must in every country naturally increase as the value of the annual

produce increases. The value of the consumable goods annually circulated within the society being greater

will require a greater quantity of money to circulate them. A part of the increased produce, therefore, will

naturally be employed in purchasing, wherever it is to be had, the additional quantity of gold and silver

necessary for circulating the rest. The increase of those metals will in this case be the effect, not the cause, of

the public prosperity. Gold and silver are purchased everywhere in the same manner. The food, clothing, and

lodging, the revenue and maintenance of all those whose labour or stock is employed in bringing them from

the mine to the market, is the price paid for them in Peru as well as in England. The country which has this

price to pay will never be long without the quantity of those metals which it has occasion for; and no country

Whatever, therefore, we may imagine the real wealth and revenue of a country to consist in, whether in the

value of the annual produce of its land and labour, as plain reason seems to dictate; or in the quantity of the

precious metals which circulate within it, as vulgar prejudices suppose; in either view of the matter, every

prodigal appears to be a public enemy, and every frugal man a public benefactor.

The effects of misconduct are often the same as those of prodigality. Every injudicious and unsuccessful

project in agriculture, mines, fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends in the same manner to diminish the funds

destined for the maintenance of productive labour. In every such project, though the capital is consumed by

productive hands only, yet, as by the injudicious manner in which they are employed they do not reproduce

the full value of their consumption, there must always be some diminution in what would otherwise have

It can seldom happen, indeed, that the circumstances of a great nation can be much affected either by the

prodigality or misconduct of individuals; the profusion or imprudence of some being always more than

With regard to profusion, the principle which prompts to expense is the passion for present enjoyment;

which, though sometimes violent and very difficult to be restrained, is in general only momentary and

occasional. But the principle which prompts to save is the desire of bettering our condition, a desire which,

though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into

the grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments, there is scarce perhaps a single instant in

which any man is so perfectly and completely satisfied with his situation as to be without any wish of

alteration or improvement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of

men propose and wish to better their condition. It is the means the most vulgar and the most obvious; and the

most likely way of augmenting their fortune is to save and accumulate some part of what they acquire, either

regularly and annually, or upon some extraordinary occasions. Though the principle of expense, therefore,

prevails in almost all men upon some occasions, and in some men upon almost all occasions, yet in the

greater part of men, taking the whole course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality seems not

With regard to misconduct, the number of prudent and successful undertakings is everywhere much greater

than that of injudicious and unsuccessful ones. After all our complaints of the frequency of bankruptcies, the

unhappy men who fall into this misfortune make but a very small part of the whole number engaged in trade,

and all other sorts of business; not much more perhaps than one in a thousand. Bankruptcy is perhaps the

greatest and most humiliating calamity which can befall an innocent man. The greater part of men, therefore,

are sufficiently careful to avoid it. Some, indeed, do not avoid it; as some do not avoid the gallows.

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and

misconduct. The whole, or almost the whole public revenue, is in most countries employed in maintaining

unproductive hands. Such are the people who compose a numerous and splendid court, a great ecclesiastical

establishment, great fleets and armies, who in time of peace produce nothing, and in time of war acquire

nothing which can compensate the expense of maintaining them, even while the war lasts. Such people, as

they themselves produce nothing, are all maintained by the produce of other men's labour. When multiplied,

therefore, to an unnecessary number, they may in a particular year consume so great a share of this produce,

as not to leave a sufficiency for maintaining the productive labourers, who should reproduce it next year. The

next year's produce, therefore, will be less than that of the foregoing, and if the same disorder should

continue, that of the third year will be still less than that of the second. Those unproductive hands, who

should be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of the people, may consume so great a share of their

whole revenue, and thereby oblige so great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon the funds destined

for the maintenance of productive labour, that all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be

able to compensate the waste and degradation of produce occasioned by this violent and forced

This frugality and good conduct, however, is upon most occasions, it appears from experience, sufficient to

compensate, not only the private prodigality and misconduct of individuals, but the public extravagance of

government. The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the

principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently

powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the

extravagance of government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of

animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite, not only of the disease, but of

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means but

by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who

had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never be much

increased, but in consequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The

productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence either of some

addition and improvement to those machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a

more proper division and distribution of employment. In either case an additional capital is almost always

required. It is by means of an additional capital only that the undertaker of any work can either provide his

workmen with better machinery or make a more proper distribution of employment among them. When the

work to be done consists of a number of parts, to keep every man constantly employed in one way requires a

much greater capital than where every man is occasionally employed in every different part of the work.

When we compare, therefore, the state of a nation at two different periods, and find, that the annual produce

of its land and labour is evidently greater at the latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its

manufactures more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade more extensive, we may be assured that its

capital must have increased during the interval between those two periods, and that more must have been

added to it by the good conduct of some than had been taken from it either by the private misconduct of

others or by the public extravagance of government. But we shall find this to have been the case of almost all

nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of those who have not enjoyed the most prudent and

parsimonious governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the state of the country

at periods somewhat distant from one another. The progress is frequently so gradual that, at near periods, the

improvement is not only not sensible, but from the declension either of certain branches of industry, or of

certain districts of the country, things which sometimes happen though the country in general be in great

prosperity, there frequently arises a suspicion that the riches and industry of the whole are decaying.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, for example, is certainly much greater than it was, a

little more than a century ago, at the restoration of Charles II. Though, at present, few people, I believe, doubt

of this, yet during this period, five years have seldom passed away in which some book or pamphlet has not

been published, written, too, with such abilities as to gain some authority with the public, and pretending to

demonstrate that the wealth of the nation was fast declining, that the country was depopulated, agriculture

neglected, manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have these publications been all party pamphlets,

the wretched offspring of falsehood and venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very

intelligent people, who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no other reason but because they

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, again, was certainly much greater at the Restoration,

than we can suppose it to have been about an hundred years before, at the accession of Elizabeth. At this

period, too, we have all reason to believe, the country was much more advanced in improvement than it had

been about a century before, towards the close of the dissensions between the houses of York and Lancaster.

Even then it was, probably, in a better condition than it had been at the Norman Conquest, and at the Norman

Conquest than during the confusion of the Saxon Heptarchy. Even at this early period, it was certainly a more

improved country than at the invasion of Julius Caesar, when its inhabitants were nearly in the same state

In each of those periods, however, there was not only much private and public profusion, many expensive

and unnecessary wars, great perversion of the annual produce from maintaining productive to maintain

unproductive hands; but sometimes, in the confusion of civil discord, such absolute waste and destruction of

stock, as might be supposed, not only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural accumulation of riches, but to

have left the country, at the end of the period, poorer than at the beginning. Thus, in the happiest and most

fortunate period of them all, that which has passed since the Restoration, how many disorders and

misfortunes have occurred, which, could they have been foreseen, not only the impoverishment, but the total

ruin of the country would have been expected from them? The fire and the plague of London, the two Dutch

wars, the disorders of the Revolution, the war in Ireland, the four expensive French wars of 1688, 1702, 1742,

and 1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the course of the four French wars, the nation

has contracted more than a hundred and fortyfive millions of debt, over and above all the other

extraordinary annual expense which they occasioned, so that the whole cannot be computed at less than two

hundred millions. So great a share of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country has, since the

Revolution, been employed upon different occasions in maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive

hands. But had not those wars given this particular direction to so large a capital, the greater part of it would

naturally have been employed in maintaining productive hands, whose labour would have replaced, with a

profit, the whole value of their consumption. The value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the

country would have been considerably increased by it every year, and every year's increase would have

augmented still more that of the following year. More houses would have been built, more lands would have

been improved, and those which had been improved before would have been better cultivated, more

manufactures would have been established. and those which had been established before would have been

more extended; and to what height the real wealth and revenue of the country might, by this time, have been

But though the profusion of government must, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England

towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is,

undoubtedly, much greater at present than it was either at the Restoration or at the Revolution. The capital,

therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewise be much

greater. In the midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and gradually

accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their universal, continual, and

uninterrupted effort to better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to

exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progress of England towards

opulence and improvement in almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all future

times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony

has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and

presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to

restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They

are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well

after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does

As frugality increases and prodigality diminishes the public capital, so the conduct of those whose expense

just equals their revenue, without either accumulating or encroaching, neither increases nor diminishes it.

Some modes of expense, however, seem to contribute more to the growth of public opulence than others.

The revenue of an individual may be spent either in things which are consumed immediately, and in which

one day's expense can neither alleviate nor support that of another, or it may be spent in things more durable,

which can therefore be accumulated, and in which every day's expense may, as he chooses, either alleviate or

support and heighten the effect of that of the following day. A man of fortune, for example, may either spend

his revenue in a profuse and sumptuous table, and in maintaining a great number of menial servants, and a

multitude of dogs and horses; or contenting himself with a frugal table and few attendants, he may lay out the

greater part of it in adorning his house or his country villa, in useful or ornamental buildings, in useful or

ornamental furniture, in collecting books, statues, pictures; or in things more frivolous, jewels, baubles,

ingenious trinkets of different kinds; or, what is most trifling of all, in amassing a great wardrobe of fine

clothes, like the favourite and minister of a great prince who died a few years ago. Were two men of equal

fortune to spend their revenue, the one chiefly in the one way, the other in the other, the magnificence of the

person whose expense had been chiefly in durable commodities, would be continually increasing, every day's

expense contributing something to support and heighten the effect of that of the following day: that of the

other, on the contrary, would be no greater at the end of the period than at the beginning. The former, too,

would, at the end of the period, be the richer man of the two. He would have a stock of goods of some kind or

other, which, though it might not be worth all that it cost, would always be worth something. No trace or

vestige of the expense of the latter would remain, and the effects of ten or twenty years profusion would be as

As the one mode of expense is more favourable than the other to the opulence of an individual, so is it

likewise to that of a nation. The houses, the furniture, the clothing of the rich, in a little time, become useful

to the inferior and middling ranks of people. They are able to purchase them when their superiors grow weary

of them, and the general accommodation of the whole people is thus gradually improved, when this mode of

expense becomes universal among men of fortune. In countries which have long been rich, you will

frequently find the inferior ranks of people in possession both of houses and furniture perfectly good and

entire, but of which neither the one could have been built, nor the other have been made for their use. What

was formerly a seat of the family of Seymour is now an inn upon the Bath road. The marriagebed of James

the First of Great Britain, which his queen brought with her from Denmark as a present fit for a sovereign to

make to a sovereign, was, a few years ago, the ornament of an alehouse at Dunfermline. In some ancient

cities, which either have been long stationary, or have gone somewhat to decay, you will sometimes scarce

find a single house which could have been built for its present inhabitants. If you go into those houses too,

you will frequently find many excellent, though antiquated pieces of furniture, which are still very fit for use,

and which could as little have been made for them. Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collections of

books, statues, pictures and other curiosities, are frequently both an ornament and an honour, not only to the

neighbourhood, but to the whole country to which they belong. Versailles is an ornament and an honour to

France, Stowe and Wilton to England. Italy still continues to command some sort of veneration by the

number of monuments of this kind which it possesses, though the wealth which produced them has decayed,

and though the genius which planned them seems to be extinguished, perhaps from not having the same

The expense too, which is laid out in durable commodities, is favourable, not only to accumulation, but to

frugality. If a person should at any time exceed in it, he can easily reform without exposing himself to the

censure of the public. To reduce very much the number of his servants, to reform his table from great

profusion to great frugality, to lay down his equipage after he has once set it up, are changes which cannot

escape the observation of his neighbours, and which are supposed to imply some acknowledgment of

preceding bad conduct. Few, therefore, of those who have once been so unfortunate as to launch out too far

into this sort of expense, have afterwards the courage to reform, till ruin and bankruptcy oblige them. But if a

person has, at any time, been at too great an expense in building, in furniture, in books or pictures, no

imprudence can be inferred from his changing his conduct. These are things in which further expense is

frequently rendered unnecessary by former expense; and when a person stops short, he appears to do so, not

The expense, besides, that is laid out in durable commodities gives maintenance, commonly, to a greater

number of people than that which is employed in the most profuse hospitality. Of two or three hundredweight

of provisions, which may sometimes be served up at a great festival, one half, perhaps, is thrown to the

dunghill, and there is always a great deal wasted and abused. But if the expense of this entertainment had

been employed in setting to work masons, carpenters, upholsterers, mechanics, etc., a quantity of provisions,

of equal value, would have been distributed among a still greater number of people who would have bought

them in pennyworths and pound weights, and not have lost or thrown away a single ounce of them. In the one

way, besides, this expense maintains productive, in the other unproductive hands. In the one way, therefore, it

increases, in the other, it does not increase, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and

I would not, however, by all this be understood to mean that the one species of expense always betokens a

more liberal or generous spirit than the other. When a man of fortune spends his revenue chiefly in

hospitality, he shares the greater part of it with his friends and companions; but when he employs it in

purchasing such durable commodities, he often spends the whole upon his own person, and gives nothing to

anybody without an equivalent. The latter species of expense, therefore, especially when directed towards

frivolous objects, the little ornaments of dress and furniture, jewels, trinkets, gewgaws, frequently indicates,

not only a trifling, but a base and selfish disposition. All that I mean is, that the one sort of expense, as it

always occasions some accumulation of valuable commodities, as it is more favourable to private frugality,

and, consequently, to the increase of the public capital, and as it maintains productive, rather than

unproductive hands, conduces more than the other to the growth of public opulence.

THE stock which is lent at interest is always considered as a capital by the lender. He expects that in due time

it is to be restored to him, and that in the meantime the borrower is to pay him a certain annual rent for the

use of it. The borrower may use it either as a capital, or as a stock reserved for immediate consumption. If he

uses it as a capital, he employs it in the maintenance of productive labourers, who reproduce the value with a

profit. He can, in this case, both restore the capital and pay the interest without alienating or encroaching

upon any other source of revenue. If he uses it as a stock reserved for immediate consumption, he acts the

part of a prodigal, and dissipates in the maintenance of the idle what was destined for the support of the

industrious. He can, in this case, neither restore the capital nor pay the interest without either alienating or

encroaching upon some other source of revenue, such as the property or the rent of land.

The stock which is lent at interest is, no doubt, occasionally employed in both these ways, but in the former

much more frequently than in the latter. The man who borrows in order to spend will soon be ruined, and he

who lends to him will generally have occasion to repent of his folly. To borrow or to lend for such a purpose,

therefore, is in all cases, where gross usury is out of the question, contrary to the interest of both parties; and

though it no doubt happens sometimes that people do both the one and the other; yet, from the regard that all

men have for their own interest, we may be assured that it cannot happen so very frequently as we are

sometimes apt to imagine. Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has

lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend

it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question. Even among borrowers, therefore, not the people

in the world most famous for frugality, the number of the frugal and industrious surpasses considerably that

The only people to whom stock is commonly lent, without their being expected to make any very profitable

use of it, are country gentlemen who borrow upon mortgage. Even they scarce ever borrow merely to spend.

What they borrow, one may say, is commonly spent before they borrow it. They have generally consumed so

great a quantity of goods, advanced to them upon credit by shopkeepers and tradesmen, that they find it

necessary to borrow at interest in order to pay the debt. The capital borrowed replaces the capitals of those

shopkeepers and tradesmen, which the country gentlemen could not have replaced from the rents of their

estates. It is not properly borrowed in order to be spent, but in order to replace a capital which had been spent

Almost all loans at interest are made in money, either of paper, or of gold and silver. But what the borrower

really wants, and what the lender really supplies him with, is not the money, but the money's worth, or the

goods which it can purchase. If he wants it as a stock for immediate consumption, it is those goods only

which he can place in that stock. If he wants it as a capital for employing industry, it is from those goods only

that the industrious can be furnished with the tools, materials, and maintenance necessary for carrying on

their work. By means of the loan, the lender, as it were, assigns to the borrower his right to a certain portion

of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country to be employed as the borrower pleases.

The quantity of stock, therefore, or, as it is commonly expressed, of money which can be lent at interest in

any country, is not regulated by the value of the money, whether paper or coin, which serves as the

instrument of the different loans made in that country, but by the value of that part of the annual produce

which, as soon as it comes either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, is destined

not only for replacing a capital, but such a capital as the owner does not care to be at the trouble of employing

himself. As such capitals are commonly lent out and paid back in money, they constitute what is called the

monied interest. It is distinct, not only from the landed, but from the trading and manufacturing interests, as

in these last the owners themselves employ their own capitals. Even in the monied interest, however, the

money is, as it were, but the deed of assignment, which conveys from one hand to another those capitals

which the owners do not care to employ themselves. Those capitals may be greater in almost any proportion

than the amount of the money which serves as the instrument of their conveyance; the same pieces of money

successively serving for many different loans, as well as for many different purchases. A, for example, lends

to W a thousand pounds, with which W immediately purchases of B a thousand pounds' worth of goods. B

having no occasion for the money himself, lends the identical pieces to X, with which X immediately

purchases of C another thousand pounds' worth of goods. C in the same manner, and for the same reason,

lends them to Y, who again purchases goods with them of D. In this manner the same pieces, either of coin or

paper, may in the course of a few days, serve as the instrument of three different loans, and of three different

purchases, each of which is, in value, equal to the whole amount of those pieces. What the three monied men

A, B, and C assign to the three borrowers, W, X, Y, is the power of making those purchases. In this power

consist both the value and the use of the loans. The stock lent by the three monied men is equal to the value

of the goods which can be purchased with it, and is three times greater than that of the money with which the

purchases are made. Those loans however, may be all perfectly well secured, the goods purchased by the

different debtors being so employed as, in due time, to bring back, with a profit, an equal value either of coin

or of paper. And as the same pieces of money can thus serve as the instrument of different loans to three, or

for the same reason, to thirty times their value, so they may likewise successively serve as the instrument of

A capital lent at interest may, in this manner, be considered as an assignment from the lender to the borrowers

of a certain considerable portion of the annual produce; upon condition that the borrower in return shall,

during the continuance of the loan, annually assign to the lender a smaller portion, called the interest; and at

the end of it a portion equally considerable with that which had originally been assigned to him, called the

repayment. Though money, either coin or paper, serves generally as the deed of assignment both to the

smaller and to the more considerable portion, it is itself altogether different from what is assigned by it.

In proportion as that share of the annual produce which, as soon as it comes either from the ground, or from

the hands of the productive labourers, is destined for replacing a capital, increases in any country, what is

called the monied interest naturally increases with it. The increase of those particular capitals from which the

owners wish to derive a revenue, without being at the trouble of employing them themselves, naturally

accompanies the general increase of capitals; or, in other words, as stock increases, the quantity of stock to be

As the quantity of stock to be lent at interest increases, the interest, or the price which must be paid for the

use of that stock, necessarily diminishes, not only from those general causes which make the market price of

things commonly diminish as their quantity increases, but from other causes which are peculiar to this

particular case. As capitals increase in any country, the profits which can be made by employing them

necessarily diminish. It becomes gradually more and more difficult to find within the country a profitable

method of employing any new capital. There arises in consequence a competition between different capitals,

the owner of one endeavouring to get possession of that employment which is occupied by another. But upon

most occasions he can hope to jostle that other out of this employment by no other means but by dealing upon

more reasonable terms. He must not only sell what he deals in somewhat cheaper, but in order to get it to sell,

he must sometimes, too, buy it dearer. The demand for productive labour, by the increase of the funds which

are destined for maintaining it, grows every day greater and greater. Labourers easily find employment, but

the owners of capitals find it difficult to get labourers to employ. Their competition raises the wages of labour

and sinks the profits of stock. But when the profits which can be made by the use of a capital are in this

manner diminished, as it were, at both ends, the price which can be paid for the use of it, that is, the rate of

Mr. Locke, Mr. Law, and Mr. Montesquieu, as well as many other writers, seem to have imagined that the

increase of the quantity of gold and silver, in consequence of the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, was

the real cause of the lowering of the rate of interest through the greater part of Europe. Those metals, they

say, having become of less value themselves, the use of any particular portion of them necessarily became of

less value too, and consequently the price which could be paid for it. This notion, which at first sight seems

plausible, has been so fully exposed by Mr. Hume that it is, perhaps, unnecessary to say anything more about

it. The following very short and plain argument, however, may serve to explain more distinctly the fallacy

Before the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, ten per cent seems to have been the common rate of interest

through the greater part of Europe. It has since that time in different countries sunk to six, five, four, and

three per cent. Let us suppose that in every particular country the value of silver has sunk precisely in the

same proportion as the rate of interest; and that in those countries, for example, where interest has been

reduced from ten to five per cent, the same quantity of silver can now purchase just half the quantity of goods

which it could have purchased before. This supposition will not, I believe, be found anywhere agreeable to

the truth, but it is the most favourable to the opinion which we are going to examine; and even upon this

supposition it is utterly impossible that the lowering of the value of silver could have the smallest tendency to

lower the rate of interest. If a hundred pounds are in those countries now of no more value than fifty pounds

were then, ten pounds must now be of no more value than five pounds were then. Whatever were the causes

which lowered the value of the capital, the same must necessarily have lowered that of the interest, and

exactly in the same proportion. The proportion between the value of the capital and that of the interest must

have remained the same, though the rate had been altered. By altering the rate, on the contrary, the proportion

between those two values is necessarily altered. If a hundred pounds now are worth no more than fifty were

then, five pounds now can be worth no more than two pounds ten shillings were then. By reducing the rate of

interest, therefore, from ten to five per cent, we give for the use of a capital, which is supposed to be equal to

one half of its former value, an interest which is equal to one fourth only of the value of the former interest.

Any increase in the quantity of silver, while that of the commodities circulated by means of it remained the

same, could have no other effect than to diminish the value of that metal. The nominal value of all sorts of

goods would be greater, but their real value would be precisely the same as before. They would be exchanged

for a greater number of pieces of silver; but the quantity of labour which they could command, the number of

people whom they could maintain and employ, would be precisely the same. The capital of the country would

be the same, though a greater number of pieces might be requisite for conveying any equal portion of it from

one hand to another. The deeds of assignment, like the conveyances of a verbose attorney, would be more

cumbersome, but the thing assigned would be precisely the same as before, and could produce only the same

effects. The funds for maintaining productive labour being the same, the demand for it would be the same. Its

price or wages, therefore, though nominally greater, would really be the same. They would be paid in a

greater number of pieces of silver; but they would purchase only the same quantity of goods. The profits of

stock would be the same both nominally and really. The wages of labour are commonly computed by the

quantity of silver which is paid to the labourer. When that is increased, therefore, his wages appear to be

increased, though they may sometimes be no greater than before. But the profits of stock are not computed by

the number of pieces of silver with which they are paid, but by the proportion which those pieces bear to the

whole capital employed. Thus in a particular country five shillings a week are said to be the common wages

of labour, and ten per cent the common profits of stock. But the whole capital of the country being the same

as before, the competition between the different capitals of individuals into which it was divided would

likewise be the same. They would all trade with the same advantages and disadvantages. The common

proportion between capital and profit, therefore, would be the same, and consequently the common interest of

money; what can commonly be given for the use of money being necessarily regulated by what can

Any increase in the quantity of commodities annually circulated within the country, while that of the money

which circulated them remained the same, would, on the contrary, produce many other important effects,

besides that of raising the value of the money. The capital of the country, though it might nominally be the

same, would really be augmented. It might continue to be expressed by the same quantity of money, but it

would command a greater quantity of labour. The quantity of productive labour which it could maintain and

employ would be increased, and consequently the demand for that labour. Its wages would naturally rise with

the demand, and yet might appear to sink. They might be paid with a smaller quantity of money, but that

smaller quantity might purchase a greater quantity of goods than a greater had done before. The profits of

stock would be diminished both really and in appearance. The whole capital of the country being augmented,

the competition between the different capitals of which it was composed would naturally be augmented along

with it. The owners of those particular capitals would be obliged to content themselves with a smaller

proportion of the produce of that labour which their respective capitals employed. The interest of money,

keeping pace always with the profits of stock, might, in this manner, be greatly diminished, though the value

of money, or the quantity of goods which any particular sum could purchase, was greatly augmented.

In some countries the interest of money has been prohibited by law. But as something can everywhere be

made by the use of money, something ought everywhere to be paid for the use of it. This regulation, instead

of preventing, has been found from experience to increase the evil of usury; the debtor being obliged to pay,

not only for the use of the money, but for the risk which his creditor runs by accepting a compensation for

that use. He is obliged, if one may say so, to insure his creditor from the penalties of usury.

In countries where interest is permitted, the law, in order to prevent the extortion of usury, generally fixes the

highest rate which can be taken without incurring a penalty. This rate ought always to be somewhat above the

lowest market price, or the price which is commonly paid for the use of money by those who can give the

most undoubted security. If this legal rate should be fixed below the lowest market rate, the effects of this

fixation must be nearly the same as those of a total prohibition of interest. The creditor will not lend his

money for less than the use of it is worth, and the debtor must pay him for the risk which he runs by

accepting the full value of that use. If it is fixed precisely at the lowest market price, it ruins with honest

people, who respect the laws of their country, the credit of all those who cannot give the very best security,

and obliges them to have recourse to exorbitant usurers. In a country, such as Great Britain, where money is

lent to government at three per cent and to private people upon a good security at four and four and a half, the

The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the

lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten

per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who

alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more

than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A great

part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a

profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.

Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober

people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets

nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the

hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus

No law can reduce the common rate of interest below the lowest ordinary market rate at the time when that

law is made. Notwithstanding the edict of 1766, by which the French king attempted to reduce the rate of

interest from five to four per cent, money continued to be lent in France at five per cent, the law being evaded

The ordinary market price of land, it is to be observed, depends everywhere upon the ordinary market rate of

interest. The person who has a capital from which he wishes to derive a revenue, without taking the trouble to

employ it himself, deliberates whether he should buy land with it or lend it out at interest. The superior

security of land, together with some other advantages which almost everywhere attend upon this species of

property, will generally dispose him to content himself with a smaller revenue from land than what he might

have by lending out his money at interest. These advantages are sufficient to compensate a certain difference

of revenue; but they will compensate a certain difference only; and if the rent of land should fall short of the

interest of money by a greater difference, nobody would buy land, which would soon reduce its ordinary

price. On the contrary, if the advantages should much more than compensate the difference, everybody would

buy land, which again would soon raise its ordinary price. When interest was at ten per cent, land was

commonly sold for ten and twelve years' purchase. As interest sunk to six, five, and four per cent, the price of

land rose to twenty, fiveandtwenty, and thirty years' purchase. The market rate of interest is higher in

France than in England; and the common price of land is lower. In England it commonly sells at thirty, in

THOUGH all capitals are destined for the maintenance of productive labour only, yet the quantity of that

labour which equal capitals are capable of putting into motion varies extremely according to the diversity of

their employment; as does likewise the value which that employment adds to the annual produce of the land

A capital may be employed in four different ways: either, first, in procuring the rude produce annually

required for the use and consumption of the society; or, secondly, in manufacturing and preparing that rude

produce for immediate use and consumption; or, thirdly, in transporting either the rude or manufactured

produce from the places where they abound to those where they are wanted; or, lastly, in dividing particular

portions of either into such small parcels as suit the occasional demands of those who want them. In the first

way are employed the capitals of all those who undertake the improvement or cultivation of lands, mines, or

fisheries; in the second, those of all master manufacturers; in the third, those of all wholesale merchants; and

in the fourth, those of all retailers. It is difficult to conceive that a capital should be employed in any way

Each of these four methods of employing a capital is essentially necessary either to the existence or extension

Unless a capital was employed in furnishing rude produce to a certain degree of abundance, neither

Unless a capital was employed in manufacturing that part of the rude produce which requires a good deal of

preparation before it can be fit for use and consumption, it either would never be produced, because there

could be no demand for it; or if it was produced spontaneously, it would be of no value in exchange, and

Unless a capital was employed in transporting either the rude or manufactured produce from the places where

it abounds to those where it is wanted, no more of either could be produced than was necessary for the

consumption of the neighbourhood. The capital of the merchant exchanges the surplus produce of one place

for that of another, and thus encourages the industry and increases the enjoyments of both.

Unless a capital was employed in breaking and dividing certain portions either of the rude or manufactured

produce into such small parcels as suit the occasional demands of those who want them, every man would be

obliged to purchase a greater quantity of the goods he wanted than his immediate occasions required. If there

was no such trade as a butcher, for example, every man would be obliged to purchase a whole ox or a whole

sheep at a time. This would generally be inconvenient to the rich, and much more so to the poor. If a poor

workman was obliged to purchase a month's or six months' provisions at a time, a great part of the stock

which he employs as a capital in the instruments of his trade, or in the furniture of his shop, and which yields

him a revenue. he would be forced to place in that part of his stock which is reserved for immediate

consumption, and which yields him no revenue. Nothing can be more convenient for such a person than to be

able to purchase his subsistence from day to day, or even from hour to hour, as he wants it. He is thereby

enabled to employ almost his whole stock as a capital. He is thus enabled to furnish work to a greater value,

and the profit, which he makes by it in this way, much more than compensates the additional price which the

profit of the retailer imposes upon the goods. The prejudices of some political writers against shopkeepers

and tradesmen are altogether without foundation. So far is it from being necessary either to tax them or to

restrict their numbers that they can never be multiplied so as to hurt the public, though they may so as to hurt

one another. The quantity of grocery goods, for example, which can be sold in a particular town is limited by

the demand of that town and its neighbourhood. The capital, therefore, which can be employed in the grocery

trade cannot exceed what is sufficient to purchase that quantity. If this capital is divided between two

different grocers, their competition will tend to make both of them sell cheaper than if it were in the hands of

one only; and if it were divided among twenty, their competition would be just so much the greater, and the

chance of their combining together, in order to raise the price, just so much the less. Their competition might

perhaps ruin some of themselves; but to take care of this is the business of the parties concerned, and it may

safely be trusted to their discretion. It can never hurt either the consumer or the producer; on the contrary, it

must tend to make the retailers both sell cheaper and buy dearer than if the whole trade was monopolized by

one or two persons. Some of them, perhaps, may sometimes decoy a weak customer to buy what he has no

occasion for. This evil, however, is of too little importance to deserve the public attention, nor would it

necessarily be prevented by restricting their numbers. It is not the multitude of alehouses, to give the most

suspicious example, that occasions a general disposition to drunkenness among the common people; but that

disposition arising from other causes necessarily gives employment to a multitude of alehouses.

The persons whose capitals are employed in any of those four ways are themselves productive labourers.

Their labour, when properly directed, fixes and realizes itself in the subject or vendible commodity upon

which it is bestowed, and generally adds to its price the value at least of their own maintenance and

consumption. The profits of the farmer, of the manufacturer, of the merchant, and retailer, are all drawn from

the price of the goods which the two first produce, and the two last buy and sell. Equal capitals, however,

employed in each of those four different ways, will immediately put into motion very different quantities of

productive labour, and augment, too, in very different proportions the value of the annual produce of the land

The capital of the retailer replaces, together with its profits, that of the merchant of whom he purchases

goods, and thereby enables him to continue his business. The retailer himself is the only productive labourer

whom it immediately employs. In his profits consists the whole value which its employment adds to the

The capital of the wholesale merchant replaces, together with their profits, the capitals of the farmers and

manufacturers of whom he purchases the rude and manufactured produce which he deals in, and thereby

enables them to continue their respective trades. It is by this service chiefly that he contributes indirectly to

support the productive labour of the society, and to increase the value of its annual produce. His capital

employs, too, the sailors and carriers who transport his goods from one place to another, and it augments the

price of those goods by the value, not only of his profits, but of their wages. This is all the productive labour

which it immediately puts into motion, and all the value which it immediately adds to the annual produce. Its

operation in both these respects is a good deal superior to that of the capital of the retailer.

Part of the capital of the master manufacturer is employed as a fixed capital in the instruments of his trade,

and replaces, together with its profits, that of some other artificer of whom he purchases them. Part of his

circulating capital is employed in purchasing materials, and replaces, with their profits, the capitals of the

farmers and miners of whom he purchases them. But a great part of it is always, either annually, or in a much

shorter period, distributed among the different workmen whom he employs. It augments the value of those

materials by their wages, and by their matters' profits upon the whole stock of wages, materials, and

instruments of trade employed in the business. It puts immediately into motion, therefore, a much greater

quantity of productive labour, and adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of

No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than that of the farmer. Not only his

labouring servants, but his labouring cattle, are productive labourers. In agriculture, too, nature labours along

with man; and though her labour costs no expense, its produce has its value, as well as that of the most

expensive workmen. The most important operations of agriculture seem intended not so much to increase,

though they do that too, as to direct the fertility of nature towards the production of the plants most profitable

to man. A field overgrown with briars and brambles may frequently produce as great a quantity of vegetables

as the best cultivated vineyard or corn field. Planting and tillage frequently regulate more than they animate

the active fertility of nature; and after all their labour, a great part of the work always remains to be done by

her. The labourers and labouring cattle, therefore, employed in agriculture, not only occasion, like the

workmen in manufactures, the reproduction of a value equal to their own consumption, or to the capital

which employs them, together with its owners' profits; but of a much greater value. Over and above the

capital of the farmer and all its profits, they regularly occasion the reproduction of the rent of the landlord.

This rent may be considered as the produce of those powers of nature, the use of which the landlord lends to

the farmer. It is greater or smaller according to the supposed extent of those powers, or in other words,

according to the supposed natural or improved fertility of the land. It is the work of nature which remains

after deducting or compensating everything which can be regarded as the work of man. It is seldom less than

a fourth, and frequently more than a third of the whole produce. No equal quantity of productive labour

employed in manufactures can ever occasion so great a reproduction. In them nature does nothing; man does

all; and the reproduction must always be in proportion to the strength of the agents that occasion it. The

capital employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour

than any equal capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion, too, to the quantity of productive labour

which it employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, to

the real wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. Of all the ways in which a capital can be employed, it is by far

The capitals employed in the agriculture and in the retail trade of any society must always reside within that

society. Their employment is confined almost to a precise spot, to the farm and to the shop of the retailer.

They must generally, too, though there are some exceptions to this, belong to resident members of the

The capital of a wholesale merchant, on the contrary, seems to have no fixed or necessary residence

anywhere, but may wander about from place to place, according as it can either buy cheap or sell dear.

The capital of the manufacturer must no doubt reside where the manufacture is carried on; but where this

shall be is not always necessarily determined. It may frequently be at a great distance both from the place

where the materials grow, and from that where the complete manufacture is consumed. Lyons is very distant

both from the places which afford the materials of its manufactures, and from those which consume them.

The people of fashion in Sicily are clothed in silks made in other countries, from the materials which their

own produces. Part of the wool of Spain is manufactured in Great Britain, and some part of that cloth is

Whether the merchant whose capital exports the surplus produce of any society be a native or a foreigner is of

very little importance. If he is a foreigner, the number of their productive labourers is necessarily less than if

he had been a native by one man only, and the value of their annual produce by the profits of that one man.

The sailors or carriers whom he employs may still belong indifferently either to his country or to their

country, or to some third country, in the same manner as if he had been a native. The capital of a foreigner

gives a value to their surplus produce equally with that of a native by exchanging it for something for which

there is a demand at home. It as effectually replaces the capital of the person who produces that surplus, and

as effectually enables him to continue his business; the service by which the capital of a wholesale merchant

chiefly contributes to support the productive labour, and to augment the value of the annual produce of the

It is of more consequence that the capital of the manufacturer should reside within the country. It necessarily

puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour, and adds a greater value to the annual produce of the

land and labour of the society. It may, however, be very useful to the country, though it should not reside

within it. The capitals of the British manufacturers who work up the flax and hemp annually imported from

the coasts of the Baltic are surely very useful to the countries which produce them. Those materials are a part

of the surplus produce of those countries which, unless it was annually exchanged for something which is in

demand there, would be of no value, and would soon cease to be produced. The merchants who export it

replace the capitals of the people who produce it, and thereby encourage them to continue the production; and

A particular country, in the same manner as a particular person, may frequently not have capital sufficient

both to improve and cultivate all its lands, to manufacture and prepare their whole rude produce for

immediate use and consumption, and to transport the surplus part either of the rude or manufactured produce

to those distant markets where it can be exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. The

inhabitants of many different parts of Great Britain have not capital sufficient to improve and cultivate all

their lands. The wool of the southern counties of Scotland is, a great part of it, after a long land carriage

through very bad roads, manufactured in Yorkshire, for want of capital to manufacture it at home. There are

many little manufacturing towns in Great Britain, of which the inhabitants have not capital sufficient to

transport the produce of their own industry to those distant markets where there is demand and consumption

for it. If there are any merchants among them, they are properly only the agents of wealthier merchants who

When the capital of any country is not sufficient for all those three purposes, in proportion as a greater share

of it is employed in agriculture, the greater will be the quantity of productive labour which it puts into motion

within the country; as will likewise be the value which its employment adds to the annual produce of the land

and labour of the society. After agriculture, the capital employed in manufactures puts into motion the

greatest quantity of productive labour, and adds the greatest value to the annual produce. That which is

The country, indeed, which has not capital sufficient for all those three purposes has not arrived at that degree

of opulence for which it seems naturally destined. To attempt, however, prematurely and with an insufficient

capital to do all the three is certainly not the shortest way for a society, no more than it would be for an

individual, to acquire a sufficient one. The capital of all the individuals of a nation has its limits in the same

manner as that of a single individual, and is capable of executing only certain purposes. The capital of all the

individuals of a nation is increased in the same manner as that of a single individual by their continually

accumulating and adding to it whatever they save out of their revenue. It is likely to increase the fastest,

therefore, when it is employed in the way that affords the greatest revenue to all the inhabitants of the

country, as they will thus be enabled to make the greatest savings. But the revenue of all the inhabitants of the

country is necessarily in proportion to the value of the annual produce of their land and labour.

It has been the principal cause of the rapid progress of our American colonies towards wealth and greatness

that almost their whole capitals have hitherto been employed in agriculture. They have no manufactures,

those household and courser manufactures excepted which necessarily accompany the progress of agriculture,

and which are the work of the women and children in every private family. The greater part both of the

exportation and coasting trade of America is carried on by the capitals of merchants who reside in Great

Britain. Even the stores and warehouses from which goods are retailed in some provinces, particularly in

Virginia and Maryland, belong many of them to merchants who reside in the mother country, and afford one

of the few instances of the retail trade of a society being carried on by the capitals of those who are not

resident members of it. Were the Americans, either by combination or by any other sort of violence, to stop

the importation of European manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own countrymen

as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable part of their capital into this employment, they

would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would

obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness. This would be

still more the case were they to attempt, in the same manner, to monopolize to themselves their whole

The course of human prosperity, indeed, seems scarce ever to have been of so long continuance as to enable

any great country to acquire capital sufficient for all those three purposes; unless perhaps, we give credit to

the wonderful accounts of the wealth and cultivation of China, of those of ancient Egypt, and of the ancient

state of Indostan. Even those three countries, the wealthiest, according to all accounts, that ever were in the

world, are chiefly renowned for their superiority in agriculture and manufactures. They do not appear to have

been eminent for foreign trade. The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition

nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign

commerce. The greater part of the surplus produce of all those three countries seems to have been always

exported by foreigners, who gave in exchange for it something else for which they found a demand there,

It is thus that the same capital will in any country put into motion a greater or smaller quantity of productive

labour, and add a greater or smaller value to the annual produce of its land and labour, according to the

different proportions in which it is employed in agriculture, manufactures, and wholesale trade. The

difference, too, is very great, according to the different sorts of wholesale trade in which any part of it is

All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale, may be reduced to three different sorts.

The home trade, the foreign trade of consumption, and the carrying trade. The home trade is employed in

purchasing in one part of the same country, and selling in another, the produce of the industry of that country.

It comprehends both the inland and the coasting trade. The foreign trade of consumption is employed in

purchasing foreign goods for home consumption. The carrying trade is employed in transacting the commerce

The capital which is employed in purchasing in one part of the country in order to sell in another the produce

of the industry of that country, generally replaces by every such operation two distinct capitals that had both

been employed in the agriculture or manufactures of that country, and thereby enables them to continue that

employment. When it sends out from the residence of the merchant a certain value of commodities, it

generally brings back in return at least an equal value of other commodities. When both are the produce of

domestic industry, it necessarily replaces by every such operation two distinct capitals which had both been

employed in supporting productive labour, and thereby enables them to continue that support. The capital

which sends Scotch manufactures to London, and brings back English corn and manufactures to Edinburgh,

necessarily replaces by every such operation, two British capitals which had both been employed in the

The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, when this purchase is made with

the produce of domestic industry, replaces too, by every such operation, two distinct capitals; but one of them

only is employed in supporting domestic industry. The capital which sends British goods to Portugal, and

brings back Portuguese goods to Great Britain, replaces by every such operation only one British capital. The

other is a Portuguese one. Though the returns, therefore, of the foreign trade of consumption should be as

quick as those of the home trade, the capital employed in it will give but one half the encouragement to the

But the returns of the foreign trade of consumption are very seldom so quick as those of the home trade. The

returns of the home trade generally come in before the end of the year, and sometimes three or four times in

the year. The returns of the foreign trade of consumption seldom come in before the end of the year, and

sometimes not till after two or three years. A capital, therefore, employed in the home trade will sometimes

make twelve operations, or be sent out and returned twelve times, before a capital employed in the foreign

trade of consumption has made one. If the capitals are equal, therefore, the one will give fourandtwenty

times more encouragement and support to the industry of the country than the other.

The foreign goods for home consumption may sometimes be purchased, not with the produce of domestic

industry, but with some other foreign goods. These last, however, must have been purchased either

immediately with the produce of domestic industry, or with something else that had been purchased with it;

for, the case of war and conquest excepted, foreign goods can ever be acquired but in exchange for something

that had been produced at home, either immediately, or after two or more different exchanges. The effects,

therefore, of a capital employed in such a roundabout foreign trade of consumption, are, in every respect, the

same as those of one employed in the most direct trade of the same kind, except that the final returns are

likely to be still more distant, as they must depend upon the returns of two or three distinct foreign trades. If

the flax and hemp of Riga are purchased with the tobacco of Virginia, which had been purchased with British

manufactures, the merchant must wait for the returns of two distinct foreign trades before he can employ the

same capital in repurchasing a like quantity of British manufactures. If the tobacco of Virginia had been

purchased, not with British manufactures, but with the sugar and rum of Jamaica which had been purchased

with those manufactures, he must wait for the returns of three. If those two or three distinct foreign trades

should happen to be carried on by two or three distinct merchants, of whom the second buys the goods

imported by the first, and the third buys those imported by the second, in order to export them again, each

merchant indeed will in this case receive the returns of his own capital more quickly; but the final returns of

the whole capital employed in the trade will be just as slow as ever. Whether the whole capital employed in

such a roundabout trade belong to one merchant or to three can make no difference with regard to the

country, though it may with regard to the particular merchants. Three times a greater capital must in both

cases be employed in order to exchange a certain value of British manufactures for a certain quantity of flax

and hemp than would have been necessary had the manufactures and the flax and hemp been directly

exchanged for one another. The whole capital employed, therefore, in such a roundabout foreign trade of

consumption will generally give less encouragement and support to the productive labour of the country than

Whatever be the foreign commodity with which the foreign goods for home consumption are purchased, it

can occasion no essential difference either in the nature of the trade, or in the encouragement and support

which it can give to the productive labour of the country from which it is carried on. If they are purchased

with the gold of Brazil, for example, or with the silver of Peru, this gold and silver, like the tobacco of

Virginia, must have been purchased with something that either was the produce of the industry of the country,

or that had been purchased with something else that was so. So far, therefore, as the productive labour of the

country is concerned, the foreign trade of consumption which is carried on by means of gold and silver has all

the advantages and all the inconveniences of any other equally roundabout foreign trade of consumption,

and will replace just as fast or just as slow the capital which is immediately employed in supporting that

productive labour. It seems even to have one advantage over any other equally roundabout foreign trade. The

transportation of those metals from one place to another, on account of their small bulk and great value, is

less expensive than that of almost any other foreign goods of equal value. Their freight is much less, and their

insurance not greater; and no goods, besides, are less liable to suffer by the carriage. An equal quantity of

foreign goods, therefore, may frequently be purchased with a smaller quantity of the produce of domestic

industry, by the intervention of gold and silver, than by that of any other foreign goods. The demand of the

country may frequently, in this manner, be supplied more completely and at a smaller expense than in any

other. Whether, by the continual exportation of those metals, a trade of this kind is likely to impoverish the

country from which it is carried on, in any other way, I shall have occasion to examine at great length

That part of the capital of any country which is employed in the carrying trade is altogether withdrawn from

supporting the productive labour of that particular country, to support that of some foreign countries. Though

it may replace by every operation two distinct capitals, yet neither of them belongs to that particular country.

The capital of the Dutch merchant, which carries the corn of Poland to Portugal, and brings back the fruits

and wines of Portugal to Poland, replaces by every such operation two capitals, neither of which had been

employed in supporting the productive labour of Holland; but one of them in supporting that of Poland, and

the other that of Portugal. The profits only return regularly to Holland, and constitute the whole addition

which this trade necessarily makes to the annual produce of the land and labour of that country. When,

indeed, the carrying trade of any particular country is carried on with the ships and sailors of that country,

that part of the capital employed in it which pays the freight is distributed among, and puts into motion, a

certain number of productive labourers of that country. Almost all nations that have had any considerable

share of the carrying trade have, in fact, carried it on in this manner. The trade itself has probably derived its

name from it, the people of such countries being the carriers to other countries. It does not, however, seem

essential to the nature of the trade that it should be so. A Dutch merchant may, for example, employ his

capital in transacting the commerce of Poland and Portugal, by carrying part of the surplus produce of the one

to the other, not in Dutch, but in British bottoms. It may be presumed that he actually does so upon some

particular occasions. It is upon this account, however, that the carrying trade has been supposed peculiarly

advantageous to such a country as Great Britain, of which the defence and security depend upon the number

of its sailors and shipping. But the same capital may employ as many sailors and shipping, either in the

foreign trade of consumption, or even in the home trade, when carried on by coasting vessels, as it could in

the carrying trade. The number of sailors and shipping which any particular capital can employ does not

depend upon the nature of the trade, but partly upon the bulk of the goods in proportion to their value, and

partly upon the distance of the ports between which they are to be carried; chiefly upon the former of those

two circumstances. The coal trade from Newcastle to London, for example, employs more shipping than all

the carrying trade of England, though the ports are at no great distance. To force, therefore, by extraordinary

encouragements, a larger share of the capital of any country into the carrying trade than what would naturally

The capital, therefore, employed in the home trade of any country will generally give encouragement and

support to a greater quantity of productive labour in that country, and increase the value of its annual produce

more than an equal capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption: and the capital employed in this

latter trade has in both these respects a still greater advantage over an equal capital employed in the carrying

trade. The riches, and so far as power depends upon riches, the power of every country must always be in

proportion to the value of its annual produce, the fund from which all taxes must ultimately be paid. But the

great object of the political economy of every country is to increase the riches and power of that country. It

ought, therefore, to give no preference nor superior encouragement to the foreign trade of consumption above

the home trade, nor to the carrying trade above either of the other two. It ought neither to force nor to allure

into either of those two channels a greater share of the capital of the country than what would naturally flow

When the produce of any particular branch of industry exceeds what the demand of the country requires, the

surplus must be sent abroad and exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. Without such

exportation a part of the productive labour of the country must cease, and the value of its annual produce

diminish. The land and labour of Great Britain produce generally more corn, woollens, and hardware than the

demand of the home market requires. The surplus part of them, therefore, must be sent abroad, and

exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. It is only by means of such exportation that

this surplus can acquire a value sufficient to compensate the labour and expense of producing it. The

neighbourhood of the seacoast, and the banks of all navigable rivers, are advantageous situations for

industry, only because they facilitate the exportation and exchange of such surplus produce for something

When the foreign goods which are thus purchased with the surplus produce of domestic industry exceed the

demand of the home market, the surplus part of them must be sent abroad again and exchanged for something

more in demand at home. About ninetysix thousand hogsheads of tobacco are annually purchased in

Virginia and Maryland with a part of the surplus produce of British industry. But the demand of Great Britain

does not require, perhaps, more than fourteen thousand. If the remaining eightytwo thousand, therefore,

could not be sent abroad and exchanged for something more in demand at home, the importation of them

must cease immediately, and with it the productive labour of all those inhabitants of Great Britain, who are at

present employed in preparing the goods with which these eightytwo thousand hogsheads are annually

purchased. Those goods, which are part of the produce of the land and labour of Great Britain, having no

market at home, and being deprived of that which they had abroad, must cease to be produced. The most

roundabout foreign trade of consumption, therefore may, upon some occasions, be as necessary for

supporting the productive labour of the country, and the value of its annual produce, as the most direct.

When the capital stock of any country is increased to such a degree that it cannot be all employed in

supplying the consumption and supporting the productive labour of that particular country, the surplus part of

it naturally disgorges itself into the carrying trade, and is employed in performing the same offices to other

countries. The carrying trade is the natural effect and symptom of great national wealth; but it does not seem

to be the natural cause of it. Those statesmen who have been disposed to favour it with particular

encouragements seem to have mistaken the effect and symptom for the cause. Holland, in proportion to the

extent of the land and the number of its inhabitants, by far the richest country in Europe, has, accordingly, the

greatest share of the carrying trade of Europe. England, perhaps the second richest country of Europe, is

likewise supposed to have a considerable share of it; though what commonly passes for the carrying trade of

England will frequently, perhaps, be found to be no more than a roundabout foreign trade of consumption.

Such are, in a great measure, the trades which carry the goods of the East and West Indies, and of America, to

different European markets. Those goods are generally purchased either immediately with the produce of

British industry, or with something else which had been purchased with that produce, and the final returns of

those trades are generally used or consumed in Great Britain. The trade which is carried on in British bottoms

between the different ports of the Mediterranean, and some trade of the same kind carried on by British

merchants between the different ports of India, make, perhaps, the principal branches of what is properly the

The extent of the home trade and of the capital which can be employed in it, is necessarily limited by the

value of the surplus produce of all those distant places within the country which have occasion to exchange

their respective productions with another: that of the foreign trade of consumption, by the value of the surplus

produce of the whole country and of what can be purchased with it: that of the carrying trade by the value of

the surplus produce of all the different countries in the world. Its possible extent, therefore, is in a manner

infinite in comparison of that of the other two, and is capable of absorbing the greatest capitals.

The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which determines the owner of any capital to

employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.

The different quantities of productive labour which it may put into motion, and the different values which it

may add to the annual, produce of the land and labour of the society, according as it is employed in one or

other of those different ways, never enter into his thoughts. In countries, therefore, where agriculture is the

most profitable of all employments, and farming and improving the most direct roads to a splendid fortune,

the capitals of individuals will naturally be employed in the manner most advantageous to the whole society.

The profits of agriculture, however, seem to have no superiority over those of other employments in any part

of Europe. Projectors, indeed, in every corner of it, have within these few years amused the public with most

magnificent accounts of the profits to be made by the cultivation and improvement of land. Without entering

into any particular discussion of their calculations, a very simple observation may satisfy us that the result of

them must be false. We see every day the most splendid fortunes that have been acquired in the course of a

single life by trade and manufacturers, frequently from a very small capital, sometimes from no capital. A

single instance of such a fortune acquired by agriculture in the same time, and from such a capital, has not,

perhaps, occurred in Europe during the course of the present century. In all the great countries of Europe,

however, much good land still remains uncultivated, and the greater part of what is cultivated is far from

being improved to the degree of which it is capable. Agriculture, therefore, is almost everywhere capable of

absorbing a much greater capital than has ever yet been employed in it. What circumstances in the policy of

Europe have given the trades which are carried on in towns so great an advantage over that which is carried

on in the country that private persons frequently find it more for their advantage to employ their capitals in

the most distant carrying trades of Asia and America than in the improvement and cultivation of the most

fertile fields in their own neighbourhood, I shall endeavour to explain at full length in the two following

THE great commerce of every civilised society is that carried on between the inhabitants of the town and

those of the country. It consists in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce, either immediately, or by

the intervention of money, or of some sort of paper which represents money. The country supplies the town

with the means of subsistence and the materials of manufacture. The town repays this supply by sending back

a part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country. The town, in which there neither is nor

can be any reproduction of substances, may very properly be said to gain its whole wealth and subsistence

from the country. We must not, however, upon this account, imagine that the gain of the town is the loss of

the country. The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the division of labour is in this, as in all other

cases, advantageous to all the different persons employed in the various occupations into which it is

subdivided. The inhabitants of the country purchase of the town a greater quantity of manufactured goods,

with the produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labour, than they must have employed had they

attempted to prepare them themselves. The town affords a market for the surplus produce of the country, or

what is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, and it is there that the inhabitants of the country

exchange it for something else which is in demand among them. The greater the number and revenue of the

inhabitants of the town, the more extensive is the market which it affords to those of the country; and the

more extensive that market, it is always the more advantageous to a great number. The corn which grows

within a mile of the town sells there for the same price with that which comes from twenty miles distance.

But the price of the latter must generally not only pay the expense of raising and bringing it to market, but

afford, too, the ordinary profits of agriculture to the farmer. The proprietors and cultivators of the country,

therefore, which lies in the neighbourhood of the town, over and above the ordinary profits of agriculture,

gain, in the price of what they sell, the whole value of the carriage of the like produce that is brought from

more distant parts, and they have, besides, the whole value of this carriage in the price of what they buy.

Compare the cultivation of the lands in the neighbourhood of any considerable town with that of those which

lie at some distance from it, and you will easily satisfy yourself how much the country is benefited by the

commerce of the town. Among all the absurd speculations that have been propagated concerning the balance

of trade, it has never been pretended that either the country loses by its commerce with the town, or the town

As subsistence is, in the nature of things, prior to conveniency and luxury, so the industry which procures the

former must necessarily be prior to that which ministers to the latter. The cultivation and improvement of the

country, therefore, which affords subsistence, must, necessarily, be prior to the increase of the town, which

furnishes only the means of conveniency and luxury. It is the surplus produce of the country only, or what is

over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, that constitutes the subsistence of the town, which can

therefore increase only with the increase of this surplus produce. The town, indeed, may not always derive its

whole subsistence from the country in its neighbourhood, or even from the territory to which it belongs, but

from very distant countries; and this, though it forms no exception from the general rule, has occasioned

considerable variations in the progress of opulence in different ages and nations.

That order of things which necessity imposes in general, though not in every particular country, is, in every

particular country, promoted by the natural inclinations of man. If human institutions had never thwarted

those natural inclinations, the towns could nowhere have increased beyond what the improvement and

cultivation of the territory in which they were situated could support; till such time, at least, as the whole of

that territory was completely cultivated and improved. Upon equal, or nearly equal profits, most men will

choose to employ their capitals rather in the improvement and cultivation of land than either in manufactures

or in foreign trade. The man who employs his capital in land has it more under his view and command, and

his fortune is much less liable to accidents than that of the trader, who is obliged frequently to commit it, not

only to the winds and the waves, but to the more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving

great credits in distant countries to men with whose character and situation he can seldom be thoroughly

acquainted. The capital of the landlord, on the contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, seems

to be as well secured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The beauty of the country besides, the

pleasures of a country life, the tranquillity of mind which it promises, and wherever the injustice of human

laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really affords, have charms that more or less attract

everybody; and as to cultivate the ground was the original destination of man, so in every stage of his

Without the assistance of some artificers, indeed, the cultivation of land cannot be carried on but with great

inconveniency and continual interruption. Smiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, and ploughwrights, masons, and

bricklayers, tanners, shoemakers, and tailors are people whose service the farmer has frequent occasion for.

Such artificers, too, stand occasionally in need of the assistance of one another; and as their residence is not,

like that of the farmer, necessarily tied down to a precise spot, they naturally settle in the neighbourhood of

one another, and thus form a small town or village. The butcher, the brewer, and the baker soon join them,

together with many other artificers and retailers, necessary or useful for supplying their occasional wants, and

who contribute still further to augment the town. The inhabitants of the town and those of the country are

mutually the servants of one another. The town is a continual fair or market, to which the inhabitants of the

country resort in order to exchange their rude for manufactured produce. It is this commerce which supplies

the inhabitants of the town both with the materials of their work, and the means of their subsistence. The

quantity of the finished work which they sell to the inhabitants of the country necessarily regulates the

quantity of the materials and provisions which they buy. Neither their employment nor subsistence, therefore,

can augment but in proportion to the augmentation of the demand from the country for finished work; and

this demand can augment only in proportion to the extension of improvement and cultivation. Had human

institutions, therefore, never disturbed the natural course of things, the progressive wealth and increase of the

towns would, in every political society, be consequential, and in proportion to the improvement and

In our North American colonies, where uncultivated land is still to be had upon easy terms, no manufactures

for distant sale have ever yet been established in any of their towns. When an artificer has acquired a little

more stock than is necessary for carrying on his own business in supplying the neighbouring country, he does

not, in North America, attempt to establish with it a manufacture for more distant sale, but employs it in the

purchase and improvement of uncultivated land. From artificer he becomes planter, and neither the large

wages nor the easy subsistence which that country affords to artificers can bribe him rather to work for other

people than for himself. He feels that an artificer is the servant of his customers, from whom he derives his

subsistence; but that a planter who cultivates his own land, and derives his necessary subsistence from the

In countries, on the contrary, where there is either no uncultivated land, or none that can be had upon easy

terms, every artificer who has acquired more stock than he can employ in the occasional jobs of the

neighbourhood endeavours to prepare work for more distant sale. The smith erects some sort of iron, the

weaver some sort of linen or woollen manufactory. Those different manufactures come, in process of time, to

be gradually subdivided, and thereby improved and refined in a great variety of ways, which may easily be

In seeking for employment to a capital, manufactures are, upon equal or nearly equal profits, naturally

preferred to foreign commerce, for the same reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures. As

the capital of the landlord or farmer is more secure than that of the manufacturer, so the capital of the

manufacturer, being at all times more within his view and command, is more secure than that of the foreign

merchant. In every period, indeed, of every society, the surplus part both of the rude and manufactured

produce, or that for which there is no demand at home, must be sent abroad in order to be exchanged for

something for which there is some demand at home. But whether the capital, which carries this surplus

produce abroad, be a foreign or a domestic one is of very little importance. If the society has not acquired

sufficient capital both to cultivate all its lands, and to manufacture in the completest manner the whole of its

rude produce, there is even a considerable advantage that rude produce should be exported by a foreign

capital, in order that the whole stock of the society may be employed in more useful purposes. The wealth of

ancient Egypt, that of China and Indostan, sufficiently demonstrate that a nation may attain a very high

degree of opulence though the greater part of its exportation trade be carried on by foreigners. The progress

of our North American and West Indian colonies would have been much less rapid had no capital but what

According to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is,

first, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce. This order of

things is so very natural that in every society that had any territory it has always, I believe, been in some

degree observed. Some of their lands must have been cultivated before any considerable towns could be

established, and some sort of coarse industry of the manufacturing kind must have been carried on in those

towns, before they could well think of employing themselves in foreign commerce.

But though this natural order of things must have taken place in some degree in every such society, it has, in

all the modern states of Europe, been, in many respects, entirely inverted. The foreign commerce of some of

their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or such as were fit for distant sale; and manufactures

and foreign commerce together have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners

and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that

government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order.

CHAPTER II. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the

WHEN the German and Scythian nations overran the western provinces of the Roman empire, the confusions

which followed so great a revolution lasted for several centuries. The rapine and violence which the

barbarians exercised against the ancient inhabitants interrupted the commerce between the towns and the

country. The towns were deserted, and the country was left uncultivated, and the western provinces of

Europe, which had enjoyed a considerable degree of opulence under the Roman empire, sunk into the lowest

state of poverty and barbarism. During the continuance of those confusions, the chiefs and principal leaders

of those nations acquired or usurped to themselves the greater part of the lands of those countries. A great

part of them was uncultivated; but no part of them, whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without a

proprietor. All of them were engrossed, and the greater part by a few great proprietors.

This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might have been but a transitory evil. They

might soon have been divided again, and broke into small parcels either by succession or by alienation. The

law of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by succession: the introduction of entails prevented

When land, like movables, is considered as the means only of subsistence and enjoyment, the natural law of

succession divides it, like them, among all the children of the family; of an of whom the subsistence and

enjoyment may be supposed equally dear to the father. This natural law of succession accordingly took place

among the Romans, who made no more distinction between elder and younger, between male and female, in

the inheritance of lands than we do in the distribution of movables. But when land was considered as the

means, not of subsistence merely, but of power and protection, it was thought better that it should descend

undivided to one. In those disorderly times every great landlord was a sort of petty prince. His tenants were

his subjects. He was their judge, and in some respects their legislator in peace, and their leader in war. He

made war according to his own discretion, frequently against his neighbours, and sometimes against his

sovereign. The security of a landed estate, therefore, the protection which its owner could afford to those who

dwelt on it, depended upon its greatness. To divide it was to ruin it, and to expose every part of it to be

oppressed and swallowed up by the incursions of its neighbours. The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to

take place, not immediately, indeed, but in process of time, in the succession of landed estates, for the same

reason that it has generally taken place in that of monarchies, though not always at their first institution. That

the power, and consequently the security of the monarchy, may not be weakened by division, it must descend

entire to one of the children. To which of them so important a preference shall be given must be determined

by some general rule, founded not upon the doubtful distinctions of personal merit, but upon some plain and

evident difference which can admit of no dispute. Among the children of the same family, there can be no

indisputable difference but that of sex, and that of age. The male sex is universally preferred to the female;

and when all other things are equal, the elder everywhere takes place of the younger. Hence the origin of the

Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances which first gave occasion to them, and which

could alone render them reasonable, are no more. In the present state of Europe, the proprietor of a single

acre of land is as perfectly secure of his possession as the proprietor of a hundred thousand. The right of

primogeniture, however, still continues to be respected, and as of all institutions it is the fittest to support the

pride of family distinctions, it is still likely to endure for many centuries. In every other respect, nothing can

be more contrary to the real interest of a numerous family than a right which, in order to enrich one, beggars

Entails are the natural consequences of the law of primogeniture. They were introduced to preserve a certain

lineal succession, of which the law of primogeniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the original

estate from being carried out of the proposed line either by gift, or devise, or alienation; either by the folly, or

by the misfortune of any of its successive owners. They were altogether unknown to the Romans. Neither

their substitutions nor fideicommisses bear any resemblance to entails, though some French lawyers have

thought proper to dress the modern institution in the language and garb of those ancient ones.

When great landed estates were a sort of principalities, entails might not be unreasonable. Like what are

called the fundamental laws of some monarchies, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from

being endangered by the caprice or extravagance of one man. But in the present state of Europe, when small

as well as great estates derive their security from the laws of their country, nothing can be more completely

absurd. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive

generation of men have not an equal right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the

present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died perhaps five

hundred years ago. Entails, however, are still respected through the greater part of Europe, in those countries

particularly in which noble birth is a necessary qualification for the enjoyment either of civil or military

honours. Entails are thought necessary for maintaining this exclusive privilege of the nobility to the great

offices and honours of their country; and that order having usurped one unjust advantage over the rest of their

fellow citizens, lest their poverty should render it ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they should have

another. The common law of England, indeed, is said to abhor perpetuities, and they are accordingly more

restricted there than in any other European monarchy; though even England is not altogether without them. In

Scotland more than onefifth, perhaps more than onethird, part of the whole lands of the country are at

Great tracts of uncultivated land were, in this manner, not only engrossed by particular families, but the

possibility of their being divided again was as much as possible precluded for ever. It seldom happens,

however, that a great proprietor is a great improver. In the disorderly times which gave birth to those

barbarous institutions, the great proprietor was sufficiently employed in defending his own territories, or in

extending his jurisdiction and authority over those of his neighbours. He had no leisure to attend to the

cultivation and improvement of land. When the establishment of law and order afforded him this leisure, he

often wanted the inclination, and almost always the requisite abilities. If the expense of his house and person

either equalled or exceeded his revenue, as it did very frequently, he had no stock to employ in this manner. If

he was an economist, he generally found it more profitable to employ his annual savings in new purchases

than in the improvement of his old estate. To improve land with profit, like all other commercial projects,

requires an exact attention to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a great fortune, even

though naturally frugal, is very seldom capable. The situation of such a person naturally disposes him to

attend rather to ornament which pleases his fancy than to profit for which he has so little occasion. The

elegance of his dress, of his equipage, of his house, and household furniture, are objects which from his

infancy he has been accustomed to have some anxiety about. The turn of mind which this habit naturally

forms follows him when he comes to think of the improvement of land. He embellishes perhaps four or five

hundred acres in the neighbourhood of his house, at ten times the expense which the land is worth after all his

improvements; and finds that if he was to improve his whole estate in the same manner, and he has little taste

for any other, he would be a bankrupt before he had finished the tenth part of it. There still remain in both

parts of the United Kingdom some great estates which have continued without interruption in the hands of the

same family since the times of feudal anarchy. Compare the present condition of those estates with the

possessions of the small proprietors in their neighbourhood, and you will require no other argument to

If little improvement was to be expected from such great proprietors, still less was to be hoped for from those

who occupied the land under them. In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all tenants at

will. They were all or almost all slaves; but their slavery was of a milder kind than that known among the

ancient Greeks and Romans, or even in our West Indian colonies. They were supposed to belong more

directly to the land than to their master. They could, therefore, be sold with it, but not separately. They could

marry, provided it was with the consent of their master; and he could not afterwards dissolve the marriage by

selling the man and wife to different persons. If he maimed or murdered any of them, he was liable to some

penalty, though generally but to a small one. They were not, however, capable of acquiring property.

Whatever they acquired was acquired to their master, and he could take it from them at pleasure. Whatever

cultivation and improvement could be carried on by means of such slaves was properly carried on by their

master. It was at his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry were all his. It was for

his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but their daily maintenance. It was properly the proprietor

himself, therefore, that, in this case, occupied his own lands, and cultivated them by his own bondmen. This

species of slavery still subsists in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany.

It is only in the western and southwestern provinces of Europe that it has gradually been abolished altogether.

But if great improvements are seldom to be expected from great proprietors, they are least of all to be

expected when they employ slaves for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I believe,

demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the

dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to

labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own

maintenance can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient Italy,

how much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to the master when it fell under

the management of slaves, is remarked by both Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle it had not been

much better in ancient Greece. Speaking of the ideal republic described in the laws of Plato, to maintain five

thousand idle men (the number of warriors supposed necessary for its defence) together with their women

and servants, would require, he says, a territory of boundless extent and fertility, like the plains of Babylon.

The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to

condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it,

therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen. The planting of sugar and tobacco

can afford the expense of slavecultivation. The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the

English colonies, of which the principal produce is corn, the far greater part of the work is done by freemen.

The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their negro slaves may satisfy us that

their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution

could never have been agreed to. In our sugar colonies, on the contrary, the whole work is done by slaves,

and in our tobacco colonies a very great part of it. The profits of a sugarplantation in any of our West Indian

colonies are generally much greater than those of any other cultivation that is known either in Europe or

America; and the profits of a tobacco plantation, though inferior to those of sugar, are superior to those of

corn, as has already been observed. Both can afford the expense of slavecultivation, but sugar can afford it

still better than tobacco. The number of negroes accordingly is much greater, in proportion to that of whites,

To the slave cultivators of ancient times gradually succeeded a species of farmers known at present in France

by the name of metayers. They are called in Latin, Coloni partiarii. They have been so long in disuse in

England that at present I know no English name for them. The proprietor furnished them with the seed, cattle,

and instruments of husbandry, the whole stock, in short, necessary for cultivating the farm. The produce was

divided equally between the proprietor and the farmer, after setting aside what was judged necessary for

keeping up the stock, which was restored to the proprietor when the farmer either quitted, or was turned out

Land occupied by such tenants is properly cultivated at the expense of the proprietor as much as that

occupied by slaves. There is, however, one very essential difference between them. Such tenants, being

freemen, are capable of acquiring property, and having a certain proportion of the produce of the land, they

have a plain interest that the whole produce should be as great as possible, in order that their own proportion

may be so. A slave, on the contrary, who can acquire nothing but his maintenance, consults his own ease by

making the land produce as little as possible over and above that maintenance. It is probable that it was partly

upon account of this advantage, and partly upon account of the encroachments which the sovereign, always

jealous of the great lords, gradually encouraged their villains to make upon their authority, and which seem at

last to have been such as rendered this species of servitude altogether inconvenient, that tenure in villanage

gradually wore out through the greater part of Europe. The time and manner, however, in which so important

a revolution was brought about is one of the most obscure points in modern history. The Church of Rome

claims great merit in it; and it is certain that so early as the twelfth century, Alexander III published a bull for

the general emancipation of slaves. It seems, however, to have been rather a pious exhortation than a law to

which exact obedience was required from the faithful. Slavery continued to take place almost universally for

several centuries afterwards, till it was gradually abolished by the joint operation of the two interests above

mentioned, that of the proprietor on the one hand, and that of the sovereign on the other. A villain

enfranchised, and at the same time allowed to continue in possession of the land, having no stock of his own,

could cultivate it only by means of what the landlord advanced to him, and must, therefore, have been what

It could never, however, be the interest even of this last species of cultivators to lay out, in the further

improvement of the land, any part of the little stock which they might save from their own share of the

produce, because the lord, who laid out nothing, was to get one half of whatever it produced. The tithe, which

is but a tenth of the produce, is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax, therefore, which

amounted to one half must have been an effectual bar to it. It might be the interest of a metayer to make the

land produce as much as could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished by the proprietor; but it

could never be his interest to mix any part of his own with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the

whole kingdom are said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators, the proprietors complain that their

metayers take every opportunity of employing the master's cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation;

because in the one case they get the whole profits to themselves, in the other they share them with their

landlord. This species of tenants still subsists in some parts of Scotland. They are called steelbow tenants.

Those ancient English tenants, who are said by Chief Baron Gilbert and Doctor Blackstone to have been

rather bailiffs of the landlord than farmers properly so called, were probably of the same kind.

To this species of tenancy succeeded, though by very slow degrees, farmers properly so called, who

cultivated the land with their own stock, paying a rent certain to the landlord. When such farmers have a lease

for a term of years, they may sometimes find it for their interest to lay out part of their capital in the further

improvement of the farm; because they may sometimes expect to recover it, with a large profit, before the

expiration of the lease. The possession even of such farmers, however, was long extremely precarious, and

still is so in many parts of Europe. They could before the expiration of their term be legally outed of their

lease by a new purchaser; in England, even by the fictitious action of a common recovery. If they were turned

out illegally by the violence of their master, the action by which they obtained redress was extremely

imperfect. It did not always reinstate them in the possession of the land, but gave them damages which never

amounted to the real loss. Even in England, the country perhaps of Europe where the yeomanry has always

been most respected, it was not till about the 14th of Henry VII that the action of ejectment was invented, by

which the tenant recovers, not damages only but possession, and in which his claim is not necessarily

concluded by the uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has been found so effectual a remedy that,

in the modern practice, when the landlord has occasion to sue for the possession of the land, he seldom makes

use of the actions which properly belong to him as landlord, the Writ of Right or the Writ of Entry, but sues

in the name of his tenant by the Writ of Ejectment. In England, therefore, the security of the tenant is equal to

that of the proprietor. In England, besides, a lease for life of forty shillings a year value is a freehold, and

entitles the lessee to vote for a Member of Parliament; and as a great part of the yeomanry have freeholds of

this kind, the whole order becomes respectable to their landlords on account of the political consideration

which this gives them. There is, I believe, nowhere in Europe, except in England, any instance of the tenant

building upon the land of which he had no lease, and trusting that the honour of his landlord would take no

advantage of so important an improvement. Those laws and customs so favourable to the yeomanry have

perhaps contributed more to the present grandeur of England than all their boasted regulations of commerce

The law which secures the longest leases against successors of every kind is, so far as I know, peculiar to

Great Britain. It was introduced into Scotland so early as 1449, a law of James II. Its beneficial influence,

however, has been much obstructed by entails; the heirs of entail being generally restrained from letting

leases for any long term of years, frequently for more than one year. A late Act of Parliament has, in this

respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are still by much too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no

leasehold gives a vote for a Member of Parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less respectable to

In other parts of Europe, after it was found convenient to secure tenants both against heirs and purchasers, the

term of their security was still limited to a very short period; in France, for example, to nine years from the

commencement of the lease. It has in that country, indeed, been lately extended to twentyseven, a period

still too short to encourage the tenant to make the most important improvements. The proprietors of land were

anciently the legislators of every part of Europe. The laws relating to land, therefore, were all calculated for

what they supposed the interest of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they had imagined, that no lease

granted by any of his predecessors should hinder him from enjoying, during a long term of years, the full

value of his land. Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this

regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the longrun the real interest of the landlord.

The farmers too, besides paying the rent, were anciently, it was supposed, bound to perform a great number

of services to the landlord, which were seldom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any precise rule,

but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary,

subjected the tenant to many vexations. In Scotland the abolition of all services not precisely stipulated in the

lease has in the course of a few years very much altered for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that

The public services to which the yeomanry were bound were not less arbitrary than the private ones. To make

and maintain the high roads, a servitude which still subsists, I believe, everywhere, though with different

degrees of oppression in different countries, was not the only one. When the king's troops, when his

household or his officers of any kind passed through any part of the country, the yeomanry were bound to

provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I

believe, the only monarchy in Europe where the oppression of purveyance has been entirely abolished. It still

The public taxes to which they were subject were as irregular and oppressive as the services. The ancient

lords, though extremely unwilling to grant themselves any pecuniary aid to their sovereign, easily allowed

him to tallage, as they called it their tenants, and had not knowledge enough to foresee how much this must in

the end affect their own revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in France, may serve as an example of those

ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock that he

has upon the farm. It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little as possible, and consequently to

employ as little as possible in its cultivation, and none in its improvement. Should any stock happen to

accumulate in the hands of a French farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohibition of its ever being

employed upon the land. This tax, besides, is supposed to dishonour whoever is subject to it, and to degrade

him below, not only the rank of a gentleman, but that of a burgher, and whoever rents the lands of another

becomes subject to it. No gentleman, nor even any burgher who has stock, will submit to this degradation.

This tax, therefore, not only hinders the stock which accumulates upon the land from being employed in its

improvement, but drives away an other stock from it. The ancient tenths and fifteenths, so usual in England in

former times, seem, so far as they affected the land, to have been taxes of the same nature with the taille.

Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected from the occupiers of land. That order

of people, with all the liberty and security which law can give, must always improve under great

disadvantages. The farmer, compared with the proprietor, is as a merchant who trades with borrowed money

compared with one who trades with his own. The stock of both may improve, but that of the one, with only

equal good conduct, must always improve more slowly than that of the other, on account of the large share of

the profits which is consumed by the interest of the loan. The lands cultivated by the farmer must, in the same

manner, with only equal good conduct, be improved more slowly than those cultivated by the proprietor, on

account of the large share of the produce which is consumed in the rent, and which, had the farmer been

proprietor, he might have employed in the further improvement of the land. The station of a farmer besides is,

from the nature of things, inferior to that of a proprietor. Through the greater part of Europe the yeomanry are

regarded as an inferior rank of people, even to the better sort of tradesmen and mechanics, and in all parts of

Europe to the great merchants and master manufacturers. It can seldom happen, therefore, that a man of any

considerable stock should quit the superior in order to place himself in an inferior station. Even in the present

state of Europe, therefore, little stock is likely to go from any other profession to the improvement of land in

the way of farming. More does perhaps in Great Britain than in any other country, though even there the great

stocks which are, in some places, employed in farming have generally been acquired by farming, the trade,

perhaps, in which of all others stock is commonly acquired most slowly. After small proprietors, however,

rich and great farmers are, in every country, the principal improvers. There are more such perhaps in England

than in any other European monarchy. In the republican governments of Holland and of Berne in

The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavourable to the improvement and cultivation

of land, whether carried on by the proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the

exportation of corn without a special licence, which seems to have been a very universal regulation; and

secondly, by the restraints which were laid upon the inland commerce, not only of corn, but of almost every

other part of the produce of the farm by the absurd laws against engrossers, regrators, and forestallers, and by

the privileges of fairs and markets. It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition of the

exportation of corn, together with some encouragement given to the importation of foreign corn, obstructed

the cultivation of ancient Italy, naturally the most fertile country in Europe, and at that time the seat of the

greatest empire in the world. To what degree such restraints upon the inland commerce of this commodity,

joined to the general prohibition of exportation, must have discouraged the cultivation of countries less fertile

CHAPTER III. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns after the Fall of the Roman Empire

THE inhabitants of cities and towns were, after the fall of the Roman empire, not more favoured than those of

the country. They consisted, indeed, of a very different order of people from the first inhabitants of the

ancient republics of Greece and Italy. These last were composed chiefly of the proprietors of lands, among

whom the public territory was originally divided, and who found it convenient to build their houses in the

neighbourhood of one another, and to surround them with a wall, for the sake of common defence. After the

fall of the Roman empire, on the contrary, the proprietors of land seem generally to have lived in fortified

castles on their own estates, and in the midst of their own tenants and dependants. The towns were chiefly

inhabited by tradesmen and mechanics, who seem in those days to have been of servile, or very nearly of

servile condition. The privileges which we find granted by ancient charters to the inhabitants of some of the

principal towns in Europe sufficiently show what they were before those grants. The people to whom it is

granted as a privilege that they might give away their own daughters in marriage without the consent of their

lord, that upon their death their own children, and not their lord, should succeed to their goods, and that they

might dispose of their own effects by will, must, before those grants, have been either altogether or very

nearly in the same state of villanage with the occupiers of land in the country.

They seem, indeed, to have been a very poor, mean set of people, who used to travel about with their goods

from place to place, and from fair to fair, like the hawkers and pedlars of the present times. In all the different

countries of Europe then, in the same manner as in several of the Tartar governments of Asia at present, taxes

used to be levied upon the persons and goods of travellers when they passed through certain manors, when

they went over certain bridges, when they carried about their goods from place to place in a fair, when they

erected in it a booth or stall to sell them in. These different taxes were known in England by the names of

passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage. Sometimes the king, sometimes a great lord, who had, it seems, upon

some occasions, authority to do this, would grant to particular traders, to such particularly as lived in their

own demesnes, a general exemption from such taxes. Such traders, though in other respects of servile, or very

nearly of servile condition, were upon this account called freetraders. They in return usually paid to their

protector a sort of annual polltax. In those days protection was seldom granted without a valuable

consideration, and this tax might, perhaps, be considered as compensation for what their patrons might lose

by their exemption from other taxes. At first, both those polltaxes and those exemptions seem to have been

altogether personal, and to have affected only particular individuals during either their lives or the pleasure of

their protectors. In the very imperfect accounts which have been published from Domesday Book of several

of the towns of England, mention is frequently made sometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid,

each of them, either to the king or to some other great lord for this sort of protection; and sometimes of the

But how servile soever may have been originally the condition of the inhabitants of the towns, it appears

evidently that they arrived at liberty and independency much earlier than the occupiers of land in the country.

That part of the king's revenue which arose from such polltaxes in any particular town used commonly to be

let in farm during a term of years for a rent certain, sometimes to the sheriff of the county, and sometimes to

other persons. The burghers themselves frequently got credit enough to be admitted to farm the revenues of

this sort which arose out of their own town, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole

rent. To let a farm in this manner was quite agreeable to the usual economy of, I believe, the sovereigns of all

the different countries of Europe, who used frequently to let whole manors to all the tenants of those manors,

they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole rent; but in return being allowed to collect it in

their own way, and to pay it into the king's exchequer by the hands of their own bailiff, and being thus

altogether freed from the insolence of the king's officers a circumstance in those days regarded as of the

At first the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other

farmers, for a term of years only. In process of time, however, it seems to have become the general practice to

grant it to them in fee, that is for ever, reserving a rent certain never afterwards to be augmented. The

payment having thus become perpetual, the exemptions, in return for which it was made, naturally became

perpetual too. Those exemptions, therefore, ceased to be personal, and could not afterwards be considered as

belonging to individuals as individuals, but as burghers of a particular burgh, which, upon this account, was

called a free burgh, for the same reason that they had been called free burghers or free traders.

Along with this grant, the important privileges above mentioned, that they might give away their own

daughters in marriage, that their children should succeed to them, and that they might dispose of their own

effects by will, were generally bestowed upon the burghers of the town to whom it was given. Whether such

privileges had before been usually granted along with the freedom of trade to particular burghers, as

individuals, I know not. I reckon it not improbable that they were, though I cannot produce any direct

evidence of it. But however this may have been, the principal attributes of villanage and slavery being thus

taken away from them, they now, at least, became really free in our present sense of the word Freedom.

Nor was this all. They were generally at the same time erected into a commonalty or corporation, with the

privilege of having magistrates and a town council of their own, of making byelaws for their own

government, of building walls for their own defence, and of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of

military discipline by obliging them to watch and ward, that is, as anciently understood, to guard and defend

those walls against all attacks and surprises by night as well as by day. In England they were generally

exempted from suit to the hundred and county courts; and all such pleas as should arise among them, the

pleas of the crown excepted, were left to the decision of their own magistrates. In other countries much

It might, probably, be necessary to grant to such towns as were admitted to farm their own revenues some

sort of compulsive jurisdiction to oblige their own citizens to make payment. In those disorderly times it

might have been extremely inconvenient to have left them to seek this sort of justice from any other tribunal.

But it must seem extraordinary that the sovereigns of all the different countries of Europe should have

exchanged in this manner for a rent certain, never more to be augmented, that branch of the revenue which

was, perhaps, of all others the most likely to be improved by the natural course of things, without either

expense or attention of their own: and that they should, besides, have in this manner voluntarily erected a sort

In order to understand this, it must be remembered that in those days the sovereign of perhaps no country in

Europe was able to protect, through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his subjects from

the oppression of the great lords. Those whom the law could not protect, and who were not strong enough to

defend themselves, were obliged either to have recourse to the protection of some great lord, and in order to

obtain it to become either his slaves or vassals; or to enter into a league of mutual defence for the common

protection of one another. The inhabitants of cities and burghs, considered as single individuals, had no

power to defend themselves; but by entering into a league of mutual defence with their neighbours, they were

capable of making no contemptible resistance. The lords despised the burghers, whom they considered not

only as of a different order, but as a parcel of emancipated slaves, almost of a different species from

themselves. The wealth of the burghers never failed to provoke their envy and indignation, and they

plundered them upon every occasion without mercy or remorse. The burghers naturally hated and feared the

lords. The king hated and feared them too; but though perhaps he might despise, he had no reason either to

hate or fear the burghers. Mutual interest, therefore, disposed them to support the king, and the king to

support them against the lords. They were the enemies of his enemies, and it was his interest to render them

as secure and independent of those enemies as he could. By granting them magistrates of their own, the

privilege of making byelaws for their own government, that of building walls for their own defence, and

that of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline, he gave them all the means of security

and independency of the barons which it was in his power to bestow. Without the establishment of some

regular government of this kind, without some authority to compel their inhabitants to act according to some

certain plan or system, no voluntary league of mutual defence could either have afforded them any permanent

security, or have enabled them to give the king any considerable support. By granting them the farm of their

town in fee, he took away from those whom he wished to have for his friends, and, if one may say so, for his

allies, all ground of jealousy and suspicion that he was ever afterwards to oppress them, either by raising the

The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons seem accordingly to have been the most liberal

in grants of this kind to their burghs. King John of England, for example, appears to have been a most

munificent benefactor to his towns. Philip the First of France lost all authority over his barons. Towards the

end of his reign, his son Lewis, known afterwards by the name of Lewis the Fat, consulted, according to

Father Daniel, with the bishops of the royal demesnes concerning the most proper means of restraining the

violence of the great lords. Their advice consisted of two different proposals. One was to erect a new order of

jurisdiction, by establishing magistrates and a town council in every considerable town of his demesnes. The

other was to form a new militia, by making the inhabitants of those towns, under the command of their own

magistrates, march out upon proper occasions to the assistance of the king. It is from this period, according to

the French antiquarians, that we are to date the institution of the magistrates and councils of cities in France.

It was during the unprosperous reigns of the princes of the house of Suabia that the greater part of the free

towns of Germany received the first grants of their privileges, and that the famous Hanseatic league first

The militia of the cities seems, in those times, not to have been inferior to that of the country, and as they

could be more readily assembled upon any sudden occasion, they frequently had the advantage in their

disputes with the neighbouring lords. In countries, such as Italy and Switzerland, in which, on account either

of their distance from the principal seat of government, of the natural strength of the country itself, or of some

other reason, the sovereign came to lose the whole of his authority, the cities generally became independent

republics, and conquered all the nobility in their neighbourhood, obliging them to pull down their castles in

the country and to live, like other peaceable inhabitants, in the city. This is the short history of the republic of

Berne as well as of several other cities in Switzerland. If you except Venice, for of that city the history is

somewhat different, it is the history of all the considerable Italian republics, of which so great a number arose

and perished between the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In countries such as France or England, where the authority of the sovereign, though frequently very low,

never was destroyed altogether, the cities had no opportunity of becoming entirely independent. They

became, however, so considerable that the sovereign could impose no tax upon them, besides the stated

farmrent of the town, without their own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the

general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join with the clergy and the barons in

granting, upon urgent occasions, some extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favourable to

his power, their deputies seem, sometimes, to have been employed by him as a counterbalance in those

assemblies to the authority of the great lords. Hence the origin of the representation of burghs in the

Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security of individuals, were, in this

manner, established in cities at a time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed to every sort of

violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves with their necessary subsistence,

because to acquire more might only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the contrary, when they are

secure of enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it to better their condition, and to acquire

not only the necessaries, but the conveniences and elegancies of life. That industry, therefore, which aims at

something more than necessary subsistence, was established in cities long before it was commonly practised

by the occupiers of land in the country. If in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the servitude of

villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he would naturally conceal it with great care from his master,

to whom it would otherwise have belonged, and take the first opportunity of running away to a town. The law

was at that time so indulgent to the inhabitants of towns, and so desirous of diminishing the authority of the

lords over those of the country, that if he could conceal himself there from the pursuit of his lord for a year,

he was free for ever. Whatever stock, therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the

inhabitants of the country naturally took refuge in cities as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to

The inhabitants of a city, it is true, must always ultimately derive their subsistence, and the whole materials

and means of their industry, from the country. But those of a city, situated near either the sea coast or the

banks of a navigable river, are not necessarily confined to derive them from the country in their

neighbourhood. They have a much wider range, and may draw them from the most remote corners of the

world, either in exchange for the manufactured produce of their own industry, or by performing the office of

carriers between distant countries and exchanging the produce of one for that of another. A city might in this

manner grow up to great wealth and splendour, while not only the country in its neighbourhood, but all those

to which it traded, were in poverty and wretchedness. Each of those countries, perhaps, taken singly, could

afford it but a small part either of its subsistence or of its employment, but all of them taken together could

afford it both a great subsistence and a great employment. There were, however, within the narrow circle of

the commerce of those times, some countries that were opulent and industrious. Such was the Greek empire

as long as it subsisted, and that of the Saracens during the reigns of the Abassides. Such too was Egypt till it

was conquered by the Turks, some part of the coast of Barbary, and all those provinces of Spain which were

The cities of Italy seem to have been the first in Europe which were raised by commerce to any considerable

degree of opulence. Italy lay in the centre of what was at that time the improved and civilised part of the

world. The Crusades too, though by the great waste of stock and destruction of inhabitants which they

occasioned they must necessarily have retarded the progress of the greater part of Europe, were extremely

favourable to that of some Italian cities. The great armies which marched from all parts to the conquest of the

Holy Land gave extraordinary encouragement to the shipping of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, sometimes in

transporting them thither, and always in supplying them with provisions. They were the commissaries, if one

may say so, of those armies; and the most destructive frenzy that ever befell the European nations was a

The inhabitants of trading cities, by importing the improved manufactures and expensive luxuries of richer

countries, afforded some food to the vanity of the great proprietors, who eagerly purchased them with great

quantities of the rude produce of their own lands. The commerce of a great part of Europe in those times,

accordingly, consisted chiefly in the exchange of their own rude for the, manufactured produce of more

civilised nations. Thus the wool of England used to be exchanged for the wines of France and the fine cloths

of Flanders, in the same manner as the corn in Poland is at this day exchanged for the wines and brandies of

A taste for the finer and more improved manufactures was in this manner introduced by foreign commerce

into countries where no such works were carried on. But when this taste became so general as to occasion a

considerable demand, the merchants, in order to save the expense of carriage, naturally endeavoured to

establish some manufactures of the same kind in their own country. Hence the origin of the first manufactures

for distant sale that seem to have been established in the western provinces of Europe after the fall of the

Roman empire. No large country, it must be observed, ever did or could subsist without some sort of

manufactures being carried on in it; and when it is said of any such country that it has no manufactures, it

must always be understood of the finer and more improved or of such as are fit for distant sale. In every large

country both the clothing and household furniture of the far greater part of the people are the produce of their

own industry. This is even more universally the case in those poor countries which are commonly said to

have no manufactures than in those rich ones that are said to abound in them. In the latter, you will generally

find, both in the clothes and household furniture of the lowest rank of people, a much greater proportion of

Those manufactures which are fit for distant sale seem to have been introduced into different countries in two

Sometimes they have been introduced, in the manner above mentioned, by the violent operation, if one may

say so, of the stocks of particular merchants and undertakers, who established them in imitation of some

foreign manufactures of the same kind. Such manufactures, therefore, are the offspring of foreign commerce,

and such seem to have been the ancient manufactures of silks, velvets, and brocades, which flourished in

Lucca during the thirteenth century. They were banished from thence by the tyranny of one of Machiavel's

heroes, Castruccio Castracani. In 1310, nine hundred families were driven out of Lucca, of whom thirtyone

retired to Venice and offered to introduce there the silk manufacture. Their offer was accepted; many

privileges were conferred upon them, and they began the manufacture with three hundred workmen. Such,

too, seem to have been the manufactures of fine cloths that anciently flourished in Flanders, and which were

introduced into England in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth; and such are the present silk manufactures

of Lyons and Spitalfields. Manufactures introduced in this manner are generally employed upon foreign

materials, being imitations of foreign manufactures. When the Venetian manufacture was first established,

the materials were all brought from Sicily and the Levant. The more ancient manufacture of Lucca was

likewise carried on with foreign materials. The cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding of silkworms

seem not to have been common in the northern parts of Italy before the sixteenth century. Those arts were not

introduced into France till the reign of Charles IX. The manufactures of Flanders were carried on chiefly with

Spanish and English wool. Spanish wool was the material, not of the first woollen manufacture of England,

but of the first that was fit for distant sale. More than one half the materials of the Lyons manufacture is at

this day, foreign silk; when it was first established, the whole or very nearly the whole was so. No part of the

materials of the Spitalfields manufacture is ever likely be the produce of England. The seat of such

manufactures, as they are generally introduced by the scheme and project of a few individuals, is sometimes

established in a maritime city, and sometimes in an inland town, according as their interest, judgment, or

At other times, manufactures for distant sale group up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, by the

gradual refinement of those household and coarser manufactures which must at all times be carried on even in

the poorest and rudest countries. Such manufactures are generally employed upon the materials which the

country produces, and they seem frequently to have been first refined and improved in such inland countries

as were, not indeed at a very great, but at a considerable distance from the sea coast, and sometimes even

from all water carriage. An inland country, naturally fertile and easily cultivated, produces a great surplus of

provisions beyond what is necessary for maintaining the cultivators, and on account of the expense of land

carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may frequently be difficult to send this surplus abroad.

Abundance, therefore, renders provisions cheap, and encourages a great number of workmen to settle in the

neighbourhood, who find that their industry can there procure them more of the necessaries and

conveniencies of life than in other places. They work up the materials of manufacture which the land

produces, and exchange their finished work, or what is the same thing the price of it, for more materials and

provisions. They give a new value to the surplus part of the rude produce by saving the expense of carrying it

to the water side or to some distant market; and they furnish the cultivators with something in exchange for it

that is either useful or agreeable to them upon easier terms than they could have obtained it before. The

cultivators get a better price for their surplus produce, and can purchase cheaper other conveniences which

they have occasion for. They are thus both encouraged and enabled to increase this surplus produce by a

further improvement and better cultivation of the land; and as the fertility of the land had given birth to the

manufacture, so the progress of the manufacture reacts upon the land and increases still further its fertility.

The manufacturers first supply the neighbourhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and refines, more

distant markets. For though neither the rude produce nor even the coarse manufacture could, without the

greatest difficulty, support the expense of a considerable land carriage, the refined and improved manufacture

easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quantity of rude produce. A piece of fine

cloth, for example, which weighs only eighty pounds, contains in it, the price, not only of eighty pounds'

weight of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the different working

people and of their immediate employers. The corn, which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in

its own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may easily be sent

to the remotest corners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and as it were of their own

accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. Such manufactures

are the offspring of agriculture. In the modern history of Europe, their extension and improvement have

generally been posterior to those which were the offspring of foreign commerce. England was noted for the

manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool more than a century before any of those which now flourish

in the places above mentioned were fit for foreign sale. The extension and improvement of these last could

not take place but in consequence of the extension and improvement of agriculture the last and greatest effect

of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it, and which I shall now proceed

CHAPTER IV. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country

THE increase and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns contributed to the improvement and

First, by affording a great and ready market for the rude produce of the country, they gave encouragement to

its cultivation and further improvement. This benefit was not even confined to the countries in which they

were situated, but extended more or less to all those with which they had any dealings. To all of them they

afforded a market for some part either of their rude or manufactured produce, and consequently gave some

encouragement to the industry and improvement of all. Their own country, however, on account of its

neighbourhood, necessarily derived the greatest benefit from this market. Its rude produce being charged with

less carriage, the traders could pay the growers a better price for it, and yet afford it as cheap to the

Secondly, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of cities was frequently employed in purchasing such lands

as were to be sold, of which a great part would frequently be uncultivated. Merchants are commonly

ambitious of becoming country gentlemen, and when they do, they are generally the best of all improvers. A

merchant is accustomed to employ his money chiefly in profitable projects, whereas a mere country

gentleman is accustomed to employ it chiefly in expense. The one often sees his money go from him and

return to him again with a profit; the other, when once he parts with it, very seldom expects to see any more

of it. Those different habits naturally affect their temper and disposition in every sort of business. A merchant

is commonly a bold, a country gentleman a timid undertaker. The one is not afraid to lay out at once a large

capital upon the improvement of his land when he has a probable prospect of raising the value of it in

proportion to the expense. The other, if he has any capital, which is not always the case, seldom ventures to

employ it in this manner. If he improves at all, it is commonly not with a capital, but with what he can save

out of his annual revenue. Whoever has had the fortune to live in a mercantile town situated in an

unimproved country must have frequently observed how much more spirited the operations of merchants

were in this way than those of mere country gentlemen. The habits, besides, of order, economy, and attention,

to which mercantile business naturally forms a merchant, render him much fitter to execute, with profit and

Thirdly, and lastly, commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with

them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived

almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours and of servile dependency upon their superiors. This,

though it has been the least observed, is by far the most important of all their effects. Mr. Hume is the only

In a country which has neither foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a great proprietor,

having nothing for which he can exchange the greater part of the produce of his lands which is over and

above the maintenance of the cultivators, consumes the whole in rustic hospitality at home. If this surplus

produce is sufficient to maintain a hundred or a thousand men, he can make use of it in no other way than by

maintaining a hundred or a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore, surrounded with a multitude of

retainers and dependants, who, having no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being fed

entirely by his bounty, must obey him, for the same reason that soldiers must obey the prince who pays them.

Before the extension of commerce and manufacture in Europe, the hospitality of the rich, and the great, from

the sovereign down to the smallest baron, exceeded everything which in the present times we can easily form

a notion of. Westminster Hall was the diningroom of William Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps, not be

too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas Becket that he strewed the

floor of his hall with clean hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and squires who could not get

seats might not spoil their fine clothes when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great Earl of

Warwick is said to have entertained every day at his different manors thirty thousand people, and though the

number here may have been exaggerated, it must, however, have been very great to admit of such

exaggeration. A hospitality nearly of the same kind was exercised not many years ago in many different parts

of the highlands of Scotland. It seems to be common in all nations to whom commerce and manufactures are

little known. "I have seen," says Doctor Pocock, "an Arabian chief dine in the streets of a town where he had

come to sell his cattle, and invite all passengers, even common beggars, to sit down with him and partake of

The occupiers of land were in every respect as dependent upon the great proprietor as his retainers. Even such

of them as were not in a state of villanage were tenants at will, who paid a rent in no respect equivalent to the

subsistence which the land afforded them. A crown, half a crown, a sheep, a lamb, was some years ago in the

highlands of Scotland a common rent for lands which maintained a family. In some places it is so at this day;

nor will money at present purchase a greater quantity of commodities there than in other places. In a country

where the surplus produce of a large estate must be consumed upon the estate itself, it will frequently be more

convenient for the proprietor that part of it be consumed at a distance from his own house provided they who

consume it are as dependent upon him as either his retainers or his menial servants. He is thereby saved from

the embarrassment of either too large a company or too large a family. A tenant at will, who possesses land

sufficient to maintain his family for little more than a quitrent, is as dependent upon the proprietor as any

servant or retainer whatever and must obey him with as little reserve. Such a proprietor, as he feeds his

servants and retainers at his own house, so he feeds his tenants at their houses. The subsistence of both is

Upon the authority which the great proprietor necessarily had in such a state of things over their tenants and

retainers was founded the power of the ancient barons. They necessarily became the judges in peace, and the

leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their estates. They could maintain order and execute the law within

their respective demesnes, because each of them could there turn the whole force of all the inhabitants against

the injustice of any one. No other persons had sufficient authority to do this. The king in particular had not. In

those ancient times he was little more than the greatest proprietor in his dominions, to whom, for the sake of

common defence against their common enemies, the other great proprietors paid certain respects. To have

enforced payment of a small debt within the lands of a great proprietor, where all the inhabitants were armed

and accustomed to stand by one another, would have cost the king, had he attempted it by his own authority,

almost the same effort as to extinguish a civil war. He was, therefore, obliged to abandon the administration

of justice through the greater part of the country to those who were capable of administering it; and for the

same reason to leave the command of the country militia to those whom that militia would obey.

It is a mistake to imagine that those territorial jurisdictions took their origin from the feudal law. Not only the

highest jurisdictions both civil and criminal, but the power of levying troops, of coining money, and even that

of making byelaws for the government of their own people, were all rights possessed allodially by the great

proprietors of land several centuries before even the name of the feudal law was known in Europe. The

authority and jurisdiction of the Saxon lords in England appear to have been as great before the Conquest as

that of any of the Norman lords after it. But the feudal law is not supposed to have become the common law

of England till after the Conquest. That the most extensive authority and jurisdictions were possessed by the

great lords in France allodially long before the feudal law was introduced into that country is a matter of fact

that admits of no doubt. That authority and those jurisdictions all necessarily flowed from the state of

property and manners just now described. Without remounting to the remote antiquities of either the French

or English monarchies, we may find in much later times many proofs that such effects must always flow from

such causes. It is not thirty years ago since Mr. Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochabar in Scotland,

without any legal warrant whatever, not being what was then called a lord of regality, nor even a tenant in

chief, but a vassal of the Duke of Argyle, and without being so much as a justice of peace, used,

notwithstanding, to exercise the highest criminal jurisdiction over his own people. He is said to have done so

with great equity, though without any of the formalities of justice; and it is not improbable that the state of

that part of the country at that time made it necessary for him to assume this authority in order to maintain the

public peace. That gentleman, whose rent never exceeded five hundred pounds a year, carried, in 1745, eight

The introduction of the feudal law, so far from extending, may be regarded as an attempt to moderate the

authority of the great allodial lords. It established a regular subordination, accompanied with a long train of

services and duties, from the king down to the smallest proprietor. During the minority of the proprietor, the

rent, together with the management of his lands, fell into the hands of his immediate superior, and,

consequently, those of all great proprietors into the hands of the king, who was charged with the maintenance

and education of the pupil, and who, from his authority as guardian, was supposed to have a right of

disposing of him in marriage, provided it was in a manner not unsuitable to his rank. But though this

institution necessarily tended to strengthen the authority of the king, and to weaken that of the great

proprietors, it could not do either sufficiently for establishing order and good government among the

inhabitants of the country, because it could not alter sufficiently that state of property and manners from

which the disorders arose. The authority of government still continued to be, as before, too weak in the head

and too strong in the inferior members, and the excessive strength of the inferior members was the cause of

the weakness of the head. After the institution of feudal subordination, the king was as incapable of

restraining the violence of the great lords as before. They still continued to make war according to their own

discretion, almost continually upon one another, and very frequently upon the king; and the open country still

But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible

operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the

great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and

which they could consume themselves without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. All for ourselves and

nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of

mankind. As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents

themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons. For a pair of diamond buckles,

perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or what is the same

thing, the price of the maintenance of a thousand men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority

which it could give them. The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to

have any share of them; whereas in the more ancient method of expense they must have shared with at least a

thousand people. With the judges that were to determine the preference this difference was perfectly decisive;

and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities, they

In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of ten thousand a

year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, a thousand families, who

are all of them necessarily at his command. In the present state of Europe, a man of ten thousand a year can

spend his whole revenue, and he generally does so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able

to command more than ten footmen not worth the commanding. Indirectly, perhaps, he maintains as great or

even a greater number of people than he could have done by the ancient method of expense. For though the

quantity of precious productions for which he exchanges his whole revenue be very small, the number of

workmen employed in collecting and preparing it must necessarily have been very great. Its great price

generally arises from the wages of their labour, and the profits of all their immediate employers. By paying

that price he indirectly pays all those wages and profits and thus indirectly contributes to the maintenance of

all the workmen and their employers. He generally contributes, however, but a very small proportion to that

of each, to very few perhaps a tenth, to many not a hundredth, and to some not a thousandth, nor even a

tenthousandth part of their whole annual maintenance. Though he contributes, therefore, to the maintenance

of them all, they are all more or less independent of him, because generally they can all be maintained

When the great proprietors of land spend their rents in maintaining their tenants and retainers, each of them

maintains entirely all his own tenants and all his own retainers. But when they spend them in maintaining

tradesmen and artificers, they may, all of them taken together, perhaps, maintain as great, or, on account of

the waste which attends rustic hospitality, a greater number of people than before. Each of them, however,

taken singly, contributes often but a very small share to the maintenance of any individual of this greater

number. Each tradesman or artificer derives his subsistence from the employment, not of one, but of a

hundred or a thousand different customers. Though in some measure obliged to them all, therefore, he is not

The personal expense of the great proprietors having in this manner gradually increased, it was impossible

that the number of their retainers should not as gradually diminish till they were at last dismissed altogether.

The same cause gradually led them to dismiss the unnecessary part of their tenants. Farms were enlarged, and

the occupiers of land, notwithstanding the complaints of depopulation, reduced to the number necessary for

cultivating it, according to the imperfect state of cultivation and improvement in those times. By the removal

of the unnecessary mouths, and by exacting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or

what is the same thing, the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor, which the merchants

and manufacturers soon furnished him with a method of spending upon his own person in the same manner as

he had done the rest. The same cause continuing to operate, he was desirous to raise his rents above what his

lands, in the actual state of their improvement, could afford. His tenants could agree to this upon one

condition only, that they should be secured in their possession for such a term of years as might give them

time to recover with profit whatever they should lay out in the further improvement of the land. The

expensive vanity of the landlord made him willing to accept of this condition; and hence the origin of long

Even a tenant at will, who pays the full value of the land, is not altogether dependent upon the landlord. The

pecuniary advantages which they receive from one another are mutual and equal, and such a tenant will

expose neither his life nor his fortune in the service of the proprietor. But if he has a lease for a long term of

years, he is altogether independent; and his landlord must not expect from him the most trifling service

beyond what is either expressly stipulated in the lease or imposed upon him by the common and known law

The tenants having in this manner become independent, and the retainers being dismissed, the great

proprietors were no longer capable of interrupting the regular execution of justice or of disturbing the peace

of the country. Having sold their birthright, not like Esau for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and

necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the playthings of children than

the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesman in a city. A

regular government was established in the country as well as in the city, nobody having sufficient power to

It does not, perhaps, relate to the present subject, but I cannot help remarking it, that very old families, such

as have possessed some considerable estate from father to son for many successive generations are very rare

in commercial countries. In countries which have little commerce, on the contrary, such as Wales or the

highlands of Scotland, they are very common. The Arabian histories seem to be all full of genealogies, and

there is a history written by a Tartar Khan, which has been translated into several European languages, and

which contains scarce anything else; a proof that ancient families are very common among those nations. In

countries where a rich man can spend his revenue in no other way than by maintaining as many people as it

can maintain, he is not apt to run out, and his benevolence it seems is seldom so violent as to attempt to

maintain more than he can afford. But where he can spend the greatest revenue upon his own person, he

frequently has no bounds to his expense, because he frequently has no bounds to his vanity or to his affection

for his own person. In commercial countries, therefore, riches, in spite of the most violent regulations of law

to prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain long in the same family. Among simple nations, on the

contrary, they frequently do without any regulations of law, for among nations of shepherds, such as the

Tartars and Arabs, the consumable nature of their property necessarily renders all such regulations

A revolution of the greatest importance to the public happiness was in this manner brought about by two

different orders of people who had not the least intention to serve the public. To gratify the most childish

vanity was the sole motive of the great proprietors. The merchants and artificers, much less ridiculous, acted

merely from a view to their own interest, and in pursuit of their own pedlar principle of turning a penny

wherever a penny was to be got. Neither of them had either knowledge or foresight of that great revolution

which the folly of the one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringing about.

It is thus that through the greater part of Europe the commerce and manufactures of cities, instead of being

the effect, have been the cause and occasion of the improvement and cultivation of the country.

This order, however, being contrary to the natural course of things, is necessarily both slow and uncertain.

Compare the slow progress of those European countries of which the wealth depends very much upon their

commerce and manufactures with the rapid advances of our North American colonies, of which the wealth is

founded altogether in agriculture. Through the greater part of Europe the number of inhabitants is not

supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In several of our North American colonies, it is found to

double in twenty or fiveandtwenty years. In Europe, the law of primogeniture and perpetuities of different

kinds prevent the division of great estates, and thereby hinder the multiplication of small proprietors. A small

proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, who views it with all the affection which

property, especially small property, naturally inspires, and who upon that account takes pleasure not only in

cultivating but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the

most successful. The same regulations, besides, keep so much land out of the market that there are always

more capitals to buy than there is land to sell, so that what is sold always sells at a monopoly price. The rent

never pays the interest of the purchasemoney, and is, besides, burdened with repairs and other occasional

charges to which the interest of money is not liable. To purchase land is everywhere in Europe a most

unprofitable employment of a small capital. For the sake of the superior security, indeed, a man of moderate

circumstances, when he retires from business, will sometimes choose to lay out his little capital in land. A

man of profession too, whose revenue is derived from. another source, often loves to secure his savings in the

same way. But a young man, who, instead of applying to trade or to some profession, should employ a capital

of two or three thousand pounds in the purchase and cultivation of a small piece of land, might indeed expect

to live very happily, and very independently, but must bid adieu forever to all hope of either great fortune or

great illustration, which by a different employment of his stock he might have had the same chance of

acquiring with other people. Such a person too, though he cannot aspire at being a proprietor, will often

disdain to be a farmer. The small quantity of land, therefore, which is brought to market, and the high price of

what is brought thither, prevents a great number of capitals from being employed in its cultivation and

improvement which would otherwise have taken that direction. In North America, on the contrary, fifty or

sixty pounds is often found a sufficient stock to begin a plantation with. The purchase and improvement of

uncultivated land is there the most profitable employment of the smallest as well as of the greatest capitals,

and the most direct road to all the fortune and illustration which can be acquired in that country. Such land,

indeed, is in North America to be had almost for nothing, or at a price much below the value of the natural

produce a thing impossible in Europe, or, indeed, in any country where all lands have long been private

property. If landed estates, however, were divided equally among all the children upon the death of any

proprietor who left a numerous family, the estate would generally be sold. So much land would come to

market that it could no longer sell at a monopoly price. The free rent of the land would go nearer to pay the

interest of the purchasemoney, and a small capital might be employed in purchasing land as profitably as in

England, on account of the natural fertility of the soil, of the great extent of the seacoast in proportion to that

of the whole country, and of the many navigable rivers which run through it and afford the conveniency of

water carriage to some of the most inland parts of it, is perhaps as well fitted by nature as any large country in

Europe to be the seat of foreign commerce, of manufactures for distant sale, and of all the improvements

which these can occasion. From the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth too, the English legislature has been

peculiarly attentive to the interests of commerce and manufactures, and in reality there is no country in

Europe, Holland itself not excepted, of which the law is, upon the whole, more favourable to this sort of

industry. Commerce and manufactures have accordingly been continually advancing during all this period.

The cultivation and improvement of the country has, no doubt, been gradually advancing too; but it seems to

have followed slowly, and at a distance, the more rapid progress of commerce and manufactures. The greater

part of the country must probably have been cultivated before the reign of Elizabeth; and a very great part of

it still remains uncultivated, and the cultivation of the far greater part much inferior to what it might be. The

law of England, however, favours agriculture not only indirectly by the protection of commerce, but by

several direct encouragements. Except in times of scarcity, the exportation of corn is not only free, but

encouraged by a bounty. In times of moderate plenty, the importation of foreign corn is loaded with duties

that amount to a prohibition. The importation of live cattle, except from Ireland, is prohibited at all times, and

it is but of late that it was permitted from thence. Those who cultivate the land, therefore, have a monopoly

against their countrymen for the two greatest and most important articles of land produce, bread and butcher's

meat. These encouragements, though at bottom, perhaps, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter, altogether

illusory, sufficiently demonstrate at least the good intention of the legislature to favour agriculture. But what

is of much more importance than all of them, the yeomanry of England are rendered as secure, as

independent, and as respectable as law can make them. No country, therefore, in which the right of

primogeniture takes place, which pays tithes, and where perpetuities, though contrary to the spirit of the law,

are admitted in some cases, can give more encouragement to agriculture than England. Such, however,

notwithstanding, is the state of its cultivation. What would it have been had the law given no direct

encouragement to agriculture besides what arises indirectly from the progress of commerce, and had left the

yeomanry in the same condition as in most other countries of Europe? It is now more than two hundred years

since the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a period as long as the course of human prosperity usually

France seems to have had a considerable share of foreign commerce near a century before England was

distinguished as a commercial country. The marine of France was considerable, according to the notions of

the times, before the expedition of Charles VIII to Naples. The cultivation and improvement of France,

however, is, upon the whole, inferior to that of England. The law of the country has never given the same

The foreign commerce of Spain and Portugal to the other parts of Europe, though chiefly carried on in foreign

ships, is very considerable. That to their colonies is carried on in their own, and is much greater, on account

of the great riches and extent of those colonies. But it has never introduced any considerable manufactures for

distant sale into either of those countries, and the greater part of both still remains uncultivated. The foreign

commerce of Portugal is of older standing than that of any great country in Europe, except Italy.

Italy is the only great country of Europe which seems to have been cultivated and improved in every part by

means of foreign commerce and manufactures for distant sale. Before the invasion of Charles VIII, Italy

according to Guicciardin, was cultivated not less in the most mountainous and barren parts of the country

than in the plainest and most fertile. The advantageous situation of the country, and the great number of

independent states which at that time subsisted in it, probably contributed not a little to this general

cultivation. It is not impossible too, notwithstanding this general expression of one of the most judicious and

reserved of modern historians, that Italy was not at that time better cultivated than England is at present.

The capital, however, that is acquired to any country by commerce and manufactures is all a very precarious

and uncertain possession till some part of it has been secured and realized in the cultivation and improvement

of its lands. A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular

country. It is in a great measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling

disgust will make him remove his capital, and together with it all the industry which it supports, from one

country to another. No part of it can be said to belong to any particular country, till it has been spread as it

were over the face of that country, either in buildings or in the lasting improvement of lands. No vestige now

remains of the great wealth said to have been possessed by the greater part of the Hans towns except in the

obscure histories of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is even uncertain where some of them were

situated or to what towns in Europe the Latin names given to some of them belong. But though the

misfortunes of Italy in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries greatly diminished the

commerce and manufactures of the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, those countries still continue to be

among the most populous and best cultivated in Europe. The civil wars of Flanders, and the Spanish

government which succeeded them, chased away the great commerce of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges. But

Flanders still continues to be one of the richest, best cultivated, and most populous provinces of Europe. The

ordinary revolutions of war and government easily dry up the sources of that wealth which arises from

commerce only. That which arises from the more solid improvements of agriculture is much more durable

and cannot be destroyed but by those more violent convulsions occasioned by the depredations of hostile and

barbarous nations continued for a century or two together, such as those that happened for some time before

POLITICAL economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two

distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable

them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or

commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the

The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations has given occasion to two different systems

of political economy with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the

other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with

the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in our own

THAT wealth consists in money, or and silver, is a popular notion which naturally arises from the double

function of money, as the instrument of commerce and as the measure of value. In consequence of its being

the instrument of commerce, when we have money we can more readily obtain whatever else we have

occasion for than by means of any other commodity. The great affair, we always find, is to get money. When

that is obtained, there is no difficulty in making any subsequent purchase. In consequence of its being the

measure of value, we estimate that of all other commodities by the quantity of money which they will

exchange for. We say of a rich man that he is worth a great deal, and of a poor man that he is worth very little

money. A frugal man, or a man eager to be rich, is said to love money; and a careless, a generous, or a

profuse man, is said to be indifferent about it. To grow rich is to get money; and wealth and money, in short,

A rich country, in the same manner as a rich man, is supposed to be a country abounding in money; and to

heap up gold and saver in any country is supposed to be the readiest way to enrich it. For some time after the

discovery of America, the first inquiry of the Spaniards, when they arrived upon an unknown coast, used to

be, if there was any gold or silver to be found in the neighbourhood. By the information which they received,

they judged whether it was worth while to make a settlement there, or if the country was worth the

conquering. Plano Carpino, a monk, sent ambassador from the King of France to one of the sons of the

famous Genghis Khan, says that the Tartars used frequently to ask him if there was plenty of sheep and oxen

in the kingdom of France. Their inquiry had the same object with that of the Spaniards. They wanted to know

if the country was rich enough to be worth the conquering. Among the Tartars, as among all other nations of

shepherds, who are generally ignorant of the use of money, cattle are the instruments of commerce and the

measures of value. Wealth, therefore, according to them, consisted in cattle, as according to the Spaniards it

consisted in gold and silver. Of the two, the Tartar notion, perhaps, was the nearest to the truth.

Mr. Locke remarks a distinction between money and other movable goods. All other movable goods, he says,

are of so consumable a nature that the wealth which consists in them cannot be much depended on, and a

nation which abounds in them one year may, without any exportation, but merely their own waste and

extravagance, be in great want of them the next. Money, on the contrary, is a steady friend, which, though it

may travel about from hand to hand, yet if it can be kept from going out of the country, is not very liable to

be wasted and consumed. Gold and silver, therefore, are, according to him, the most solid and substantial part

of the movable wealth of a nation, and to multiply those metals ought, he thinks, upon that account, to be the

Others admit that if a nation could be separated from all the world, it would be of no consequence how much,

or how little money circulated in it. The consumable goods which were circulated by means of this money

would only be exchanged for a greater or a smaller number of pieces; but the real wealth or poverty of the

country, they allow, would depend altogether upon the abundance or scarcity of those consumable goods. But

it is otherwise, they think, with countries which have connections with foreign nations, and which are obliged

to carry on foreign wars, and to maintain fleets and armies in distant countries. This, they say, cannot be done

but by sending abroad money to pay them with; and a nation cannot send much money abroad unless it has a

good deal at home. Every such nation, therefore, must endeavour in time of peace to accumulate gold and

silver that, when occasion requires, it may have wherewithal to carry on foreign wars.

In consequence of these popular notions, all the different nations of Europe have studied, though to little

purpose, every possible means of accumulating gold and silver in their respective countries. Spain and

Portugal, the proprietors of the principal mines which supply Europe with those metals, have either

prohibited their exportation under the severest penalties, or subjected it to a considerable duty. The like

prohibition seems anciently to have made a part of the policy of most other European nations. It is even to be

found, where we should least of all expect to find it, in some old Scotch acts of Parliament, which forbid

under heavy penalties the carrying gold or silver forth of the kingdom. The like policy anciently took place

When those countries became commercial, the merchants found this prohibition, upon many occasions,

extremely inconvenient. They could frequently buy more advantageously with gold and silver than with any

other commodity the foreign goods which they wanted, either to import into their own, or to carry to some

other foreign country. They remonstrated, therefore, against this prohibition as hurtful to trade.

They represented, first, that the exportation of gold and silver in order to purchase foreign goods, did not

always diminish the quantity of those metals in the kingdom. That, on the contrary, it might frequently

increase that quantity; because, if the consumption of foreign goods was not thereby increased in the country,

those goods might be reexported to foreign countries, and, being there sold for a large profit, might bring

back much more treasure than was originally sent out to purchase them. Mr. Mun compares this operation of

foreign trade to the seedtime and harvest of agriculture. "If we only behold," says he, "the actions of the

husbandman in the seedtime, when he casteth away much good corn into the ground, we shall account him

rather a madman than a husbandman. But when we consider his labours in the harvest, which is the end of his

They represented, secondly, that this prohibition could not hinder the exportation of gold and silver, which,

on account of the smallness of their bulk in proportion to their value, could easily be smuggled abroad. That

this exportation could only be prevented by a proper attention to, what they called, the balance of trade. That

when the country exported to a greater value than it imported, a balance became due to it from foreign

nations, which was necessarily paid to it in gold and silver, and thereby increased the quantity of those metals

in the kingdom. But that when it imported to a greater value than it exported, a contrary balance became due

to foreign nations, which was necessarily paid to them in the same manner, and thereby diminished that

quantity. That in this case to prohibit the exportation of those metals could not prevent it, but only, by making

it more dangerous, render it more expensive. That the exchange was thereby turned more against the country

which owed the balance than it otherwise might have been; the merchant who purchased a bill upon the

foreign country being obliged to pay the banker who sold it, not only for the natural risk, trouble, and expense

of sending the money thither, but for the extraordinary risk arising from the prohibition. But that the more the

exchange was against any country, the more the balance of trade became necessarily against it; the money of

that country becoming necessarily of so much less value in comparison with that of the country to which the

balance was due. That if the exchange between England and Holland, for example, was five per cent against

England, it would require a hundred and five ounces of silver in England to purchase a bill for a hundred

ounces of silver in Holland: that a hundred and five ounces of silver in England, therefore, would be worth

only a hundred ounces of silver in Holland, and would purchase only a proportionable quantity of Dutch

goods; but that a hundred ounces of silver in Holland, on the contrary, would be worth a hundred and five

ounces in England, and would purchase a proportionable quantity of English goods: that the English goods

which were sold to Holland would be sold so much cheaper; and the Dutch goods which were sold to

England so much dearer by the difference of the exchange; that the one would draw so much less Dutch

money to England, and the other so much more English money to Holland, as this difference amounted to:

and that the balance of trade, therefore, would necessarily be so much more against England, and would

Those arguments were partly solid and partly sophistical. They were solid so far as they asserted that the

exportation of gold and silver in trade might frequently be advantageous to the country. They were solid, too,

in asserting that no prohibition could prevent their exportation when private people found any advantage in

exporting them. But they were sophistical in supposing that either to preserve or to augment the quantity of

those metals required more the attention of government than to preserve or to augment the quantity of any

other useful commodities, which the freedom of trade, without any such attention, never fails to supply in the

proper quantity. They were sophistical too, perhaps, in asserting that the high price of exchange necessarily

increased what they called the unfavourable balance of trade, or occasioned the exportation of a greater

quantity of gold and silver. That high price, indeed, was extremely disadvantageous to the merchants who had

any money to pay in foreign countries. They paid so much dearer for the bills which their bankers granted

them upon those countries. But though the risk arising from the prohibition might occasion some

extraordinary expense to the bankers, it would not necessarily carry any more money out of the country. This

expense would generally be all laid out in the country, in smuggling the money out of it, and could seldom

occasion the exportation of a single sixpence beyond the precise sum drawn for. The high price of exchange

too would naturally dispose the merchants to endeavour to make their exports nearly balance their imports, in

order that they might have this high exchange to pay upon as small a sum as possible. The high price of

exchange, besides, must necessarily have operated as a tax, in raising the price of foreign goods, and thereby

diminishing their consumption. It would tend, therefore, not to increase but to diminish what they called the

unfavourable balance of trade, and consequently the exportation of gold and silver.

Such as they were, however, those arguments convinced the people to whom they were addressed. They were

addressed by merchants to parliaments and to the councils of princes, to nobles and to country gentlemen, by

those who were supposed to understand trade to those who were conscious to themselves that they knew

nothing about the matter. That foreign trade enriched the country, experience demonstrated to the nobles and

country gentlemen as well as to the merchants; but how, or in what manner, none of them well knew. The

merchants knew perfectly in what manner it enriched themselves. It was their business to know it. But to

know in what manner it enriched the country was no part of their business. This subject never came into their

consideration but when they had occasion to apply to their country for some change in the laws relating to

foreign trade. It then became necessary to say something about the beneficial effects of foreign trade, and the

manner in which those effects were obstructed by the laws as they then stood. To the judges who were to

decide the business it appeared a most satisfactory account of the matter, when they were told that foreign

trade brought money into the country, but that the laws in question hindered it from bringing so much as it

otherwise would do. Those arguments therefore produced the wishedfor effect. The prohibition of exporting

gold and silver was in France and England confined to the coin of those respective countries. The exportation

of foreign coin and of bullion was made free. In Holland, and in some other places, this liberty was extended

even to the coin of the country. The attention of government was turned away from guarding against the

exportation of gold and silver to watch over the balance of trade as the only cause which could occasion any

augmentation or diminution of those metals. From one fruitless care it was turned away to another care much

more intricate, much more embarrassing, and just equally fruitless. The title of Mun's book, England's

Treasure in Foreign Trade, became a fundamental maxim in the political economy, not of England only, but

of all other commercial countries. The inland or home trade, the most important of all, the trade in which an

equal capital affords the greatest revenue, and creates the greatest employment to the people of the country,

was considered as subsidiary only to foreign trade. It neither brought money into the country, it was said, nor

carried any out of it. The country, therefore, could never become either richer or poorer by means of it, except

so far as its prosperity or decay might indirectly influence the state of foreign trade.

A country that has no mines of its own must undoubtedly draw its gold and silver from foreign countries in

the same manner as one that has no vineyards of its own must draw its wines. It does not seem necessary,

however, that the attention of government should be more turned towards the one than towards the other

object. A country that has wherewithal to buy wine will always get the wine which it has occasion for; and a

country that has wherewithal to buy gold and silver will never be in want of those metals. They are to be

bought for a certain price like all other commodities, and as they are the price of all other commodities, so all

other commodities are the price of those metals. We trust with perfect security that the freedom of trade,

without any attention of government, will always supply us with the wine which we have occasion for: and

we may trust with equal security that it will always supply us with all the gold and silver which we can afford

to purchase or to employ, either in circulating our commodities, or in other uses.

The quantity of every commodity which human industry can either purchase or produce naturally regulates

itself in every country according to the effectual demand, or according to the demand of those who are

willing to pay the whole rent, labour, and profits which must be paid in order to prepare and bring it to

market. But no commodities regulate themselves more easily or more exactly according to this effectual

demand than gold and silver; because, on account of the small bulk and great value of those metals, no

commodities can be more easily transported from one place to another, from the places where they are cheap

to those where they are dear, from the places where they exceed to those where they fall short of this effectual

demand. If there were in England, for example, an effectual demand for an additional quantity of gold, a

packetboat could bring from Lisbon, or from wherever else it was to be had, fifty tons of gold, which could

be coined into more than five millions of guineas. But if there were an effectual demand for grain to the same

value, to import it would require, at five guineas a ton, a million of tons of shipping, or a thousand ships of a

When the quantity of gold and silver imported into any country exceeds the effectual demand, no vigilance of

government can prevent their exportation. All the sanguinary laws of Spain and Portugal are not able to keep

their gold and silver at home. The continual importations from Peru and Brazil exceed the effectual demand

of those countries, and sink the price of those metals there below that in the neighbouring countries. If, on the

contrary, in any particular country their quantity fell short of the effectual demand, so as to raise their price

above that of the neighbouring countries, the government would have no occasion to take any pains to import

them. If it were even to take pains to prevent their importation, it would not be able to effectuate it. Those

metals, when the Spartans had got wherewithal to purchase them, broke through all the barriers which the

laws of Lycurgus opposed to their entrance into Lacedemon. All the sanguinary laws of the customs are not

able to prevent the importation of the teas of the Dutch and Gottenburgh East India Companies, because

somewhat cheaper than those of the British company. A pound of tea, however, is about a hundred times the

bulk of one of the highest prices, sixteen shillings, that is commonly paid for it in silver, and more than two

thousand times the bulk of the same price in gold, and consequently just so many times more difficult to

It is partly owing to the easy transportation of gold and silver from the places where they abound to those

where they are wanted that the price of those metals does not fluctuate continually like that of the greater part

of other commodities, which are hindered by their bulk from shifting their situation when the market happens

to be either over or understocked with them. The. price of those metals, indeed, is not altogether exempted

from variation, but the changes to which it is liable are generally slow, gradual and uniform. In Europe, for

example, it is supposed, without much foundation, perhaps, that during the course of the present and

preceding century they have been constantly, but gradually, sinking in their value, on account of the continual

importations from the Spanish West Indies. But to make any sudden change in the price of gold and silver, so

as to raise or lower at once, sensibly and remarkably, the money price of all other commodities, requires such

If, notwithstanding all this, gold and silver should at any time fall short in a country which has wherewithal to

purchase them, there are more expedients for supplying their place than that of almost any other commodity.

If the materials of manufacture are wanted, industry must stop. If provisions are wanted, the people must

starve. But if money is wanted, barter will supply its place, though with a good deal of inconveniency.

Buying and selling upon credit, and the different dealers compensating their credits with one another, once a

month or once a year, will supply it with less inconveniency. A wellregulated paper money will supply it,

not only without any inconveniency, but, in some cases, with some advantages. Upon every account,

therefore, the attention of government never was so unnecessarily employed as when directed to watch over

No complaint, however, is more common than that of a scarcity of money. Money, like wine, must always be

scarce with those who have neither wherewithal to buy it nor credit to borrow it. Those who have either will

seldom be in want either of the money or of the wine which they have occasion for. This complaint, however,

of the scarcity of money is not always confined to improvident spendthrifts. It is sometimes general through a

whole mercantile town and the country in its neighbourhood. Overtrading is the common cause of it. Sober

men, whose projects have been disproportioned to their capitals, are as likely to have neither wherewithal to

buy money nor credit to borrow it, as prodigals whose expense has been disproportioned to their revenue.

Before their projects can be brought to bear, their stock is gone, and their credit with it. They run about

everywhere to borrow money, and everybody tells them that they have none to lend. Even such general

complaints of the scarcity of money do not always prove that the usual number of gold and silver pieces are

not circulating in the country, but that many people want those pieces who have nothing to give for them.

When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, overtrading becomes a general error both among

great and small dealers. They do not always send more money abroad than usual, but they buy upon credit,

both at home and abroad, an unusual quantity of goods, which they send to some distant market in hopes that

the returns will come in before the demand for payment. The demand comes before the returns, and they have

nothing at hand with which they can either purchase money, or give solid security for borrowing. It is not any

scarcity of gold and silver, but the difficulty which such people find in borrowing, and which their creditors

find in getting payment, that occasions the general complaint of the scarcity of money.

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and

silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money, no doubt, makes always a

part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always

It is not because wealth consists more essentially in money than in goods that the merchant find it generally

more easy to buy goods with money than to buy money with goods; but because money is the known and

established instrument of commerce, for which everything is readily given in exchange, but which is not

always with equal readiness to be got in exchange for everything. The greater part of goods, besides, are more

perishable than money, and he may frequently sustain a much greater loss by keeping them. When his goods

are upon hand, too, he is more liable to such demands for money as he may not be able to answer than when

he has got their price in his coffers. Over and above all this, his profit arises more directly from selling than

from buying, and he is upon all these accounts generally much more anxious to exchange his goods for

money than his money for goods. But though a particular merchant, with abundance of goods in his

warehouse, may sometimes be ruined by not being able to sell them in time, a nation or country is not liable

to the same accident. The whole capital of a merchant frequently consists in perish, able goods destined for

purchasing money. But it is but a very small part of the annual produce of the land and labour of a country

which can ever be destined for purchasing gold and silver from their neighbours. The far greater part is

circulated and consumed among themselves; and even of the surplus which is sent abroad, the greater part is

generally destined for the purchase of other foreign goods. Though gold and silver, therefore, could not be

had in exchange for the goods destined to purchase them, the nation would not be ruined. It might, indeed,

suffer some loss and inconveniency, and be forced upon some of those expedients which are necessary for

supplying the place of money. The annual produce of its land and labour, however, would be the same, or

very nearly the same, as usual, because the same, or very nearly the same, consumable capital would be

employed in maintaining it. And though goods do not always draw money so readily as money draws goods,

in the long run they draw it more necessarily than even it draws them. Goods can serve many other purposes

besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods. Money,

therefore, necessarily runs after goods, but goods do not always or necessarily run after money. The man who

buys does not always mean to sell again, but frequently to use or to consume; whereas he who sells always

means to buy again. The one may frequently have done the whole, but the other can never have done more

than the onehalf of his business. It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what

Consumable commodities, it is said, are soon destroyed; whereas gold and silver are of a more durable

nature, and, were it not for this continual exportation, might be accumulated for ages together, to the

incredible augmentation of the real wealth of the country. Nothing, therefore, it is pretended, can be more

disadvantageous to any country than the trade which consists in the exchange of such lasting for such

perishable commodities. We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the

exchange of the hardware of England for the wines of France; and yet hardware is a very durable commodity,

and were it not for this continual exportation might, too, be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible

augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in

every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them; that it would be absurd to have more

pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there; and that if the quantity of

victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, a part of the

increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of

workmen whose business it was to make them. It should as readily occur that the quantity of gold and silver

is in every country limited by the use which there is for those metals; that their use consists in circulating

commodities as coin, and in affording a species of household furniture as plate; that the quantity of coin in

every country is regulated by the value of the commodities which are to be circulated by it: increase that

value, and immediately a part of it will be sent abroad to purchase, wherever it is to be had, the additional

quantity of coin requisite for circulating them: that the quantity of plate is regulated by the number and

wealth of those private families who choose to indulge themselves in that sort of magnificence: increase the

number and wealth of such families, and a part of this increased wealth will most probably be employed in

purchasing, wherever it is to be found, an additional quantity of plate: that to attempt to increase the wealth of

any country, either by introducing or by detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as

absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private families by obliging them to keep an

unnecessary number of kitchen utensils. As the expense of purchasing those unnecessary utensils would

diminish instead of increasing either the quantity of goodness of the family provisions, so the expense of

purchasing an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver must, in every country, as necessarily diminish the

wealth which feeds, clothes, and lodges, which maintains and employs the people. Gold and silver, whether

in the shape of coin or of plate, are utensils, it must be remembered, as much as the furniture of the kitchen.

Increase the use for them, increase the consumable commodities which are to be circulated, managed, and

prepared by means of them, and you will infallibly increase the quantity; but if you attempt, by extraordinary

means, to increase the quantity, you will as infallibly diminish the use and even the quantity too, which in

those metals can never be greater than what the use requires. Were they ever to be accumulated beyond this

quantity, their transportation is so easy, and the loss which attends their lying idle and unemployed so great,

It is not always necessary to accumulate gold and silver in order to enable a country to carry on foreign wars,

and to maintain fleets and armies in distant countries. Fleets and armies are maintained, not with gold and

silver, but with consumable goods. The nation which, from the annual produce of its domestic industry, from

the annual revenue arising out of its lands, labour, and consumable stock, has wherewithal to purchase those

A nation may purchase the pay and provisions of an army in a distant country three different ways: by

sending abroad either, first, some part of its accumulated gold and silver, or, secondly, some part of the

annual produce of its manufactures; or, last of all, some part of its annual rude produce.

The gold and silver which can properly be considered as accumulated or stored up in any country may be

distinguished into three parts: first, the circulating money; secondly, the plate of private families; and, last of

all, the money which may have been collected by many years' parsimony, and laid up in the treasury of the

It can seldom happen that much can be spared from the circulating money of the country; because in that

there can seldom be much redundancy. The value of goods annually bought and sold in any country requires

a certain quantity of money to circulate and distribute them to their proper consumers, and can give

employment to no more. The channel of circulation necessarily draws to itself a sum sufficient to fill it, and

never admits any more. Something, however, is generally withdrawn from this channel in the case of foreign

war. By the great number of people who are maintained abroad, fewer are maintained at home. Fewer goods

are circulated there, and less money becomes necessary to circulate them. An extraordinary quantity of paper

money, of some sort or other, such as exchequer notes, navy bills, and bank bills in England, is generally

issued upon such occasions, and by supplying the place of circulating gold and silver, gives an opportunity of

sending a greater quantity of it abroad. All this, however, could afford but a poor resource for maintaining a

The melting down the plate of private families has upon every occasion been found a still more insignificant

one. The French, in the beginning of the last war, did not derive so much advantage from this expedient as to

The accumulated treasures of the prince have, in former times, afforded a much greater and more lasting

resource. In the present times, if you except the king of Prussia, to accumulate treasure seems to be no part of

The funds which maintained the foreign wars of the present century, the most expensive perhaps which

history records, seem to have had little dependency upon the exportation either of the circulating money, or of

the plate of private families, or of the treasure of the prince. The last French war cost Great Britain upwards

of ninety millions, including not only the seventyfive millions of new debt that was contracted, but the

additional two shillings in the pound landtax, and what was annually borrowed of the sinking fund. More

than twothirds of this expense were laid out in distant countries; in Germany, Portugal, America, in the ports

of the Mediterranean, in the East and West Indies. The kings of England had no accumulated treasure. We

never heard of any extraordinary quantity of plate being melted down. The circulating gold and silver of the

country had not been supposed to exceed eighteen millions. Since the late recoinage of the gold, however, it

is believed to have been a good deal underrated. Let us suppose, therefore, according to the most

exaggerated computation which I remember to have either seen or heard of, that, gold and silver together, it

amounted to thirty millions. Had the war been carried on by means of our money, the whole of it must, even

according to this computation, have been sent out and returned again at least twice in a period of between six

and seven years. Should this be supposed, it would afford the most decisive argument to demonstrate how

unnecessary it is for government to watch over the preservation of money, since upon this supposition the

whole money of the country must have gone from it and returned to it again, two different times in so short a

period, without anybody's knowing anything of the matter. The channel of circulation, however, never

appeared more empty than usual during any part of this period. Few people wanted money who had

wherewithal to pay for it. The profits of foreign trade, indeed, were greater than usual during the whole war;

but especially towards the end of it. This occasioned, what it always occasions, a general overtrading in all

the parts of Great Britain; and this again occasioned the usual complaint of the scarcity of money, which

always follows overtrading. Many people wanted it, who had neither wherewithal to buy it, nor credit to

borrow it; and because the debtors found it difficult to borrow, the creditors found it difficult to get payment.

Gold and silver, however, were generally to be had for their value, by those who had that value to give for

The enormous expense of the late war, therefore, must have been chiefly defrayed, not by the exportation of

gold and silver, but by that of British commodities of some kind or other. When the government, or those

who acted under them, contracted with a merchant for a remittance to some foreign country, he would

naturally endeavour to pay his foreign correspondent, upon whom he had granted a bill, by sending abroad

rather commodities than gold and silver. If the commodities of Great Britain were not in demand in that

country, he would endeavour to send them to some other country, in which he could purchase a bill upon that

country. The transportation of commodities, when properly suited to the market, is always attended with a

considerable profit; whereas that of gold and silver is scarce ever attended with any. When those metals are

sent abroad in order to purchase foreign commodities, the merchant's profit arises, not from the purchase, but

from the sale of the returns. But when they are sent abroad merely to pay a debt, he gets no returns, and

consequently no profit. He naturally, therefore, exerts his invention to find out a way of paying his foreign

debts rather by the exportation of commodities than by that of gold and silver. The great quantity of British

goods exported during the course of the late war, without bringing back any returns, is accordingly remarked

Besides the three sorts of gold and silver above mentioned, there is in all great commercial countries a good

deal of bullion alternately imported and exported for the purposes of foreign trade. This bullion, as it

circulates among different commercial countries in the same manner as the national coin circulates in every

particular country, may be considered as the money of the great mercantile republic. The national coin

receives its movement and direction from the commodities circulated within the precincts of each particular

country: the money of the mercantile republic, from those circulated between different countries. Both are

employed in facilitating exchanges, the one between different individuals of the same, the other between

those of different nations. Part of this money of the great mercantile republic may have been, and probably

was, employed in carrying on the late war. In time of a general war, it is natural to suppose that a movement

and direction should be impressed upon it, different from what it usually follows in profound peace; that it

should circulate more about the seat of the war, and be more employed in purchasing there, and in the

neighbouring countries, the pay and provisions of the different armies. But whatever part of this money of the

mercantile republic Great Britain may have annually employed in this manner, it must have been annually

purchased, either with British commodities, or with something else that had been purchased with them; which

still brings us back to commodities, to the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, as the

ultimate resources which enabled us to carry on the war. It is natural indeed to suppose that so great an annual

expense must have been defrayed from a great annual produce. The expense of 1761, for example, amounted

to more than nineteen millions. No accumulation could have supported so great an annual profusion. There is

no annual produce even of gold and silver which could have supported it. The whole gold and silver annually

imported into both Spain and Portugal, according to the best accounts, does not commonly much exceed six

millions sterling, which, in some years, would scarce have paid four month's expense of the late war.

The commodities most proper for being transported to distant countries, in order to purchase there either the

pay and provisions of an army, or some part of the money of the mercantile republic to be employed in

purchasing them, seem to be the finer and more improved manufactures; such as contain a great value in a

small bulk, and can, therefore, be exported to a great distance at little expense. A country whose industry

produces a great annual surplus of such manufactures, which are usually exported to foreign countries, may

carry on for many years a very expensive foreign war without either exporting any considerable quantity of

gold and silver, or even having any such quantity to export. A considerable part of the annual surplus of its

manufactures must, indeed, in this case be exported without bringing back any returns to the country, though

it does to the merchant; the government purchasing of the merchant his bills upon foreign countries, in order

to purchase there the pay and provisions of an army. Some part of this surplus, however, may still continue to

bring back a return. The manufacturers, during the war, will have a double demand upon them, and be called

upon, first, to work up goods to be sent abroad, for paying the bills drawn upon foreign countries for the pay

and provisions of the army; and, secondly, to work up such as are necessary for purchasing the common

returns that had usually been consumed in the country. In the midst of the most destructive foreign war,

therefore, the greater part of manufactures may frequently flourish greatly; and, on the contrary, they may

decline on the return of the peace. They may flourish amidst the ruin of their country, and begin to decay

upon the return of its prosperity. The different state of many different branches of the British manufactures

during the late war, and for some time after the peace, may serve as an illustration of what has been just now

No foreign war of great expense or duration could conveniently be carried on by the exportation of the rude

produce of the soil. The expense of sending such a quantity of it to a foreign country as might purchase the

pay and provisions of an army would be too great. Few countries produce much more rude produce than what

is sufficient for the subsistence of their own inhabitants. To send abroad any great quantity of it, therefore,

would be to send abroad a part of the necessary subsistence of the people. It is otherwise with the exportation

of manufactures. The maintenance of the people employed in them is kept at home, and only the surplus part

of their work is exported. Mr. Hume frequently takes notice of the inability of the ancient kings of England to

carry on, without interruption, any foreign war of long duration. The English, in those days, had nothing

wherewithal to purchase the pay and provisions of their armies in foreign countries, but either the rude

produce of the soil, of which no considerable part could be spared from the home consumption, or a few

manufactures of the coarsest kind, of which, as well as of the rude produce, the transportation was too

expensive. This inability did not arise from the want of money, but of the finer and more improved

manufactures. Buying and selling was transacted by means of money in England then as well as now. The

quantity of circulating money must have borne the same proportion to the number and value of purchases and

sales usually transacted at that time, which it does to those transacted at present; or rather it must have borne

a greater proportion, because there was then no paper, which now occupies a great part of the employment of

gold and silver. Among nations to whom commerce and manufactures are little known, the sovereign, upon

extraordinary occasions, can seldom draw any considerable aid from his subjects, for reasons which shall be

explained hereafter. It is in such countries, therefore, that he generally endeavours to accumulate a treasure,

as the only resource against such emergencies. Independent of this necessity, he is in such a situation

naturally disposed to the parsimony requisite for accumulation. In that simple state, the expense even of a

sovereign is not directed by the vanity which delights in the gaudy finery of a court, but is employed in

bounty to his tenants, and hospitality to his retainers. But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to

extravagance; though vanity almost always does. Every Tartar chief, accordingly, has a treasure. The

treasures of Mazepa, chief of the Cossacs in the Ukraine, the famous ally of Charles the XII, are said to have

been very great. The French kings of the Merovingian race all had treasures. When they divided their

kingdom among their different children, they divided their treasure too. The Saxon princes, and the first kings

after the Conquest, seem likewise to have accumulated treasures. The first exploit of every new reign was

commonly to seize the treasure of the preceding king, as the most essential measure for securing the

succession. The sovereigns of improved and commercial countries are not under the same necessity of

accumulating treasures, because they can generally draw from their subjects extraordinary aids upon

extraordinary occasions. They are likewise less disposed to do so. They naturally, perhaps necessarily, follow

the mode of the times, and their expense comes to be regulated by the same extravagant vanity which directs

that of all the other great proprietors in their dominions. The insignificant pageantry of their court becomes

every day more brilliant, and the expense of it not only prevents accumulation, but frequently encroaches

upon the funds destined for more necessary expenses. What Dercyllidas said of the court of Persia may be

applied to that of several European princes, that he saw there much splendour but little strength, and many

The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from

its foreign trade. Between whatever places foreign trade is carried on, they all of them derive two distinct

benefits from it. It carries out that surplus part of the produce of their land and labour for which there is no

demand among them, and brings back in return for it something else for which there is a demand. It gives a

value to their superfluities, by exchanging them for something else, which may satisfy a part of their wants,

and increase their enjoyments. By means of it the narrowness of the home market does not hinder the division

of labour in any particular branch of art or manufacture from being carried to the highest perfection. By

opening a more extensive market for whatever part of the produce of their labour may exceed the home

consumption, it encourages them to improve its productive powers, and to augment its annual produce to the

utmost, and thereby to increase the real revenue and wealth of the society. These great and important services

foreign trade is continually occupied in performing to all the different countries between which it is carried

on. They all derive great benefit from it, though that in which the merchant resides generally derives the

greatest, as he is generally more employed in supplying the wants, and carrying out the superfluities of his

own, than of any other particular country. To import the gold and silver which may be wanted into the

countries which have no mines is, no doubt, a part of the business of foreign commerce. It is, however, a most

insignificant part of it. A country which carried on foreign trade merely upon this account could scarce have

It is not by the importation of gold and silver that the discovery of America has enriched Europe. By the

abundance of the American mines, those metals have become cheaper. A service of plate can now be

purchased for about a third part of the corn, or a third part of the labour, which it would have cost in the

fifteenth century. With the same annual expense of labour and commodities, Europe can annually purchase

about three times the quantity of plate which it could have purchased at that time. But when a commodity

comes to be sold for a third part of what had been its usual price, not only those who purchased it before can

purchase three times their former quantity, but it is brought down to the level of a much greater number of

purchasers, perhaps to more than ten, perhaps to more than twenty times the former number. So that there

may be in Europe at present not only more than three times, but more than twenty or thirty times the quantity

of plate which would have been in it, even in its present state of improvement, had the discovery of the

American mines never been made. So far Europe has, no doubt, gained a real conveniency, though surely a

very trifling one. The cheapness of gold and silver renders those metals rather less fit for the purposes of

money than they were before. In order to make the same purchases, we must load ourselves with a greater

quantity of them, and carry about a shilling in our pocket where a groat would have done before. It is difficult

to say which is most trifling, this inconveniency or the opposite conveniency. Neither the one nor the other

could have made any very essential change in the state of Europe. The discovery of America, however,

certainly made a most essential one. By opening a new and inexhaustible market to all the commodities of

Europe, it gave occasion to new divisions of labour and improvements of art, which in the narrow circle of

the ancient commerce, could never have taken place for want of a market to take off the greater part of their

produce. The productive powers of labour were improved, and its produce increased in all the different

countries of Europe, and together with it the real revenue and wealth of the inhabitants. The commodities of

Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of

exchanges, therefore, began to take place which had never been thought of before, and which should naturally

have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the

Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of

The discovery of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, which happened much about the

same time, opened perhaps a still more extensive range to foreign commerce than even that of America,

notwithstanding the greater distance. There were but two nations in America in any respect superior to

savages, and these were destroyed almost as soon as discovered. The rest were mere savages. But the empires

of China, Indostan, Japan, as well as several others in the East Indies, without having richer mines of gold or

silver, were in every other respect much richer, better cultivated, and more advanced in all arts and

manufactures than either Mexico or Peru, even though we should credit, what plainly deserves no credit, the

exaggerated accounts of the Spanish writers concerning the ancient state of those empires. But rich and

civilised nations can always exchange to a much greater value with one another than with savages and

barbarians. Europe, however, has hitherto derived much less advantage from its commerce with the East

Indies than from that with America. The Portuguese monopolized the East India trade to themselves for about

a century, and it was only indirectly and through them that the other nations of Europe could either send out

or receive any goods from that country. When the Dutch, in the beginning of the last century, began to

encroach upon them, they vested their whole East India commerce in an exclusive company. The English,

French, Swedes, and Danes have all followed their example, so that no great nation in Europe has ever yet

had the benefit of a free commerce to the East Indies. No other reason need be assigned why it has never been

so advantageous as the trade to America, which, between almost every nation of Europe and its own colonies,

is free to all its subjects. The exclusive privileges of those East India companies, their great riches, the great

favour and protection which these have procured them from their respective governments, have excited much

envy against them. This envy has frequently represented their trade as altogether pernicious, on account of

the great quantities of silver which it every year exports from the countries from which it is carried on. The

parties concerned have replied that their trade, by this continual exportation of silver, might indeed tend to

impoverish Europe in general, but not the particular country from which it was carried on; because, by the

exportation of a part of the returns to other European countries, it annually brought home a much greater

quantity of that metal than it carried out. Both the objection and the reply are founded in the popular notion

which I have been just now examining. It is therefore unnecessary to say anything further about either. By the

annual exportation of silver to the East Indies, plate is probably somewhat dearer in Europe than it otherwise

might have been; and coined silver probably purchases a larger quantity both of labour and commodities. The

former of these two effects is a very small loss, the latter a very small advantage; both too insignificant to

deserve any part of the public attention. The trade to the East Indies, by opening a market to the commodities

of Europe, or, what comes nearly to the same thing, to the gold and silver which is purchased with those

commodities, must necessarily tend to increase the annual production of European commodities, and

consequently the real wealth and revenue of Europe. That it has hitherto increased them so little is probably

I thought it necessary, though at the hazard of being tedious, to examine at full length this popular notion that

wealth consists in money, or in gold and silver. Money in common language, as I have already observed,

frequently signifies wealth, and this ambiguity of expression has rendered this popular notion so familiar to

us that even they who are convinced of its absurdity are very apt to forget their own principles, and in the

course of their reasonings to take it for granted as a certain and undeniable truth. Some of the best English

writers upon commerce set out with observing that the wealth of a country consists, not in its gold and silver

only, but in its lands, houses, and consumable goods of all different kinds. In the course of their reasonings,

however, the lands, houses, and consumable goods seem to slip out of their memory, and the strain of their

argument frequently supposes that all wealth consists in gold and silver, and that to multiply those metals is

The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in gold and silver, and that those metals

could be brought into a country which had no mines only by the balance of trade, or by exporting to a greater

value than it imported, it necessarily became the great object of political economy to diminish as much as

possible the importation of foreign goods for home consumption, and to increase as much as possible the

exportation of the produce of domestic industry. Its two great engines for enriching the country, therefore,

First, restraints upon the importation of such foreign goods for home consumption as could be produced at

Secondly, restraints upon the importation of goods of almost all kinds from those particular countries with

Those different restraints consisted sometimes in high duties, and sometimes in absolute prohibitions.

Exportation was encouraged sometimes by drawbacks, sometimes by bounties, sometimes by advantageous

treaties of commerce with foreign states, and sometimes by the establishment of colonies in distant countries.

Drawbacks were given upon two different occasions. When the home manufactures were subject to any duty

or excise, either the whole or a part of it was frequently drawn back upon their exportation; and when foreign

goods liable to a duty were imported in order to be exported again, either the whole or a part of this duty was

Bounties were given for the encouragement either of some beginning manufactures, or of such sorts of

By advantageous treaties of commerce, particular privileges were procured in some foreign state for the

goods and merchants of the country, beyond what were granted to those other countries.

By established establishment of colonies in distant countries, not only particular privileges, but a monopoly

was frequently procured for the goods and merchants of the country which established them.

The two sorts of restraints upon importation abovementioned, together with these four encouragements to

exportation, constitute the six principal means by which the commercial system proposes to increase the

quantity of gold and silver in any country by turning the balance of trade in its favour. I shall consider each of

them in a particular chapter, and without taking much further notice of their supposed tendency to bring

money into the country, I shall examine chiefly what are likely to be the effects of each of them upon the

annual produce of its industry. According as they tend either to increase or diminish the value of this annual

produce, they must evidently tend either to increase or diminish the real wealth and revenue of the country.

CHAPTER II. Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries of such Goods as can be

BY restraining, either by high duties or by absolute prohibitions, the importation of such goods from foreign

countries as can be produced at home, the monopoly of the home market is more or less secured to the

domestic industry employed in producing them. Thus the prohibition of importing either live cattle or salt

provisions from foreign countries secures to the graziers of Great Britain the monopoly of the home market

for butcher's meat. The high duties upon the importation of corn, which in times of moderate plenty amount

to a prohibition, give a like advantage to the growers of that commodity. The prohibition of the importation

of foreign woollens is equally favourable to the woollen manufacturers. The silk manufacture, though

altogether employed upon foreign materials, has lately obtained the same advantage. The linen manufacture

has not yet obtained it, but is making great strides towards it. Many other sorts of manufacturers have, in the

same manner, obtained in Great Britain, either altogether or very nearly, a monopoly against their

countrymen. The variety of goods of which the importation into Great Britain is prohibited, either absolutely,

or under certain circumstances, greatly exceeds what can easily be suspected by those who are not well

That this monopoly of the home market frequently gives great encouragement to that particular species of

industry which enjoys it, and frequently turns towards that employment a greater share of both the labour and

stock of the society than would otherwise have gone to it, cannot be doubted. But whether it tends either to

increase the general industry of the society, or to give it the most advantageous direction, is not, perhaps,

The general industry of the society never can exceed what the capital of the society can employ. As the

number of workmen that can be kept in employment by any particular person must bear a certain proportion

to his capital, so the number of those that can be continually employed by all the members of a great society

must bear a certain proportion to the whole capital of that society, and never can exceed that proportion. No

regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any society beyond what its capital can

maintain. It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone; and it is

by no means certain that this artificial direction is likely to be more advantageous to the society than that into

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever

capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view.

But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment

First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home as he can, and consequently as much as

he can in the support of domestic industry; provided always that he can thereby obtain the ordinary, or not a

Thus, upon equal or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant naturally prefers the home trade to the

foreign trade of consumption, and the foreign trade of consumption to the carrying trade. In the home trade

his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently is in the foreign trade of consumption. He can

know better the character and situation of the persons whom he trusts, and if he should happen to be

deceived, he knows better the laws of the country from which he must seek redress. In the carrying trade, the

capital of the merchant is, as it were, divided between two foreign countries, and no part of it is ever

necessarily brought home, or placed under his own immediate view and command. The capital which an

Amsterdam merchant employs in carrying corn from Konigsberg to Lisbon, and fruit and wine from Lisbon

to Konigsberg, must generally be the one half of it at Konigsberg and the other half at Lisbon. No part of it

need ever come to Amsterdam. The natural residence of such a merchant should either be at Konigsberg or

Lisbon, and it can only be some very particular circumstances which can make him prefer the residence of

Amsterdam. The uneasiness, however, which he feels at being separated so far from his capital generally

determines him to bring part both of the Konigsberg goods which he destines for the market of Lisbon, and of

the Lisbon goods which he destines for that of Konigsberg, to Amsterdam: and though this necessarily

subjects him to a double charge of loading and unloading, as well as to the payment of some duties and

customs, yet for the sake of having some part of his capital always under his own view and command, he

willingly submits to this extraordinary charge; and it is in this manner that every country which has any

considerable share of the carrying trade becomes always the emporium, or general market, for the goods of

all the different countries whose trade it carries on. The merchant, in order to save a second loading and

unloading, endeavours always to sell in the home market as much of the goods of all those different countries

as he can, and thus, so far as he can, to convert his carrying trade into a foreign trade of consumption. A

merchant, in the same manner, who is engaged in the foreign trade of consumption, when he collects goods

for foreign markets, will always be glad, upon equal or nearly equal profits, to sell as great a part of them at

home as he can. He saves himself the risk and trouble of exportation, when, so far as he can, he thus converts

his foreign trade of consumption into a home trade. Home is in this manner the centre, if I may say so, round

which the capitals of the inhabitants of every country are continually circulating, and towards which they are

always tending, though by particular causes they may sometimes be driven off and repelled from it towards

more distant employments. But a capital employed in the home trade, it has already been shown, necessarily

puts into motion a greater quantity of domestic industry, and gives revenue and employment to a greater

number of the inhabitants of the country, than an equal capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption:

and one employed in the foreign trade of consumption has the same advantage over an equal capital

employed in the carrying trade. Upon equal, or only nearly equal profits, therefore, every individual naturally

inclines to employ his capital in the manner in which it is likely to afford the greatest support to domestic

industry, and to give revenue and employment to the greatest number of people of his own country.

Secondly, every individual who employs his capital in the support of domestic industry, necessarily

endeavours so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest possible value.

The produce of industry is what it adds to the subject or materials upon which it is employed. In proportion as

the value of this produce is great or small, so will likewise be the profits of the employer. But it is only for

the sake of profit that any man employs a capital in the support of industry; and he will always, therefore,

endeavour to employ it in the support of that industry of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest

value, or to exchange for the greatest quantity either of money or of other goods.

But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole

annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every

individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic

industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual

necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed,

neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the

support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that

industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is

in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently

promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known

much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very

common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to

be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any

statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what

manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention,

but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or

senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and

To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or

manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals,

and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic can be

brought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it must

generally be hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home

what it will cost him more to make than to buy. The tailor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys

them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a tailor. The

farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers. All of them find

it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their

neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it,

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a

foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them

with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The

general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby

be diminished, no more than that of the abovementioned artificers; but only left to find out the way in which

it can be employed with the greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest advantage when it

is thus directed towards an object which it can buy cheaper than it can make. The value of its annual produce

is certainly more or less diminished when it is thus turned away from producing commodities evidently of

more value than the commodity which it is directed to produce. According to the supposition, that commodity

could be purchased from foreign countries cheaper than it can be made at home. It could, therefore, have been

purchased with a part only of the commodities, or, what is the same thing, with a part only of the price of the

commodities, which the industry employed by an equal capital would have produced at home, had it been left

to follow its natural course. The industry of the country, therefore, is thus turned away from a more to a less

advantageous employment, and the exchangeable value of its annual produce, instead of being increased,

according to the intention of the lawgiver, must necessarily be diminished by every such regulation.

By means of such regulations, indeed, a particular manufacture may sometimes be acquired sooner than it

could have been otherwise, and after a certain time may be made at home as cheap or cheaper than in the

foreign country. But though the industry of the society may be thus carried with advantage into a particular

channel sooner than it could have been otherwise, it will by no means follow that the sum total, either of its

industry, or of its revenue, can ever be augmented by any such regulation. The industry of the society can

augment only in proportion as its capital augments, and its capital can augment only in proportion to what

can be gradually saved out of its revenue. But the immediate effect of every such regulation is to diminish its

revenue, and what diminishes its revenue is certainly not very likely to augment its capital faster than it

would have augmented of its own accord had both capital and industry been left to find out their natural

Though for want of such regulations the society should never acquire the proposed manufacture, it would not,

upon that account, necessarily be the poorer in any one period of its duration. In every period of its duration

its whole capital and industry might still have been employed, though upon different objects, in the manner

that was most advantageous at the time. In every period its revenue might have been the greatest which its

capital could afford, and both capital and revenue might have been augmented with the greatest possible

The natural advantages which one country has over another in producing particular commodities are

sometimes so great that it is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of

glasses, hotbeds, and hot walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be

made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign

countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines merely to encourage

the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland? But if there would be a manifest absurdity in turning towards

any employment thirty times more of the capital and industry of the country than would be necessary to

purchase from foreign countries an equal quantity of the commodities wanted, there must be an absurdity,

though not altogether so glaring, yet exactly of the same kind, in turning towards any such employment a

thirtieth, or even a threehundredth part more of either. Whether the advantages which one country has over

another be natural or acquired is in this respect of no consequence. As long as the one country has those

advantages, and the other wants them, it will always be more advantageous for the latter rather to buy of the

former than to make. It is an acquired advantage only, which one artificer has over his neighbour, who

exercises another trade; and yet they both find it more advantageous to buy of one another than to make what

Merchants and manufacturers are the people who derive the greatest advantage from this monopoly of the

home market. The prohibition of the importation of foreign cattle, and of salt provisions, together with the

high duties upon foreign corn, which in times of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, are not near so

advantageous to the graziers and farmers of Great Britain as other regulations of the same kind are to its

merchants and manufacturers. Manufactures, those of the finer kind especially, are more easily transported

from one country to another than corn or cattle. It is in the fetching and carrying manufactures, accordingly,

that foreign trade is chiefly employed. In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to

undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. It will require a very great one to enable them to do so

in the rude produce of the soil. If the free importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the

home manufactures would probably suffer, and some of them, perhaps, go to ruin altogether, and a

considerable part of the stock and industry at present employed in them would be forced to find out some

other employment. But the freest importation of the rude produce of the soil could have no such effect upon

If the importation of foreign cattle, for example, were made ever so free, so few could be imported that the

grazing trade of Great Britain could be little affected by it. Live cattle are, perhaps, the only commodity of

which the transportation is more expensive by sea than by land. By land they carry themselves to market. By

sea, not only the cattle, but their food and their water too, must be carried at no small expense and

inconveniency. The short sea between Ireland and Great Britain, indeed, renders the importation of Irish

cattle more easy. But though the free importation of them, which was lately permitted only for a limited time,

were rendered perpetual, it could have no considerable effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great

Britain. Those parts of Great Britain which border upon the Irish Sea are all grazing countries. Irish cattle

could never be imported for their use, but must be driven through those very extensive countries, at no small

expense and inconveniency, before they could arrive at their proper market. Fat cattle could not be driven so

far. Lean cattle, therefore, only could be imported, and such importation could interfere, not with the interest

of the feeding or fattening countries, to which, by reducing the price of lean cattle, it would rather be

advantageous, but with that of the breeding countries only. The small number of Irish cattle imported since

their importation was permitted, together with the good price at which lean cattle still continue to sell, seem

to demonstrate that even the breeding countries of Great Britain are never likely to be much affected by the

free importation of Irish cattle. The common people of Ireland, indeed, are said to have sometimes opposed

with violence the exportation of their cattle. But if the exporters had found any great advantage in continuing

the trade, they could easily, when the law was on their side, have conquered this mobbish opposition.

Feeding and fattening countries, besides, must always be highly improved, whereas breeding countries are

generally uncultivated. The high price of lean cattle, by augmenting the value of uncultivated land, is like a

bounty against improvement. To any country which was highly improved throughout, it would be more

advantageous to import its lean cattle than to breed them. The province of Holland, accordingly, is said to

follow this maxim at present. The mountains of Scotland, Wales, and Northumberland, indeed, are countries

not capable of much improvement, and seem destined by nature to be the breeding countries of Great Britain.

The freest importation of foreign cattle could have no other effect than to hinder those breeding countries

from taking advantage of the increasing population and improvement of the rest of the kingdom, from raising

their price to an exorbitant height, and from laying a real tax upon all the more improved and cultivated parts

The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner, could have as little effect upon the interest of

the graziers of Great Britain as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not only a very bulky commodity, but

when compared with fresh meat, they are a commodity both of worse quality, and as they cost more labour

and expense, of higher price. They could never, therefore, come into competition with the fresh meat, though

they might with the salt provisions of the country. They might be used for victualling ships for distant

voyages and such like uses, but could never make any considerable part of the food of the people. The small

quantity of salt provisions imported from Ireland since their importation was rendered free is an experimental

proof that our graziers have nothing to apprehend from it. It does not appear that the price of butcher's meat

Even the free importation of foreign corn could very little affect the interest of the farmers of Great Britain.

Corn is a much more bulky commodity than butcher's meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a

pound of butcher's meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign corn imported even in times of the

greatest scarcity may satisfy our farmers that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation. The

average quantity imported, one year with another, amounts only, according to the very well informed author

of the tracts upon the corn trade, to twentythree thousand seven hundred and twentyeight quarters of all

sorts of grain, and does not exceed the five hundred and seventyfirst part of the annual consumption. But as

the bounty upon corn occasions a greater exportation in years of plenty, so it must of consequence occasion a

greater importation in years of scarcity than in the actual state of tillage would otherwise take place. By

means of it the plenty of one year does not compensate the scarcity of another, and as the average quantity

exported is necessarily augmented by it, so must likewise, in the actual state of tillage, the average quantity

imported. If there were no bounty, as less corn would be exported, so it is probable that, one year with

another, less would be imported than at present. The cornmerchants, the fetchers and carriers of corn

between Great Britain and foreign countries would have much less employment, and might suffer

considerably; but the country gentlemen and farmers could suffer very little. It is in the corn merchants

accordingly, rather than in the country gentlemen and farmers, that I have observed the greatest anxiety for

Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their great honour, of all people, the least subject to the wretched spirit

of monopoly. The undertaker of a great manufactory is sometimes alarmed if another work of the same kind

is established within twenty miles of him. The Dutch undertaker of the woollen manufacture at Abbeville

stipulated that no work of the same kind should be established within thirty leagues of that city. Farmers and

country gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed rather to promote than to obstruct the cultivation

and improvement of their neighbours' farms and estates. They have no secrets such as those of the greater

part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of communicating to their neighbours and of extending as

far as possible any new practice which they have found to be advantageous. Pius Questus, says old Cato,

stabilissimusque, minimeque invidiosus; minimeque male cogitantes sunt, qui in eo studio occupati sunt.

Country gentlemen and farmers, dispersed in different parts of the country, cannot so easily combine as

merchants and manufacturers, who, being collected into towns, and accustomed to that exclusive corporation

spirit which prevails in them, naturally endeavour to obtain against all their countrymen the same exclusive

privilege which they generally possess against the inhabitants of their respective towns. They accordingly

seem to have been the original inventors of those restraints upon the importation of foreign goods which

secure to them the monopoly of the home market. It was probably in imitation of them, and to put themselves

upon a level with those who, they found, were disposed to oppress them, that the country gentlemen and

farmers of Great Britain in so far forgot the generosity which is natural to their station as to demand the

exclusive privilege of supplying their countrymen with corn and butcher's meat. They did not perhaps take

time to consider how much less their interest could be affected by the freedom of trade than that of the people

To prohibit by a perpetual law the importation of foreign corn and cattle is in reality to enact that the

population and industry of the country shall at no time exceed what the rude produce of its own soil can

There seem, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon

The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country. The defence of

Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The Act of

Navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the

monopoly of the trade of their own country in some cases by absolute prohibitions and in others by heavy

burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries. The following are the principal dispositions of this Act.

First, all ships, of which the owners and threefourths of the mariners are not British subjects, are prohibited,

upon pain of forfeiting ship and cargo, from trading to the British settlements and plantations, or from being

Secondly, a great variety of the most bulky articles of importation can be brought into Great Britain only,

either in such ships as are above described, or in ships of the country where those goods are purchased, and of

which the owners, masters, and threefourths of the mariners are of that particular country; and when

imported even in ships of this latter kind, they are subject to double aliens' duty. If imported in ships of any

other country, the penalty is forfeiture of ship and goods. When this act was made, the Dutch were, what they

still are, the great carriers of Europe, and by this regulation they were entirely excluded from being the

carriers to Great Britain, or from importing to us the goods of any other European country.

Thirdly, a great variety of the most bulky articles of importation are prohibited from being imported, even in

British ships, from any country but that in which they are produced, under pains of forfeiting ship and cargo.

This regulation, too, was probably intended against the Dutch. Holland was then, as now, the great emporium

for all European goods, and by this regulation British ships were hindered from loading in Holland the goods

Fourthly, salt fish of all kinds, whalefins, whalebone, oil, and blubber, not caught by and cured on board

British vessels, when imported into Great Britain, are subjected to double aliens' duty. The Dutch, as they are

they the principal, were then the only fishers in Europe that attempted to supply foreign nations with fish. By

this regulation, a very heavy burden was laid upon their supplying Great Britain.

When the Act of Navigation was made, though England and Holland were not actually at war, the most

violent animosity subsisted between the two nations. It had begun during the government of the Long

Parliament, which first framed this act, and it broke out soon after in the Dutch wars during that of the

Protector and of Charles the Second. It is not impossible, therefore, that some of the regulations of this

famous act may have proceeded from national animosity. They are as wise, however, as if they had all been

dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. National animosity at that particular time aimed at the very same

object which the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended, the diminution of the naval power of

The Act of Navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can

arise from it. The interest of a nation in its commercial relations to foreign nations is, like that of a merchant

with regard to the different people with whom he deals, to buy as cheap and to sell as dear as possible. But it

will be most likely to buy cheap, when by the most perfect freedom of trade it encourages all nations to bring

to it the goods which it has occasion to purchase; and, for the same reason, it will be most likely to sell dear,

when its markets are thus filled with the greatest number of buyers. The Act of Navigation, it is true, lays no

burden upon foreign ships that come to export the produce of British industry. Even the ancient aliens' duty,

which used to be paid upon all goods exported as well as imported, has, by several subsequent acts, been

taken off from the greater part of the articles of exportation. But if foreigners, either by prohibitions or high

duties, are hindered from coming to sell, they cannot always afford to come to buy; because coming without a

cargo, they must lose the freight from their own country to Great Britain. By diminishing the number of

sellers, therefore, we necessarily diminish that of buyers, and are thus likely not only to buy foreign goods

dearer, but to sell our own cheaper, than if there was a more perfect freedom of trade. As defence, however it

is of much more importance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the

The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the

encouragement of domestic industry is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In

this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former. This

would not give the monopoly of the home market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular

employment a greater share of the stock and labour of the country than what would naturally go to it. It would

only hinder any part of what would naturally go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less natural

direction, and would leave the competition between foreign and domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as

possible upon the same footing as before it. In Great Britain, when any such tax is laid upon the produce of

domestic industry, it is usual at the same time, in order to stop the clamorous complaints of our merchants

and manufacturers that they will be undersold at home, to lay a much heavier duty upon the importation of all

This second limitation of the freedom of trade according to some people should, upon some occasions, be

extended much farther than to the precise foreign commodities which could come into competition with those

which had been taxed at home. When the necessaries of life have been taxed any country, it becomes proper,

they pretend, to tax not only the like necessaries of life imported from other countries, but all sorts of foreign

goods which can come into competition with anything that is the produce of domestic industry. Subsistence,

they say, becomes necessarily dearer in consequence of such taxes; and the price of labour must always rise

with the price of the labourers' subsistence. Every commodity, therefore, which is the produce of domestic

industry, though not immediately taxed itself, becomes dearer in consequence of such taxes, because the

labour which produces it becomes so. Such taxes, therefore, are really equivalent, they say, to a tax upon

every particular commodity produced at home. In order to put domestic upon the same footing with foreign

industry, therefore, it becomes necessary, they think, to lay some duty upon every foreign commodity equal

to this enhancement of the price of the home commodities with which it can come into competition.

Whether taxes upon the necessaries of life, such as those in Great Britain upon soap, salt, leather, candles,

etc., necessarily raise the price of labour, and consequently that of all other commodities, I shall consider

hereafter when I come to treat of taxes. Supposing, however, in the meantime, that they have this effect, and

they have it undoubtedly, this general enhancement of the price of all commodities, in consequence of that of

labour, is a case which differs in the two following respects from that of a particular commodity of which the

First, it might always be known with great exactness how far the price of such a commodity could be

enhanced by such a tax: but how far the general enhancement of the price of labour might affect that of every

different commodity about which labour was employed could never be known with any tolerable exactness. It

would be impossible, therefore, to proportion with any tolerable exactness the tax upon every foreign to this

Secondly, taxes upon the necessaries of life have nearly the same effect upon the circumstances of the people

as a poor soil and a bad climate. Provisions are thereby rendered dearer in the same manner as if it required

extraordinary labour and expense to raise them. As in the natural scarcity arising from soil and climate it

would be absurd to direct the people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals and industry, so is it

likewise in the artificial scarcity arising from such taxes. To be left to accommodate, as well as they could,

their industry to their situation, and to find out those employments in which, notwithstanding their

unfavourable circumstances, they might have some advantage either in the home or in the foreign market, is

what in both cases would evidently be most for their advantage. To lay a new tax upon them, because they

are already overburdened with taxes, and because they already pay too dear for the necessaries of life, to

make them likewise pay too dear for the greater part of other commodities, is certainly a most absurd way of

Such taxes, when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth and

the inclemency of the heavens; and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been

most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great a disorder. As the strongest bodies only

can live and enjoy health under an unwholesome regimen, so the nations only that in every sort of industry

have the greatest natural and acquired advantages can subsist and prosper under such taxes. Holland is the

country in Europe in which they abound most, and which from peculiar circumstances continues to prosper,

As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the

encouragement of domestic industry, so there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of

deliberation; in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods; and in

the other, how far, or in what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation after it has been for

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free

importation of certain foreign goods is, when some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the

importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge in this case naturally dictates retaliation,

and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their

manufactures into ours. Nations, accordingly, seldom fail to retaliate in this manner. The French have been

particularly forward to favour their own manufactures by restraining the importation of such foreign goods as

could come into competition with them. In this consisted a great part of the policy of Mr. Colbert, who,

notwithstanding his great abilities, seems in this case to have been imposed upon by the sophistry of

merchants and manufacturers, who are always demanding a monopoly against their countrymen. It is at

present the opinion of the most intelligent men in France that his operations of this kind have not been

beneficial to his country. That minister, by the tariff of 1667, imposed very high duties upon a great number

of foreign manufactures. Upon his refusing to moderate them in favour of the Dutch, they in 1671 prohibited

the importation of the wines, brandies, and manufactures of France. The war of 1672 seems to have been in

part occasioned by this commercial dispute. The peace of Nimeguen put an end to it in 1678 by moderating

some of those duties in favour of the Dutch, who in consequence took off their prohibition. It was about the

same time that the French and English began mutually to oppress each other's industry by the like duties and

prohibitions, of which the French, however, seem to have set the first example. The spirit of hostility which

has subsisted between the two nations ever since has hitherto hindered them from being moderated on either

side. In 1697 the English prohibited the importation of bonelace, the manufacture of Flanders. The

government of that country, at that time under the dominion of Spain, prohibited in return the importation of

English woollens. In 1700, the prohibition of importing bonelace into England was taken off upon condition

that the importance of English woollens into Flanders should be put on the same footing as before.

There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the

repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally

more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of

goods. To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect does not, perhaps, belong so

much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are

always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician,

whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs. When there is no probability that any

such repeal can be procured, it seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our

people to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them.

When our neighbours prohibit some manufacture of ours, we generally prohibit, not only the same, for that

alone would seldom affect them considerably, but some other manufacture of theirs. This may no doubt give

encouragement to some particular class of workmen among ourselves, and by excluding some of their rivals,

may enable them to raise their price in the home market. Those workmen, however, who suffered by our

neighbours' prohibition will not be benefited by ours. On the contrary, they and almost all the other classes of

our citizens will thereby be obliged to pay dearer than before for certain goods. Every such law, therefore,

imposes a real tax upon the whole country, not in favour of that particular class of workmen who were

The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how far, or in what manner, it is proper to

restore the free importation of foreign goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is, when particular

manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon all foreign goods which can come into

competition with them, have been so far extended as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in

this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of

reserve and circumspection. Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign

goods of the same kind might be poured so fast into the home market as to deprive all at once many

thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this

would occasion might no doubt be very considerable. It would in all probability, however, be much less than

First, all those manufactures, of which any part is commonly exported to other European countries without a

bounty, could be very little affected by the freest importation of foreign goods. Such manufactures must be

sold as cheap abroad as any other foreign goods of the same quality and kind, and consequently must be sold

cheaper at home. They would still, therefore, keep possession of the home market, and though a capricious

man of fashion might sometimes prefer foreign wares, merely because they were foreign, to cheaper and

better goods of the same kind that were made at home, this folly could, from the nature of things, extend to so

few that it could make no sensible impression upon the general employment of the people. But a great part of

all the different branches of our woollen manufacture, of our tanned leather, and of our hardware, are

annually exported to other European countries without any bounty, and these are the manufactures which

employ the greatest number of hands. The silk, perhaps, is the manufacture which would suffer the most by

this freedom of trade, and after it the linen, though the latter much less than the former.

Secondly, though a great number of people should, by thus restoring the freedom of trade, be thrown all at

once out of their ordinary employment and common method of subsistence, it would by no means follow that

they would thereby be deprived either of employment or subsistence. By the reduction of the army and navy

at the end of the late war, more than a hundred thousand soldiers and seamen, a number equal to what is

employed in the greatest manufactures, were all at once thrown out of their ordinary employment; but, though

they no doubt suffered some inconveniency, they were not thereby deprived of all employment and

subsistence. The greater part of the seamen, it is probable, gradually betook themselves to the

merchantservice as they could find occasion, and in the meantime both they and the soldiers were absorbed

in the great mass of the people, and employed in a great variety of occupations. Not only no great convulsion,

but no sensible disorder arose from so great a change in the situation of more than a hundred thousand men,

all accustomed to the use of arms, and many of them to rapine and plunder. The number of vagrants was

scarce anywhere sensibly increased by it, even the wages of labour were not reduced by it in any occupation,

so far as I have been able to learn, except in that of seamen in the merchant service. But if we compare

together the habits of a soldier and of any sort of manufacturer, we shall find that those of the latter do not

tend so much to disqualify him from being employed in a new trade, as those of the former from being

employed in any. The manufacturer has always been accustomed to look for his subsistence from his labour

only: the soldier to expect it from his pay. Application and industry have been familiar to the one; idleness

and dissipation to the other. But it is surely much easier to change the direction of industry from one sort of

labour to another than to turn idleness and dissipation to any. To the greater part of manufactures besides, it

has already been observed, there are other collateral manufactures of so similar a nature that a workman can

easily transfer his industry from one of them to another. The greater part of such workmen too are

occasionally employed in country labour. The stock which employed them in a particular manufacture before

will still remain in the country to employ an equal number of people in some other way. The capital of the

country remaining the same, the demand for labour will likewise be the same, or very nearly the same, though

it may be exerted in different places and for different occupations. Soldiers and seamen, indeed, when

discharged from the king's service, are at liberty to exercise any trade, within any town or place of Great

Britain or Ireland. Let the same natural liberty of exercising what species of industry they please, be restored

to all his Majesty's subjects, in the same manner as to soldiers and seamen; that is, break down the exclusive

privileges of corporations, and repeal the Statute of Apprenticeship, both which are real encroachments upon

natural liberty, and add to these the repeal of the Law of Settlements, so that a poor workman, when thrown

out of employment either in one trade or in one place, may seek for it in another trade or in another place

without the fear either of a prosecution or of a removal, and neither the public nor the individuals will suffer

much more from the occasional disbanding some particular classes of manufacturers than from that of

soldiers. Our manufacturers have no doubt great merit with their country, but they cannot have more than

those who defend it with their blood, nor deserve to be treated with more delicacy.

To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to

expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the public, but

what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the

officers of the army to oppose with the same zeal and unanimity any reduction in the numbers of forces with

which master manufacturers set themselves against every law that is likely to increase the number of their

rivals in the home market; were the former to animate their soldiers in the same manner as the latter enflame

their workmen to attack with violence and outrage the proposers of any such regulation, to attempt to reduce

the army would be as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish in any respect the monopoly

which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of

some particular tribes of them that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the

government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The Member of Parliament who supports

every proposal for strengthening this monopoly is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding

trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of

great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to

thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest public services can

protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real

danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.

The undertaker of a great manufacture, who, by the home markets being suddenly laid open to the

competition of foreigners, should be obliged to abandon his trade, would no doubt suffer very considerably.

That part of his capital which had usually been employed in purchasing materials and in paying his workmen

might, without much difficulty, perhaps, find another employment. But that part of it which was fixed in

workhouses, and in the instruments of trade, could scarce be disposed of without considerable loss. The

equitable regard, therefore, to his interest requires that changes of this kind should never be introduced

suddenly, but slowly, gradually, and after a very long warning. The legislature, were it possible that its

deliberations could be always directed, not by the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an

extensive view of the general good, ought upon this very account, perhaps, to be particularly careful neither

to establish any new monopolies of this kind, nor to extend further those which are already established. Every

such regulation introduces some degree of real disorder into the constitution of the state, which it will be

How far it may be proper to impose taxes upon the importation of foreign goods, in order not to prevent their

importation but to raise a revenue for government, I shall consider hereafter when I come to treat of taxes.

Taxes imposed with a view to prevent, or even to diminish importation, are evidently as destructive of the

CHAPTER III. Of the extraordinary Restraints upon the Importation of Goods of almost all kinds from

Of the Unreasonableness of those Restraints even upon the Principles of the Commercial System

TO lay extraordinary restraints upon the those particular countries with which the importation of goods of

almost all kinds from balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous, is the second expedient by which

the commercial system proposes to increase the quantity of gold and silver. Thus in Great Britain, Silesia

lawns may be imported for home consumption upon paying certain duties. But French cambrics and lawns

are prohibited to be imported, except into the port of London, there to be warehoused for exportation. Higher

duties are imposed upon the wines of France than upon those of Portugal, or indeed of any other country. By

what is called the impost 1692, a duty of fiveandtwenty per cent of the rate or value was laid upon all

French goods; while the goods of other nations were, the greater part of them, subjected to much lighter

duties, seldom exceeding five per cent. The wine, brandy, salt and vinegar of France were indeed excepted;

these commodities being subjected to other heavy duties, either by other laws, or by particular clauses of the

same law. In 1696, a second duty of twentyfive per cent, the first not having been thought a sufficient

discouragement, was imposed upon all French goods, except brandy; together with a new duty of

fiveandtwenty pounds upon the ton of French wine, and another of fifteen pounds upon the ton of French

vinegar. French goods have never been omitted in any of those general subsidies, or duties of five per cent,

which have been imposed upon all, or the greater part of the goods enumerated in the book of rates. If we

count the onethird and twothird subsidies as making a complete subsidy between them, there have been

five of these general subsidies; so that before the commencement of the present war seventyfive per cent

may be considered as the lowest duty to which the greater part of the goods of the growth, produce, or

manufacture of France were liable. But upon the greater part of goods, those duties are equivalent to a

prohibition. The French in their turn have, I believe, treated our goods and manufactures just as hardly;

though I am not so well acquainted with the particular hardships which they have imposed upon them. Those

mutual restraints have put an end to almost all fair commerce between the two nations, and smugglers are

now the principal importers, either of British goods into France, or of French goods into Great Britain. The

principles which I have been examining in the foregoing chapter took their origin from private interest and

the spirit of monopoly; those which I am going to examine in this, from national prejudice and animosity.

They are, accordingly, as might well be expected, still more unreasonable. They are so, even upon the

First, though it were certain that in the case of a free trade between France and England, for example, the

balance would be in favour of France, it would by no means follow that such a trade would be

disadvantageous to England, or that the general balance of its whole trade would thereby be turned more

against it. If the wines of France are better and cheaper than those of Portugal, or its linens than those of

Germany, it would be more advantageous for Great Britain to purchase both the wine and the foreign linen

which it had occasion for of France than of Portugal and Germany. Though the value of the annual

importations from France would thereby be greatly augmented, the value of the whole annual importations

would be diminished, in proportion as the French goods of the same quality were cheaper than those of the

other two countries. This would be the case, even upon the supposition that the whole French goods imported

But, secondly, a great part of them might be reexported to other countries, where, being sold with profit,

they might bring back a return equal in value, perhaps, to the prime cost of the whole French goods imported.

What has frequently been said of the East India trade might possibly be true of the French; that though the

greater part of East India goods were bought with gold and silver, the reexportation of a part of them to

other countries brought back more gold and silver to that which carried on the trade than the prime cost of the

whole amounted to. One of the most important branches of the Dutch trade, at present, consists in the carriage

of French goods to other European countries. Some part even of the French wine drank in Great Britain is

clandestinely imported from Holland and Zeeland. If there was either a free trade between France and

England, or if French goods could be imported upon paying only the same duties as those of other European

nations, to be drawn back upon exportation, England might have some share of a trade which is found so

Thirdly, and lastly, there is no certain criterion by which we can determine on which side what is called the

balance between any two countries lies, or which of them exports to the greatest value. National prejudice

and animosity, prompted always by the private interest of particular traders, are the principles which

generally direct our judgment upon all questions concerning it. There are two criterions, however, which have

frequently been appealed to upon such occasions, the customhouse books and the course of exchange. The

customhouse books, I think, it is now generally acknowledged, are a very uncertain criterion, on account of

the inaccuracy of the valuation at which the greater part of goods are rated in them. The course of exchange

When the exchange between two places, such as London and Paris, is at par, it is said to be a sign that the

debts due from London to Paris are compensated by those due from Paris to London. On the contrary, when a

premium is paid at London for a bill upon Paris, it is said to be a sign that the debts due from London to Paris

are not compensated by those due from Paris to London, but that a balance in money must be sent out from

the latter place; for the risk, trouble, and expense of exporting which, the premium is both demanded and

given. But the ordinary state of debt and credit between those two cities must necessarily be regulated, it is

said, by the ordinary course of their dealings with one another. When neither of them imports from the other

to a greater amount than it exports to that other, the debts and credits of each may compensate one another.

But when one of them imports from the other to a greater value than it exports to that other, the former

necessarily becomes indebted to the latter in a greater sum than the latter becomes indebted to it; the debts

and credits of each do not compensate one another, and money must be sent out from that place of which the

debts overbalance the credits. The ordinary course of exchange, therefore, being an indication of the ordinary

state of debt and credit between two places, must likewise be an indication of the ordinary course of their

But though the ordinary course of exchange should be allowed to be a sufficient indication of the ordinary

state of debt and credit between any two places, it would not from thence follow that the balance of trade was

in favour of that place which had the ordinary state of debt and credit in its favour. The ordinary state of debt

and credit between any two places is not always entirely regulated by the ordinary course of their dealings

with one another; but is often influenced by that of the dealings of either with many other places. If it is usual,

for example, for the merchants of England to pay for the goods which they buy of Hamburg, Danzig, Riga,

etc., by bills upon Holland, the ordinary state of debt and credit between England and Holland will not be

regulated entirely by the ordinary course of the dealings of those two countries with one another, but will be

influenced by that of the dealings of England with those other places. England may be obliged to send out

every year money to Holland, though its annual exports to that country may exceed very much the annual

value of its imports from thence; and though what is called the balance of trade may be very much in favour

In the way, besides, in which the par of exchange has hitherto been computed, the ordinary course of

exchange can afford no sufficient indication that the ordinary state of debt and credit is in favour of that

country which seems to have, or which is supposed to have, the ordinary course of exchange in its favour: or,

in other words, the real exchange may be, and, in fact, often is so very different from the computed one, that

from the course of the latter no certain conclusion can, upon many occasions, be drawn concerning that of the

When for a sum of money paid in England, containing, according to the standard of the English mint, a

certain number of ounces of pure silver, you receive a bill for a sum of money to be paid in France,

containing, according to the standard of the French mint, an equal number of ounces of pure silver, exchange

is said to be at par between England and France. When you pay more, you are supposed to give a premium,

and exchange is said to be against England and in favour of France. When you pay less, you are supposed to

get a premium, and exchange is said to be against France and in favour of England.

But, first, we cannot always judge of the value of the current money of different countries by the standard of

their respective mints. In some it is more, in others it is less worn, clipt, and otherwise degenerated from that

standard. But the value of the current coin of every country, compared with that of any other country, is in

proportion not to the quantity of pure silver which it ought to contain, but to that which it actually does

contain. Before the reformation of the silver coin in King William's time, exchange between England and

Holland, computed in the usual manner according to the standard of their respective mints, was

fiveandtwenty per cent against England. But the value of the current coin of England, as we learn from Mr.

Lowndes, was at that time rather more than fiveandtwenty per cent below its standard value. The real

exchange, therefore, may even at that time have been in favour of England, notwithstanding the computed

exchange was so much against it; a smaller number of ounces of pure silver actually paid in England may

have purchased a bill for a greater number of ounces of pure silver to be paid in Holland, and the man who

was supposed to give may in reality have got the premium. The French coin was, before the late reformation

of the English gold coin, much less worn than the English, and was perhaps two or three per cent nearer its

standard. If the computed exchange with France, therefore, was not more than two or three per cent against

England, the real exchange might have been in its favour. Since the reformation of the gold coin, the

Secondly, in some countries, the expense of coinage is defrayed by the government; in others, it is defrayed

by the private people who carry their bullion to the mint, and the government even derives some revenue

from the coinage. In England, it is defrayed by the government, and if you carry a pound weight of standard

silver to the mint, you get back sixtytwo shillings, containing a pound weight of the like standard silver. In

France, a duty of eight per cent is deducted for the coinage, which not only defrays the expense of it, but

affords a small revenue to the government. In England, as the coinage costs nothing; the current coin can

never be much more valuable than the quantity of bullion which it actually contains. In France, the

workmanship, as you pay for it, adds to the value in the same manner as to that of wrought plate. A sum of

French money, therefore, containing a certain weight of pure silver, is more valuable than a sum of English

money containing an equal weight of pure silver, and must require more bullion, or other commodities, to

purchase it. Though the current coin of the two countries, therefore, were equally near the standards of their

respective mints, a sum of English money could not well purchase a sum of French money containing an

equal number of ounces of pure silver, nor consequently a bill upon France for such a sum. If for such a bill

no more additional money was paid than what was sufficient to compensate the expense of the French

coinage, the real exchange might be at par between the two countries, their debts and credits might mutually

compensate one another, while the computed exchange was considerably in favour of France. If less than this

was paid, the real exchange might be in favour of England, while the computed was in favour of France.

Thirdly, and lastly, in some places, as at Amsterdam, Hamburg, Venice, etc., foreign bills of exchange are

paid in what they call bank money; while in others, as at London, Lisbon, Antwerp, Leghorn, etc., they are

paid in the common currency of the country. What is called bank money is always of more value than the

same nominal sum of common currency. A thousand guilders in the Bank of Amsterdam, for example, are of

more value than a thousand guilders of Amsterdam currency. The difference between them is called the agio

of the bank, which, at Amsterdam, is generally about five per cent. Supposing the current money of the two

countries equally near to the standard of their respective mints, and that the one pays foreign bills in this

common currency, while the other pays them in bank money, it is evident that the computed exchange may

be in favour of that which pays in bank money, though the real exchange should be in favour of that which

pays in current money; for the same reason that the computed exchange may be in favour of that which pays

in better money, or in money nearer to its own standard, though the real exchange should be in favour of that

which pays in worse. The computed exchange, before the late reformation of the gold coin, was generally

against London with Amsterdam, Hamburg, Venice, and, I believe, with all other places which pay in what is

called bank money. It will by no means follow, however, that the real exchange was against it. Since the

reformation of the gold coin, it has been in favour of London even with those places. The computed exchange

has generally been in favour of London with Lisbon, Antwerp, Leghorn, and, if you except France, I believe,

with most other parts of Europe that pay in common currency; and it is not improbable that the real exchange

The currency of a great state, such as France or England, generally consists almost entirely of its own coin.

Should this currency, therefore, be at any time worn, clipt, or otherwise degraded below its standard value,

the state by a reformation of its coin can effectually reestablish its currency. But the currency of a small

state, such as Genoa or Hamburg, can seldom consist altogether in its own coin, but must be made up, in a

great measure, of the coins of all the neighbouring states with which its inhabitants have a continual

intercourse. Such a state, therefore, by reforming its coin, will not always be able to reform its currency. If

foreign bills of exchange are paid in this currency, the uncertain value of any sum, of what is in its own

nature so uncertain, must render the exchange always very much against such a state, its currency being, in all

In order to remedy the inconvenience to which this disadvantageous exchange must have subjected their

merchants, such small states, when they began to attend to the interest of trade, have frequently enacted, that

foreign bills of exchange of a certain value should be paid not in common currency, but by an order upon, or

by a transfer in the books of a certain bank, established upon the credit, and under the protection of the state;

this bank being always obliged to pay, in good and true money, exactly according to the standard of the state.

The banks of Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Nuremberg, seem to have been all originally

established with this view, though some of them may have afterwards been made subservient to other

purposes. The money of such banks being better than the common currency of the country, necessarily bore

an agio, which was greater or smaller according as the currency was supposed to be more or less degraded

below the standard of the state. The agio of the Bank of Hamburg, for example, which is said to be commonly

about fourteen per cent is the supposed difference between the good standard money of the state, and the

clipt, worn, and diminished currency poured into it from all the neighbouring states.

Before 1609 the great quantity of clipt and worn foreign coin, which the extensive trade of Amsterdam

brought from all parts of Europe, reduced the value of its currency about nine per cent below that of good

money fresh from the mint. Such money no sooner appeared than it was melted down or carried away, as it

always is in such circumstances. The merchants, with plenty of currency, could not always find a sufficient

quantity of good money to pay their bills of exchange; and the value of those bills, in spite of several

In order to remedy these inconveniences, a bank was established in 1609 under the guarantee of the city. This

bank received both foreign coin, and the light and worn coin of the country at its real intrinsic value in the

good standard money of the country, deducting only so much as was necessary for defraying the expense of

coinage, and the other necessary expense of management. For the value which remained, after this small

deduction was made, it gave a credit in its books. This credit was called bank money, which, as it represented

money exactly according to the standard of the mint, was always of the same real value, and intrinsically

worth more than current money. It was at the same time enacted, that all bills drawn upon or negotiated at

Amsterdam of the value of six hundred guilders and upwards should be paid in bank money, which at once

took away all uncertainty in the value of those bills. Every merchant, in consequence of this regulation, was

obliged to keep an account with the bank in order to pay his foreign bills of exchange, which necessarily

Bank money, over and above its intrinsic superiority to currency, and the additional value which this demand

necessarily gives it, has likewise some other advantages. It is secure from fire, robbery, and other accidents;

the city of Amsterdam is bound for it; it can be paid away by a simple transfer, without the trouble of

counting, or the risk of transporting it from one place to another. In consequence of those different

advantages, it seems from the beginning to have borne agio, and it is generally believed that all the money

originally deposited in the bank was allowed to remain there, nobody caring to demand payment of a debt

which he could sell for a premium in the market. By demanding payment of the bank, the owner of a bank

credit would lose this premium. As a shilling fresh from the mint will buy no more goods in the market than

one of our common worn shillings, so the good and true money which might be brought from the coffers of

the bank into those of a private person, being mixed and confounded with the common currency of the

country, would be of no more value than that currency from which it could no longer be readily

distinguished. While it remained in the coffers of the bank, its superiority was known and ascertained. When

it had come into those of a private person, its superiority could not well be ascertained without more trouble

than perhaps the difference was worth. By being brought from the coffers of the bank, besides, it lost all the

other advantages of bank money; its security, its easy and safe transferability, its use in paying foreign bills of

exchange. Over and above all this, it could not be brought from those coffers, as it will appear by and by,

Those deposits of coin, or those deposits which the bank was bound to restore in coin, constituted the original

capital of the bank, or the whole value of what was represented by what is called bank money. At present

they are supposed to constitute but a very small part of it. In order to facilitate the trade in bullion, the bank

has been for these many years in the practice of giving credit in its books upon deposits of gold and silver

bullion. This credit is generally about five per cent below the mint price of such bullion. The bank grants at

the same time what is called a recipe or receipt, entitling the person who makes the deposit, or the bearer, to

take out the bullion again at any time within six months, upon retransferring to the bank a quantity of bank

money equal to that for which credit had been given in its books when the deposit was made, and upon

paying onefourth per cent for the keeping, if the deposit was in silver; and onehalf per cent if it was in

gold; but at the same time declaring that, in default of such payment, and upon the expiration of this term, the

deposit should belong to the bank at the price at which it had been received, or for which credit had been

given in the transfer books. What is thus paid for the keeping of the deposit may be considered as a sort of

warehouse rent; and why this warehouse rent should be so much dearer for gold than for silver, several

different reasons have been assigned. The fineness of gold, it has been said, is more difficult to be ascertained

than that of silver. Frauds are more easily practised, and occasion a greater loss in the more precious metal.

Silver, besides, being the standard metal, the state, it has been said, wishes to encourage more the making of

Deposits of bullion are most commonly made when the price is somewhat lower than ordinary; and they are

taken out again when it happens to rise. In Holland the market price of bullion is generally above the mint

price, for the same reason that it was so in England before the late reformation of the gold coin. The

difference is said to be commonly from about six to sixteen stivers upon the mark, or eight ounces of silver of

eleven parts fine and one part alloy. The bank price, or the credit which the bank gives for deposits of such

silver (when made in foreign coin, of which the fineness is well known and ascertained, such as Mexico

dollars), is twentytwo guilders the mark; the mint price is about twentythree guilders, and the market price

is from twentythree guilders six to twentythree guilders sixteen stivers, or from two to three per cent above

the mint price.* The proportions between the bank price, the mint price, and the market price of gold bullion

are nearly the same. A person can generally sell his receipt for the difference between the mint price of

bullion and the market price. A receipt for bullion is almost always worth something, and it very seldom

happens, therefore, that anybody suffers his receipt to expire, or allows his bullion to fall to the bank at the

price at which it had been received, either by not taking it out before the end of the six months, or by

neglecting to pay the onefourth or onehalf per cent in order to obtain a new receipt for another six months.

This, however, though it happens seldom, is said to happen sometimes, and more frequently with regard to

gold than with regard to silver, on account of the higher warehouserent which is paid for the keeping of the

more precious metal. * The following are the prices at which the Bank of Amsterdam at present (September,

Bar silver containing eleventwelfths fine silver 21 per mark, and in this proportion down to 1/4 fine, on

Bar or ingot gold is received in proportion to its fineness compared with the above foreign gold coin. Upon

fine bars the bank gives 340 per mark. In general, however, something more is given upon coin of a known

fineness, than upon gold and silver bars, of which the fineness cannot be ascertained but by a process of

The person who by making a deposit of bullion obtains both a bank credit and receipt, pays his bills of

exchange as they become due with his bank credit; and either sells or keeps his receipt according as he judges

that the price of bullion is likely to rise or to fall. The receipt and the bank credit seldom keep long together,

and there is no occasion that they should. The person who has a receipt, and who wants to take out bullion,

finds always plenty of bank credits, or bank money to buy at the ordinary price; and the person who has bank

The owners of bank credits, and the holders of receipts, constitute two different sorts of creditors against the

bank. The holder of a receipt cannot draw out the bullion for which it is granted, without reassigning to the

bank a sum of bank money equal to the price at which the bullion had been received. If he has no bank money

of his own, he must purchase it of those who have it. The owner of bank money cannot draw out bullion

without producing to the bank receipts for the quantity which he wants. If he has none of his own, he must

buy them of those who have them. The holder of a receipt, when he purchases bank money, purchases the

power of taking out a quantity of bullion, of which the mint price is five per cent above the bank price. The

agio of five per cent therefore, which he commonly pays for it, is paid not for an imaginary but for a real

value. The owner of bank money, when he purchases a receipt, purchases the power of taking out a quantity

of bullion of which the market price is commonly from two to three per cent above the mint price. The price

which he pays for it, therefore, is paid likewise for a real value. The price of the receipt, and the price of the

bank money, compound or make up between them the full value or price of the bullion.

Upon deposits of the coin current in the country, the bank grants receipts likewise as well as bank credits; but

those receipts are frequently of no value, and will bring no price in the market. Upon ducatoons, for example,

which in the currency pass for three guilders three stivers each, the bank gives a credit of three guilders only,

or five per cent below their current value. It grants a receipt likewise entitling the bearer to take out the

number of ducatoons deposited at any time within six months, upon paying onefourth per cent for the

keeping. This receipt will frequently bring no price in the market. Three guilders bank money generally sell

in the market for three guilders three stivers, the full value of the ducatoons, if they were taken out of the

bank; and before they can be taken out, onefourth per cent must be paid for the keeping, which would be

mere loss to the holder of the receipt. If the agio of the bank, however, should at any time fall to three per

cent such receipts might bring some price in the market, and might sell for one and threefourths per cent.

But the agio of the bank being now generally about five per cent such receipts are frequently allowed to

expire, or as they express it, to fall to the bank. The receipts which are given for deposits of gold ducats fall to

it yet more frequently, because a higher warehouserent, or onehalf per cent must be paid for the keeping of

them before they can be taken out again. The five per cent which the bank gains, when deposits either of coin

or bullion are allowed to fall to it, may be considered as the warehouserent for the perpetual keeping of such

The sum of bank money for which the receipts are expired must be very considerable. It must comprehend

the whole original capital of the bank, which, it is generally supposed, has been allowed to remain there from

the time it was first deposited, nobody caring either to renew his receipt or to take out his deposit, as, for the

reasons already assigned, neither the one nor the other could be done without loss. But whatever may be the

amount of this sum, the proportion which it bears to the whole mass of bank money is supposed to be very

small. The Bank of Amsterdam has for these many years past been the great warehouse of Europe for bullion,

for which the receipts are very seldom allowed to expire, or, as they express it, to fall to the bank. far greater

part of the bank money, or of the credits upon the books of the bank, is supposed to have been created, for

these many years past, by such deposits which the dealers in bullion are continually both making and

No demand can be made upon the bank but by means of a recipe or receipt. The smaller mass of bank money,

for which the receipts are expired, is mixed and confounded with the much greater mass for which they are

still in force; so that, though there may be a considerable sum of bank money for which there are no receipts,

there is no specific sum or portion of it which may not at any time be demanded by one. The bank cannot be

debtor to two persons for the same thing; and the owner of bank money who has no receipt cannot demand

payment of the bank till he buys one. In ordinary and quiet times, he can find no difficulty in getting one to

buy at the market price, which generally corresponds with the price at which he can sell the coin or bullion it

It might be otherwise during a public calamity; an invasion, for example, such as that of the French in 1672.

The owners of bank money being then all eager to draw it out of the bank, in order to have it their own

keeping, the demand for receipts might raise their price to an exorbitant height. The holders of them might

form expectations, and, instead of two or three per cent, demand half the bank money for which credit had

been given upon the deposits that the receipts had respectively been granted for. The enemy, informed of the

constitution of the bank, might even buy them up, in order to prevent the carrying away of the treasure. In

such emergencies, the bank, it is supposed, would break through its ordinary rule of making payment only to

the holders of receipts. The holders of receipts, who had no bank money, must have received within two or

three per cent of the value of the deposit for which their respective receipts had been granted. The bank,

therefore, it is said, would in this case make no scruple of paying, either with money or bullion, the full value

of what the owners of bank money who could get no receipts were credited for in its books; paying at the

same time two or three per cent to such holders of receipts as had no bank money, that being the whole value

Even in ordinary and quiet times it is the interest of the holders of receipts to depress the agio, in order either

to buy bank money (and consequently the bullion, which their receipts would then enable them to take out of

the bank) so much cheaper, or to sell their receipts to those who have bank money, and who want to take out

bullion, so much dearer; the price of a receipt being generally equal to the difference between the market

price of bank money, and that of the coin or bullion for which the receipt had been granted. It is the interest

of the owners of bank money, on the contrary, to raise the agio, in order either to sell their bank money so

much dearer, or to buy a receipt so much cheaper. To prevent the stockjobbing tricks which those opposite

interests might sometimes occasion, the bank has of late years come to the resolution to sell at all times bank

money for currency, at five per cent agio, and to buy it in again at four per cent agio. In consequence of this

resolution, the agio can never either rise above five or sink below four per cent, and the proportion between

the market price of bank and that of current money is kept at all times very near to the proportion between

their intrinsic values. Before this resolution was taken, the market price of bank money used sometimes to

rise so high as nine per cent agio, and sometimes to sink so low as par, according as opposite interests

The Bank of Amsterdam professes to lend out no part of what is deposited with it, but, for every guilder for

which it gives credit in its books, to keep in its repositories the value of a guilder either in money or bullion.

That it keeps in its repositories all the money or bullion for which there are receipts in force, for which it is at

all times liable to be called upon, and which, in reality, is continually going from it and returning to it again,

cannot well be doubted. But whether it does so likewise with regard to that part of its capital, for which the

receipts are long ago expired, for which in ordinary and quiet times it cannot be called upon, and which in

reality is very likely to remain with it for ever, or as long as the States of the United Provinces subsist, may

perhaps appear more uncertain. At Amsterdam, however, no point of faith is better established than that for

every guilder, circulated as bank money, there is a correspondent guilder in gold or silver to be found in the

treasure of the bank. The city is guarantee that it should be so. The bank is under the direction of the four

reigning burgomasters who are changed every year. Each new set of burgomasters visits the treasure,

compares it with the books, receives it upon oath, and delivers it over, with the same awful solemnity, to the

set which succeeds; and in that sober and religious country oaths are not yet disregarded. A rotation of this

kind seems alone a sufficient security against any practices which cannot be avowed. Amidst all the

revolutions which faction has ever occasioned in the government of Amsterdam, the prevailing party has at

no time accused their predecessors of infidelity in the administration of the bank. No accusation could have

affected more deeply the reputation and fortune of the disgraced party, and if such an accusation could have

been supported, we may be assured that it would have been brought. In 1672, when the French king was at

Utrecht, the Bank of Amsterdam paid so readily as left no doubt of the fidelity with which it had observed its

engagements. Some of the pieces which were then brought from its repositories appeared to have been

scorched with the fire which happened in the townhouse soon after the bank was established. Those pieces,

What may be the amount of the treasure in the bank is a question which has long employed speculations of

the curious. Nothing but conjecture can be offered concerning it. It is generally reckoned that there are about

two thousand people who keep accounts with the bank, and allowing them to have, one with another, the

value of fifteen hundred pounds sterling lying upon their respective accounts (a very large allowance), the

whole quantity of bank money, and consequently of treasure in the bank, will amount to about three millions

sterling, or, at eleven guilders the pound sterling, thirtythree millions of guilders a great sum, and

sufficient to carry on a very extensive circulation, but vastly below the extravagant ideas which some people

The city of Amsterdam derives a considerable revenue from the bank. Besides what may be called the

warehouserent above mentioned, each person, upon first opening an account with the bank, pays a fee of ten

guilders; and for every new account three guilders three stivers; for every transfer two stivers; and if the

transfer is for less than three hundred guilders, six stivers, in order to discourage the multiplicity of small

transactions. The person who neglects to balance his account twice in the year forfeits twentyfive guilders.

The person who orders a transfer for more than is upon his account, is obliged to pay three per cent for the

sum overdrawn, and his order is set aside into the bargain. The bank is supposed, too, to make a considerable

profit by the sale of the foreign coin or bullion which sometimes falls to it by the expiring of receipts, and

which is always kept till it can be sold with advantage. It makes a profit likewise by selling bank money at

five per cent agio, and buying it in at four. These different emoluments amount to a good deal more than what

is necessary for paying the salaries of officers, and defraying the expense of management. What is paid for

the keeping of bullion upon receipts is alone supposed to amount to a neat annual revenue of between one

hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand guilders. Public utility, however, and not revenue, was

the original object of this institution. Its object was to relieve the merchants from the inconvenience of a

disadvantageous exchange. The revenue which has arisen from it was unforeseen, and may be considered as

accidental. But it is now time to return from this long digression, into which I have been insensibly led in

endeavouring to explain the reasons why the exchange between the countries which pay in what is called

bank money, and those which pay in common currency, should generally appear to be in favour of the former

and against the latter. The former pay in a species of money of which the intrinsic value is always the same,

and exactly agreeable to the standard of their respective mints; the latter is a species of money of which the

intrinsic value is continually varying, and is almost always more or less below that standard.

IN the foregoing part of this chapter I have endeavoured to show, even upon the principles of the commercial

system, how unnecessary it is to lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods from those

Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade, upon which, not only

these restraints, but almost all the other regulations of commerce are founded. When two places trade with

one another, this doctrine supposes that, if the balance be even, neither of them either loses or gains; but if it

leans in any degree to one side, that one of them loses and the other gains in proportion to its declension from

the exact equilibrium. Both suppositions are false. A trade which is forced by means of bounties and

monopolies may be and commonly is disadvantageous to the country in whose favour it is meant to be

established, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter. But that trade which, without force or constraint, is

naturally and regularly carried on between any two places is always advantageous, though not always equally

By advantage or gain, I understand not the increase of the quantity of gold and silver, but that of the

exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, or the increase of the annual

If the balance be even, and if the trade between the two places consist altogether in the exchange of their

native commodities, they will, upon most occasions, not only both gain, but they will gain equally, or very

near equally; each will in this case afford a market for a part of the surplus produce of the other; each will

replace a capital which had been employed in raising and preparing for the market this part of the surplus

produce of the other, and which had been distributed among, and given revenue and maintenance to a certain

number of its inhabitants. Some part of the inhabitants of each, therefore, will indirectly derive their revenue

and maintenance from the other. As the commodities exchanged, too, are supposed to be of equal value, so

the two capitals employed in the trade will, upon most occasions, be equal, or very nearly equal; and both

being employed in raising the native commodities of the two countries, the revenue and maintenance which

their distribution will afford to the inhabitants of each will be equal, or very nearly equal. This revenue and

maintenance, thus mutually afforded, will be greater or smaller in proportion to the extent of their dealings. If

these should annually amount to an hundred thousand pounds, for example, or to a million on each side, each

of them would afford an annual revenue in the one case of an hundred thousand pounds, in the other of a

If their trade should be of such a nature that one of them exported to the other nothing but native

commodities, while the returns of that other consisted altogether in foreign goods; the balance, in this case,

would still be supposed even, commodities being paid for with commodities. They would, in this case too,

both gain, but they would not gain equally; and the inhabitants of the country which exported nothing but

native commodities would derive the greatest revenue from the trade. If England, for example, should import

from France nothing but the native commodities of that country, and, not having such commodities of its own

as were in demand there, should annually repay them by sending thither a large quantity of foreign goods,

tobacco, we shall suppose, and East India goods; this trade, though it would give some revenue to the

inhabitants of both countries, would give more to those of France than to those of England. The whole French

capital annually employed in it would annually be distributed among the people of France. But that part of

the English capital only which was employed in producing the English commodities with which those foreign

goods were purchased would be annually distributed among the people of England. The greater part of it

would replace the capitals which had been employed in Virginia, Indostan, and China, and which had given

revenue and maintenance to the of those distant countries. If the capitals were equal, or nearly equal,

therefore this employment of the French capital would augment much more the revenue of the people of

France than that of the English capital would the revenue of the people of England. France would in this case

carry on a direct foreign trade of consumption with England; whereas England would carry on a roundabout

trade of the same kind with France. The different effects of a capital employed in the direct and of one

employed in the roundabout foreign trade of consumption have already been fully explained.

There is not, probably, between any two countries a trade which consists altogether in the exchange either of

native commodities on both sides, or of native commodities on one side and of foreign goods on the other.

Almost all countries exchange with one another partly native and partly foreign goods. That country,

however, in whose cargoes there is the greatest proportion of native, and the least of foreign goods, will

If it was not with tobacco and East India goods, but with gold and silver, that England paid for the

commodities annually imported from France, the balance, in this case, would be supposed uneven,

commodities not being paid for with commodities, but with gold and silver. The trade, however, would, in

this case, as in the foregoing, give some revenue to the inhabitants of both countries, but more to those of

France than to those of England. It would give some revenue to those of England. The capital which had been

employed in producing the English goods that purchased this gold and silver, the capital which had been

distributed among, and given revenue to, certain inhabitants of England, would thereby be replaced and

enabled to continue that employment. The whole capital of England would no more be diminished by this

exportation of gold and silver than by the exportation of an equal value of any other goods. On the contrary, it

would in most cases be augmented. No goods are sent abroad but those for which the demand is supposed to

be greater abroad than at home, and of which the returns consequently, it is expected, will be of more value at

home than the commodities exported. If the tobacco which, in England, is worth only a hundred thousand

pounds, when sent to France will purchase wine which is, in England, worth a hundred and ten thousand, this

exchange will equally augment the capital of England by ten thousand pounds. If a hundred thousand pounds

of English gold, in the same manner, purchase French wine which, in England, is worth a hundred and ten

thousand, this exchange will equally augment the capital of England by ten thousand pounds. As a merchant

who has a hundred and ten thousand pounds worth of wine in his cellar is a richer man than he who has only

a hundred thousand pounds worth of tobacco in his warehouse, so is he likewise a richer man than he who has

only a hundred thousand pounds worth of gold in his coffers. He can put into motion a greater quantity of

industry, and give revenue, maintenance, and employment to a greater number of people than either of the

other two. But the capital of the country is equal to the capitals of all its different inhabitants, and the quantity

of industry which can be annually maintained in it is equal to what all those different capitals can maintain.

Both the capital of the country, therefore, and the quantity of industry which can be annually maintained in it,

must generally be augmented by this exchange. It would, indeed, be more advantageous for England that it

could purchase the wines of France with its own hardware and broadcloth than with either the tobacco of

Virginia or the gold and silver of Brazil and Peru. A direct foreign trade of consumption is always more

advantageous than a roundabout one. But a roundabout foreign trade of consumption, which is carried on

with gold and silver, does not seem to be less advantageous than any other equally roundabout one. Neither

is a country which has no mines more likely to be exhausted of gold and silver by this annual exportation of

those metals than one which does not grow tobacco by the like annual exportation of that plant. As a country

which has wherewithal to buy tobacco will never be long in want of it, so neither will one be long in want of

It is a losing trade, it is said, which a workman carries on with the alehouse; and the trade which a

manufacturing nation would naturally carry on with a wine country may be considered as a trade of the same

nature. I answer, that the trade with the alehouse is not necessarily a losing trade. In its own nature it is just as

advantageous as any other, though perhaps somewhat more liable to be abused. The employment of a brewer,

and even that of a retailer of fermented liquors, are as necessary divisions of labour as any other. It will

generally be more advantageous for a workman to buy of the brewer the quantity he has occasion for than to

brew it himself, and if he is a poor workman, it will generally be more advantageous for him to buy it by little

and little of the retailer than a large quantity of the brewer. He may no doubt buy too much of either, as he

may of any other dealers in his neighbourhood, of the butcher, if he is a glutton, or of the draper, if he affects

to be a beau among his companions. It is advantageous to the great body of workmen, notwithstanding, that

all these trades should be free, though this freedom may be abused in all of them, and is more likely to be so,

perhaps, in some than in others. Though individuals, besides, may sometimes ruin their fortunes by an

excessive consumption of fermented liquors, there seems to be no risk that a nation should do so. Though in

every country there are many people who spend upon such liquors more than they can afford, there are

always many more who spend less. It deserves to be remarked too, that, if we consult experience, the

cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine

countries are in general the soberest people in Europe; witness the Spainards, the Italians, and the inhabitants

of the southern provinces of France. People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare. Nobody

affects the character of liberality and good fellowship by being profuse of a liquor which is as cheap as small

beer. On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and

where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice, as among the northern nations,

and all those who live between the tropics, the negroes, for example, on the coast of Guinea. When a French

regiment comes from some of the northern provinces of France, where wine is somewhat dear, to be

quartered in the southern, where it is very cheap, the soldiers, I have frequently heard it observed are at first

debauched by the cheapness and novelty of good wine; but after a few months' residence, the greater part of

them become as sober as the rest of the inhabitants. Were the duties upon foreign wines, and the excises upon

malt, beer, and ale to be taken away all at once, it might, in the same manner, occasion in Great Britain a

pretty general and temporary drunkenness among the middling and inferior ranks of people, which would

probably be soon followed by a permanent and almost universal sobriety. At present drunkenness is by no

means the vice of people of fashion, or of those who can easily afford the most expensive liquors. A

gentleman drunk with ale has scarce ever been seen among us. The restraints upon the wine trade in Great

Britain, besides, do not so much seem calculated to hinder the people from going, if I may say so, to the

alehouse, as from going where they can buy the best and cheapest liquor. They favour the wine trade of

Portugal, and discourage that of France. The Portugese, it is said, indeed, are better customers for our

manufactures than the French, and should therefore be encouraged in preference to them. As they give us

their custom, it is pretended, we should give them ours. The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus

erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire: for it is the most underling tradesmen only

who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his goods always where

By such maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their

neighbours. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations

with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be,

among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of

discord and animosity. The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and the

preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and

manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid,

the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of

merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot

perhaps be corrected may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of anybody but

That it was the spirit of monopoly which originally both invented and propagated this doctrine cannot be

doubted; and they who first taught it were by no means such fools as they who believed it. In every country it

always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell

it cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor

could it ever have been called in question had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers

confounded the common sense of mankind. Their interest is, in this respect, directly opposite to that of the

great body of the people. As it is the interest of the freemen of a corporation to hinder the rest of the

inhabitants from employing any workmen but themselves, so it is the interest of the merchants and

manufacturers of every country to secure to themselves the monopoly of the home market. Hence in Great

Britain, and in most other European countries, the extraordinary duties upon almost all goods imported by

alien merchants. Hence the high duties and prohibitions upon all those foreign manufactures which can come

into competition with our own. Hence, too, the extraordinary restraints upon the importation of almost all

sorts of goods from those countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous; that

is, from those against whom national animosity happens to be most violently inflamed.

The wealth of a neighbouring nation, however, though dangerous in war and politics, is certainly

advantageous in trade. In a state of hostility it may enable our enemies to maintain fleets and armies superior

to our own; but in a state of peace and commerce it must likewise enable them to exchange with us to a

greater value, and to afford a better market, either for the immediate produce of our own industry, or for

whatever is purchased with that produce. As a rich man is likely to be a better customer to the industrious

people in his neighbourhood than a poor, so is likewise a rich nation. A rich man, indeed, who is himself a

manufacturer, is a very dangerous neighbour to all those who deal in the same way. All the rest of the

neighbourhood, however, by far the greatest number, profit by the good market which his expense affords

them. They even profit by his underselling the poorer workmen who deal in the same way with him. The

manufacturers of a rich nation, in the same manner, may no doubt be very dangerous rivals to those of their

neighbours. This very competition, however, is advantageous to the great body of the people, who profit

greatly besides by the good market which the great expense of such a nation affords them in every other way.

Private people who want to make a fortune never think of retiring to the remote and poor provinces of the

country, but resort either to the capital, or to some of the great commercial towns. They know that where little

wealth circulates there is little to be got, but that where a great deal is in motion, some share of it may fall to

them. The same maxims which would in this manner direct the common sense of one, or ten, or twenty

individuals, should regulate the judgment of one, or ten, or twenty millions, and should make a whole nation

regard the riches of its neighbours as a probable cause and occasion for itself to acquire riches. A nation that

would enrich itself by foreign trade is certainly most likely to do so when its neighbours are all rich,

industrious, and commercial nations. A great nation surrounded on all sides by wandering savages and poor

barbarians might, no doubt, acquire riches by the cultivation of its own lands, and by its own interior

commerce, but not by foreign trade. It seems to have been in this manner that the ancient Egyptians and the

modern Chinese acquired their great wealth. The ancient Egyptians, it is said, neglected foreign commerce,

and the modern Chinese, it is known, bold it in the utmost contempt, and scarce deign to afford it the decent

protection of the laws. The modern maxims of foreign commerce, by aiming at the impoverishment of all our

neighbours, so far as they are capable of producing their intended effect, tend to render that very commerce

It is in consequence of these maxims that the commerce between France and England has in both countries

been subjected to so many discouragements and restraints. If those two countries, however, were to consider

their real interest, without either mercantile jealousy or national animosity, the commerce of France might be

more advantageous to Great Britain than that of any other country, and for the same reason that of Great

Britain to France. France is the nearest neighbour to Great Britain. In the trade between the southern coast of

England and the northern and northwestern coasts of France, the returns might be expected, in the same

manner as in the inland trade, four, five, or six times in the year. The capital, therefore, employed in this trade

could in each of the two countries keep in motion four, five, or six times the quantity of industry, and afford

employment and subsistence to four, five, or six times the number of people, which an equal capital could do

in the greater part of the other branches of foreign trade. Between the parts of France and Great Britain most

remote from one another, the returns might be expected, at least, once in the year, and even this trade would

so far be at least equally advantageous as the greater part of the other branches of our foreign European trade.

It would be, at least, three times more advantageous than the boasted trade with our North American colonies,

in which the returns were seldom made in less than three years, frequently not in less than four or five years.

France, besides, is supposed to contain twentyfour millions of inhabitants. Our North American colonies

were never supposed to contain more than three millions; and France is a much richer country than North

America; though, on account of the more unequal distribution of riches, there is much more poverty and

beggary in the one country than in the other. France, therefore, could afford a market at least eight times more

extensive, and, on account of the superior frequency of the returns, fourandtwenty times more

advantageous than that which our North American colonies ever afforded. The trade of Great Britain would

be just as advantageous to France, and, in proportion to the wealth, population, and proximity of the

respective countries, would have the same superiority over that which France carries on with her own

colonies. Such is the very great difference between that trade, which the wisdom of both nations has thought

But the very same circumstances which would have rendered an open and free commerce between the two

countries so advantageous to both, have occasioned the principal obstructions to that commerce. Being

neighbours, they are necessarily enemies, and the wealth and power of each becomes, upon that account,

more formidable to the other; and what would increase the advantage of national friendship serves only to

inflame the violence of national animosity. They are both rich and industrious nations; and the merchants and

manufacturers of each dread the competition of the skill and activity of those of the other. Mercantile

jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity; and the

traders of both countries have announced, with all the passionate confidence of interested falsehood, the

certain ruin of each, in consequence of that unfavourable balance of trade, which, they pretend, would be the

There is no commercial country in Europe of which the approaching ruin has not frequently been foretold by

the pretended doctors of this system from an unfavourable balance of trade. After all the anxiety, however,

which they have excited about this, after all the vain attempts of almost all trading nations to turn that balance

in their own favour and against their neighbours, it does not appear that any one nation in Europe has been in

any respect impoverished by this cause. Every town and country, on the contrary, in proportion as they have

opened their ports to all nations, instead of being ruined by this free trade, as the principles of the commercial

system would lead us to expect, have been enriched by it. Though there are in Europe, indeed, a few towns

which in some respects deserve the name of free ports, there is no country which does so. Holland, perhaps,

approaches the nearest to this character of any though still very remote from it; and Holland, it is

acknowledged, not only derives its whole wealth, but a great part of its necessary subsistence, from foreign

There is another balance, indeed, which has already been explained, very different from the balance of trade,

and which, according as it happens to be either favourable or unfavourable, necessarily occasions the

prosperity or decay of every nation. This is the balance of the annual produce and consumption. If the

exchangeable value of the annual produce, it has already been observed, exceeds that of the annual

consumption, the capital of the society must annually increase in proportion to this excess. The society in this

case lives within its revenue, and what is annually saved out of its revenue is naturally added to its capital,

and employed so as to increase still further the annual produce. If the exchangeable value of the annual

produce, on the contrary, fail short of the annual consumption, the capital of the society must annually decay

in proportion to this deficiency. The expense of the society in this case exceeds its revenue, and necessarily

encroaches upon its capital. Its capital, therefore, must necessarily decay, and together with it the

This balance of produce and consumption is entirely different from what is called the balance of trade. It

might take place in a nation which had no foreign trade, but which was entirely separated from all the world.

It may take place in the whole globe of the earth, of which the wealth, population, and improvement may be

The balance of produce and consumption may be constantly in favour of a nation, though what is called the

balance of trade be generally against it. A nation may import to a greater value than it exports for half a

century, perhaps, together; the gold and silver which comes into it during an this time may be all immediately

sent out of it; its circulating coin may gradually decay, different sorts of paper money being substituted in its

place, and even the debts, too, which it contracts in the principal nations with whom it deals, may be

gradually increasing; and yet its real wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its lands and

labour, may, during the same period, have been increasing in a much greater proportion. The state of our

North American colonies, and of the trade which they carried on with Great Britain, before the

commencement of the present disturbances, may serve as a proof that this is by no means an impossible

MERCHANTS and manufacturers are not contented with the monopoly of the home market, but desire

likewise the most extensive foreign sale for their goods. Their country has no jurisdiction in foreign nations,

and therefore can seldom procure them any monopoly there. They are generally obliged, therefore, to content

Of these encouragements what are called Drawbacks seem to be the most reasonable. To allow the merchant

to draw back upon exportation, either the whole or a part of whatever excise or inland duty is imposed upon

domestic industry, can never occasion the exportation of a greater quantity of goods than what would have

been exported had no duty been imposed. Such encouragements do not tend to turn towards any particular

employment a greater share of the capital of the country than what would go to that employment of its own

accord, but only to hinder the duty from driving away any part of that share to other employments. They tend

not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself among all the various employments of the

society; but to hinder it from being overturned by the duty. They tend not to destroy, but to preserve what it is

in most cases advantageous to preserve, the natural division and distribution of labour in the society.

The same thing may be said of the drawbacks upon the reexportation of foreign goods imported, which in

Great Britain generally amount to by much the largest part of the duty upon importation. By the second of the

rules annexed to the Act of Parliament which imposed what is now called the Old Subsidy, every merchant,

whether English or alien, was allowed to draw back half that duty upon exportation; the English merchant,

provided the exportation took place within twelve months; the alien, provided it took place within nine

months. Wines, currants, and wrought silks were the only goods which did not fall within this rule, having

other and more advantageous allowances. The duties imposed by this Act of Parliament were at that time the

only duties upon the importation of foreign goods. The term within which this and all other drawbacks could

be claimed was afterwards (by the 7th George I, c. 21, sect. 10) extended to three years.

The duties which have been imposed since the Old Subsidy are, the greater part of them, wholly drawn back

upon exportation. This general rule, however, is liable to a great number of exceptions, and the doctrine of

drawbacks has become a much less simple matter than it was at their first institution.

Upon the exportation of some foreign goods, of which it was expected that the importation would greatly

exceed what was necessary for the home consumption, the whole duties are drawn back, without retaining

even half the Old Subsidy. Before the revolt of our North American colonies, we had the monopoly of the

tobacco of Maryland and Virginia. We imported about ninetysix thousand hogsheads, and the home

consumption was not supposed to exceed fourteen thousand. To facilitate the great exportation which was

necessary, in order to rid us of the rest, the whole duties were drawn back, provided the exportation took

We still have, though not altogether, yet very nearly, the monopoly of the sugars of our West Indian Islands.

If sugars are exported within a year, therefore, all the duties upon importation are drawn back, and if exported

within three years all the duties, except half the Old Subsidy, which still continues to be retained upon the

exportation of the greater part of goods. Though the importation of sugar exceeds, a good deal, what is

necessary for the home consumption, the excess is inconsiderable in comparison of what it used to be in

Some goods, the particular objects of the jealousy of our own manufacturers, are prohibited to be imported

for home consumption. They may, however, upon paying certain duties, be imported and warehoused for

exportation. But upon such exportation, no part of these duties are drawn back. Our manufacturers are

unwilling, it seems, that even this restricted importation should be encouraged, and are afraid lest some part

of these goods should be stolen out of the warehouse, and thus come into competition with their own. It is

under these regulations only that we can import wrought silks, French cambrics and lawns, calicoes painted,

We are unwilling even to be the carriers of French goods, and choose rather to forego a profit to ourselves

than to suffer those, whom we consider as our enemies, to make any profit by our means. Not only half the

Old Subsidy, but the second twentyfive per cent, is retained upon the exportation of all French goods.

By the fourth of the rules annexed to the Old Subsidy, the drawback allowed upon the exportation of all

wines amounted to a great deal more than half the duties which were, at that time, paid upon their

importation; and it seems, at that time, to have been the object of the legislature to give somewhat more than

ordinary encouragement to the carrying trade in wine. Several of the other duties too, which were imposed

either at the same time, or subsequent to the Old Subsidy what is called the additional duty, the New

Subsidy, the Onethird and Twothirds Subsidies, the impost 1692, the coinage on wine were allowed to be

wholly drawn back upon exportation. All those duties, however, except the additional duty and impost 1692,

being paid down in ready money, upon importation, the interest of so large a sum occasioned an expense,

which made it unreasonable to expect any profitable carrying trade in this article. Only a part, therefore, of

the duty called the impost on wine, and no part of the twentyfive pounds the ton upon French wines, or of

the duties imposed in 1745, in 1763, and in 1778, were allowed to be drawn back upon exportation. The two

imposts of five per cent, imposed in 1779 and 1781, upon all the former duties of customs, being allowed to

be wholly drawn back upon the exportation of all other goods, were likewise allowed to be drawn back upon

that of wine. The last duty that has been particularly imposed upon wine, that of 1780, is allowed to be

wholly drawn back, an indulgence which, when so many heavy duties are retained, most probably could

never occasion the exportation of a single ton of wine. These rules take place with regard to all places of

The 15th Charles II, c. 7, called An Act for the Encouragement of Trade, had given Great Britain the

monopoly of supplying the colonies with all the commodities of the growth or manufacture of Europe; and

consequently with wines. In a country of so extensive a coast as our North American and West Indian

colonies, where our authority was always so very slender, and where the inhabitants were allowed to carry

out, in their own ships, their nonenumerated commodities, at first to all parts of Europe, and afterwards to

all parts of Europe south of Cape Finisterre, it is not very probable that this monopoly could ever be much

respected; and they probably, at all times, found means of bringing back some cargo from the countries to

which they were allowed to carry out one. They seem, however, to have found some difficulty in importing

European wines from the places of their growth, and they could not well import them from Great Britain

where they were loaded with many heavy duties, of which a considerable part was not drawn back upon

exportation. Maderia wine, not being a European commodity, could be imported directly into America and

the West Indies, countries which, in all their nonenumerated commodities, enjoyed a free trade to the island

of Maderia. These circumstances had probably introduced that general taste for Maderia wine, which our

officers found established in all our colonies at the commencement of the war, which began in 1755, and

which they brought back with them to the mother country, where that wine had not been much in fashion

before. Upon the conclusion of that war, in 1763 (by the 4th George III, c. 15, sect. 12), all the duties, except

L3 10s., were allowed to be drawn back upon the exportation to the colonies of all wines, except French

wines, to the commerce and consumption of which national prejudice would allow no sort of encouragement.

The period between the granting of this indulgence and the revolt of our North American colonies was

probably too short to admit of any considerable change in the customs of those countries.

The same act, which, in the drawback upon all wines, except French wines, thus favoured the colonies so

much more than other countries; in those upon the greater part of other commodities favoured them much

less. Upon the exportation of the greater part of commodities to other countries, half the old subsidy was

drawn back. But this law enacted that no part of that duty should be drawn back upon the exportation to the

colonies of any commodities, of the growth or manufacture either of Europe or the East Indies, except wines,

Drawbacks were, perhaps, originally granted for the encouragement of the carrying trade, which, as the

freight of the ships is frequently paid by foreigners in money, was supposed to be peculiarly fitted for

bringing gold and silver into the country. But though the carrying trade certainly deserves no peculiar

encouragement, though the motive of the institution was perhaps abundantly foolish, the institution itself

seems reasonable enough. Such drawbacks cannot force into this trade a greater share of the capital of the

country than what would have gone to it of its own accord had there been no duties upon importation. They

only prevent its being excluded altogether by those duties. The carrying trade, though it deserves no

preference, ought not to be precluded, but to be left free like all other trades. It is a necessary resource for

those capitals which cannot find employment either in the agriculture or in the manufactures of the country,

The revenue of the customs, instead of suffering, profits from such drawbacks by that part of the duty which

is retained. If the whole duties had been retained, the foreign goods upon which they are paid could seldom

have been exported, nor consequently imported, for want of a market. The duties, therefore, of which a part is

These reasons seem sufficiently to justify drawbacks, and would justify them, though the whole duties,

whether upon the produce of domestic industry, or upon foreign goods, were always drawn back upon

exportation. The revenue of excise would in this case, indeed, suffer a little, and that of the customs a good

deal more; but the natural balance of industry, the natural division and distribution of labour, which is always

more or less disturbed by such duties, would be more nearly reestablished by such a regulation.

These reasons, however, will justify drawbacks only upon exporting goods to those countries which are

altogether foreign and independent, not to those in which our merchants and manufacturers enjoy a

monopoly. A drawback, for example, upon the exportation of European goods to our American colonies will

not always occasion a greater exportation than what would have taken place without it. By means of the

monopoly which our merchants and manufacturers enjoy there, the same quantity might frequently, perhaps,

be sent thither, though the whole duties were retained. The drawback, therefore, may frequently be pure loss

to the revenue of excise and customs, without altering the state of the trade, or rendering it in any respect

more extensive. How far such drawbacks can be justified, as a proper encouragement to the industry of our

colonies, or how far it is advantageous to the mother country, that they should be exempted from taxes which

are paid by all the rest of their fellow subjects, will appear hereafter when I come to treat the colonies.

Drawbacks, however, it must always be understood, are useful only in those cases in which the goods for the

exportation of which they are given are really exported to some foreign country; and not clandestinely

reimported into our own. That some drawbacks, particularly those upon tobacco, have frequently been

abused in this manner, and have given occasion to many frauds equally hurtful both to the revenue and to the

BOUNTIES upon exportation are, in Great Britain, frequently petitioned for, and sometimes granted to the

produce of particular branches of domestic industry. By means of them our merchants and manufacturers, it

is pretended, will be enabled to sell their goods as cheap, or cheaper than their rivals in the foreign market. A

greater quantity, it is said, will thus be exported, and the balance of trade consequently turned more in favour

of our own country. We cannot give our workmen a monopoly in the foreign as we have done in the home

market. We cannot force foreigners to buy their goods as we have done our own countrymen. The next best

expedient, it has been thought, therefore, is to pay them for buying. It is in this manner that the mercantile

system proposes to enrich the whole country, and to put money into all our pockets by means of the balance

Bounties, it is allowed, ought to be given to those branches of trade only which cannot be carried on without

them. But every branch of trade in which the merchant can sell his goods for a price which replaces to him,

with the ordinary profits of stock, the whole capital employed in preparing and sending them to market, can

be carried on without a bounty. Every such branch is evidently upon a level with all the other branches of

trade which are carried on without bounties, and cannot therefore require one more than they. Those trades

only require bounties in which the merchant is obliged to sell his goods for a price which does not replace to

him his capital, together with the ordinary profit; or in which he is obliged to sell them for less than it really

costs him to send them to market. The bounty is given in order to make up this loss, and to encourage him to

continue, or perhaps to begin, a trade of which the expense is supposed to be greater than the returns, of

which every operation eats up a part of the capital employed in it, and which is of such a nature that, if all

The trades, it is to be observed, which are carried on by means of bounties, are the only ones which can be

carried on between two nations for any considerable time together, in such a manner as that one of them shall

always and regularly lose, or sell its goods for less than it really costs to send them to market. But if the

bounty did not repay to the merchant what he would otherwise lose upon the price of his goods, his own

interest would soon oblige him to employ his stock in another way, or to find out a trade in which the price of

the goods would replace to him, with the ordinary profit, the capital employment in sending them to market.

The effect of bounties, like that of all the other expedients of the mercantile system, can only be to force the

trade of a country into a channel much less advantageous than that in which it would naturally run of its own

The ingenious and wellinformed author of the tracts upon the corn trade has shown very clearly that, since

the bounty upon the exportation of corn was first established, the price of the corn exported, valued

moderately enough, has exceeded that of the corn imported, valued very high, by a much greater sum than the

amount of the whole bounties which have been paid during that period. This, he imagines, upon the true

principles of the mercantile system, is a clear proof that this forced corn trade is beneficial to the nation; the

value of the exportation exceeding that of the importation by a much greater sum than the whole

extraordinary expense which the public has been at in order to get it exported. He does not consider that this

extraordinary expense, or the bounty, is the smallest part of the expense which the exportation of corn really

costs the society. The capital which the farmer employed in raising it must likewise be taken into the account.

Unless the price of the corn when sold in the foreign markets replaces, not only the bounty, but this capital,

together with the ordinary profits of stock, the society is a loser by the difference, or the national stock is so

much diminished. But the very reason for which it has been thought necessary to grant a bounty is the

The average price of corn, it has been said, has fallen considerably since the establishment of the bounty.

That the average price of corn began to fall somewhat towards the end of the last century, and has continued

to do so during the course of the sixtyfour first years of the present, I have already endeavoured to show.

But this event, supposing it to be as real as I believe it to be, must have happened in spite of the bounty, and

cannot possibly have happened in consequence of it. It has happened in France, as well as in England, though

in France there was not only no bounty, but, till 1764, the exportation of corn was subjected to a general

prohibition. This gradual fall in the average price of grain, it is probable, therefore, is ultimately owing

neither to the one regulation nor to the other. but to that gradual and insensible rise in the real value of silver,

which, in the first book in this discourse, I have endeavoured to show has taken place in the general market of

Europe during the course of the present century. It seems to be altogether impossible that the bounty could

In years of plenty, it has already been observed, the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary exportation,

necessarily keeps up the price of corn in the home market above what it would naturally fall to. To do so was

the avowed purpose of the institution. In years of scarcity, though the bounty is frequently suspended, yet the

great exportation which it occasions in years of plenty must frequently hinder more or less the plenty of one

year from relieving the scarcity of another. Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the

bounty necessarily tends to raise the money price of corn somewhat higher than it otherwise would be in the

That, in the actual state of tillage, the bounty must necessarily have this tendency will not, I apprehend, be

disputed by any reasonable person. But it has been thought by many people that it tends to encourage tillage,

and that in two different ways; first, by opening a more extensive foreign market to the corn of the farmer, it

tends, they imagine, to increase the demand for, and consequently the production of that commodity; and

secondly, by securing to him a better price than he could otherwise expect in the actual state of tillage, it

tends, they suppose, to encourage tillage. This double encouragement must, they imagine, in a long period of

years, occasion such an increase in the production of corn as may lower its price in the home market much

more than the bounty can raise it, in the actual state which tillage may, at the end of that period, happen to be

I answer, that whatever extension of the foreign market can be occasioned by the bounty must, in every

particular year, be altogether at the expense of the home market; as every bushel of corn which is exported by

means of the bounty, and which would not have been exported without the bounty, would have remained in

the home market to increase the consumption and to lower the price of that commodity. The corn bounty, it is

to be observed, as well as every other bounty upon exportation, imposes two different taxes upon the people;

first, the tax which they are obliged to contribute in order to pay the bounty; and secondly, the tax which

arises from the advanced price of the commodity in the home market, and which, as the whole body of the

people are purchasers of corn, must, in this particular commodity, be paid by the whole body of the people. In

this particular commodity, therefore, this second tax is by much the heavier of the two. Let us suppose that,

taking one year with another, the bounty of five shillings upon the exportation of the quarter of wheat raises

the price of that commodity in the home market only sixpence the bushel, or four shillings the quarter, higher

than it otherwise would have been in the actual state of the crop. Even upon this very moderate supposition,

the great body of the people, over and above contributing the tax which pays the bounty of five shillings upon

every quarter of wheat exported, must pay another of four shillings upon every quarter which they themselves

consume. But, according to the very well informed author of the tracts upon the corn trade, the average

proportion of the corn exported to that consumed at home is not more than that of one to thirtyone. For

every five shillings, therefore, which they contribute to the payment of the first tax, they must contribute six

pounds four shillings to the payment of the second. So very heavy a tax upon the first necessary of life must

either reduce the subsistence of the labouring poor, or it must occasion some augmentation in their pecuniary

wages proportionable to that in the pecuniary price of their subsistence. So far as it operates in the one way, it

must reduce the ability of the labouring poor to educate and bring up their children, and must, so far, tend to

restrain the population of the country. So far as it operates in the other, it must reduce the ability of the

employers of the poor to employ so great a number as they otherwise might do, and must, so far, tend to

restrain the industry of the country. The extraordinary exportation of corn, therefore, occasioned by the

bounty, not only, in every particular year, diminishes the home, just as much as it extends the foreign, market

and consumption, but, by restraining the population and industry of the country, its final tendency is to stunt

and restrain the gradual extension of the home market; and thereby, in the long run, rather to diminish, than to

This enhancement of the money price of corn, however, it has been thought, by rendering that commodity

I answer, that this might be the case if the effect of the bounty was to raise the real price of corn, or to enable

the farmer, with an equal quantity of it, to maintain a greater number of labourers in the same manner,

whether liberal, moderate, or scanty, that other labourers are commonly maintained in his neighbourhood.

But neither the bounty, it is evident, nor any other human institution can have any such effect. It is not the

real, but the nominal price of corn, which can in any considerable degree be affected by the bounty. And

though the tax which that institution imposes upon the whole body of the people may be very burdensome to

The real effect of the bounty is not so much to raise the real value of corn as to degrade the real value of

silver, or to make an equal quantity of it exchange for a smaller quantity, not only of corn, but of all other

homemade commodities: for the money price of corn regulates that of all other homemade commodities.

It regulates the money price of labour, which must always be such as to enable the labourer to purchase a

quantity of corn sufficient to maintain him and his family either in the liberal, moderate, or scanty manner in

which the advancing, stationary, or declining circumstances of the society oblige his employers to maintain

It regulates the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, which, in every period of

improvement, must bear a certain proportion to that of corn, though this proportion is different in different

periods. It regulates, for example, the money price of grass and hay, of butcher's meat, of horses, and the

maintenance of horses, of land carriage consequently, or of the greater part of the inland commerce of the

By regulating the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, it regulates that of the

materials of almost all manufactures. By regulating the money price of labour, it regulates that of

manufacturing art and industry. And by regulating both, it regulates that of the complete manufacture. The

money price of labour, and of everything that is the produce either of land or labour, must necessarily either

Though in consequence of the bounty, therefore, the farmer should be enabled to sell his corn for four

shillings a bushel instead of threeandsixpence, and to pay his landlord a money rent proportionable to this

rise in the money price of his produce, yet if, in consequence of this rise in the price of corn, four shillings

will purchase no more homemade goods of any other kind than threeandsixpence would have done before,

neither the circumstances of the farmer nor those of the landlord will be much mended by this change. The

farmer will not be able to cultivate much better: the landlord will not be able to live much better. In the

purchase of foreign commodities this enhancement in the price of corn may give them some little advantage.

In that of homemade commodities it can give them none at all. And almost the whole expense of the farmer,

and the far greater part even of that of the landlord, is in homemade commodities.

That degradation in the value of silver which is the effect of the fertility of the mines, and which operates

equally, or very near equally, through the greater part of the commercial world, is a matter of very little

consequence to any particular country. The consequent rise of all money prices, though it does not make

those who receive them really richer, does make them really poorer. A service of plate becomes really

cheaper, and everything else remains precisely of the same real value as before.

But that degradation in the value of silver which, being the effect either of the peculiar situation or of the

political institutions of a particular country, takes place only in that country, is a matter of very great

consequence, which, far from tending to make anybody really richer, tends to make everybody really poorer.

The rise in the money price of all commodities, which is in this case peculiar to that country, tends to

discourage more or less every sort of industry which is carried on within it, and to enable foreign nations, by

furnishing almost all sorts of goods for a smaller quantity of silver than its own workmen can afford to do, to

It is the peculiar situation of Spain and Portugal as proprietors of the mines to be the distributors of gold and

silver to all the other countries of Europe. Those metals ought naturally, therefore, to be somewhat cheaper in

Spain and Portugal than in any other part of Europe. The difference, however, should be no more than the

amount of the freight and insurance; and, on account of the great value and small bulk of those metals, their

freight is no great matter, and their insurance is the same as that of any other goods of equal value. Spain and

Portugal, therefore, could suffer very little from their peculiar situation, if they did not aggravate its

Spain by taxing, and Portugal by prohibiting the exportation of gold and silver, load that exportation with the

expense of smuggling, and raise the value of those metals in other countries so much more above what it is in

their own by the whole amount of this expense. When you dam up a stream of water, as soon as the dam is

full as much water must run over the damhead as if there was no dam at all. The prohibition of exportation

cannot detain a greater quantity of gold and silver in Spain and Portugal than what they can afford to employ,

than what the annual produce of their land and labour will allow them to employ, in coin, plate, gilding, and

other ornaments of gold and silver. When they have got this quantity the dam is full, and the whole stream

which flows in afterwards must run over. The annual exportation of gold and silver from Spain and Portugal

accordingly is, by all accounts, notwithstanding these restraints, very near equal to the whole annual

importation. As the water, however, must always be deeper behind the damhead than before it, so the

quantity of gold and silver which these restraints detain in Spain and Portugal must, in proportion to the

annual produce of their land and labour, be greater than what is to be found in other countries. The higher and

stronger the damhead, the greater must be the difference in the depth of water behind and before it. The

higher the tax, the higher the penalties with which the prohibition is guarded, the more vigilant and severe the

police which looks after the execution of the law, the greater must be the difference in the proportion of gold

and silver to the annual produce of the land and labour of Spain and Portugal, and to that of other countries. It

is said accordingly to be very considerable, and that you frequently find there a profusion of plate in houses

where there is nothing else which would, in other countries, be thought suitable or correspondent to this sort

of magnificence. The cheapness of gold and silver, or what is the same thing, the dearness of all

commodities, which is the necessary effect of this redundancy of the precious metals, discourages both the

agriculture and manufactures of Spain and Portugal, and enables foreign nations to supply them with many

sorts of rude, and with almost all sorts of manufactured produce, for a smaller quantity of gold and silver than

what they themselves can either raise or make them for at home. The tax and prohibition operate in two

different ways. They not only lower very much the value of the precious metals in Spain and Portugal, but by

detaining there a certain quantity of those metals which would otherwise flow over other countries, they keep

up their value in those other countries somewhat above what it otherwise would be, and thereby give those

countries a double advantage in their commerce with Spain and Portugal. Open the floodgates, and there

will presently be less water above, and more below, the damhead, and it will soon come to a level in both

places. Remove the tax and the prohibition, and as the quantity of gold and silver will diminish considerably

in Spain and Portugal, so it will increase somewhat in other countries, and the value of those metals, their

proportion to the annual produce of land and labour, will soon come to a level, or very near to a level, in all.

The loss which Spain and Portugal could sustain by this exportation of their gold and silver would be

altogether nominal and imaginary. The nominal value of their goods, and of the annual produce of their land

and labour, would fall, and would be expressed or represented by a smaller quantity of silver than before; but

their real value would be the same as before, and would be sufficient to maintain, command, and employ, the

same quantity of labour. As the nominal value of their goods would fall, the real value of what remained of

their gold and silver would rise, and a smaller quantity of those metals would answer all the same purposes of

commerce and circulation which had employed a greater quantity before. The gold and silver which would go

abroad would not go abroad for nothing, but would bring back an equal value of goods of some kind or

another. Those goods, too, would not be all matters of mere luxury and expense, to be consumed by idle

people who produce nothing in return for their consumption. As the real wealth and revenue of idle people

would not be augmented by this extraordinary exportation of gold and silver, so neither would their

consumption be much augmented by it. Those goods would, probably, the greater part of them, and certainly

some part of them, consist in materials, tools, and provisions, for the employment and maintenance of

industrious people, who would reproduce, with a profit, the full value of their consumption. A part of the

dead stock of the society would thus be turned into active stock, and would put into motion a greater quantity

of industry than had been employed before. The annual produce of their land and labour would immediately

be augmented a little, and in a few years would, probably, be augmented a great deal; their industry being

thus relieved from one of the most oppressive burdens which it at present labours under.

The bounty upon the exportation of corn necessarily operates exactly in the same way as this absurd policy of

Spain and Portugal. Whatever be the actual state of tillage, it renders our corn somewhat dearer in the home

market than it otherwise would be in that state, and somewhat cheaper in the foreign; and as the average

money price of corn regulates more or less that of all other commodities, it lowers the value of silver

considerably in the one, and tends to raise it a little in the other. It enables foreigners, the Dutch in particular,

not only to eat our corn cheaper than they otherwise could do, but sometimes to eat it cheaper than even our

own people can do upon the same occasions, as we are assured by an excellent authority, that of Sir Matthew

Decker. It hinders our own workmen from furnishing their goods for so small a quantity of silver as they

otherwise might do; and enables the Dutch to furnish theirs for a smaller. It tends to render our manufactures

somewhat dearer in every market, and theirs somewhat cheaper than they otherwise would be, and

The bounty, as it raises in the home market not so much the real as the nominal price of our corn, as it

augments, not the quantity of labour which a certain quantity of corn can maintain and employ but only the

quantity of silver which it will exchange for, it discourages our manufactures, without rendering any

considerable service either to our farmers or country gentlemen. It puts, indeed, a little more money into the

pockets of both, and it will perhaps be somewhat difficult to persuade the greater part of them that this is not

rendering them a very considerable service. But if this money sinks in its value, in the quantity of labour,

provisions, and homemade commodities of all different kinds which it is capable of purchasing as much as it

rises in its quantity, the service will be little more than nominal and imaginary.

There is, perhaps, but one set of men in the whole commonwealth to whom the bounty either was or could be

essentially serviceable. These were the corn merchants, the exporters and importers of corn. In years of plenty

the bounty necessarily occasioned a greater exportation than would otherwise have taken place; and by

hindering the plenty of one year from relieving the scarcity of another, it occasioned in years of scarcity a

greater importation than would otherwise have been necessary. It increased the business of the corn merchant

in both; and in years of scarcity, it not only enabled him to import a greater quantity, but to sell it for a better

price, and consequently with a greater profit than he could otherwise have made, if the plenty of one year had

not been more or less hindered from relieving the scarcity of another. It is in this set of men, accordingly, that

Our country gentlemen, when they imposed the high duties upon the importation of foreign corn, which in

times of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, and when they established the bounty, seem to have

imitated the conduct of our manufacturers. By the one institution, they secured to themselves the monopoly

of the home market, and by the other they endeavoured to prevent that market from ever being overstocked

with their commodity. By both they endeavoured to raise its real value, in the same manner as our

manufacturers had, by the like institutions, raised the real value of many different sorts of manufactured

goods. They did not perhaps attend to the great and essential difference which nature has established between

corn and almost every other sort of goods. When, either by the monopoly of the home market, or by a bounty

upon exportation, you enable our woollen or linen manufacturers to sell their goods for somewhat a better

price than they otherwise could get for them, you raise, not only the nominal, but the real price of those

goods. You render them equivalent to a greater quantity of labour and subsistence, you increase not only the

nominal, but the real profit, the real wealth and revenue of those manufacturers, and you enable them either to

live better themselves, or to employ a greater quantity of labour in those particular manufactures. You really

encourage those manufactures, and direct towards them a greater quantity of the industry of the country than

what would probably go to them of its own accord. But when by the like institutions you raise the nominal or

moneyprice of corn, you do not raise its real value. You do not increase the real wealth, the real revenue

either of our farmers or country gentlemen. You do not encourage the growth of corn because you do not

enable them to maintain and employ more labourers in raising it. The nature of things has stamped upon corn

a real value which cannot be altered by merely altering its money price. No bounty upon exportation, no

monopoly of the home market, can raise that value. The freest competition cannot lower it. Through the

world in general that value is equal to the quantity of labour which it can maintain, and in every particular

place it is equal to the quantity of labour which it can maintain in the way, whether liberal, moderate, or

scanty, in which labour is commonly maintained in that place. Woollen or linen cloth are not the regulating

commodities by which the real value of all other commodities must be finally measured and determined; corn

is. The real value of every other commodity is finally measured and determined by the proportion which its

average money price bears to the average money price of corn. The real value of corn does not vary with

those variations in its average money price, which sometimes occur from one century to another. It is the real

Bounties upon the exportation of any homemade commodity are liable, first to that general objection which

may be made to all the different expedients of the mercantile system; the objection of forcing some part of the

industry of the country into a channel less advantageous than that in which it would run of its own accord:

and, secondly, to the particular objection of forcing it, not only into a channel that is less advantageous, but

into one that is actually disadvantageous; the trade which cannot be carried on but by means of a bounty

being necessarily a losing trade. The bounty upon the exportation of corn is liable to this further objection,

that it can in no respect promote the raising of that particular commodity of which it was meant to encourage

the production. When our country gentlemen, therefore, demanded the establishment of the bounty, though

they acted in imitation of our merchants and manufacturers, they did not act with that complete

comprehension of their own interest which commonly directs the conduct of those two other orders of people.

They loaded the public revenue with a very considerable expense; they imposed a very heavy tax upon the

whole body of the people; but they did not, in any sensible degree, increase the real value of their own

commodity; and by lowering somewhat the real value of silver, they discouraged in some degree, the general

industry of the country, and, instead of advancing, retarded more or less the improvement of their own lands,

To encourage the production of any commodity, a bounty upon production, one should imagine, would have

a more direct operation than one upon exportation. It would, besides, impose only one tax upon the people,

that which they must contribute in order to pay the bounty. Instead of raising, it would tend to lower the price

of the commodity in the home market; and thereby, instead of imposing a second tax upon the people, it

might, at least, in part, repay them for what they had contributed to the first. Bounties upon production,

however, have been very rarely granted. The prejudices established by the commercial system have taught us

to believe that national wealth arises more immediately from exportation than from production. It has been

more favoured accordingly, as the more immediate means of bringing money into the country. Bounties upon

production, it has been said too, have been found by experience more liable to frauds than those upon

exportation. How far this is true, I know not. That bounties upon exportation have been abused to many

fraudulent purposes is very well known. But it is not the interest of merchants and manufacturers, the great

inventors of all these expedients, that the home market should be overstocked with their goods, an event

which a bounty upon production might sometimes occasion. A bounty upon exportation, by enabling them to

send abroad the surplus part, and to keep up the price of what remains in the home market, effectually

prevents this. Of all the expedients of the mercantile system, accordingly, it is the one of which they are the

fondest. I have known the different undertakers of some particular works agree privately among themselves

to give a bounty out of their own pockets upon the exportation of a certain proportion of the goods which

they dealt in. This expedient succeeded so well that it more than doubled the price of their goods in the home

market, notwithstanding a very considerable increase in the produce. The operation of the bounty upon corn

must have been wonderfully different if it has lowered the money price of that commodity.

Something like a bounty upon production, however, has been granted upon some particular occasions. The

tonnage bounties given to the whiteherring and whale fisheries may, perhaps, be considered as somewhat of

this nature. They tend directly, it may be supposed, to render the goods cheaper in the home market than they

otherwise would be. In other respects their effects, it must be acknowledged, are the same as those of

bounties upon exportation. By means of them a part of the capital of the country is employed in bringing

goods to market, of which the price does not repay the cost together with the ordinary profits of stock.

But though the tonnage bounties of those fisheries do not contribute to the opulence of the nation, it may

perhaps be thought that they contribute to its defence by augmenting the number of its sailors and shipping.

This, it may be alleged, may sometimes be done by means of such bounties at a much smaller expense than

by keeping up a great standing navy, if I may use such an expression, in the same way as a standing army.

Notwithstanding these favourable allegations, however, the following considerations dispose me to believe

that, in granting at least one of these bounties, the legislature has been very grossly imposed upon.

From the commencement of the winter fishing, 1771, to the end of the winter fishing, 1781, the tonnage

bounty upon the herring buss fishery has been at thirty shillings the ton. During these eleven years the whole

number of barrels caught by the herring buss fishery of Scotland amounted to 378,347. The herrings caught

and cured at sea are called seasticks. In order to render them what are called merchantable herrings, it is

necessary to repack them with an additional quantity of salt; and in this case, it is reckoned that three barrels

of seasticks are usually repacked into two barrels of merchantable herrings. The number of barrels of

merchantable herrings, therefore, caught during these eleven years will amount only, according to this

account, to 252,231 1/3. During these eleven years the tonnage bounties paid amounted to L155,463 11s. or

to 8s. 2 1/4d. upon every barrel of seasticks, and to 12s. 3 3/4d. upon every barrel of merchantable herrings.

The salt with which these herrings are cured is sometimes Scotch and sometimes foreign salt, both which are

delivered free of all excise duty to the fishcurers. The excise duty upon Scotch salt is at present 1s. 6d., that

upon foreign salt 10s. the bushel. A barrel of herrings is supposed to require about one bushel and onefourth

of a bushel foreign salt. Two bushels are the supposed average of Scotch salt. If the herrings are entered for

exportation, no part of this duty is paid up; if entered for home consumption, whether the herrings were cured

with foreign or with Scotch salt, only one shilling the barrel is paid up. It was the old Scotch duty upon a

bushel of salt, the quantity which, at a low estimation, had been supposed necessary for curing a barrel of

herrings. In Scotland, foreign salt is very little used for any other purpose but the curing of fish. But from the

5th April 1771 to the 5th April 1782, the quantity of foreign salt imported amounted to 936,974 bushels, at

eightyfour pounds the bushel: the quantity of Scotch salt, delivered from the works to the fishcurers, to no

more than 168,226, at fiftysix pounds the bushel only. It would appear, therefore, that it is principally

foreign salt that is used in the fisheries. Upon every barrel of herrings exported there is, besides, a bounty of

2s. 8d., and more than twothirds of the buss caught herrings are exported. Put all these things together and

you will find that, during these eleven years, every barrel of buss caught herrings, cured with Scotch salt

when exported, has cost government L1 7s. 5 3/4d.; and when entered for home consumption 14s. 3 3/4d.;

and that every barrel cured with foreign salt, when exported, has cost government L1 7s. 5 3/4d.; and when

entered for home consumption L1. 3s. 9 3/4d. The price of a barrel of good merchantable herrings runs from

seventeen and eighteen to four and five and twenty shillings, about a guinea at an average.

Secondly, the bounty to the whiteherring fishery is a tonnage bounty; and is proportioned to the burden of

the ship, not to her diligence or success in the fishery; and it has, I am afraid, been too common for vessels to

fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not the fish, but the bounty. In the year 1759, when the bounty was at

fifty shillings the ton, the whole buss fishery of Scotland brought in only four barrels of seasticks. In that

year each barrel of seasticks cost government in bounties alone L113 15s.; each barrel of merchantable

Thirdly, the mode of fishing for which this tonnage bounty in the whiteherring fishery has been given (by

busses or decked vessels from twenty to eighty tons burthen), seems not so well adapted to the situation of

Scotland as to that of Holland, from the practice of which country it appears to have been borrowed. Holland

lies at a great distance from the seas to which herrings are known principally to resort, and can, therefore,

carry on that fishery only in decked vessels, which can carry water and provisions sufficient for a voyage to a

distant sea. But the Hebrides or western islands, the islands of Shetland, and the northern and northwestern

coasts of Scotland, the countries in whose neighbourhood the herring fishery is principally carried on, are

everywhere intersected by arms of the sea, which run up a considerable way into the land, and which, in the

language of the country, are called sealochs. It is to these sealochs that the herrings principally resort

during the seasons in which they visit those seas; for the visits of this and, I am assured, of many other sorts

of fish are not quite regular and constant. A boat fishery, therefore, seems to be the mode of fishing best

adapted to the peculiar situation of Scotland, the fishers carrying the herrings on shore, as fast as they are

taken, to be either cured or consumed fresh. But the great encouragement which a bounty of thirty shillings

the ton gives to the buss fishery is necessarily a discouragement to the boat fishery, which, having no such

bounty, cannot bring its cured fish to market upon the same terms as the buss fishery. The boat fishery,

accordingly, which before the establishment of the buss bounty was very considerable, and is said have

employed a number of seamen not inferior to what the buss fishery employs at present, is now gone almost

entirely to decay. Of the former extent, however, of this now ruined and abandoned fishery, I must

acknowledge that I cannot pretend to speak with much precision. As no bounty was paid upon the outfit of

the boat fishery, no account was taken of it by the officers of the customs or salt duties.

Fourthly, in many parts of Scotland, during certain seasons of the year, herrings make no inconsiderable part

of the food of the people. A bounty, which tended to lower their price in the home market, might contribute a

good deal to the relief of a great number of our fellowsubjects, whose circumstances are by no means

affluent. But the herring buss bounty contributes to no such good purpose. It has ruined the boat fishery,

which is, by far, the best adapted for the supply of the home market, and the additional bounty of 2s. 8d. the

barrel upon exportation carries the greater part, more than twothirds, of the produce of the buss fishery

abroad. Between thirty and forty years ago, before the establishment of the buss bounty, fifteen shillings the

barrel, I have been assured, was the common price of white herrings. Between ten and fifteen years ago,

before the boat fishery was entirely ruined, the price is said to have run from seventeen to twenty shillings the

barrel. For these last five years, it has, at an average, been at twentyfive shillings the barrel. This high price,

however, may have been owing to the real scarcity of the herrings upon the coast of Scotland. I must observe,

too, that the cask or barrel, which is usually sold with the herrings, and of which the price is included in all

the foregoing prices, has, since the commencement of the American war, risen to about double its former

price, or from about three shillings to about six shillings. I must likewise observe that the accounts I have

received of the prices of former times have been by no means quite uniform and consistent; and an old man

of great accuracy and experience has assured me that, more than fifty years ago, a guinea was the usual price

of a barrel of good merchantable herrings; and this, I imagine, may still be looked upon as the average price.

All accounts, however, I think, agree that the price has not been lowered in the home market in consequence

When the undertakers of fisheries, after such liberal bounties have been bestowed upon them, continue to sell

their commodity at the same, or even at a higher price than they were accustomed to do before, it might be

expected that their profits should be very great; and it is not improbable that those of some individuals may

have been so. In general, however, I have every reason to believe they have been quite otherwise. The usual

effect of such bounties is to encourage rash undertakers to adventure in a business which they do not

understand, and what they lose by their own negligence and ignorance more than compensates all that they

can gain by the utmost liberality of government. In 1750, by the same act, which first gave the bounty of

thirty shillings the ton for the encouragement of the whiteherring fishery (the 23rd George II, c. 24), a

jointstock company was erected, with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds, to which the subscribers

(over and above all other encouragements, the tonnage bounty just now mentioned, the exportation bounty of

two shillings and eightpence the barrel, the delivery of both British and foreign salt duty free) were, during

the space of fourteen years, for every hundred pounds which they subscribed and paid in to the stock of the

society, entitled to three pounds a year, to be paid by the receivergeneral of the customs in equal halfyearly

payments. Besides this great company, the residence of whose governor and directors was to be in London, it

was declared lawful to erect different fishingchambers in all the different outports of the kingdom, provided

a sum not less than ten thousand pounds was subscribed into the capital of each, to be managed at its own

risk, and for its own profit and loss. The same annuity, and the same encouragements of all kinds, were given

to the trade of those inferior chambers as to that of the great company. The subscription of the great company

was soon filled up, and several different fishingchambers were erected in the different outports of the

kingdom. In spite of all these encouragements, almost all those different companies, both great and small, lost

either the whole, or the greater part of their capitals; scarce a vestige now remains of any of them, and the

whiteherring fishery is now entirely, or almost entirely, carried on by private adventurers.

If any particular manufacture was necessary, indeed, for the defence of the society, it might not always be

prudent to depend upon our neighbours for the supply; and if such manufacture could not otherwise be

supported at home, it might not be unreasonable that all the other branches of industry should be taxed in

order to support it. The bounties upon the exportation of Britishmade sailcloth and Britishmade gunpowder

But though it can very seldom be reasonable to tax the industry of the great body of the people in order to

support that of some particular class of manufacturers, yet in the wantonness of great prosperity, when the

public enjoys a greater revenue than it knows well what to do with, to give such bounties to favourite

manufactures may, perhaps, be as natural as to incur any other idle expense. In public as well as in private

expenses, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly. But there must

surely be something more than ordinary absurdity in continuing such profusion in times of general difficulty

What is called a bounty is sometimes no more than a drawback, and consequently is not liable to the same

objections as what is properly a bounty. The bounty, for example, upon refined sugar exported may be

considered as a drawback of the duties upon the brown and muscovado sugars from which it is made. The

bounty upon wrought silk exported, a drawback of the duties upon raw and thrown silk imported. The bounty

upon gunpowder exported, a drawback of the duties upon brimstone and saltpetre imported. In the language

of the customs those allowances only are called drawbacks which are given upon goods exported in the same

form in which they are imported. When that form has been so altered by manufacture of any kind as to come

Premiums given by the public to artists and manufacturers who excel in their particular occupations are not

liable to the same objections as bounties. By encouraging extraordinary dexterity and ingenuity, they serve to

keep up the emulation of the workmen actually employed in those respective occupations, and are not

considerable enough to turn towards any one of them a greater share of the capital of the country than what

would go to it of its own accord. Their tendency is not to overturn the natural balance of employments, but to

render the work which is done in each as perfect and complete as possible. The expense of premiums,

besides, is very trifling; that of bounties very great. The bounty upon corn alone has sometimes cost the

I cannot conclude this chapter concerning bounties without observing that the praises which have been

bestowed upon the law which establishes the bounty upon the exportation of corn, and upon that system of

regulations which is connected with it, are altogether unmerited. A particular examination of the nature of the

corn trade, and of the principal British laws which relate to it. will sufficiently demonstrate the truth of this

assertion. The great importance of this subject must justify the length of the digression.

The trade of the corn merchant is composed of four different branches, which, though they may sometimes be

all carried on by the same person, are in their own nature four separate and distinct trades. These are, first, the

trade of the inland dealer; secondly, that of the merchant importer for home consumption; thirdly, that of the

merchant exporter of home produce for foreign consumption; and, fourthly, that of the merchant carrier, or of

I. The interest of the inland dealer, and that of the great body of the people, how opposite soever they may at

first sight appear, are, even in years of the greatest scarcity, exactly the same. It is his interest to raise the

price of his corn as high as the real scarcity of the season requires, and it can never be his interest to raise it

higher. By raising the price he discourages the consumption, and puts everybody more or less, but

particularly the inferior ranks of people, upon thrift and good management. If, by raising it too high, he

discourages the consumption so much that the supply of the season is likely to go beyond the consumption of

the season, and to last for some time after the next crop begins to come in, he runs the hazard, not only of

losing a considerable part of his corn by natural causes, but of being obliged to sell what remains of it for

much less than what he might have had for it several months before. If by not raising the price high enough

he discourages the consumption so little that the supply of the season is likely to fall short of the consumption

of the season, he not only loses a part of the profit which he might otherwise have made, but he exposes the

people to suffer before the end of the season, instead of the hardships of a dearth, the dreadful horrors of a

famine. It is the interest of the people that their daily, weekly, and monthly consumption should be

proportioned as exactly as possible to the supply of the season. The interest of the inland corn dealer is the

same. By supplying them, as nearly as he can judge, in this proportion, he is likely to sell all his corn for the

highest price, and with the greatest profit; and his knowledge of the state of the crop, and of his daily, weekly,

and monthly sales, enable him to judge, with more or less accuracy, how far they really are supplied in this

manner. Without intending the interest of the people, he is necessarily led, by a regard to his own interest, to

treat them, even in years of scarcity, pretty much in the same manner as the prudent master of a vessel is

sometimes obliged to treat his crew. When he foresees that provisions are likely to run short, he puts them

upon short allowance. Though from excess of caution he should sometimes do this without any real necessity,

yet all the inconveniences which his crew can thereby suffer are inconsiderable in comparison of the danger,

misery, and ruin to which they might sometimes be exposed by a less provident conduct. Though from excess

of avarice, in the same manner, the inland corn merchant should sometimes raise the price of his corn

somewhat higher than the scarcity of the season requires, yet all the inconveniences which the people can

suffer from this conduct, which effectually secures them from a famine in the end of the season, are

inconsiderable in comparison of what they might have been exposed to by a more liberal way of dealing in

the beginning of it. The corn merchant himself is likely to suffer the most by this excess of avarice; not only

from the indignation which it generally excites against him, but, though he should escape the effects of this

indignation, from the quantity of corn which it necessarily leaves upon his hands in the end of the season, and

which, if the next season happens to prove favourable, he must always sell for a much lower price than he

Were it possible, indeed, for one great company of merchants to possess themselves of the whole crop of an

extensive country, it might, perhaps, be their interest to deal with it as the Dutch are said to do with the

spiceries of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw away a considerable part of it in order to keep up the price of

the rest. But it is scarce possible, even by the violence of law, to establish such an extensive monopoly with

regard to corn; and, wherever the law leaves the trade free, it is of all commodities the least liable to be

engrossed or monopolized by the force of a few large capitals, which buy up the greater part of it. Not only its

value far exceeds what the capitals of a few private men are capable of purchasing, but, supposing they were

capable of purchasing it, the manner in which it is produced renders this purchase practicable. As in every

civilised country it is the commodity of which the annual consumption is the greatest, so a greater quantity of

industry is annually employed in producing corn than in producing any other commodity. When it first comes

from the ground, too, it is necessarily divided among a greater number of owners than any other commodity;

and these owners can never be collected into one place like a number of independent manufacturers, but are

necessarily scattered through all the different corners of the country. These first owners either immediately

supply the consumers in their own neighbourhood, or they supply other inland dealers who supply those

consumers. The inland dealers in corn, therefore, including both the farmer and the baker, are necessarily

more numerous than the dealers in any other commodity, and their dispersed situation renders it altogether

impossible for them to enter into any general combination. If in a year of scarcity, therefore, any of them

should find that he had a good deal more corn upon hand than, at the current price, he could hope to dispose

of before the end of the season, he would never think of keeping up this price to his own loss, and to the sole

benefit of his rivals and competitors, but would immediately lower it, in order to get rid of his corn before the

new crop began to come in. The same motives, the same interests, which would thus regulate the conduct of

any one dealer, would regulate that of every other, and oblige them all in general to sell their corn at the price

which, according to the best of their judgment, was most suitable to the scarcity or plenty of the season.

Whoever examines with attention the history of the dearths and famines which have afflicted any part of

Europe, during either the course of the present or that of the two preceding centuries, of several of which we

have pretty exact accounts, will find, I believe, that a dearth never has arisen from any combination among

the inland dealers in corn, nor from any other cause but a real scarcity, occasioned sometimes perhaps, and in

some particular places, by the waste of war, but in by far the greatest number of cases by the fault of the

seasons; and that a famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting,

In an extensive corn country, between all the different parts of which there is a free commerce and

communication, the scarcity occasioned by the most unfavourable seasons can never be so great as to produce

a famine; and the scantiest crop, if managed with frugality and economy, will maintain through the year the

same number of people that are commonly fed on a more affluent manner by one of moderate plenty. The

seasons most unfavourable to the crop are those of excessive drought or excessive rain. But as corn grows

equally upon high and low lands, upon grounds that are disposed to be too wet, and upon those that are

disposed to be too dry, either the drought or the rain which is hurtful to one part of the country is favourable

to another; and though both in the wet and in the dry season the crop is a good deal less than in one more

properly tempered, yet in both what is lost in one part of the country is in some measure compensated by

what is gained in the other. In rice countries, where the crop not only requires a very moist soil, but where in

a certain period of its growing it must be laid under water, the effects of a drought are much more dismal.

Even in such countries, however, the drought is, perhaps, scarce ever so universal as necessarily to occasion a

famine, if the government would allow a free trade. The drought in Bengal, a few years ago, might probably

have occasioned a very great dearth. Some improper regulations, some injudicious restraints imposed by the

servants of the East India Company upon the rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that dearth into a

When the government, in order to remedy the inconveniences of a dearth, orders all the dealers to sell their

corn at what it supposes a reasonable price, it either hinders them from bringing it to market, which may

sometimes produce a famine even in the beginning of the season; or if they bring it thither, it enables the

people, and thereby encourages them to consume it so fast as must necessarily produce a famine before the

end of the season. The unlimited, unrestrained freedom of the corn trade, as it is the only effectual

preventative of the miseries of a famine, so it is the best palliative of the inconveniences of a dearth; for the

inconveniences of a real scarcity cannot be remedied, they can only be palliated. No trade deserves more the

full protection of the law, and no trade requires it so much, because no trade is so much exposed to popular

In years of scarcity the inferior ranks of people impute their distress to the avarice of the corn merchant, who

becomes the object of their hatred and indignation. Instead of making profit upon such occasions, therefore,

he is often in danger of being utterly ruined, and of having his magazines plundered and destroyed by their

violence. It is in years of scarcity, however, when prices are high, that the corn merchant expects to make his

principal profit. He is generally in contract with some farmers to furnish him for a certain number of years

with a certain quantity of corn at a certain price. This contract price is settled according to what is supposed

to be the moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average price, which before the late years of

scarcity was commonly about eightandtwenty shillings for the quarter of wheat, and for that of other grain

in proportion. In years of scarcity, therefore, the corn merchant buys a great part of his corn for the ordinary

price, and sells it for a much higher. That this extraordinary profit, however, is no more than sufficient to put

his trade upon a fair level with other trades, and to compensate the many losses which he sustains upon other

occasions, both from the perishable nature of the commodity itself, and from the frequent and unforeseen

fluctuations of its price, seems evident enough, from this single circumstance, that great fortunes are as

seldom made in this as in any other trade. The popular odium, however, which attends it in years of scarcity,

the only years in which it can be very profitable, renders people of character and fortune averse to enter into

it. It is abandoned to an inferior set of dealers; and millers, bakers, mealmen, and meal factors, together with

a number of wretched hucksters, are almost the only middle people that, in the home market, come between

The ancient policy of Europe, instead of discountenancing this popular odium against a trade so beneficial to

By the 5th and 6th of Edward VI, c. 14, it was enacted that whoever should buy any corn or grain with intent

to sell it again, should be reputed an unlawful engrosser, and should, for the first fault, suffer two months'

imprisonment, and forfeit the value of the corn; for the second, suffer six months' imprisonment, and forfeit

double the value; and for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and

forfeit all his goods and chattels. The ancient policy of most other parts of Europe was no better than that of

Our ancestors seem to have imagined that the people would buy their corn cheaper of the farmer than of the

corn merchant, who, they were afraid, would require, over and above the price which he paid to the farmer,

an exorbitant profit to himself. They endeavoured, therefore, to annihilate his trade altogether. They even

endeavoured to hinder as much as possible any middle man of any kind from coming in between the grower

and the consumer; and this was the meaning of the many restraints which they imposed upon the trade of

those whom they called kidders or carriers of corn, a trade which nobody was allowed to exercise without a

licence ascertaining his qualifications as a man of probity and fair dealing. The authority of three justices of

the peace was, by the statute of Edward VI, necessary in order to grant this licence. But even this restraint

was afterwards thought insufficient, and by a statute of Elizabeth the privilege of granting it was confined to

The ancient policy of Europe endeavoured in this manner to regulate agriculture, the great trade of the

country, by maxims quite different from those which it established with regard to manufactures, the great

trade of the towns. By leaving the farmer no other customers but either the consumers or their immediate

factors, the kidders and carriers of corn, it endeavoured to force him to exercise the trade, not only of a

farmer, but of a corn merchant or corn retailer. On the contrary, it in many cases prohibited the manufacturer

from exercising the trade of a shopkeeper, or from selling his own goods by retail. It meant by the one law to

promote the general interest of the country, or to render corn cheap, without, perhaps, its being well

understood how this was to be done. By the other it meant to promote that of a particular order of men, the

shopkeepers, who would be so much undersold by the manufacturer, it was supposed, that their trade would

The manufacturer, however, though he had been allowed to keep a shop, and to sell his own goods by retail,

could not have undersold the common shopkeeper. Whatever part of his capital he might have placed in his

shop, he must have withdrawn it from his manufacture. In order to carry on his business on a level with that

of other people, as he must have had the profit of a manufacturer on the one part, so he must have had that of

a shopkeeper upon the other. Let us suppose, for example, that in the particular town where he lived, ten per

cent was the ordinary profit both of manufacturing and shopkeeping stock; he must in this case have charged

upon every piece of his own goods which he sold in his shop, a profit of twenty per cent. When he carried

them from his workhouse to his shop, he must have valued them at the price for which he could have sold

them to a dealer or shopkeeper, who would have bought them by wholesale. If he valued them lower, he lost

a part of the profit of his manufacturing capital. When again he sold them from his shop, unless he got the

same price at which a shopkeeper would have sold them, he lost a part of the profit of his shopkeeping

capital. Though he might appear, therefore, to make a double profit upon the same piece of goods, yet as

these goods made successively a part of two distinct capitals, he made but a single profit upon the whole

capital employed about them; and if he made less than his profit, he was a loser, or did not employ his whole

What the manufacturer was prohibited to do, the farmer was in some measure enjoined to do; to divide his

capital between two different employments; to keep one part of it in his granaries and stack yard, for

supplying the occasional demands of the market; and to employ the other in the cultivation of his land. But as

he could not afford to employ the latter for less than the ordinary profits of farming stock, so he could as little

afford to employ the former for less than the ordinary profits of mercantile stock. Whether the stock which

really carried on the business of the corn merchant belonged to the person who was called a farmer, or to the

person who was called a corn merchant, an equal profit was in both cases requisite in order to indemnify its

owner for employing it in this manner; in order to put his business upon a level with other trades, and in order

to hinder him from having an interest to change it as soon as possible for some other. The farmer, therefore,

who was thus forced to exercise the trade of a corn merchant, could not afford to sell his corn cheaper than

any other corn merchant would have been obliged to do in the case of a free competition.

The dealer who can employ his whole stock in one single branch of business has an advantage of the same

kind with the workman who can employ his whole labour in one single operation. As the latter acquires a

dexterity which enables him, with the same two hands, to perform a much greater quantity of work; so the

former acquires so easy and ready a method of transacting his business, of buying and disposing of his goods,

that with the same capital he can transact a much greater quantity of business. As the one can commonly

afford his work a good deal cheaper, so the other can commonly afford his goods somewhat cheaper than if

his stock and attention were both employed about a greater variety of objects. The greater part of

manufacturers could not afford to retail their own goods so cheap as a vigilant and active shopkeeper, whose

sole business it was to buy them at wholesale and to retail them again. The greater part of farmers could still

less afford to retail their own corn, to supply the inhabitants of a town, at perhaps four or five miles distance

from the greater part of them, so cheap as a vigilant and active corn merchant, whose sole business it was to

purchase corn by wholesale, to collect it into a great magazine, and to retail it again.

The law which prohibited the manufacturer from exercising the trade of a shopkeeper endeavoured to force

this division in the employment of stock to go on faster than it might otherwise have done. The law which

obliged the farmer to exercise the trade of a corn merchant endeavoured to hinder it from going on so fast.

Both laws were evident violations of natural liberty, and therefore unjust; and they were both, too, as

impolitic as they were unjust. It is the interest of every society that things of this kind should never either be

forced or obstructed. The man who employs either his labour or his stock in a greater variety of ways than his

situation renders necessary can never hurt his neighbour by underselling him. He may hurt himself, and he

generally does so. Jack of all trades will never be rich, says the proverb. But the law ought always to trust

people with the care of their own interest, as in their local situations they must generally be able to judge

better of it than the legislator can do. The law, however, which obliged the farmer to exercise the trade of a

It obstructed not only that division in the employment of stock which is so advantageous to every society, but

it obstructed likewise the improvement and cultivation of the land. By obliging the farmer to carry on two

trades instead of one, it forced him to divide his capital into two parts, of which one only could be employed

in cultivation. But if he had been at liberty to sell his whole crop to a corn merchant as fast as he could thresh

it out, his whole capital might have returned immediately to the land, and have been employed in buying

more cattle, and hiring more servants, in order to improve and cultivate it better. But by being obliged to sell

his corn by retail, he was obliged to keep a great part of his capital in his granaries and stack yard through the

year, and could not, therefore, cultivate so well as with the same capital he might otherwise have done. This

law, therefore, necessarily obstructed the improvement of the land, and, instead of tending to render corn

cheaper, must have tended to render it scarcer, and therefore dearer, than it would otherwise have been.

After the business of the farmer, that of the corn merchant is in reality the trade which, if properly protected

and encouraged, would contribute the most to the raising of corn. It would support the trade of the farmer in

the same manner as the trade of the wholesale dealer supports that of the manufacturer.

The wholesale dealer, by affording a ready market to the manufacturer, by taking his goods off his hand as

fast as he can make their price to him before he has made them, enables him to keep his whole capital, and

sometimes even more than his whole capital, constantly employed in manufacturing, and consequently to

manufacture a much greater quantity of goods than if he was obliged to dispose of them himself to the

immediate consumers, or even to the retailers. As the capital of the wholesale merchant, too, is generally

sufficient to replace that of many manufacturers, this intercourse between him and them interests the owner

of a large capital to support the owners of a great number of small ones, and to assist them in those losses and

An intercourse of the same kind universally established between the farmers and the corn merchants would

be attended with effects equally beneficial to the farmers. They would be enabled to keep their whole

capitals, and even more than their whole capitals, constantly employed in cultivation. In case of any of those

accidents, to which no trade is more liable than theirs, they would find in their ordinary customer, the wealthy

corn merchant, a person who had both an interest to support them, and the ability to do it, and they would not,

as at present, be entirely dependent upon the forbearance of their landlord, or the mercy of his steward. Were

it possible, as perhaps it is not, to establish this intercourse universally, and all at once, were it possible to

turn all at once the whole farming stock of the kingdom to its proper business, the cultivation of land,

withdrawing it from every other employment into which any part of it may be at present diverted, and were it

possible, in order to support and assist upon occasion the operations of this great stock, to provide all at once

another stock almost equally great, it is not perhaps very easy to imagine how great, how extensive, and how

sudden would be the improvement which this change of circumstances would alone produce upon the whole

The statute of Edward VI, therefore, by prohibiting as much as possible any middle man from coming

between the grower and the consumer, endeavoured to annihilate a trade, of which the free exercise is not

only the best palliative of the inconveniences of a dearth but the best preventative of that calamity: after the

trade of the farmer, no trade contributing so much to the growing of corn as that of the corn merchant.

The rigour of this law was afterwards softened by several subsequent statutes, which successively permitted

the engrossing of corn when the price of wheat should not exceed twenty, twentyfour, thirtytwo, and forty

shillings the quarter. At last, by the 15th of Charles II, c. 7, the engrossing or buying of corn in order to sell it

again, as long as the price of wheat did not exceed fortyeight shillings the quarter, and that of other grain in

proportion, was declared lawful to all persons not being forestallers, that is, not selling again in the same

market within three months. All the freedom which the trade of the inland corn dealer has ever yet enjoyed

was bestowed upon it by this statute. The statute of the 12th of the present king, which repeals almost all the

other ancient laws against engrossers and forestallers, does not repeal the restrictions of this particular statute,

This statute, however, authorizes in some measure two very absurd popular prejudices.

First, it supposes that when the price of wheat has risen so high as fortyeight shillings the quarter, and that

of other grains in proportion, corn is likely to be so engrossed as to hurt the people. But from what has been

already said, it seems evident enough that corn can at no price be so engrossed by the inland dealers as to hurt

the people: and fortyeight shillings the quarter, besides, though it may be considered as a very high price,

yet in years of scarcity it is a price which frequently takes place immediately after harvest, when scarce any

part of the new crop can be sold off, and when it is impossible even for ignorance to suppose that any part of

Secondly, it supposes that there is a certain price at which corn is likely to be forestalled, that is, bought up in

order to be sold again soon after in the same market, so as to hurt the people. But if a merchant ever buys up

corn, either going to a particular market or in a particular market, in order to sell it again soon after in the

same market, it must be because he judges that the market cannot be so liberally supplied through the whole

season as upon that particular occasion, and that the price, therefore, must soon rise. If he judges wrong in

this, and if the price does not rise, he not only loses the whole profit of the stock which he employs in this

manner, but a part of the stock itself, by the expense and loss which necessarily attend the storing and

keeping of corn. He hurts himself, therefore, much more essentially than he can hurt even the particular

people whom he may hinder from supplying themselves upon that particular market day, because they may

afterwards supply themselves just as cheap upon any other market day. If he judges right, instead of hurting

the great body of the people, he renders them a most important service. By making them feel the

inconveniencies of a dearth somewhat earlier than they otherwise might do, he prevents their feeling them

afterwards so severely as they certainly would do, if the cheapness of price encouraged them to consume

faster than suited the real scarcity of the season. When the scarcity is real, the best thing that can be done for

the people is to divide the inconveniencies of it as equally as possible through all the different months, and

weeks, and days of the year. The interest of the corn merchant makes him study to do this as exactly as he

can: and as no other person can have either the same interest, or the same knowledge, or the same abilities to

do it so exactly as he, this most important operation of commerce ought to be trusted entirely to him; or, in

other words, the corn trade, so far at least as concerns the supply of the home market, ought to be left

The popular fear of engrossing and forestalling may be compared to the popular terrors and suspicions of

witchcraft. The unfortunate wretches accused of this latter crime were not more innocent of the misfortunes

imputed to them than those who have been accused of the former. The law which put an end to all

prosecutions against witchcraft, which put it out of any man's power to gratify his own malice by accusing his

neighbour of that imaginary crime, seems effectually to have put an end to those fears and suspicions by

taking away the great cause which encouraged and supported them. The law which should restore entire

freedom to the inland trade of corn would probably prove as effectual to put an end to the popular fears of

The 15th of Charles II, c. 7, however, with all its imperfections, has perhaps contributed more both to the

plentiful supply of the home market, and to the increase of tillage, than any other law in the statute book. It is

from this law that the inland corn trade has derived all the liberty and protection which it has ever yet

enjoyed; and both the supply of the home market, and the interest of tillage, are much more effectually

The proportion of the average quantity of all sorts of grain imported into Great Britain to that of all sorts of

grain consumed, it has been computed by the author of the tracts upon the corn trade, does not exceed that of

one to five hundred and seventy. For supplying the home market, therefore, the importance of the inland trade

The average quantity of all sorts of grain exported from Great Britain does not, according to the same author,

exceed the oneandthirtieth part of the annual produce. For the encouragement of tillage, therefore, by

providing a market for the home produce, the importance of the inland trade must be to that of the

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, computations. I mention them only in order to show of how much

less consequence, in the opinion of the most judicious and experienced persons, the foreign trade of corn is

than the home trade. The great cheapness of corn in the years immediately preceding the establishment of the

bounty may perhaps, with reason, be ascribed in some measure to the operation of this statute of Charles II,

which had been enacted about fiveandtwenty years before, and which had therefore full time to produce its

A very few words will sufficiently explain all that I have to say concerning the other three branches of the

II. The trade of the merchant importer of foreign corn for home consumption evidently contributes to the

immediate supply of the home market, and must so far be immediately beneficial to the great body of the

people. It tends, indeed, to lower somewhat the average money price of corn, but not to diminish its real

value, or the quantity of labour which it is capable of maintaining. If importation was at all times free, our

farmers and country gentlemen would, probably, one year with another, get less money for their corn than

they do at present, when importation is at most times in effect prohibited; but the money which they got

would be of more value, would buy more goods of all other kinds, and would employ more labour. Their real

wealth, their real revenue, therefore, would be the same as at present, though it might be expressed by a

smaller quantity of silver; and they would neither be disabled nor discouraged from cultivating corn as much

as they do at present. On the contrary, as the rise in the real value of silver, in consequence of lowering the

money price of corn, lowers somewhat the money price of all other commodities, it gives the industry of the

country, where it takes place, some advantage in all foreign markets, and thereby tends to encourage and

increase that industry. But the extent of the home market for corn must be in proportion to the general

industry of the country where it grows, or to the number of those who produce something else, and therefore

have something else, or what comes to the same thing, the price of something else, to give in exchange for

corn. But in every country the home market, as it is the nearest and most convenient, so is it likewise the

greatest and most important market for corn. That rise in the real value of silver, therefore, which is the effect

of lowering the average money price of corn, tends to enlarge the greatest and most important market for

By the 22nd of Charles II, c. 13, the importation of wheat, whenever the price in the home market did not

exceed fiftythree shillings and fourpence the quarter, was subjected to a duty of sixteen shillings the quarter,

and to a duty of eight shillings whenever the price did not exceed four pounds. The former of these two prices

has, for more than a century past, taken place only in times of very great scarcity; and the latter has, so far as

I know, not taken place at all. Yet, till wheat had risen above this latter price, it was by this statute subjected

to a very high duty; and, tin it had risen above the former, to a duty which amounted to a prohibition. The

importation of other sorts of grain was restrained at rates, and by duties, in proportion to the value of the

grain, almost equally high.* Subsequent laws still further increased those duties. * Before the 13th of the

present king, the following were the duties payable upon the importation of the different sorts of grain:

Grain Duties Duties Duties Beans to 28s. per qr. 19s. 10d. after till 40s. 16s. 8d. then 12d. Barley to 28s. 19s.

Malt is prohibited by the annual Malttax Bill. Oats to 16s. 5s. 10d. after 9 1/2d. Pease to 40s. 16s. 10d. after

9 3/4d. Rye to 36s. 19s. 10d. till 40s. 16s. 8d. then 12d. Wheat to 44s. 21s. 10d. till 53s. 4d. 17s. then 8s.

till 4 l. and after that about 1s. 4d. Buckwheat to 32s. per qr. to pay 16s. These different duties were imposed,

partly by the 92nd of Charles II, in place of the Old Subsidy, partly by the New Subsidy, by the Onethird

The distress which, in years of scarcity, the strict execution of those laws might have brought upon the

people, would probably have been very great. But, upon such occasions, its execution was generally

suspended by temporary statutes, which permitted, for a limited time, the importation of foreign corn. The

necessity of these temporary statutes sufficiently demonstrates the impropriety of this general one.

These restraints upon importation, though prior to the establishment of the bounty, were dictated by the same

spirit, by the same principles, which afterwards enacted that regulation. How hurtful soever in themselves,

these or some other restraints upon importation became necessary in consequence of that regulation. If, when

wheat was either below fortyeight shillings the quarter, or not much above it, foreign corn could have been

imported either duty free, or upon paying only a small duty, it might have been exported again, with the

benefit of the bounty, to the great loss of the public revenue, and to the entire perversion of the institution, of

which the object was to extend the market for the home growth, not that for the growth of foreign countries.

III. The trade of the merchant exporter of corn for foreign consumption certainly does not contribute directly

to the plentiful supply of the home market. It does so, however, indirectly. From whatever source this supply

may be usually drawn, whether from home growth or from foreign importation, unless more corn is either

usually grown, or usually imported into the country, than what is usually consumed in it, the supply of the

home market can never be very plentiful. But unless the surplus can in all ordinary cases be exported, the

growers will be careful never to grow more, and the importers never to import more, than what the bare

consumption of the home market requires. That market will very seldom be overstocked; but it will generally

be understocked, the people whose business it is to supply it being generally afraid lest their goods should be

left upon their hands. The prohibition of exportation limits the improvement and cultivation of the country to

what the supply of its own inhabitants requires. The freedom of exportation enables it to extend cultivation

By the 12th of Charles II, c. 4, the exportation of corn was permitted whenever the price of wheat did not

exceed forty shillings the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion. By the 15th of the same prince, this

liberty was extended till the price of wheat exceeded fortyeight shillings the quarter; and by the 22nd, to all

higher prices. A poundage, indeed, was to be paid to the king upon such exportation. But all grain was rated

so low in the book of rates that this poundage amounted only upon wheat to a shilling, upon oats to

fourpence, and upon all other grain to sixpence the quarter. By the 1st of William and Mary, the act which

established the bounty, this small duty was virtually taken off whenever the price of wheat did not exceed,

fortyeight shillings the quarter; and by the 11th and l2th of William III, c. 20, it was expressly taken off at

The trade of the merchant exporter was, in this manner, not only encouraged by a bounty, but rendered much

more free than that of the inland dealer. By the last of these statutes, corn could be engrossed at any price for

exportation, but it could not be engrossed for inland sale except when the price did not exceed fortyeight

shillings the quarter. The interest of the inland dealer, however, it has already been shown, can never be

opposite to that of the great body of the people. That of the merchant exporter may, and in fact sometimes is.

If, while his own country labours under a dearth, a neighbouring country should be afflicted with a famine, it

might be his interest to carry corn to the latter country in such quantities as might very much aggravate the

calamities of the dearth. The plentiful supply of the home market was not the direct object of those statutes;

but, under the pretence of encouraging agriculture, to raise the money price of corn as high as possible, and

thereby to occasion, as much as possible, a constant dearth in the home market. By the discouragement of

importation, the supply of that market, even in times of great scarcity, was confined to the home growth; and

by the encouragement of exportation, when the price was so high as fortyeight shillings the quarter, that

market was not, even in times of considerable scarcity, allowed to enjoy the whole of that growth. The

temporary laws, prohibiting for a limited time the exportation of corn, and taking off for a limited time the

duties upon its importation, expedients to which Great Britain has been obliged so frequently to have

recourse, sufficiently demonstrate the impropriety of her general system. Had that system been good, she

would not so frequently have been reduced to the necessity of departing from it.

Were all nations to follow the liberal system of free exportation and free importation, the different states into

which a great continent was divided would so far resemble the different provinces of a great empire. As

among the different provinces of a great empire the freedom of the inland trade appears, both from reason and

experience, not only the best palliative of a dearth, but the most effectual preventative of a famine; so would

the freedom of the exportation and importation trade be among the different states into which a great

continent was divided. The larger the continent, the easier the communication through all the different parts

of it, both by land and by water, the less would any one particular part of it ever be exposed to either of these

calamities, the scarcity of any one country being more likely to be relieved by the plenty of some other. But

very few countries have entirely adopted this liberal system. The freedom of the corn trade is almost

everywhere more or less restrained, and, in many countries, is confined by such absurd regulations as

frequently aggravate the unavoidable misfortune of a dearth into the dreadful calamity of a famine. The

demand of such countries for corn may frequently become so great and so urgent that a small state in their

neighbourhood, which happened at the same time to be labouring under some degree of dearth, could not

venture to supply them without exposing itself to the like dreadful calamity. The very bad policy of one

country may thus render it in some measure dangerous and imprudent to establish what would otherwise be

the best policy in another. The unlimited freedom of exportation, however, would be much less dangerous in

great states, in which the growth being much greater, the supply could seldom be much affected by any

quantity of corn that was likely to be exported. In a Swiss canton, or in some of the little states of Italy, it may

perhaps sometimes be necessary to restrain the exportation of corn. In such great countries as France or

England it scarce ever can. To hinder, besides, the farmer from sending his goods at all times to the best

market is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of

state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of

the most urgent necessity. The price at which the exportation of corn is prohibited, if it is ever to be

The laws concerning corn may everywhere be compared to the laws concerning religion. The people feel

themselves so much interested in what relates either of their subsistence in this life, or to their happiness in a

life to come, that government must yield to their prejudices, and, in order to preserve the public tranquillity,

establish that system which they approve of. It is upon this account, perhaps, that we so seldom find a

reasonable system established with regard to either of those two capital objects.

IV. The trade of the merchant carrier, or of the importer of foreign corn in order to export it again, contributes

to the plentiful supply of the home market. It is not indeed the direct purpose of his trade to sell his corn

there. But he will generally be willing to do so, and even for a good deal less money than he might expect in a

foreign market; because he saves in this manner the expense of loading and unloading, of freight and

insurance. The inhabitants of the country which, by means of the carrying trade, becomes the magazine and

storehouse for the supply of other countries can very seldom be in want themselves. Though the carrying

trade might thus contribute to reduce the average money price of corn in the home market, it would not

thereby lower its real value. It would only raise somewhat the real value of silver.

The carrying trade was in effect prohibited in Great Britain, upon all ordinary occasions, by the high duties

upon the importation of foreign corn, of the greater part of which there was no drawback; and upon

extraordinary occasions, when a scarcity made it necessary to suspend those duties by temporary statutes,

exportation was always prohibited. By this system of laws, therefore, the carrying trade was in effect

That system of laws, therefore, which is connected with the establishment of the bounty, seems to deserve no

part of the praise which has been bestowed upon it. The improvement and prosperity of Great Britain, which

has been so often ascribed to those laws, may very easily be accounted for by other causes. That security

which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour is alone

sufficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of

commerce; and this security was perfected by the revolution much about the same time that the bounty was

established. The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself

with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only

capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent

obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these

obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security. In Great

Britain industry is perfectly secure; and though it is far from being perfectly free, it is as free or freer than in

Though the period of the greatest prosperity and improvement of Great Britain has been posterior to that

system of laws which is connected with the bounty, we must not upon that account impute it to those laws. It

has been posterior likewise to the national debt. But the national debt has most assuredly not been the cause

Though the system of laws which is connected with the bounty has exactly the same tendency of tendency

with the police of Spain and Portugal, to lower somewhat the value of the precious metals in the country

where it takes place, yet Great Britain is certainly one of the richest countries in Europe, while Spain and

Portugal are perhaps among the most beggarly. This difference of situation, however, may easily be

accounted for from two different causes. First, the tax of Spain, the prohibition in Portugal of exporting gold

and silver, and the vigilant police which watches over the execution of those laws, must, in two very poor

countries, which between them import annually upwards of six millions sterling, operate not only more

directly but much more forcibly in reducing the value of those metals there than the corn laws can do in Great

Britain. And, secondly, this bad policy is not in those countries counterbalanced by the general liberty and

security of the people. Industry is there neither free nor secure, and the civil and ecclesiastical governments of

both Spain and Portugal are such as would alone be sufficient to perpetuate their present state of poverty,

even though their regulations of commerce were as wise as the greater part of them are absurd and foolish.

The 13th of the present king, c. 43, seems to have established a new system with regard to the corn laws in

many respects better than the ancient one, but in one or two respects perhaps not quite so good.

By this statute the high duties upon importations for home consumption are taken off so soon as the price of

middling wheat rises to fortyeight shillings the quarter; that of middling rye, pease or beans, to thirtytwo

shillings; that of barley to twentyfour shillings; and that of oats to sixteen shillings; and instead of them a

small duty is imposed of only sixpence upon the quarter of wheat, and upon that of other grain in proportion.

With regard to all these different sorts of grain, but particularly with regard to wheat, the home market is thus

By the same statute the old bounty of five shillings upon the exportation of wheat ceases so soon as the price

rises to fortyfour shillings the quarter, instead of fortyeight, the price at which it ceased before; that of two

shillings and sixpence upon the exportation of barley ceases so soon as the price rises to twentytwo

shillings, instead of twentyfour, the price at which it ceased before; that of two shillings and sixpence upon

the exportation of oatmeal ceases so soon as the price rises to fourteen shillings, instead of fifteen, the price at

which it ceased before. The bounty upon rye is reduced from three shillings and sixpence to three shillings,

and it ceases so soon as the price rises to twentyeight shillings instead of thirtytwo, the price at which it

ceased before. If bounties are as improper as I have endeavoured to prove them to be, the sooner they cease,

The same statute permits, at the lowest prices, the importation of corn, in order to be exported again duty free,

provided it is in the meantime lodged in a warehouse under the joint locks of the king and the importer. This

liberty, indeed, extends to no more than twentyfive of the different ports of Great Britain. They are,

however, the principal ones, and there may not, perhaps, be warehouses proper for this purpose in the greater

But by the same law a bounty of two shillings the quarter is given for the exportation of oats whenever the

price does not exceed fourteen shillings. No bounty had ever been given before for the exportation of this

By the same law, too, the exportation of wheat is prohibited so soon as the price rises to fortyfour shillings

the quarter; that of rye so soon as it rises to twentyeight shillings; that of barley so soon as it rises to

twentytwo shillings; and that of oats so soon as they rise to fourteen shillings. Those several prices seem all

of them a good deal too low, and there seems to be an impropriety, besides, in prohibiting exportation

altogether at those precise prices at which that bounty, which was given in order to force it, is withdrawn. The

bounty ought certainly either to have been withdrawn at a much lower price, or exportation ought to have

So far, therefore, this law seems to be inferior to the ancient system. With all its imperfections, however, we

may perhaps say of it what was said of the laws of Solon, that, though not the best in itself, it is the best

which the interests, prejudices, and temper of the times would admit of. It may perhaps in due time prepare

WHEN a nation binds itself by treaty either to permit the entry of certain goods from one foreign country

which it prohibits from all others, or to exempt the goods of one country from duties to which it subjects

those of all others, the country, or at least the merchants and manufacturers of the country, whose commerce

is so favoured, must necessarily derive great advantage from the treaty. Those merchants and manufacturers

enjoy a sort of monopoly in the country which is so indulgent to them. That country becomes a market both

more extensive and more advantageous for their goods: more extensive, because the goods of other nations

being either excluded or subjected to heavier duties, it takes off a greater quantity of theirs: more

advantageous, because the merchants of the favoured country, enjoying a sort of monopoly there, will often

sell their goods for a better price than if exposed to the free competition of all other nations.

Such treaties, however, though they may be advantageous to the merchants and manufacturers of the

favoured, are necessarily disadvantageous to those of the favouring country. A monopoly is thus granted

against them to a foreign nation; and they must frequently buy the foreign goods they have occasion for

dearer than if the free competition of other nations was admitted. That part of its own produce with which

such a nation purchases foreign goods must consequently be sold cheaper, because when two things are

exchanged for one another, the cheapness of the one is a necessary consequence, or rather the same thing

with the dearness of the other. The exchangeable value of its annual produce, therefore, is likely to be

diminished by every such treaty. This diminution, however, can scarce amount to any positive loss, but only

to a lessening of the gain which it might otherwise make. Though it sells its goods cheaper than it otherwise

might do, it will not probably sell them for less than they cost; nor, as in the case of bounties, for a price

which will not replace the capital employed in bringing them to market, together with the ordinary profits of

stock. The trade could not go on long if it did. Even the favouring country, therefore, may still gain by the

Some treaties of commerce, however, have been supposed advantageous upon principles very different from

these; and a commercial country has sometimes granted a monopoly of this kind against itself to certain

goods of a foreign nation, because it expected that in the whole commerce between them, it would annually

sell more than it would buy, and that a balance in gold and silver would be annually returned to it. It is upon

this principle that the treaty of commerce between England and Portugal, concluded in 1703 by Mr. Methuen,

has been so much commended. The following is a literal translation of that treaty, which consists of three

His sacred royal majesty of Portugal promises, both in his own name, and that of his successors, to admit, for

ever hereafter, into Portugal, the woollen cloths, and the rest of the woollen manufactures of the British, as

was accustomed, till they were prohibited by the law; nevertheless upon this condition:

That is to say, that her sacred royal majesty of Great Britain shall, in her own name, and that of her

successors, be obliged, for ever hereafter, to admit the wines of the growth of Portugal into Britain; so that at

no time, whether there shall be peace or war between the kingdoms of Britain and France, anything more

shall be demanded for these wines by the name of custom or duty, or by whatsoever other title, directly or

indirectly, whether they shall be imported into Great Britain in or hogsheads, or other casks, than what shall

be demanded for the like quantity or measure of French wine, deducting or abating a third part of the custom

or duty. But if at any time this deduction or abatement of customs, which is to be made as aforesaid, shall in

any manner be attempted and prejudiced, it shall be just and lawful for his sacred royal majesty of Portugal,

again to prohibit the woollen cloths, and the rest of the British woollen manufactures.

The most excellent lords the plenipotentiaries promise and take upon themselves, that their above named

masters shall ratify this treaty; and within the space of two months the ratifications shall be exchanged.

By this treaty the crown of Portugal becomes bound to admit the English woollens upon the same footing as

before the prohibition; that is, not to raise the duties which had been paid before that time. But it does not

become bound to admit them upon any better terms than those of any other nation, of France or Holland for

example. The crown of Great Britain, on the contrary, becomes bound to admit the wines of Portugal upon

paying only twothirds of the duty which is paid for those of France, the wines most likely to come into

competition with them. So far this treaty, therefore, is evidently advantageous to Portugal, and

It has been celebrated, however, as a masterpiece of the commercial policy of England. Portugal receives

annually from the Brazils a greater quantity of gold than can be employed in its domestic commerce, whether

in the shape of coin or of plate. The surplus is too valuable to be allowed to lie idle and locked up in coffers,

and as it can find no advantageous market at home, it must, notwithstanding any prohibition, be sent abroad,

and exchanged for something for which there is a more advantageous market at home. A large share of it

comes annually to England, in return either for English goods, or for those of other European nations that

receive their returns through England. Mr. Baretti was informed that the weekly packetboat from Lisbon

brings, one week with another, more than fifty thousand pounds in gold to England. The sum had probably

been exaggerated. It would amount to more than two millions six hundred thousand pounds a year, which is

Our merchants were some years ago out of humour with the crown of Portugal. Some privileges which had

been granted them, not by treaty, but by the free grace of that crown, at the solicitation indeed, it is probable,

and in return for much greater favours, defence and protection, from the crown of Great Britain had been

either infringed or revoked. The people, therefore, usually most interested in celebrating the Portugal trade

were then rather disposed to represent it as less advantageous than it had commonly been imagined. The far

greater part, almost the whole, they pretended, of this annual importation of gold, was not on account of

Great Britain, but of other European nations; the fruits and wines of Portugal annually imported into Great

Let us suppose, however, that the whole was on account of Great Britain, and that it amounted to a still

greater sum than Mr. Baretti seems to imagine; this trade would not, upon that account, be more

advantageous than any other in which, for the same value sent out, we received an equal value of consumable

It is but a very small part of this importation which, it can be supposed, is employed as an annual addition

either to the plate or to the coin of the kingdom. The rest must all be sent abroad and exchanged for

consumable goods of some kind or other. But if those consumable goods were purchased directly with the

produce of English industry, it would be more for the advantage of England than first to purchase with that

produce the gold of Portugal, and afterwards to purchase with that gold those consumable goods. A direct

foreign trade of consumption is always more advantageous than a roundabout one; and to bring the same

value of foreign goods to the home market, requires a much smaller capital in the one way than in the other.

If a smaller share of its industry, therefore, had been employed in producing goods fit for the Portugal market,

and a greater in producing those fit for the other markets, where those consumable goods for which there is a

demand in Great Britain are to be had, it would have been more for the advantage of England. To procure

both the gold, which it wants for its own use, and the consumable goods, would, in this way, employ a much

smaller capital than at present. There would be a spare capital, therefore, to be employed for other purposes,

in exciting an additional quantity of industry, and in raising a greater annual produce.

Though Britain were entirely excluded from the Portugal trade, it could find very little difficulty in procuring

all the annual supplies of gold which it wants, either for the purposes of plate, or of coin, or of foreign trade.

Gold, like every other commodity, is always somewhere or another to be got for its value by those who have

that value to give for it. The annual surplus of gold in Portugal, besides, would still be sent abroad, and

though not carried away by Great Britain, would be carried away by some other nation, which would be glad

to sell it again for its price, in the same manner as Great Britain does at present. In buying gold of Portugal,

indeed, we buy it at the first hand; whereas, in buying it of any other nation, except Spain, we should buy it at

the second, and might pay somewhat dearer. This difference, however, would surely be too insignificant to

Almost all our gold, it is said, comes from Portugal. With other nations the balance of trade is either against

us, or not much in our favour. But we should remember that the more gold we import from one country, the

less we must necessarily import from all others. The effectual demand for gold, like that for every other

commodity, is in every country limited to a certain quantity. If ninetenths of this quantity are imported from

one country, there remains a tenth only to be imported from all others. The more gold besides that is annually

imported from some particular countries, over and above what is requisite for plate and for coin, the more

must necessarily be exported to some others; and the more that most insignificant object of modern policy,

the balance of trade, appears to be in our favour with some particular countries, the more it must necessarily

It was upon this silly notion, however, that England could not subsist without the Portugal trade, that, towards

the end of the late war, France and Spain, without pretending either offence or provocation, required the King

of Portugal to exclude all British ships from his ports, and for the security of this exclusion, to receive into

them French or Spanish garrisons. Had the king of Portugal submitted to those ignominious terms which his

brotherinlaw the king of Spain proposed to him, Britain would have been freed from a much greater

inconveniency than the loss of the Portugal trade, the burden of supporting a very weak ally, so unprovided of

everything for his own defence that the whole power of England, had it been directed to that single purpose,

could scarce perhaps have defended him for another campaign. The loss of the Portugal trade would, no

doubt, have occasioned a considerable embarrassment to the merchants at that time engaged in it, who might

not, perhaps, have found out, for a year or two, any other equally advantageous method of employing their

capitals; and in this would probably have consisted all the inconveniency which England could have suffered

The great annual importation of gold and silver is neither for the purpose of plate nor of coin, but of foreign

trade. A roundabout foreign trade of consumption can be carried on more advantageously by means of these

metals than of almost any other goods. As they are the universal instruments of commerce, they are more

readily received in return for all commodities than any other goods; and on account of their small bulk and

great value, it costs less to transport them backward and forward from one place to another than almost any

other sort of merchandise, and they lose less of their value by being so transported. Of all the commodities,

therefore, which are bought in one foreign country, for no other purpose but to be sold or exchanged again for

some other goods in another, there are none so convenient as gold and silver. In facilitating all the different

roundabout foreign trades of consumption which are carried on in Great Britain consists the principal

advantage of the Portugal trade; and though it is not a capital advantage, it is no doubt a considerable one.

That any annual addition which, it can reasonably be supposed, is made either to the plate or to the coin of the

kingdom, could require but a very small annual importation of gold and silver, seems evident enough; and

though we had no direct trade with Portugal, this small quantity could always, somewhere or another, be very

Though the goldsmith's trade be very considerable in Great Britain, the far. greater part of the new plate

which they annually sell is made from other old plate melted down; so that the addition annually made to the

whole plate of the kingdom cannot be very great, and could require but a very small annual importation.

It is the same case with the coin. Nobody imagines, I believe, that even the greater part of the annual coinage,

amounting, for ten years together, before the late reformation of the gold coin, to upwards of eight hundred

thousand pounds a year in gold, was an annual addition to the money before current in the kingdom. In a

country where the expense of the coinage is defrayed by the government, the value of the coin, even when it

contains its full standard weight of gold and silver, can never be much greater than that of an equal quantity

of those metals uncoined; because it requires only the trouble of going to the mint, and the delay perhaps of a

few weeks, to procure for any quantity of uncoined gold and silver an equal quantity of those metals in coin.

But, in every country, the greater part of the current coin is almost always more or less worn, or otherwise

degenerated from its standard. In Great Britain it was, before the late reformation, a good deal so, the gold

being more than two per cent and the silver more than eight per cent below its standard weight. But if

fortyfour guineas and a half, containing their full standard weight, a pound weight of gold, could purchase

very little more than a pound weight could of uncoined gold, fortyfour guineas and a half wanting a part of

their weight could not purchase a pound weight, and something was to be added in order to make up the

deficiency. The current price of gold bullion at market, therefore, instead of being the same with the mint

price, or L46 14s. 6d., was then about L47 14s. and sometimes about L48. When the greater part of the coin,

however, was in this degenerate condition, fortyfour guineas and a half, fresh from the mint, would

purchase no more goods in the market than any other ordinary guineas, because when they came into the

coffers of the merchant, being confounded with other money, they could not afterwards be distinguished

without more trouble than the difference was worth. Like other guineas they were worth no more than L46

14s. 6d. If thrown into the melting pot, however, they produced, without any sensible loss, a pound weight of

standard gold, which could be sold at any time for between L47 14s. and L48 either of gold or silver, as fit for

all the purposes of coin as that which had been melted down. There was an evident profit, therefore, in

melting down new coined money, and it was done so instantaneously, that no precaution of government could

prevent it. The operations of the mint were, upon this account, somewhat like the web of Penelope; the work

that was done in the day was undone in the night. The mint was employed, not so much in making daily

additions to the coin, as in replacing the very best part of it which was daily melted down.

Were the private people, who carry their gold and silver to the mint, to pay themselves for the coinage, it

would add to the value of those metals in the same manner as the fashion does to that of plate. Coined gold

and silver would be more valuable than uncoined. The seignorage, if it was not exorbitant, would add to the

bullion the whole value of the duty; because, the government having everywhere the exclusive privilege of

coining, no coin can come to market cheaper than they think proper to afford it. If the duty was exorbitant

indeed, that is, if it was very much above the real value of the labour and expense requisite for coinage, false

coiners, both at home and abroad, might be encouraged, by the great difference between the value of bullion

and that of coin, to pour in so great a quantity of counterfeit money as might reduce the value of the

government money. In France, however, though the seignorage is eight per cent, no sensible inconveniency

of this kind is found to arise from it. The dangers to which a false coiner is everywhere exposed, if he lives in

the country of which he counterfeits the coin, and to which his agents or correspondents are exposed if he

lives in a foreign country, are by far too great to be incurred for the sake of a profit of six or seven per cent.

The seignorage in France raises the value of the coin higher than in proportion to the quantity of pure gold

which it contains. Thus by the edict of January 1726, the mint price of fine gold of twentyfour carats was

fixed at seven hundred and forty livres nine sous and one denier oneeleventh, the mark of eight Paris

ounces. The gold coin of France, making an allowance for the remedy of the mint, contains twentyone

carats and threefourths of fine gold, and two carats one fourth of alloy. The mark of standard gold,

therefore, is worth no more than about six hundred and seventyone livres ten deniers. But in France this

mark of standard gold is coined into thirty Louis d'ors of twentyfour livres each, or into seven hundred and

twenty livres. The coinage, therefore, increases the value of a mark of standard gold bullion, by the difference

between six hundred and seventyone livres ten deniers, and seven hundred and twenty livres; or by

A seignorage will, in many cases, take away altogether, and will, in all cases, diminish the profit of melting

down the new coin. This profit always arises from the difference between the quantity of bullion which the

common currency ought to contain, and that which it actually does contain. If this difference is less than the

seignorage, there will be loss instead of profit. If it is equal to the seignorage, there will neither be profit nor

loss. If it is greater than the seignorage, there will indeed be some profit, but less than if there was no

seignorage. If, before the late reformation of the gold coin, for example, there had been a seignorage of five

per cent upon the coinage, there would have been a loss of three per cent upon the melting down of the gold

coin. If the seignorage had been two per cent there would have been neither profit nor loss. If the seignorage

had been one per cent there would have been a profit, but of one per cent only instead of two per cent.

Wherever money is received by tale, therefore, and not by weight, a seignorage is the most effectual

preventative of the melting down of the coin, and, for the same reason, of its exportation. It is the best and

heaviest pieces that are commonly either melted down or exported; because it is upon such that the largest

The law for encouragement of the coinage, by rendering it dutyfree, was first enacted during the reign of

Charles II for a limited time; and afterwards continued, by different prolongations, till 1769, when it was

rendered perpetual. The Bank of England, in order to replenish their coffers with money, are frequently

obliged to carry bullion to the mint; and it was more for their interest, they probably imagined, that the

coinage should be at the expense of the government than at their own. It was probably out of complaisance to

this great company that the government agreed to render this law perpetual. Should the custom of weighing

gold, however, come to be disused, as it is very likely to be on account of its inconveniency; should the gold

coin of England come to be received by tale, as it was before the late recoinage, this great company may,

perhaps, find that they have upon this, as upon some other occasions, mistaken their own interest not a little.

Before the late recoinage, when the gold currency of England was two per cent below its standard weight, as

there was no seignorage, it was two per cent below the value of that quantity of standard gold bullion which it

ought to have contained. When this great company, therefore, bought gold bullion in order to have it coined,

they were obliged to pay for it two per cent more than it was worth after coinage. But if there had been a

seignorage of two per cent upon the coinage, the common gold currency, though two per cent below its

standard weight, would notwithstanding have been equal in value to the quantity of standard gold which it

ought to have contained; the value of the fashion compensating in this case the diminution of the weight.

They would indeed have had the seignorage to pay, which being two per cent, their loss upon the whole

transaction would have been two per cent exactly the same, but no greater than it actually was.

If the seignorage had been five per cent, and the gold currency only two per cent below its standard weight,

the bank would in this case have gained three per cent upon the price of the bullion; but as they would have

had a seignorage of five per cent to pay upon the coinage, their loss upon the whole transaction would, in the

If the seignorage had been only one per cent and the gold currency two per cent below its standard weight,

the bank would in this case have lost only one per cent upon the price of the bullion; but as they would

likewise have had a seignorage of one per cent to pay, their loss upon the whole transaction would have been

If there was a reasonable seignorage, while at the same time the coin contained its full standard weight, as it

has done very nearly since the last recoinage, whatever the bank might lose by the seignorage, they would

gain upon the price of the bullion; and whatever they might gain upon the price of the bullion, they would

lose by the seignorage. They would neither lose nor gain, therefore, upon the whole transaction, and they

would in this, as in all the foregoing cases, be exactly in the same situation as if there was no seignorage.

When the tax upon a commodity is so moderate as not to encourage smuggling, the merchant who deals in it,

though he advances, does not properly pay the tax, as he gets it back in the price of the commodity. The tax is

finally paid by the last purchaser or consumer. But money is a commodity with regard to which every man is

a merchant. Nobody buys it but in order to sell it again; and with regard to it there is in ordinary cases no last

purchaser or consumer. When the tax upon coinage, therefore, is so moderate as not to encourage false

coining, though everybody advances the tax, nobody finally pays it; because everybody gets it back in the

A moderate seignorage, therefore, would not in any case augment the expense of the bank, or of any other

private persons who carry their bullion to the mint in order to be coined, and the want of a moderate

seignorage does not in any case diminish it. Whether there is or is not a seignorage, if the currency contains

its full standard weight, the coinage costs nothing to anybody, and if it is short of that weight, the coinage

must always cost the difference between the quantity of bullion which ought to be contained in it, and that

The government, therefore, when it defrays the expense of coinage, not only incurs some small expense, but

loses some small revenue which it might get by a proper duty; and neither the bank nor any other private

persons are in the smallest degree benefited by this useless piece of public generosity.

The directors of the bank, however, would probably be unwilling to agree to the imposition of a seignorage

upon the authority of a speculation which promises them no gain, but only pretends to insure them from any

loss. In the present state of the gold coin, and as long as it continues to be received by weight, they certainly

would gain nothing by such a change. But if the custom of weighing the gold coin should ever go into

misuse, as it is very likely to do, and if the gold coin should ever fall into the same state of degradation in

which it was before the late recoinage, the gain, or more properly the savings of the bank, in consequence of

the imposition of a seignorage, would probably be very considerable. The Bank of England is the only

company which sends any considerable quantity of bullion to the mint, and the burden of the annual coinage

falls entirely, or almost entirely, upon it. If this annual coinage had nothing to do but to repair the

unavoidable losses and necessary wear and tear of the coin, it could seldom exceed fifty thousand or at most a

hundred thousand pounds. But when the coin is degraded below its standard weight, the annual coinage must,

besides this, fill up the large vacuities which exportation and the melting pot are continually making in the

current coin. It was upon this account that during the ten or twelve years immediately preceding the late

reformation of the gold coin, the annual coinage amounted at an average to more than eight hundred and fifty

thousand pounds. But if there had been a seignorage of four or five per cent upon the gold coin, it would

probably, even in the state in which things then were, have put an effectual stop to the business both of

exportation and of the melting pot. The bank, instead of losing every year about two and a half per cent upon

the bullion which was to be coined into more than eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds, or incurring an

annual loss of more than twentyone thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, would not probably have

The revenue allotted by Parliament for defraying the expense of the coinage is but fourteen thousand pounds

a year, and the real expense which it costs the government, or the fees of the officers of the mint, do not upon

ordinary occasions, I am assured, exceed the half of that sum. The saving of so very small a sum, or even the

gaining of another which could not well be much larger, are objects too inconsiderable, it may be thought, to

deserve the serious attention of government. But the saving of eighteen or twenty thousand pounds a year in

case of an event which is not improbable, which has frequently happened before, and which is very likely to

happen again, is surely an object which well deserves the serious attention even of so great a company as the

Some of the foregoing reasonings and observations might perhaps have been more properly placed in those

chapters of the first book which treat of the origin and use of money, and of the difference between the real

and the nominal price of commodities. But as the law for the encouragement of coinage derives its origin

from those vulgar prejudices which have been introduced by the mercantile system, I judged it more proper to

reserve them for this chapter. Nothing could be more agreeable to the spirit of that system than a sort of

bounty upon the production of money, the very thing which, it supposes, constitutes the wealth of every

THE interest which occasioned the first settlement of the different European colonies in America and the

West Indies was not altogether so plain and distinct as that which directed the establishment of those of

All the different states of ancient Greece possessed, each of them, but a very small territory, and when the

people in any one of them multiplied beyond what that territory could easily maintain, a part of them were

sent in quest of a new habitation in some remote and distant part of the world; the warlike neighbours who

surrounded them on all sides, rendering it difficult for any of them to enlarge very much its territory at home.

The colonies of the Dorians resorted chiefly to Italy and Sicily, which, in the times preceding the foundation

of Rome, were inhabited by barbarous and uncivilised nations: those of the Ionians and Aeolians, the two

other great tribes of the Greeks, to Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean Sea, of which the inhabitants

seem at that time to have been pretty much in the same state as those of Sicily and Italy. The mother city,

though she considered the colony as a child, at all times entitled to great favour and assistance, and owing in

return much gratitude and respect, yet considered it as an emancipated child over whom she pretended to

claim no direct authority or jurisdiction. The colony settled its own form of government, enacted its own

laws, elected its own magistrates, and made peace or war with its neighbours as an independent state, which

had no occasion to wait for the approbation or consent of the mother city. Nothing can be more plain and

Rome, like most of the other ancient republics, was originally founded upon an Agrarian law which divided

the public territory in a certain proportion among the different citizens who composed the state. The course of

human affairs by marriage, by succession, and by alienation, necessarily deranged this original division, and

frequently threw the lands, which had been allotted for the maintenance of many different families, into the

possession of a single person. To remedy this disorder, for such it was supposed to be, a law was made

restricting the quantity of land which any citizen could possess to five hundred jugera, about three hundred

and fifty English acres. This law, however, though we read of its having been executed upon one or two

occasions, was either neglected or evaded, and the inequality of fortunes went on continually increasing. The

greater part of the citizens had no land, and without it the manners and customs of those times rendered it

difficult for a freeman to maintain his independency. In the present time, though a poor man has no land of

his own, if he has a little stock he may either farm the lands of another, or he may carry on some little retail

trade; and if he has no stock, he may find employment either as a country labourer or as an artificer. But

among the ancient Romans the lands of the rich were all cultivated by slaves, who wrought under an overseer

who was likewise a slave; so that a poor freeman had little chance of being employed either as a farmer or as

a labourer. All trades and manufactures too, even the retail trade, were carried on by the slaves of the rich for

the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, authority, and protection made it difficult for a poor freeman to

maintain the competition against them. The citizens, therefore, who had no land, had scarce any other means

of subsistence but the bounties of the candidates at the annual elections. The tribunes, when they had a mind

to animate the people against the rich and the great, put them in mind of the ancient division of lands, and

represented that law which restricted this sort of private property as the fundamental law of the republic. The

people became clamorous to get land, and the rich and the great, we may believe, were perfectly determined

not to give them any part of theirs. To satisfy them in some measure therefore, they frequently proposed to

send out a new colony. But conquering Rome was, even upon such occasions, under no necessity of turning

out her citizens to seek their fortune, if one may say so, through the wide world, without knowing where they

were to settle. She assigned them lands generally in the conquered provinces of Italy, where, being within the

dominions of the republic, they could never form an independent state; but were at best but a sort of

corporation, which, though it had the power of enacting byelaws for its own government, was at all times

subject to the correction, jurisdiction, and legislative authority of the mother city. The sending out a colony of

this kind not only gave some satisfaction to the people, but often established a sort of garrison, too, in a

newly conquered province, of which the obedience might otherwise have been doubtful. A Roman colony

therefore, whether we consider the nature of the establishment itself or the motives for making it, was

altogether different from a Greek one. The words accordingly, which in the original languages denote those

different establishments, have very different meanings. The Latin word (Colonia) signifies simply a

plantation. The Greek word apoikia, on the contrary, signifies a separation of dwelling, a departure from

home, a going out of the house. But, though the Roman colonies were in many respects different from the

Greek ones, the interest which prompted to establish them was equally plain and distinct. Both institutions

derived their origin either from irresistible necessity, or from clear and evident utility.

The establishment of the European colonies in America and the West Indies arose from no necessity: and

though the utility which has resulted from them has been very great, it is not altogether so clear and evident.

It was not understood at their first establishment, and was not the motive either of that establishment or of the

discoveries which gave occasion to it, and the nature, extent, and limits of that utility are not, perhaps, well

The Venetians, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, carried on a very advantageous commerce in

spiceries, and other East India goods, which they distributed among the other nations of Europe. They

purchased them chiefly in Egypt, at that time under the dominion of the Mamelukes, the enemies of the

Turks, of whom the Venetians were the enemies; and this union of interest, assisted by the money of Venice,

The great profits of the Venetians tempted the avidity of the Portuguese. They had been endeavouring, during

the course of the fifteenth century, to find out by sea a way to the countries from which the Moors brought

them ivory and gold dust across the desert. They discovered the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, the Cape

de Verde Islands, the coast of Guinea, that of Loango, Congo, Angola, and Benguela, and, finally, the Cape

of Good Hope. They had long wished to share in the profitable traffic of the Venetians, and this last discovery

opened to them a probable prospect of doing so. In 1497, Vasco de Gama sailed from the port of Lisbon with

a fleet of four ships, and after a navigation of eleven months arrived upon the coast of Indostan, and thus

completed a course of discoveries which had been pursued with great steadiness, and with very little

Some years before this, while the expectations of Europe were in suspense about the projects of the

Portuguese, of which the success appeared yet to be doubtful, a Genoese pilot formed the yet more daring

project of sailing to the East Indies by the West. The situation of those countries was at that time very

imperfectly known in Europe. The few European travellers who had been there had magnified the distance,

perhaps through simplicity and ignorance, what was really very great appearing almost infinite to those who

could not measure it; or, perhaps, in order to increase somewhat more the marvellous of their own adventures

in visiting regions so immensely remote from Europe. The longer the way was by the East, Columbus very

justly concluded, the shorter it would be by the West. He proposed, therefore, to take that way, as both the

shortest and the surest, and he had the good fortune to convince Isabella of Castile of the probability of his

project. He sailed from the port of Palos in August 1492, nearly five years before the expedition of Vasco de

Gama set out from Portugal, and, after a voyage of between two and three months, discovered first some of

the small Bahamas or Lucayan islands, and afterwards the great island of St. Domingo.

But the countries which Columbus discovered, either in this or in any of his subsequent voyages, had no

resemblance to those which he had gone in quest of. Instead of the wealth, cultivation, and populousness of

China and Indostan, he found, in St. Domingo, and in all the other parts of the new world which he ever

visited, nothing but a country quite covered with wood, uncultivated, and inhabited only by some tribes of

naked and miserable savages. He was not very willing, however, to believe that they were not the same with

some of the countries described by Marco Polo, the first European who had visited, or at least had left behind

him, any description of China or the East Indies; and a very slight resemblance, such as that which he found

between the name of Cibao, a mountain in St. Domingo, and that of Cipango mentioned by Marco Polo, was

frequently sufficient to make him return to this favourite prepossession, though contrary to the clearest

evidence. In his letters to Ferdinand and Isabella he called the countries which he had discovered the Indies.

He entertained no doubt but that they were the extremity of those which had been described by Marco Polo,

and that they were not very distant from the Ganges, or from the countries which had been conquered by

Alexander. Even when at last convinced that they were different, he still flattered himself that those rich

countries were at no great distance, and, in a subsequent voyage, accordingly, went in quest of them along the

In consequence of this mistake of Columbus, the name of the Indies has stuck to those unfortunate countries

ever since; and when it was at last clearly discovered that the new were altogether different from the old

Indies, the former were called the West, in contradistinction to the latter, which were called the East Indies.

It was of importance to Columbus, however, that the countries which he had discovered, whatever they were,

should be represented to the court of Spain as of very great consequence; and, in what constitutes the real

riches of every country, the animal and vegetable productions of the soil, there was at that time nothing which

The Cori, something between a rat and a rabbit, and supposed by Mr. Buffon to be the same with the Aperea

of Brazil, was the largest viviparous quadruped in St. Domingo. This species seems never to have been very

numerous, and the dogs and cats of the Spaniards are said to have long ago almost entirely extirpated it, as

well as some other tribes of a still smaller size. These, however, together with a pretty large lizard, called the

ivana, or iguana, constituted the principal part of the animal food which the land afforded.

The vegetable food of the inhabitants, though from their want of industry not very abundant, was not

altogether so scanty. It consisted in Indian corn, yams, potatoes, bananas, etc., plants which were then

altogether unknown in Europe, and which have never since been very much esteemed in it, or supposed to

yield a sustenance equal to what is drawn from the common sorts of grain and pulse, which have been

The cotton plant, indeed, afforded the material of a very important manufacture, and was at that time to

Europeans undoubtedly the most valuable of all the vegetable productions of those islands. But though in the

end of the fifteenth century the muslins and other cotton goods of the East Indies were much esteemed in

every part of Europe, the cotton manufacture itself was not cultivated in any part of it. Even this production,

therefore, could not at that time appear in the eyes of Europeans to be of very great consequence.

Finding nothing either in the animals or vegetables of the newly discovered countries which could justify a

very advantageous representation of them, Columbus turned his view towards their minerals; and in the

richness of the productions of this third kingdom, he flattered himself he had found a full compensation for

the insignificancy of those of the other two. The little bits of gold with which the inhabitants ornamented

their dress, and which, he was informed, they frequently found in the rivulets and torrents that fell from the

mountains, were sufficient to satisfy him that those mountains abounded with the richest gold mines. St.

Domingo, therefore, was represented as a country abounding with gold, and, upon that account, (according to

the prejudices not only of the present time, but of those times) an inexhaustible source of real wealth to the

crown and kingdom of Spain. When Columbus, upon his return from his first voyage, was introduced with a

sort of triumphal honours to the sovereigns of Castile and Arragon, the principal productions of the countries

which he had discovered were carried in solemn procession before him. The only valuable part of them

consisted in some little fillets, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, and in some bales of cotton. The rest

were mere objects of vulgar wonder and curiosity; some reeds of an extraordinary size, some birds of a very

beautiful plumage, and some stuffed skins of the huge alligator and manati; all of which were preceded by six

or seven of the wretched natives, whose singular colour and appearance added greatly to the novelty of the

In consequence of the representations of Columbus, the council of Castile determined to take possession of

countries of which the inhabitants were plainly incapable of defending themselves. The pious purpose of

converting them to Christianity sanctified the injustice of the project. But the hope of finding treasures of

gold there was the sole motive which prompted him to undertake it; and to give this motive the greater

weight, it was proposed by Columbus that the half of all the gold and silver that should be found there should

As long as the whole or the far greater part of the gold, which the first adventurers imported into Europe, was

got by so very easy a method as the plundering of the defenceless natives, it was not perhaps very difficult to

pay even this heavy tax. But when the natives were once fairly stripped of all that they had, which, in St.

Domingo, and in all the other countries discovered by Columbus, was done completely in six or eight years,

and when in order to find more it had become necessary to dig for it in the mines, there was no longer any

possibility of paying this tax. The rigorous exaction of it, accordingly, first occasioned, it is said, the total

abandoning of the mines of St. Domingo, which have never been wrought since. It was soon reduced

therefore to a third; then to a fifth; afterwards to a tenth; and at last to a twentieth part of the gross produce of

the gold mines. The tax upon silver continued for a long time to be a fifth of the gross produce. It was

reduced to a tenth only in the course of the present century. But the first adventurers do not appear to have

been much interested about silver. Nothing less precious than gold seemed worthy of their attention.

All the other enterprises of the Spaniards in the new world, subsequent to those of Columbus, seem to have

been prompted by the same motive. It was the sacred thirst of gold that carried Oieda, Nicuessa, and Vasco

Nugnes de Balboa, to the Isthmus of Darien, that carried Cortez to Mexico, and Almagro and Pizzarro to

Chili and Peru. When those adventurers arrived upon any unknown coast, their first inquiry was always if

there was any gold to be found there; and according to the information which they received concerning this

Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the

people who engage in them, there is none perhaps more ruinous than the search after new silver and gold

mines. It is perhaps the most disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who

draw the prizes bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks: for though the prizes are

few and the blanks many, the common price of a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man. Projects of

mining, instead of replacing the capital employed in them, together with the ordinary profits of stock,

commonly absorb both capital and profit. They are the projects, therefore, to which of all others a prudent

lawgiver, who desired to increase the capital of his nation, would least choose to give any extraordinary

encouragement, or to turn towards them a greater share of that capital than that would go to them of its own

accord. Such in reality is the absurd confidence which almost all men have in their own good fortune that,

wherever there is the least probability of success, too great a share of it is apt to go to them of its own accord.

But though the judgment of sober reason and experience concerning such projects has always been extremely

unfavourable, that of human avidity has commonly been quite otherwise. The same passion which has

suggested to so many people the absurd idea of the philosopher's stone, has suggested to others the equally

absurd one of immense rich mines of gold and silver. They did not consider that the value of those metals

has, in all ages and nations, arisen chiefly from their scarcity, and that their scarcity has arisen from the very

small quantities of them which nature has anywhere deposited in one place, from the hard and intractable

substances with which she has almost everywhere surrounded those small quantities, and consequently from

the labour and expense which are everywhere necessary in order to penetrate to and get at them. They

flattered themselves that veins of those metals might in many places be found as large and as abundant as

those which are commonly found of lead, or copper, or tin, or iron. The dream of Sir Walter Raleigh

concerning the golden city and country of Eldorado, may satisfy us that even wise men are not always exempt

from such strange delusions. More than a hundred years after the death of that great man, the Jesuit Gumila

was still convinced of the reality of that wonderful country, and expressed with great warmth, and I dare to

say with great sincerity, how happy he should be to carry the light of the gospel to a people who could so well

In the countries first discovered by the Spaniards, no gold or silver mines are at present known which are

supposed to be worth the working. The quantities of those metals which the first adventurers are said to have

found there had probably been very much magnified, as well as the fertility of the mines which were wrought

immediately after the first discovery. What those adventurers were reported to have found, however, was

sufficient to inflame the avidity of all their countrymen. Every Spaniard who sailed to America expected to

find an Eldorado. Fortune, too, did upon this what she has done upon very few other occasions. She realized

in some measure the extravagant hopes of her votaries, and in the discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru

(of which the one happened about thirty, the other about forty years after the first expedition of Columbus),

she presented them with something not very unlike that profusion of the precious metals which they sought

A project of commerce to the East Indies, therefore, gave occasion to the first discovery of the West. A

project of conquest gave occasion to all the establishments of the Spaniards in those newly discovered

countries. The motive which excited them to this conquest was a project of gold and silver mines; and a

course of accidents, which no human wisdom could foresee, rendered this project much more successful than

The first adventurers of all the other nations of Europe who attempted to make settlements in America were

animated by the like chimerical views; but they were not equally successful. It was more than a hundred years

after the first settlement of the Brazils before any silver, gold, or diamond mines were discovered there. In the

English, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies, none have ever yet been discovered; at least none that are at

present supposed to be worth the working. The first English settlers in North America, however, offered a

fifth of all the gold and silver which should be found there to the king, as a motive for granting them their

patents. In the patents to Sir Walter Raleigh, to the London and Plymouth Companies, to the Council of

Plymouth, etc., this fifth was accordingly reserved to the crown. To the expectation of finding gold and silver

mines, those first settlers, too, joined that of discovering a northwest passage to the East Indies. They have

THE colony of a civilised nation which takes possession either of a waste country, or of one so thinly

inhabited that the natives easily give place to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness

The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other useful arts superior to what can

grow up of its own accord in the course of many centuries among savage and barbarous nations. They carry

out with them, too, the habit of subordination, some notion of the regular government which takes place in

their own country, of the system of laws which support it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they

naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement. But among savage and barbarous

nations, the natural progress of law and government is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law

and government have been go far established as is necessary for their protection. Every colonist gets more

land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes to pay. No landlord shares with him

in its produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great

as possible a produce, which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive

that, with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can

seldom make it produce the tenth part of what it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect

labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal wages. But those liberal wages, joined to

the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make those labourers leave him, in order to become landlords

themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who soon leave them for the same reason

that they left their first master. The liberal reward of labour encourages marriage. The children, during the

tender years of infancy, are well fed and properly taken care of, and when they are grown up, the value of

their labour greatly overpays their maintenance. When arrived at maturity, the high price of labour, and the

low price of land, enable them to establish themselves in the same manner as their fathers did before them.

In other countries, rent and profit eat up wages, and the two superior orders of people oppress the inferior

one. But in new colonies the interest of the two superior orders obliges them to treat the inferior one with

more generosity and humanity; at least where that inferior one is not in a state of slavery. Waste lands of the

greatest natural fertility are to be had for a trifle. The increase of revenue which the proprietor, who is always

the undertaker, expects from their improvement, constitutes his profit which in these circumstances is

commonly very great. But this great profit cannot be made without employing the labour of other people in

clearing and cultivating the land; and the disproportion between the great extent of the land and the small

number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies, makes it difficult for him to get this

labour. He does not, therefore, dispute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price. The high

wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourage improvement, and

enable the proprietor to pay those high wages. In those wages consists almost the whole price of the land; and

though they are high considered as the wages of labour, they are low considered as the price of what is so

very valuable. What encourages the progress of population and improvement encourages that of real wealth

The progress of many of the ancient Greek colonies towards wealth and greatness seems accordingly to have

been very rapid. In the course of a century or two, several of them appear to have rivalled, and even to have

surpassed their mother cities. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy, Ephesus and

Miletus in Lesser Asia, appear by all accounts to have been at least equal to any of the cities of ancient

Greece. Though posterior in their establishment, yet all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry, and

eloquence seem to have been cultivated as early, and to have been improved as highly in them as in any part

of the mother country. The schools of the two oldest Greek philosophers, those of Thales and Pythagoras,

were established, it is remarkable, not in ancient Greece, but the one in an Asiatic, the other in an Italian

colony. All those colonies had established themselves in countries inhabited by savage and barbarous nations,

who easily gave place to the new settlers. They had plenty of good land, and as they were altogether

independent of the mother city, they were at liberty to manage their own affairs in the way that they judged

The history of the Roman colonies is by no means so brilliant. Some of them, indeed, such as Florence, have

in the course of many ages, and after the fall of the mother city, grown up to be considerable states. But the

progress of no one of them seems ever to have been very rapid. They were all established in conquered

provinces, which in most cases had been fully inhabited before. The quantity of land assigned to each colonist

was seldom very considerable, and as the colony was not independent, they were not always at liberty to

manage their own affairs in the way they judged was most suitable to their own interest.

In the plenty of good land, the European colonies established in America and the West Indies resemble, and

even greatly surpass, those of ancient Greece. In their dependency upon the mother state, they resemble those

of ancient Rome; but their great distance from Europe has in all of them alleviated more or less the effects of

this dependency. Their situation has placed them less in the view and less in the power of their mother

country. In pursuing their interest their own way, their conduct has, upon many occasions, been overlooked,

either because not known or not understood in Europe; and upon some occasions it has been fairly suffered

and submitted to, because their distance rendered it difficult to restrain it. Even the violent and arbitrary

government of Spain has, upon many occasions, been obliged to recall or soften the orders which had been

given for the government of her colonies for fear of a general insurrection. The progress of all the European

colonies in wealth, population, and improvement, has accordingly been very great.

The crown of Spain, by its share of the gold and silver, derived some revenue from its colonies from the

moment of their first establishment. It was a revenue, too, of a nature to excite in human avidity the most

extravagant expectations of still greater riches. The Spanish colonies, therefore, from the moment of their

first establishment, attracted very much the attention of their mother country, while those of the other

European nations were for a long time in a great measure neglected. The former did not, perhaps, thrive the

better in consequence of this attention; nor the latter the worse in consequence of this neglect. In proportion

to the extent of the country which they in some measure possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less

populous and thriving than those of almost any other European nation. The progress even of the Spanish

colonies, however, in population and improvement, has certainly been very rapid and very great. The city of

Lima, founded since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants near thirty

years ago. Quito, which had been but a miserable hamlet of Indians, is represented by the same author as in

his time equally populous. Gemelli Carreri, a pretended traveller, it is said, indeed, but who seems

everywhere to have written upon extremely good information, represents the city of Mexico as containing a

hundred thousand inhabitants; a number which, in spite of all the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is,

probably, more than five times greater than what it contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers

exceed greatly those of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the three greatest cities of the English colonies.

Before the conquest of the Spaniards there were no cattle fit for draught either in Mexico or Peru. The llama

was their only beast of burden, and its strength seems to have been a good deal inferior to that of a common

ass. The plough was unknown among them. They were ignorant of the use of iron. They had no coined

money, nor any established instrument of commerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on by barter. A

sort of wooden spade was their principal instrument of agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives and

hatchets to cut with; fish bones and the hard sinews of certain animals served them for needles to sew with;

and these seem to have been their principal instruments of trade. In this state of things, it seems impossible

that either of those empires could have been so much improved or so well cultivated as at present, when they

are plentifully furnished with all sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron, of the plough, and of

many of the arts of Europe, has been introduced among them. But the populousness of every country must be

in proportion to the degree of its improvement and cultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of the natives

which followed the conquest, these two great empires are, probably, more populous now than they ever were

before: and the people are surely very different; for we must acknowledge, I apprehend, that the Spanish

After the settlements of the Spaniards, that of the Portuguese in Brazil is the oldest of any European nation in

America. But as for a long time after the first discovery neither gold nor silver mines were found in it, and as

it afforded, upon that account, little or no revenue to the crown, it was for a long time in a great measure

neglected; and during this state of neglect it grew up to be a great and powerful colony. While Portugal was

under the dominion of Spain, Brazil was attacked by the Dutch, who got possession of seven of the fourteen

provinces into which it is divided. They expected soon to conquer the other seven, when Portugal recovered

its independency by the elevation of the family of Braganza to the throne. The Dutch then, as enemies to the

Spaniards, became friends to the Portuguese, who were likewise the enemies of the Spaniards. They agreed,

therefore, to leave that part of Brazil, which they had not conquered, to the King of Portugal, who agreed to

leave that part which they had conquered to them, as a matter not worth disputing about with such good

allies. But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portuguese colonists, who, instead of amusing

themselves with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution,

with the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of

Brazil. The Dutch, therefore, finding it impossible to keep any part of the country to themselves, were

contented that it should be entirely restored to the crown of Portugal. In this colony there are said to be more

than six hundred thousand people, either Portuguese or descended from Portuguese, creoles, mulattoes, and a

mixed race between Portuguese and Brazilians. No one colony in America is supposed to contain so great a

Towards the end of the fifteenth, and during the greater part of the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal were

the two great naval powers upon the ocean; for though the commerce of Venice extended to every part of

Europe, its fleets had scarce ever sailed beyond the Mediterranean. The Spaniards, in virtue of the first

discovery, claimed all America as their own; and though they could not hinder so great a naval power as that

of Portugal from settling in Brazil, such was, at that time, the terror of their name, that the greater part of the

other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent. The

French, who attempted to settle in Florida, were all murdered by the Spaniards. But the declension of the

naval power of this latter nation, in consequence of the defeat or miscarriage of what they called their

Invincible Armada, which happened towards the end of the sixteenth century, put it out of their power to

obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations. In the course of the seventeenth century,

therefore, the English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, all the great nations who had any ports upon the

The Swedes established themselves in New Jersey; and the number of Swedish families still to be found there

sufficiently demonstrates that this colony was very likely to prosper had it been protected by the mother

country. But being neglected by Sweden, it was soon swallowed up by the Dutch colony of New York, which

The small islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz are the only countries in the new world that have ever been

possessed By the Danes. These little settlements, too, were under the government of an exclusive company,

which had the sole right, both of purchasing the surplus produce of the colonists, and of supplying them with

such goods of other countries as they wanted, and which, therefore, both in its purchases and sales, had not

only the power of oppressing them, but the greatest temptation to do so. The government of an exclusive

company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever. It was not,

however, able to stop altogether the progress of these colonies, though it rendered it more slow and languid.

The late King of Denmark dissolved this company, and since that time the prosperity of these colonies has

The Dutch settlements in the West, as well as those in the East Indies, were originally put under the

government of an exclusive company. The progress of some of them, therefore, though it has been

considerable, in comparison with that of almost any country that has been long peopled and established, has

been languid and slow in comparison with that of the greater part of new colonies. The colony of Surinam,

though very considerable, is still inferior to the greater part of the sugar colonies of the other European

nations. The colony of Nova Belgia, now divided into the two provinces of New York and New Jersey, would

probably have soon become considerable too, even though it had remained under the government of the

Dutch. The plenty and cheapness of good land are such powerful causes of prosperity that the very worst

government is scarce capable of checking altogether the efficacy of their operation. The great distance, too,

from the mother country would enable the colonists to evade more or less, by smuggling, the monopoly

which the company enjoyed against them. At present the company allows all Dutch ships to trade to Surinam

upon paying two and a half per cent upon the value of their cargo for a licence; and only reserves to itself

exclusively the direct trade from Africa to America, which consists almost entirely in the slave trade. This

relaxation in the exclusive privileges of the company is probably the principal cause of that degree of

prosperity which that colony at present enjoys. Curacoa and Eustatia, the two principal islands belonging to

the Dutch, are free ports open to the ships of all nations; and this freedom, in the midst of better colonies

whose ports are open to those of one nation only, has been the great cause of the prosperity of those two

The French colony of Canada was, during the greater part of the last century, and some part of the present,

under the government of an exclusive company. Under so unfavourable an administration its progress was

necessarily very slow in comparison with that of other new colonies; but it became much more rapid when

this company was dissolved after the fall of what is called the Mississippi scheme. When the English got

possession of this country, they found in it near double the number of inhabitants which Father Charlevoix

had assigned to it between twenty and thirty years before. That Jesuit had travelled over the whole country,

The French colony of St. Domingo was established by pirates and freebooters, who, for a long time, neither

required the protection, nor acknowledged the authority of France; and when that race of banditti became so

far citizens as to acknowledge this authority, it was for a long time necessary to exercise it with very great

gentleness. During this period the population and improvement of this colony increased very fast. Even the

oppression of the exclusive company, to which it was for some time subjected, with all the other colonies of

France, though it no doubt retarded, had not been able to stop its progress altogether. The course of its

prosperity returned as soon as it was relieved from that oppression. It is now the most important of the sugar

colonies of the West Indies, and its produce is said to be greater than that of all the English sugar colonies put

But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North

Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seem to be the two great causes

In the plenty of good land the English colonies of North America, though no doubt very abundantly provided,

are however inferior to those of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and not superior to some of those possessed by

the French before the late war. But the political institutions of the English colonies have been more

favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this land than those of any of the other three nations.

First, the engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means been prevented altogether, has been

more restrained in the English colonies than in any other. The colony law which imposes upon every

proprietor the obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited time, a certain proportion of his lands,

and which in case of failure, declares those neglected lands grantable to any other person, though it has not,

Secondly, in Pennsylvania there is no right of primogeniture, and lands, like movables, are divided equally

among all the children of the family. In three of the provinces of New England the oldest has only a double

share, as in the Mosaical law. Though in those provinces, therefore, too great a quantity of land should

sometimes be engrossed by a particular individual, it is likely, in the course of a generation or two, to be

sufficiently divided again. In the other English colonies, indeed, the right of primogeniture takes place, as in

the law of England. But in all the English colonies the tenure of the lands, which are all held by free socage,

facilitates alienation, and the grantee of any extensive tract of land generally finds it for his interest to

alienate, as fast as he can, the greater part of it, reserving only a small quitrent. In the Spanish and

Portuguese colonies, what is called the right of Majorazzo takes place in the succession of all those great

estates to which any title of honour is annexed. Such estates go all to one person, and are in effect entailed

and unalienable. The French colonies, indeed, are subject to the custom of Paris, which, in the inheritance of

land, is much more favourable to the younger children than the law of England. But in the French colonies, if

any part of an estate, held by the noble tenure of chivalry and homage, is alienated, it is, for a limited time,

subject to the right of redemption, either by the heir of the superior or by the heir of the family; and all the

largest estates of the country are held by such noble tenures, which necessarily embarrass alienation. But in a

new colony a great uncultivated estate is likely to be much more speedily divided by alienation than by

succession. The plenty and cheapness of good land, it has already been observed, are the principal causes of

the rapid prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing of land, in effect, destroys this plenty and cheapness.

The engrossing of uncultivated land, besides, is the greatest obstruction to its improvement. But the labour

that is employed in the improvement and cultivation of land affords the greatest and most valuable produce to

the society. The produce of labour, in this case, pays not only its own wages, and the profit of the stock which

employs it, but the rent of the land too upon which it is employed. The labour of the English colonists,

therefore, being more employed in the improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater and

more valuable produce than that of any of the other three nations, which, by the engrossing of land, is more or

Thirdly, the labour of the English colonists is not only likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce,

but, in consequence of the moderation of their taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs to

themselves, which they may store up and employ in putting into motion a still greater quantity of labour. The

English colonists have never yet contributed anything towards the defence of the mother country, or towards

the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the contrary, have hitherto been defended almost

entirely at the expense of the mother country. But the expense of fleets and armies is out of all proportion

greater than the necessary expense of civil government. The expense of their own civil government has

always been very moderate. It has generally been confined to what was necessary for paying competent

salaries to the governor, to the judges, and to some other officers of police, and for maintaining a few of the

most useful public works. The expense of the civil establishment of Massachusetts Bay, before the

commencement of the present disturbances, used to be but about L18,000 a year. That of New Hampshire and

Rhode Island, L3500 each. That of Connecticut, L4000. That of New York and Pennsylvania, L4500 each.

That of New Jersey, L1200. That of Virginia and South Carolina, L8000 each. The civil establishments of

Nova Scotia and Georgia are partly supported by an annual grant of Parliament. But Nova Scotia pays,

besides, about L7000 a year towards the public expenses of the colony; and Georgia about L2500 a year. All

the different civil establishments in North America, in short, exclusive of those of Maryland and North

Carolina, of which no exact account has been got, did not, before the commencement of the present

disturbances, cost the inhabitants above L64,700 a year; an evermemorable example at how small an

expense three millions of people may not only be governed, but well governed. The most important part of

the expense of government, indeed, that of defence and protection, has constantly fallen upon the mother

country. The ceremonial, too, of the civil government in the colonies, upon the reception of a new governor,

upon the opening of a new assembly, etc., though sufficiently decent, is not accompanied with any expensive

pomp or parade. Their ecclesiastical government is conducted upon a plan equally frugal. Tithes are unknown

among them; and their clergy, who are far from being numerous, are maintained either by moderate stipends,

or by the voluntary contributions of the people. The power of Spain and Portugal, on the contrary, derives

some support from the taxes levied upon their colonies. France, indeed, has never drawn any considerable

revenue from its colonies, the taxes which it levies upon them being generally spent among them. But the

colony government of all these three nations is conducted upon a much more expensive ceremonial. The

sums spent upon the reception of a new viceroy of Peru, for example, have frequently been enormous. Such

ceremonials are not only real taxes paid by the rich colonists upon those particular occasions, but they serve

to introduce among them the habit of vanity and expense upon all other occasions. They are not only very

grievous occasional taxes, but they contribute to establish perpetual taxes of the same kind still more

grievous; the ruinous taxes of private luxury and extravagance. In the colonies of all those three nations too,

the ecclesiastical government is extremely oppressive. Tithes take place in all of them, and are levied with the

utmost rigour in those of Spain and Portugal. All of them, besides, are oppressed with a numerous race of

mendicant friars, whose beggary being not only licensed but consecrated by religion, is a most grievous tax

upon the poor people, who are most carefully taught that it is a duty to give, and a very great sin to refuse

them their charity. Over and above all this, the clergy are, in all of them, the greatest engrossers of land.

Fourthly, in the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and above their own consumption, the

English colonies have been more favoured, and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of

any other European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured more or less to monopolise to itself the

commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account, has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to

them, and has prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation. But the manner in

which this monopoly has been exercised in different nations has been very different.

Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an exclusive company, of whom the

colonists were obliged to buy all such European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell

the whole of their own surplus produce. It was the interest of the company, therefore, not only to sell the

former as dear, and to buy the latter as cheap as possible, but to buy no more of the latter, even at this low

price than what they could dispose of for a very high price in Europe. It was their interest, not only to degrade

in all cases the value of the surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep down the

natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that can well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of

a new colony, that of an exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual. This, however, has been the

policy of Holland, though their company, in the course of the present century, has given up in many respects

the exertion of their exclusive privilege. This, too, was the policy of Denmark till the reign of the late king. It

has occasionally been the policy of France, and of late, since 1755, after it had been abandoned by all other

nations on account of its absurdity, it has become the policy of Portugal with regard at least to two of the

Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined the whole commerce of their

colonies to a particular port of the mother country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a

fleet and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a particular licence, which in most cases was

very well paid for. This policy opened, indeed, the trade of the colonies to all the natives of the mother

country, provided they traded from the proper port, at the proper season, and in the proper vessels. But as all

the different merchants, who joined their stocks in order to fit out those licensed vessels, would find it for

their interest to act in concert, the trade which was carried on in this manner would necessarily be conducted

very nearly upon the same principles as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants would

be almost equally exorbitant and oppressive. The colonies would be ill supplied, and would be obliged both

to buy very dear, and to sell very cheap. This, however, till within these few years, had always been the

policy of Spain, and the price of all European goods, accordingly, is said to have been enormous in the

Spanish West Indies. At Quito, we are told by Ulloa, a pound of iron sold for about four and sixpence, and a

pound of steel for about six and ninepence sterling. But it is chiefly in order to purchase European goods that

the colonies part with their own produce. The more, therefore, they pay for the one, the less they really get for

the other, and the dearness of the one is the same thing with the cheapness of the other. The policy of

Portugal is in this respect the same as the ancient policy of Spain with regard to all its colonies, except

Fernambuco and Marannon, and with regard to these it has lately adopted a still worse.

Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their subjects who may carry it on from all the

different ports of the mother country, and who have occasion for no other licence than the common

despatches of the customhouse. In this case the number and dispersed situation of the different traders

renders it impossible for them to enter into any general combination, and their competition is sufficient to

hinder them from making very exorbitant profits. Under so liberal a policy the colonies are enabled both to

sell their own produce and to buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price. But since the dissolution of the

Plymouth Company, when our colonies were but in their infancy, this has always been the policy of England.

It has generally, too, been that of France, and has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what, in England,

is commonly called their Mississippi Company. The profits of the trade, therefore, which France and England

carry on with their colonies, though no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition was free to all other

nations, are, however, by no means exorbitant; and the price of European goods accordingly is not

extravagantly high in the greater part of the colonies of either of those nations.

In the exportation of their own surplus produce too, it is only with regard to certain commodities that the

colonies of Great Britain are confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having been

enumerated in the Act of Navigation and in some other subsequent acts, have upon that account been called

enumerated commodities. The rest are called nonenumerated, and may be exported directly to other

countries provided it is in British or Plantation ships, of which the owners and threefourths of the mariners

Among the nonenumerated commodities are some of the most important productions of America and the

Grain is naturally the first and principal object of the culture of all new colonies. By allowing them a very

extensive market for it, the law encourages them to extend this culture much beyond the consumption of a

thinly inhabited country, and thus to provide beforehand an ample subsistence for a continually increasing

In a country quite covered with wood, where timber consequently is of little or no value, the expense of

clearing the ground is the principal obstacle to improvement. By allowing the colonies a very extensive

market for their lumber, the law endeavours to facilitate improvement by raising the price of a commodity

which would otherwise be of little value, and thereby enabling them to make some profit of what would

In a country neither halfpeopled nor halfcultivated, cattle naturally multiply beyond the consumption of

the inhabitants, and are often upon that account of little or no value. But it is necessary, it has already been

shown, that the price of cattle should bear a certain proportion to that of corn before the greater part of the

lands of any country can be improved. By allowing to American cattle, in all shapes, dead or alive, a very

extensive market, the law endeavors to raise the value of a commodity of which the high price is so very

essential to improvement. The good effects of this liberty, however, must be somewhat diminished by the 4th

of George III, c. 15, which puts hides and skins among the enumerated commodities, and thereby tends to

To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain, by the extension of the fisheries of our colonies, is

an object which the legislature seems to have had almost constantly in view. Those fisheries, upon this

account, have had all the encouragement which freedom can give them, and they have flourished accordingly.

The New England fishery in particular was, before the late disturbances, one of the most important, perhaps,

in the world. The whalefishery which, notwithstanding an extravagant bounty, is in Great Britain carried on

to so little purpose that in the opinion of many people (which I do not, however, pretend to warrant) the

whole produce does not much exceed the value of the bounties which are annually paid for it, is in New

England carried on without any bounty to a very great extent. Fish is one of the principal articles with which

Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity which could be exported only to Great Britain. But in 1731,

upon a representation of the sugarplanters, its exportation was permitted to all parts of the world. The

restrictions, however, with which this liberty was granted, joined to the high price of sugar in Great Britain,

have rendered it, in a great measure, ineffectual. Great Britain and her colonies still continue to be almost the

sole market for all the sugar produced in the British plantations. Their consumption increases so fast that,

though in consequence of the increasing improvement of Jamaica, as well as of the Ceded Islands, the

importation of sugar has increased very greatly within these twenty years, the exportation to foreign countries

Rum is a very important article in the trade which the Americans carry on to the coast of Africa, from which

If the whole surplus produce of America in grain of all sorts, in salt provisions and in fish, had been put into

the enumeration, and thereby forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much with

the produce of the industry of our own people. It was probably not so much from any regard to the interest of

America as from a jealousy of this interference that those important commodities have not only been kept out

of the enumeration, but that the importation into Great Britain of all grain, except rice, and of salt provisions,

The nonenumerated commodities could originally be exported to all parts of the world. Lumber and rice,

having been once put into the enumeration, when they were afterwards taken out of it, were confined, as to

the European market, to the countries that lie south of Cape Finisterre. By the 6th of George III, c. 52, all

nonenumerated commodities were subjected to the like restriction. The parts of Europe which lie south of

Cape Finisterre are not manufacturing countries, and we were less jealous of the colony ships carrying home

The enumerated commodities are of two sorts: first, such as are either the peculiar produce of America, or as

cannot be produced, or at least are not produced, in the mother country. Of this kind are molasses, coffee,

cocoanuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whalefins, raw silk, cottonwool, beaver, and other peltry of America,

indigo, fustic, and other dyeing woods; secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce of America, but which

are and may be produced in the mother country, though not in such quantities as to supply the greater part of

her demand, which is principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval stores, masts,

yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl

ashes. The largest importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the growth or interfere

with the sale of any part of the produce of the mother country. By confining them to the home market, our

merchants, it was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them cheaper in the plantations, and

consequently to sell them with a better profit at home, but to establish between the plantations and foreign

countries an advantageous carrying trade, of which Great Britain was necessarily to be the centre or

emporium, as the European country into which those commodities were first to be imported. The importation

of commodities of the second kind might be so managed too, it was supposed, as to interfere, not with the

sale of those of the same kind which were produced at home, but with that of those which were imported

from foreign countries; because, by means of proper duties, they might be rendered always somewhat dearer

than the former, and yet a good deal cheaper than the latter. By confining such commodities to the home

market, therefore, it was proposed to discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, but of some foreign

countries with which the balance of trade was believed to be unfavourable to Great Britain.

The prohibition of exporting from the colonies, to any other country but Great Britain, masts, yards, and

bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and

consequently to increase the expense of clearing their lands, the principal obstacle to their improvement. But

about the beginning of the present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden endeavoured to

raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting their exportation, except in their own

ships, at their own price, and in such quantities as they thought proper. In order to counteract this notable

piece of mercantile policy, and to render herself as much as possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of

all the other northern powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the importation of naval stores from America,

and the effect of this bounty was to raise the price of timber in America much more than the confinement to

the home market could lower it; and as both regulations were enacted at the same time, their joint effect was

Though pig and bar iron too have been put among the enumerated commodities, yet as, when imported from

America, they were exempted from considerable duties to which they are subject when imported from any

other country, the one part of the regulation contributes more to encourage the erection of furnaces in

America than the other to discourage it. There is no manufacture which occasions so great a consumption of

wood as a furnace, or which can contribute so much to the clearing of a country overgrown with it.

The tendency of some of these regulations to raise the value of timber in America, and thereby to facilitate

the clearing of the land, was neither, perhaps, intended nor understood by the legislature. Though their

beneficial effects, however, have been in this respect accidental, they have not upon that account been less

The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British colonies of America and the West Indies,

both in the enumerated and in the nonenumerated commodities. Those colonies are now become so

populous and thriving that each of them finds in some of the others a great and extensive market for every

part of its produce. All of them taken together, they make a great internal market for the produce of one

The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what

concerns the market for their produce, either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of

manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures even of the colony produce, the merchants

and manufacturers of Great Britain choose to reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature

to prevent their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and sometimes by absolute

While, for example, Muskovado sugars from the British plantations pay upon importation only 6s. 4d. the

hundredweight; white sugars pay L1 1s. 1d.; and refined, either double or single, in loaves L4 2s. 5 8/20d.

When those high duties were imposed, Great Britain was the sole, and she still continues to be the principal

market to which the sugars of the British colonies could be exported. They amounted, therefore, to a

prohibition, at first of claying or refining sugar for any foreign market, and at present of claying or refining it

for the market, which takes off, perhaps, more than ninetenths of the whole produce. The manufacture of

claying or refining sugar accordingly, though it has flourished in all the sugar colonies of France, has been

little cultivated in any of those of England except for the market of the colonies themselves. While Grenada

was in the hands of the French there was a refinery of sugar, by claying at least, upon almost every plantation.

Since it fell into those of the English, almost all works of this kind have been given tip, and there are at

present, October 1773, I am assured not above two or three remaining in the island. At present, however, by

an indulgence of the customhouse, clayed or refined sugar, if reduced from loaves into powder, is

While Great Britain encourages in America the manufactures of pig and bar iron, by exempting them from

duties to which the like commodities are subject when imported from any other country, she imposes an

absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces and slitmills in any of her American plantations. She

will not suffer her colonists to work in those more refined manufactures even for their own consumption; but

insists upon their purchasing of her merchants and manufacturers all goods of this kind which they have

She prohibits the exportation from one province to another by water, and even the carriage by land upon

horseback or in a cart, of hats, of wools and woollen goods, of the produce of America; a regulation which

effectually prevents the establishment of any manufacture of such commodities for distant sale, and confines

the industry of her colonists in this way to such coarse and household manufactures as a private family

commonly makes for its own use or for that of some of its neighbours in the same province.

To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or

from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a

manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however, as such prohibitions may be, they

have not hitherto been very hurtful to the colonies. Land is still so cheap, and, consequently, labour so dear

among them, that they can import from the mother country almost all the more refined or more advanced

manufactures cheaper than they could make for themselves. Though they had not, therefore, been prohibited

from establishing such manufactures, yet in their present state of improvement a regard to their own interest

would, probably, have prevented them from doing so. In their present state of improvement those

prohibitions, perhaps, without cramping their industry, or restraining it from any employment to which it

would have gone of its own accord, are only impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any

sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country. In a

Great Britain too, as she confines to her own market some of the most important productions of the colonies,

so in compensation she gives to some of them an advantage in that market, sometimes by imposing higher

duties upon the like productions when imported from other countries, and sometimes by giving bounties upon

their importation from the colonies. In the first way she gives an advantage in the home market to the sugar,

tobacco, and iron of her own colonies, and in the second to their raw silk, to their hemp and flax, to their

indigo, to their naval stores, and to their building timber. This second way of encouraging the colony produce

by bounties upon importation, is, so far as I have been able to learn, peculiar to Great Britain. The first is not.

Portugal does not content herself with imposing higher duties upon the importation of tobacco from any other

With regard to the importation of goods from Europe, England has likewise dealt more liberally with her

Great Britain allows a part, almost always the half, generally a larger portion, and sometimes the whole of the

duty which is paid upon the importation of foreign goods, to be drawn back upon their exportation to any

foreign country. No independent foreign country, it was easy to foresee, would receive them if they came to it

loaded with the heavy duties to which almost all foreign goods are subjected on their importation into Great

Britain. Unless, therefore, some part of those duties was drawn back upon exportation, there was an end of

Our colonies, however, are by no means independent foreign countries; and Great Britain having assumed to

herself the exclusive right of supplying them with all goods from Europe, might have forced them (in the

same manner as other countries have done their colonies) to receive such goods, loaded with all the same

duties which they paid in the mother country. But, on the contrary, till 1763, the same drawbacks were paid

upon the exportation of the greater part of foreign goods to our colonies as to any independent foreign

country. In 1763, indeed, by the 4th of George III, c. 15, this indulgence was a good deal abated, and it was

enacted, "That no part of the duty called the Old Subsidy should be drawn back for any goods of the growth,

production, or manufacture of Europe or the East Indies, which should be exported from this kingdom to any

British colony or plantation in America; wines, white calicoes and muslins excepted." Before this law, many

different sorts of foreign goods might have been bought cheaper in the plantations than in the mother country;

Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, the merchants who carry it on, it must be

observed, have been the principal advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in the greater part of them,

their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies or that of the mother country. In their

exclusive privilege of supplying the colonies with all the goods which they wanted from Europe, and of

purchasing all such parts of their surplus produce as could not interfere with any of the trades which they

themselves carried on at home, the interest of the colonies was sacrificed to the interest of those merchants. In

allowing the same drawbacks upon the reexportation of the greater part of European and East India goods to

the colonies as upon their reexportation to any independent country, the interest of the mother country was

sacrificed to it, even according to the mercantile ideas of that interest. It was for the interest of the merchants

to pay as little as possible for the foreign which they sent to the colonies, and, consequently, to get back as

much as possible of the duties which they advanced upon their importation into Great Britain. They might

thereby be enabled to sell in the colonies either the same quantity of goods with a greater profit, or a greater

quantity with the same profit, and, consequently, to gain something either in the one way or the other. It was

likewise for the interest of the colonies to get all such goods as cheap and in as great abundance as possible.

But this might not always be for the interest of the mother country. She might frequently suffer both in her

revenue, by giving back a great part of the duties which had been paid upon the importation of such goods;

and in her manufactures, by being undersold in the colony market, in consequence of the easy terms upon

which foreign manufactures could be carried thither by means of those drawbacks. The progress of the linen

manufacture of Great Britain, it is commonly said, has been a good deal retarded by the drawbacks upon the

But though the policy of Great Britain with regard to the trade of her colonies has been dictated by the same

mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive

In everything, except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English colonists to manage their own affairs their

own way is complete. It is in every respect equal to that of their fellowcitizens at home, and is secured in the

same manner, by an assembly of the representatives of the people, who claim the sole right of imposing taxes

for the support of the colony government. The authority of this assembly overawes the executive power, and

neither the meanest nor the most obnoxious colonist, as long as he obeys the law, has anything to fear from

the resentment, either of the governor or of any other civil or military officer in the province. The colony

assemblies though, like the House of Commons in England, are not always a very equal representation of the

people, yet they approach more nearly to that character; and as the executive power either has not the means

to corrupt them, or, on account of the support which it receives from the mother country, is not under the

necessity of doing so, they are perhaps in general more influenced by the inclinations of their constituents.

The councils which, in the colony legislatures, correspond to the House of Lords in Great Britain, are not

composed of an hereditary nobility. In some of the colonies, as in three of the governments of New England,

those councils are not appointed by the king, but chosen by the representatives of the people. In none of the

English colonies is there any hereditary nobility. In all of them, indeed, as in all other free countries, the

descendant of an old colony family is more respected than an upstart of equal merit and fortune; but he is

only more respected, and he has no privileges by which he can be troublesome to his neighbours. Before the

commencement of the present disturbances, the colony assemblies had not only the legislative but a part of

the executive power. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, they elected the governor. In the other colonies they

appointed the revenue officers who collected the taxes imposed by those respective assemblies, to whom

those officers were immediately responsible. There is more equality, therefore, among the English colonists

than among the inhabitants of the mother country. Their manners are more republican, and their governments,

those of three of the provinces of New England in particular, have hitherto been more republican too.

The absolute governments of Spain, Portugal, and France, on the contrary, take place in their colonies; and

the discretionary powers which such governments commonly delegate to all their inferior officers are, on

account of the great distance, naturally exercised there with more than ordinary violence. Under all absolute

governments there is more liberty in the capital than in any other part of the country. The sovereign himself

can never have either interest or inclination to pervert the order of justice, or to oppress the great body of the

people. In the capital his presence overawes more or less all his inferior officers, who in the remoter

provinces, from whence the complaints of the people are less likely to reach him, can exercise their tyranny

with much more safety. But the European colonies in America are more remote than the most distant

provinces of the greatest empires which had ever been known before. The government of the English colonies

is perhaps the only one which, since the world began, could give perfect security to the inhabitants of so very

distant a province. The administration of the French colonies, however, has always been conducted with more

gentleness and moderation than that of the Spanish and Portugese. This superiority of conduct is suitable both

to the character of the French nation, and to what forms the character of every nation, the nature of their

government, which though arbitrary and violent in comparison with that of Great Britain, is legal and free in

It is in the progress of the North American colonies, however, that the superiority of the English policy

chiefly appears. The progress of the sugar colonies of France has been at least equal, perhaps superior, to that

of the greater part of those of England, and yet the sugar colonies of England enjoy a free government nearly

of the same kind with that which takes place in her colonies of North America. But the sugar colonies of

France are not discouraged, like those of England, from refining their own sugar; and, what is of still greater

importance, the genius of their government naturally introduces a better management of their negro slaves.

In all European colonies the culture of the sugarcane is carried on by negro slaves. The constitution of those

who have been born in the temperate climate of Europe could not, it is supposed, support the labour of

digging the ground under the burning sun of the West Indies; and the culture of the sugarcane, as it is

managed at present, is all hand labour, though, in the opinion of many, the drill plough might be introduced

into it with great advantage. But, as the profit and success of the cultivation which is carried on by means of

cattle, depend very much upon the good management of those cattle, so the profit and success of that which is

carried on by slaves must depend equally upon the good management of those slaves; and in the good

management of their slaves the French planters, I think it is generally allowed, are superior to the English.

The law, so far as it gives some weak protection to the slave against the violence of his master, is likely to be

better executed in a colony where the government is in a great measure arbitrary than in one where it is

altogether free. In every country where the unfortunate law of slavery is established, the magistrate, when he

protects the slave, intermeddles in some measure in the management of the private property of the master;

and, in a free country, where the master is perhaps either a member of the colony assembly, or an elector of

such a member, he dare not do this but with the greatest caution and circumspection. The respect which he is

obliged to pay to the master renders it more difficult for him to protect the slave. But in a country where the

government is in a great measure arbitrary, where it is usual for the magistrate to intermeddle even in the

management of the private property of individuals, and to send them, perhaps, a lettre de cachet if they do not

manage it according to his liking, it is much easier for him to give some protection to the slave; and common

humanity naturally disposes him to do so. The protection of the magistrate renders the slave less contemptible

in the eyes of his master, who is thereby induced to consider him with more regard, and to treat him with

more gentleness. Gentle usage renders the slave not only more faithful, but more intelligent, and therefore,

upon a double account, more useful. He approaches more to the condition of a free servant, and may possess

some degree of integrity and attachment to his master's interest, virtues which frequently belong to free

servants, but which never can belong to a slave who is treated as slaves commonly are in countries where the

That the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary than under a free government is, I believe, supported

by the history of all ages and nations. In the Roman history, the first time we read of the magistrate

interposing to protect the slave from the violence of his master is under the emperors. When Vedius Pollio, in

the presence of Augustus, ordered one of his slaves, who had committed a slight fault, to be cut into pieces

and thrown into his fish pond in order to feed his fishes, the emperor commanded him, with indignation, to

emancipate immediately, not only that slave, but all the others that belonged to him. Under the republic no

magistrate could have had authority enough to protect the slave, much less to punish the master.

The stock, it is to be observed, which has improved the sugar colonies of France, particularly the great colony

of St. Domingo, has been raised almost entirely from the gradual improvement and cultivation of those

colonies. It has been almost altogether the produce of the soil and of the industry of the colonies, or, what

comes to the same thing, the price of that produce gradually accumulated by good management, and

employed in raising a still greater produce. But the stock which has improved and cultivated the sugar

colonies of England has, a great part of it, been sent out from England, and has by no means been altogether

the produce of the soil and industry of the colonists. The prosperity of the English sugar colonies has been, in

a great measure, owing to the great riches of England, of which a part has overflowed, if one may say so,

upon those colonies. But the prosperity of the sugar colonies of France has been entirely owing to the good

conduct of the colonists, which must therefore have had some superiority over that of the English; and this

superiority has been remarked in nothing so much as in the good management of their slaves.

Such have been the general outlines of the policy of the different European nations with regard to their

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

The adventurers, indeed, who formed some of the later establishments, joined to the chimerical project of

finding gold and silver mines other motives more reasonable and more laudable; but even these motives do

The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America, and established there the four

governments of New England. The English Catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of

Maryland; the Quakers, that of Pennsylvania. The Portuguese Jews, persecuted by the Inquisition, stripped of

their fortunes, and banished to Brazil, introduced by their example some sort of order and industry among the

transported felons and strumpets by whom that colony was originally peopled, and taught them the culture of

the sugarcane. Upon all these different occasions it was not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and

In effectuating some of the most important of these establishments, the different governments of Europe had

as little merit as in projecting them. The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of Spain, but

of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit of the bold adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in

spite of everything which that governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person, could do to

thwart it. The conquerors of Chili and Peru, and of almost all the other Spanish settlements upon the

continent of America, carried out with them no other public encouragement, but a general permission to make

settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain. Those adventures were all at the private risk and

expense of the adventurers. The government of Spain contributed scarce anything to any of them. That of

England contributed as little towards effectuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in

When those establishments were effectuated, and had become so considerable as to attract the attention of the

mother country, the first regulations which she made with regard to them had always in view to secure to

herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to enlarge her own at their expense,

and, consequently, rather to damp and discourage than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity.

In the different ways in which this monopoly has been exercised consists one of the most essential differences

in the policy of the different European nations with regard to their colonies. The best of them all, that of

England, is only somewhat less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of the rest.

In what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the first establishment, or to the present

grandeur of the colonies of America? In one way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal. Magna

virum Mater! It bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions, and of laying the

foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world of which the policy is capable of

forming, or has ever actually and in fact formed such men. The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the

education and great views of their active and enterprising founders; and some of the greatest and most

important of them, so far as concerns their internal government, owe to it scarce anything else.

SUCH are the advantages which the colonies of America have derived from the policy of Europe.

What are those which Europe has derived from the discovery and colonization of America?

Those advantages may be divided, first, into the general advantages which Europe, considered as one great

country, has derived from those great events; and, secondly, into the particular advantages which each

colonizing country has derived from the colonies which particularly belong to it, in consequence of the

The general advantages which Europe, considered as one great country, has derived from the discovery and

colonisation of America, consist, first, in the increase of its enjoyments; and, secondly, in the augmentation

The surplus produce of America, imported into Europe, furnishes the inhabitants of this great continent with a

variety of commodities which they could not otherwise have possessed; some for conveniency and use, some

for pleasure, and some for ornament, and thereby contributes to increase their enjoyments.

The discovery and colonization of America, it will readily be allowed, have contributed to augment the

industry, first, of all the countries which trade to it directly, such as Spain, Portugal, France, and England;

and, secondly, of all those which, without trading to it directly, send, through the medium of other countries,

goods to it of their own produce; such as Austrian Flanders, and some provinces of Germany, which, through

the medium of the countries before mentioned, send to it a considerable quantity of linen and other goods. All

such countries have evidently gained a more extensive market for their surplus produce, and must

But that those great events should likewise have contributed to encourage the industry of countries, such as

Hungary and Poland, which may never, perhaps, have sent a single commodity of their own produce to

America, is not, perhaps, altogether so evident. That those events have done so, however, cannot be doubted.

Some part of the produce of America is consumed in Hungary and Poland, and there is some demand there

for the sugar, chocolate, and tobacco of that new quarter of the world. But those commodities must be

purchased with something which is either the produce of the industry of Hungary and Poland, or with

something which had been purchased with some part of that produce. Those commodities of America are new

values, new equivalents, introduced into Hungary and Poland to be exchanged there for the surplus produce

of those countries. By being carried thither they create a new and more extensive market for that surplus

produce. They raise its value, and thereby contribute to encourage its increase. Though no part of it may ever

be carried to America, it may be carried to other countries which purchase it with a part of their share of the

surplus produce of America; and it may find a market by means of the circulation of that trade which was

Those great events may even have contributed to increase the enjoyments, and to augment the industry of

countries which not only never sent any commodities to America, but never received any from it. Even such

countries may have received a greater abundance of other commodities from countries of which the surplus

produce had been augmented by means of the American trade. This greater abundance, as it must necessarily

have increased their enjoyments, so it must likewise have augmented their industry. A greater number of new

equivalents of some kind or other must have been presented to them to be exchanged for the surplus produce

of that industry. A more extensive market must have been created for that surplus produce so as to raise its

value, and thereby encourage its increase. The mass of commodities annually thrown into the great circle of

European commerce, and by its various revolutions annually distributed among all the different nations

comprehended within it, must have been augmented by the whole surplus produce of America. A greater

share of this greater mass, therefore, is likely to have fallen to each of those nations, to have increased their

The exclusive trade of the mother countries tends to diminish, or, at least, to keep down below what they

would otherwise rise to, both the enjoyments and industry of all those nations in general, and of the American

colonies in particular. It is a dead weight upon the action of one of the great springs which puts into motion a

great part of the business of mankind. By rendering the colony produce dearer in all other countries, it lessens

its consumption, and thereby cramps the industry of the colonies, and both the enjoyments and the industry of

all other countries, which both enjoy less when they pay more for what they enjoy, and produce less when

they get less for what they produce. By rendering the produce of all other countries dearer in the colonies, it

cramps, in the same manner the industry of all other countries, and both the enjoyments and the industry of

the colonies. It is a clog which, for the supposed benefit of some particular countries, embarrasses the

pleasures and encumbers the industry of all other countries; but of the colonies more than of any other. It not

only excludes, as much as possible, all other countries from one particular market; but it confines, as much as

Possible, the colonies to one particular market; and the difference is very great between being excluded from

one particular market, when all others are open, and being confined to one particular market, when all others

are shut up. The surplus produce of the colonies, however, is the original source of all that increase of

enjoyments and industry which Europe derives from the discovery and colonization of America; and the

exclusive trade of the mother countries tends to render this source much less abundant than it otherwise

The particular advantages which each colonizing country derives from the colonies which particularly belong

to it are of two different kinds; first, those common advantages which every empire derives from the

provinces subject to its dominion; and, secondly, those peculiar advantages which are supposed to result from

The common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces subject to its dominion consist, first,

in the military force which they furnish for its defence; and, secondly, in the revenue which they furnish for

the support of its civil government. The Roman colones furnished occasionally both the one and the other.

The Greek colonies, sometimes, furnished a military force, but seldom any revenue. They seldom

acknowledged themselves subject to the dominion of the mother city. They were generally her allies in war,

The European colonies of America have never yet furnished any military force for the defence of the mother

country. Their military force has never yet been sufficient for their own defence; and in the different wars in

which the mother countries have been engaged, the defence of their colonies has generally occasioned a very

considerable distraction of the military force of those countries. In this respect, therefore, all the European

colonies have, without exception, been a cause rather of weakness than of strength to their respective mother

The colonies of Spain and Portugal only have contributed any revenue towards the defence of the mother

country, or the support of her civil government. The taxes which have been levied upon those of other

European nations, upon those of England in particular, have seldom been equal to the expense laid out upon

them in time of peace, and never sufficient to defray that which they occasioned in time of war. Such

colonies, therefore, have been a source of expense and not of revenue to their respective mother countries.

The advantages of such colonies to their respective mother countries consist altogether in those peculiar

advantages which are supposed to result from provinces of so very peculiar a nature as the European colonies

of America; and the exclusive trade, it is acknowledged, is the sole source of all those peculiar advantages.

In consequence of this exclusive trade, all that part of the surplus produce of the English colonies, for

example, which consists in what are called enumerated commodities, can be sent to no other country but

England. Other countries must afterwards buy it of her. It must be cheaper therefore in England than it can be

in any other country, and must contribute more to increase the enjoyments of England than those of any other

country. It must likewise contribute more to encourage her industry. For all those parts of her own surplus

produce which England exchanges for those enumerated commodities, she must get a better price than any

other countries can get for the like parts of theirs, when they exchange them for the same commodities. The

manufacturers of England, for example, will purchase a greater quantity of the sugar and tobacco of her own

colonies than the like manufactures of other countries can purchase of that sugar and tobacco. So far,

therefore, as the manufactures of England and those of other countries are both to be exchanged for the sugar

and tobacco of the English colonies, this superiority of price gives an encouragement to the former beyond

what the latter can in these circumstances enjoy. The exclusive trade of the colonies, therefore, as it

diminishes, or at least keeps down below what they would otherwise rise to, both the enjoyments and the

industry of the countries which do not possess it; so it gives an evident advantage to the countries which do

This advantage, however, will perhaps be found to be rather what may be called a relative than an absolute

advantage; and to give a superiority to the country which enjoys it rather by depressing the industry and

produce of other countries than by raising those of that particular country above what they would naturally

The tobacco of Maryland and Virginia, for example, by means of the monopoly which England enjoys of it,

certainly comes cheaper to England than it can do to France, to whom England commonly sells a

considerable part of it. But had France, and all other European countries been, at all times, allowed a free

trade to Maryland and Virginia, the tobacco of those colonies might, by this time, have come cheaper than it

actually does, not only to all those other countries, but likewise to England. The produce of tobacco, in

consequence of a market so much more extensive than any which it has hitherto enjoyed, might, and probably

would, by this time, have been so much increased as to reduce the profits of a tobacco plantation to their

natural level with those of a corn plantation, which, it is supposed, they are still somewhat above. The price

of tobacco might, and probably would, by this time, have fallen somewhat lower than it is at present. An

equal quantity of the commodities either of England or of those other countries might have purchased in

Maryland and Virginia a greater quantity of tobacco than it can do at present, and consequently have been

sold there for so much a better price. So far as that weed, therefore, can, by its cheapness and abundance,

increase the enjoyments or augment the industry either of England or of any other country, it would,

probably, in the case of a free trade, have produced both these effects in somewhat a greater degree than it

can do at present. England, indeed, would not in this case have had any advantage over other countries. She

might have bought the tobacco of her colonies somewhat cheaper, and consequently have sold some of her

own commodities somewhat dearer than she actually does. But she could neither have bought the one cheaper

nor sold the other dearer than any other country might have done. She might, perhaps have gained an

In order, however, to obtain this relative advantage in the colony trade, in order to execute the invidious and

malignant project of excluding as much as possible other nations from any share in it, England, there are very

probable reasons for believing, has not only sacrificed a part of the absolute advantage which she, as well as

every other nation, might have derived from that trade, but has subjected herself both to an absolute and to a

When, by the Act of Navigation, England assumed to herself the monopoly of the colony trade, the foreign

capitals which had before been employed in it were necessarily withdrawn from it. The English capital,

which had before carried on but a part of it, was now to carry on the whole. The capital which had before

supplied the colonies with but a part of the goods which they wanted from Europe was now all that was

employed to supply them with the whole. But it could not supply them with the whole, and the goods with

which it did supply them were necessarily sold very dear. The capital which had before bought but a part of

the surplus produce of the colonies, was now all that was employed to buy the whole. But it could not buy the

whole at anything near the old price, and, therefore, whatever it did buy it necessarily bought very cheap. But

in an employment of capital in which the merchant sold very dear and bought very cheap, the profit must

have been very great, and much above the ordinary level of profit in other branches of trade. This superiority

of profit in the colony trade could not fail to draw from other branches of trade a part of the capital which had

before been employed in them. But this revulsion of capital, as it must have gradually increased the

competition of capitals in the colony trade, so it must have gradually diminished that competition in all those

other branches of trade; as it must have gradually lowered the profits of the one, so it must have gradually

raised those of the other, till the profits of all came to a new level, different from and somewhat higher than

This double effect of drawing capital from all other trades, and of raising the rate of profit somewhat higher

than it otherwise would have been in all trades, was not only produced by this monopoly upon its first

First, this monopoly has been continually drawing capital from all other trades to be employed in that of the

Though the wealth of Great Britain has increased very much since the establishment of the Act of Navigation,

it certainly has not increased in the same proportion as that of the colonies. But the foreign trade of every

country naturally increases in proportion to its wealth, its surplus produce in proportion to its whole produce;

and Great Britain having engrossed to herself almost the whole of what may be called the foreign trade of the

colonies, and her capital not having increased in the same proportion as the extent of that trade, she could not

carry it on without continually withdrawing from other branches of trade some part of the capital which had

before been employed in them as well as withholding from them a great deal more which would otherwise

have gone to them. Since the establishment of the Act of Navigation, accordingly, the colony trade has been

continually increasing, while many other branches of foreign trade, particularly of that to other parts of

Europe, have been continually decaying. Our manufactures for foreign sale, instead of being suited, as before

the Act of Navigation, to the neighbouring market of Europe, or to the more distant one of the countries

which lie round the Mediterranean Sea, have, the greater part of them, been accommodated to the still more

distant one of the colonies, to the market in which they have the monopoly rather than to that in which they

have many competitors. The causes of decay in other branches of foreign trade, which, by Sir Matthew

Decker and other writers, have been sought for in the excess and improper mode of taxation, in the high price

of labour, in the increase of luxury, etc., may all be found in the overgrowth of the colony trade. The

mercantile capital of Great Britain, though very great, yet not being infinite, and though greatly increased

since the Act of Navigation, yet not being increased in the same proportion as the colony trade, that trade

could not possibly be carried on without withdrawing some part of that capital from other branches of trade,

England, it must be observed, was a great trading country, her mercantile capital was very great and likely to

become still greater and greater every day, not only before the Act of Navigation had established the

monopoly of the colony trade, but before that trade was very considerable. In the Dutch war, during the

government of Cromwell, her navy was superior to that of Holland; and in that which broke out in the

beginning of the reign of Charles II, it was at last equal, perhaps superior, to the united navies of France and

Holland. Its superiority, perhaps, would scarce appear greater in the present times; at least if the Dutch navy

was to bear the same proportion to the Dutch commerce now which it did then. But this great naval power

could not, in either of those wars, be owing to the Act of Navigation. During the first of them the plan of that

act had been but just formed; and though before the breaking out of the second it had been fully enacted by

legal authority, yet no part of it could have had time to produce any considerable effect, and least of all that

part which established the exclusive trade to the colonies. Both the colonies and their trade were

inconsiderable then in comparison of what they are now. The island of Jamaica was an unwholesome desert,

little inhabited, and less cultivated. New York and New Jersey were in the possession of the Dutch: the half

of St. Christopher's in that of the French. The island of Antigua, the two Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Georgia,

and Nova Scotia were not planted. Virginia, Maryland, and New England were planted; and though they were

very thriving colonies, yet there was not, perhaps, at that time, either in Europe or America, a single person

who foresaw or even suspected the rapid progress which they have since made in wealth, population, and

improvement. The island of Barbadoes, in short, was the only British colony of any consequence of which the

condition at that time bore any resemblance to what it is at present. The trade of the colonies, of which

England, even for some time after the Act of Navigation, enjoyed but a part (for the Act of Navigation was

not very strictly executed till several years after it was enacted), could not at that time be the cause of the

great trade of England, nor of the great naval power which was supported by that trade. The trade which at

that time supported that great naval power was the trade of Europe, and of the countries which lie round the

Mediterranean Sea. But the share which Great Britain at present enjoys of that trade could not support any

such great naval power. Had the growing trade of the colonies been left free to all nations, whatever share of

it might have fallen to Great Britain, and a very considerable share would probably have fallen to her, must

have been all an addition to this great trade of which she was before in possession. In consequence of the

monopoly, the increase of the colony trade has not so much occasioned an addition to the trade which Great

Secondly, this monopoly has necessarily contributed to keep up the rate of profit in all the different branches

of British trade higher than it naturally would have been had all nations been allowed a free trade to the

The monopoly of the colony trade, as it necessarily drew towards that trade a greater proportion of the capital

of Great Britain than what would have gone to it of its own accord; so by the expulsion of all foreign capitals

it necessarily reduced the whole quantity of capital employed in that trade below what it naturally would have

been in the case of a free trade. But, by lessening the competition of capitals in that branch of trade, it

necessarily raised the rate of profit in that branch. By lessening, too, the competition of British capitals in all

other branches of trade, it necessarily raised the rate of British profit in all those other branches. Whatever

may have been, at any particular period, since the establishment of the Act of Navigation, the state or extent

of the mercantile capital of Great Britain, the monopoly of the colony trade must, during the continuance of

that state, have raised the ordinary rate of British profit higher than it otherwise would have been both in that

and in all the other branches of British trade. If, since the establishment of the Act of Navigation, the ordinary

rate of British profit has fallen considerably, as it certainly has, it must have fallen still lower, had not the

But whatever raises in any country the ordinary rate of profit higher than it otherwise would be, necessarily

subjects that country both to an absolute and to a relative disadvantage in every branch of trade of which she

It subjects her to an absolute disadvantage; because in such branches of trade her merchants cannot get this

greater profit without selling dearer than they otherwise would do both the goods of foreign countries which

they import into their own, and the goods of their own country which they export to foreign countries. Their

own country must both buy dearer and sell dearer; must both buy less and sell less; must both enjoy less and

It subjects her to a relative disadvantage; because in such branches of trade it sets other countries which are

not subject to the same absolute disadvantage either more above her or less below her than they otherwise

would be. It enables them both to enjoy more and to produce more in proportion to what she enjoys and

produces. It renders their superiority greater or their inferiority less than it otherwise would be. By raising the

price of her produce above what it otherwise would be, it enables the merchants of other countries to

undersell her in foreign markets, and thereby to jostle her out of almost all those branches of trade, of which

Our merchants frequently complain of the high wages of British labour as the cause of their manufactures

being undersold in foreign markets, but they are silent about the high profits of stock. They complain of the

extravagant gain of other people, but they say nothing of their own. The high profits of British stock,

however, may contribute towards raising the price of British manufactures in many cases as much, and in

It is in this manner that the capital of Great Britain, one may justly say, has partly been drawn and partly been

driven from the greater part of the different branches of trade of which she has not the monopoly; from the

trade of Europe in particular, and from that of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean Sea.

It has partly been drawn from those branches of trade by the attraction of superior profit in the colony trade in

consequence of the continual increase of that trade, and of the continual insufficiency of the capital which

It has partly been driven from them by the advantage which the high rate of profit, established in Great

Britain, gives to other countries in all the different branches of trade of which Great Britain has not the

As the monopoly of the colony trade has drawn from those other branches a part of the British capital which

would otherwise have been employed in them, so it has forced into them many foreign capitals which would

never have gone to them had they not been expelled from the colony trade. In those other branches of trade it

has diminished the competition of British capital, and thereby raised the rate of British profit higher than it

otherwise would have been. On the contrary, it has increased the competition of foreign capitals, and thereby

sunk the rate of foreign profit lower than it otherwise would have been. Both in the one way and in the other

it must evidently have subjected Great Britain to a relative disadvantage in all those other branches of trade.

The colony trade, however, it may perhaps be said, is more advantageous to Great Britain than any other; and

the monopoly, by forcing into that trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would

otherwise have gone to it, has turned that capital into an employment more advantageous to the country than

The most advantageous employment of any capital to the country to which it belongs is that which maintains

there the greatest quantity of productive labour, and increases the most the annual produce of the land and

labour of that country. But the quantity of productive labour which any capital employed in the foreign trade

of consumption can maintain is exactly in proportion, it has been shown in the second book, to the frequency

of its returns. A capital of a thousand pounds, for example, employed in a foreign trade of consumption, of

which the returns are made regularly once in the year, can keep in constant employment, in the country to

which it belongs, a quantity of productive labour equal to what a thousand pounds can maintain there for a

year. If the returns are made twice or thrice in the year, it can keep in constant employment a quantity of

productive labour equal to what two or three thousand pounds can maintain there for a year. A foreign trade

of consumption carried on with a neighbouring country is, upon this account, in general more advantageous

than one carried on with a distant country; and for the same reason a direct foreign trade of consumption, as it

has likewise been shown in the second book, is in general more advantageous than a roundabout one.

But the monopoly of the colony trade, so far as it has operated upon the employment of the capital of Great

Britain, has in all cases forced some part of it from a foreign trade of consumption carried on with a

neighbouring, to one carried on with a more distant country, and in many cases from a direct foreign trade of

First, the monopoly of the colony trade has in all cases forced some part of the capital of Great Britain from a

foreign trade of consumption carried on with a neighbouring to one carried on with a more distant country.

It has, in all cases, forced some part of that capital from the trade with Europe, and with the countries which

lie round the Mediterranean Sea, to that with the more distant regions of America and the West Indies, from

which the returns are necessarily less frequent, not only on account of the greater distance, but on account of

the peculiar circumstances of those countries. New colonies, it has already been observed, are always

understocked. Their capital is always much less than what they could employ with great profit and advantage

in the improvement and cultivation of their land. They have a constant demand, therefore, for more capital

than they have of their own; and, in order to supply the deficiency of their own, they endeavour to borrow as

much as they can of the mother country, to whom they are, therefore, always in debt. The most common way

in which the colonists contract this debt is not by borrowing upon bond of the rich people of the mother

country, though they sometimes do this too, but by running as much in arrear to their correspondents, who

supply them with goods from Europe, as those correspondents will allow them. Their annual returns

frequently do not amount to more than a third, and sometimes not to so great a proportion of what they owe.

The whole capital, therefore, which their correspondents advance to them is seldom returned to Britain in less

than three, and sometimes not in less than four or five years. But a British capital of a thousand pounds, for

example, which is returned to Great Britain only once in five years, can keep in constant employment only

onefifth part of the British industry which it could maintain if the whole was returned once in the year; and,

instead of the quantity of industry which a thousand pounds could maintain for a year, can keep in constant

employment the quantity only which two hundred pounds can maintain for a year. The planter, no doubt, by

the high price which he pays for the goods from Europe, by the interest upon the bills which he grants at

distant dates, and by the commission upon the renewal of those which he grants at near dates, makes up, and

probably more than makes up, all the loss which his correspondent can sustain by this delay. But though he

may make up the loss of his correspondent, he cannot make up that of Great Britain. In a trade of which the

returns are very distant, the profit of the merchant may be as great or greater than in one in which they are

very frequent and near; but the advantage of the country in which he resides, the quantity of productive

labour constantly maintained there, the annual produce of the land and labour must always be much less. That

the returns of the trade to America, and still more those of that to the West Indies are, in general, not only

more distant but more irregular, and more uncertain too, than those of the trade to any part of Europe, or even

of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean Sea, will readily be allowed, I imagine, by everybody who

Secondly, the monopoly of the colony trade has, in many cases, forced some part of the capital of Great

Among the enumerated commodities which can be sent to no other market but Great Britain, there are several

of which the quantity exceeds very much the consumption of Great Britain, and of which a part, therefore,

must be exported to other countries. But this cannot be done without forcing some part of the capital of Great

Britain into a roundabout foreign trade of consumption. Maryland and Virginia, for example, send annually

to Great Britain upwards of ninetysix thousand hogsheads of tobacco, and the consumption of Great Britain

is said not to exceed fourteen thousand. Upwards of eightytwo thousand hogsheads, therefore, must be

exported to other countries, to France, to Holland, and to the countries which lie round the Baltic and

Mediterranean Seas. But that part of the capital of Great Britain which brings those eightytwo thousand

hogsheads to Great Britain, which reexports them from thence to those other countries, and which brings

back from those other countries to Great Britain either goods or money in return, is employed in a

roundabout foreign trade of consumption; and is necessarily forced into this employment in order to dispose

of this great surplus. If we would compute in how many years the whole of this capital is likely to come back

to Great Britain, we must add to the distance of the American returns that of the returns from those other

countries. If, in the direct foreign trade of consumption which we carry on with America, the whole capital

employed frequently does not come back in less than three or four years, the whole capital employed in this

roundabout one is not likely to come back in less than four or five. If the one can keep in constant

employment but a third or a fourth part of the domestic industry which could be maintained by a capital

returned once in the year, the other can keep in constant employment but a fourth or fifth part of that industry.

At some of the outports a credit is commonly given to those foreign correspondents to whom they export

their tobacco. At the port of London, indeed, it is commonly sold for ready money. The rule is, Weigh and

pay. At the port of London, therefore, the final returns of the whole roundabout trade are more distant than

the returns from America by the time only which the goods may lie unsold in the warehouse; where,

however, they may sometimes lie long enough. But had not the colonies been confined to the market of Great

Britain for the sale of their tobacco, very little more of it would probably have come to us than what was

necessary for the home consumption. The goods which Great Britain purchases at present for her own

consumption with the great surplus of tobacco which she exports to other countries, she would in this case

probably have purchased with the immediate produce of her own industry, or with some part of her own

manufactures. That produce, those manufactures, instead of being almost entirely suited to one great market,

as at present, would probably have been fitted to a great number of smaller markets. Instead of one great

roundabout foreign trade of consumption, Great Britain would probably have carried on a great number of

small direct foreign trades of the same kind. On account of the frequency of the returns, a part, and probably

but a small part; perhaps not above a third or a fourth of the capital which at present carries on this great

roundabout trade might have been sufficient to carry on all those small direct ones, might have kept in

constant employment an equal quantity of British industry, and have equally supported the annual produce of

the land and labour of Great Britain. All the purposes of this trade being, in this manner, answered by a much

smaller capital, there would have been a large spare capital to apply to other purposes: to improve the lands,

to increase the manufactures, and to extend the commerce of Great Britain; to come into competition at least

with the other British capitals employed in all those different ways, to reduce the rate of profit in them all,

and thereby to give to Great Britain, in all of them, a superiority over other countries still greater than what

The monopoly of the colony trade, too, has forced some part of the capital of Great Britain from all foreign

trade of consumption to a carrying trade; and consequently, from supporting more or less the industry of

Great Britain, to be employed altogether in supporting partly that of the colonies and partly that of some other

The goods, for example, which are annually purchased with the great surplus of eightytwo thousand

hogsheads of tobacco annually reexported from Great Britain are not all consumed in Great Britain. Part of

them, linen from Germany and Holland, for example, is returned to the colonies for their particular

consumption. But that part of the capital of Great Britain which buys the tobacco with which this linen is

afterwards bought is necessarily withdrawn from supporting the industry of Great Britain, to be employed

altogether in supporting, partly that of the colonies, and partly that of the particular countries who pay for this

The monopoly of the colony trade besides, by forcing towards it a much greater proportion of the capital of

Great Britain than what would naturally have gone to it, seems to have broken altogether that natural balance

which would otherwise have taken place among all the different branches of British industry. The industry of

Great Britain, instead of being accommodated to a great number of small markets, has been principally suited

to one great market. Her commerce, instead of running in a great number of small channels, has been taught

to run principally in one great channel. But the whole system of her industry and commerce has thereby been

rendered less secure, the whole state of her body politic less healthful than it otherwise would have been. In

her present condition, Great Britain resembles one of those unwholesome bodies in which some of the vital

parts are overgrown, and which, upon that account, are liable to many dangerous disorders scarce incident to

those in which all the parts are more properly proportioned. A small stop in that great bloodvessel, which

has been artificially swelled beyond its natural dimensions, and through which an unnatural proportion of the

industry and commerce of the country has been forced to circulate, is very likely to bring on the most

dangerous disorders upon the whole body politic. The expectation of a rupture with the colonies, accordingly,

has struck the people of Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish armada, or a French

invasion. It was this terror, whether well or ill grounded, which rendered the repeal of the Stamp Act, among

the merchants at least, a popular measure. In the total exclusion from the colony market, was it to last only for

a few years, the greater part of our merchants used to fancy that they foresaw an entire stop to their trade; the

greater part of our master manufacturers, the entire ruin of their business; and the greater part of our

workmen, an end of their employment. A rupture with any of our neighbours upon the continent, though

likely, too, to occasion some stop or interruption in the employments of some of all these different orders of

people, is foreseen, however, without any such general emotion. The blood, of which the circulation is

stopped in some of the smaller vessels, easily disgorges itself into the greater without occasioning any

dangerous disorder; but, when it is stopped in any of the greater vessels, convulsions, apoplexy, or death, are

the immediate and unavoidable consequences. If but one of those overgrown manufactures, which, by means

either of bounties or of the monopoly of the home and colony markets, have been artificially raised up to an

unnatural height, finds some small stop or interruption in its employment, it frequently occasions a mutiny

and disorder alarming to government, and embarrassing even to the deliberations of the legislature. How

great, therefore, would be the disorder and confusion, it was thought, which must necessarily be occasioned

by a sudden and entire stop in the employment of so great a proportion of our principal manufacturers.

Some moderate and gradual relaxation of the laws which give to Great Britain the exclusive trade to the

colonies, till it is rendered in a great measure free, seems to be the only expedient which can, in all future

times, deliver her from this danger, which can enable her or even force her to withdraw some part of her

capital from this overgrown employment, and to turn it, though with less profit, towards other employments;

and which, by gradually diminishing one branch of her industry and gradually increasing all the rest, can by

degrees restore all the different branches of it to that natural, healthful, and proper proportion which perfect

liberty necessarily establishes, and which perfect liberty can alone preserve. To open the colony trade all at

once to all nations might not only occasion some transitory inconveniency, but a great permanent loss to the

greater part of those whose industry or capital is at present engaged in it. The sudden loss of the employment

even of the ships which import the eightytwo thousand hogsheads of tobacco, which are over and above the

consumption of Great Britain, might alone be felt very sensibly. Such are the unfortunate effects of all the

regulations of the mercantile system! They not only introduce very dangerous disorders into the state of the

body politic, but disorders which it is often difficult to remedy, without occasioning for a time at least, still

greater disorders. In what manner, therefore, the colony trade ought gradually to be opened; what are the

restraints which ought first, and what are those which ought last to be taken away; or in what manner the

natural system of perfect liberty and justice ought gradually to be restored, we must leave to the wisdom of

Five different events, unforeseen and unthought of, have very fortunately concurred to hinder Great Britain

from feeling, so sensibly as it was generally expected she would, the total exclusion which has now taken

place for more than a year (from the first of December, 1774) from a very important branch of the colony

trade, that of the twelve associated provinces of North America. First, those colonies, in preparing themselves

for their nonimportation agreement, drained Great Britain completely of all the commodities which were fit

for their market; secondly, the extraordinary demand of the Spanish Flota has, this year, drained Germany

and the North of many commodities, linen in particular, which used to come into competition, even in the

British market, with the manufactures of Great Britain; thirdly, the peace between Russia and Turkey has

occasioned an extraordinary demand from the Turkey market, which, during the distress of the country, and

while a Russian fleet was cruising in the Archipelago, had been very poorly supplied; fourthly, the demand of

the North of Europe for the manufactures of Great Britain has been increasing from year to year for some

time past; and fifthly, the late partition and consequential pacification of Poland, by opening the market of

that great country, have this year added an extraordinary demand from thence to the increasing demand of the

North. These events are all, except the fourth, in their nature transitory and accidental, and the exclusion from

so important a branch of the colony trade, if unfortunately it should continue much longer, may still occasion

some degree of distress. This distress, however, as it will come on gradually, will be felt much less severely

than if it had come on all at once; and, in the meantime, the industry and capital of the country may find a

new employment and direction, so as to prevent this distress from ever rising to any considerable height.

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, so far as it has turned towards that trade a greater proportion of

the capital of Great Britain than what would otherwise have gone to it, has in all cases turned it, from a

foreign trade of consumption with a neighbouring into one with a more distant country; in many cases, from a

direct foreign trade of consumption into a roundabout one; and in some cases, from all foreign trade of

consumption into a carrying trade. It has in all cases, therefore, turned it from a direction in which it would

have maintained a greater quantity of productive labour into one in which it can maintain a much smaller

quantity. By suiting, besides, to one particular market only so great a part of the industry and commerce of

Great Britain, it has rendered the whole state of that industry and commerce more precarious and less secure

We must carefully distinguish between the effects of the colony trade and those of the monopoly of that trade.

The former are always and necessarily beneficial; the latter always and necessarily hurtful. But the former are

so beneficial that the colony trade, though subject to a monopoly, and notwithstanding the hurtful effects of

that monopoly, is still upon the whole beneficial, and greatly beneficial; though a good deal less so than it

The effect of the colony trade in its natural and free state is to open a great, though distant, market for such

parts of the produce of British industry as may exceed the demand of the markets nearer home, of those of

Europe, and of the countries which lie round the Mediterranean Sea. In its natural and free state, the colony

trade, without drawing from those markets any part of the produce which had ever been sent to them,

encourages Great Britain to increase the surplus continually by continually presenting new equivalents to be

exchanged for it. In its natural and free state, the colony trade tends to increase the quantity of productive

labour in Great Britain, but without altering in any respect the direction of that which had been employed

there before. In the natural and free state of the colony trade, the competition of all other nations would

hinder the rate of profit from rising above the common level either in the new market or in the new

employment. The new market, without drawing anything from the old one, would create, if one may say so, a

new produce for its own supply; and that new produce would constitute a new capital for carrying on the new

The monopoly of the colony trade, on the contrary, by excluding the competition of other nations, and

thereby raising the rate of profit both in the new market and in the new employment, draws produce from the

old market and capital from the old employment. To augment our share of the colony trade beyond what it

otherwise would be is the avowed purpose of the monopoly. If our share of that trade were to be no greater

with than it would have been without the monopoly, there could have been no reason for establishing the

monopoly. But whatever forces into a branch of trade of which the returns are slower and more distant than

those of the greater part of other trades, a greater proportion of the capital of any country than what of its own

accord would go to that branch, necessarily renders the whole quantity of productive labour annually

maintained there, the whole annual produce of the land and labour of that country, less than they otherwise

would be. It keeps down the revenue of the inhabitants of that country below what it would naturally rise to,

and thereby diminishes their power of accumulation. It not only hinders, at all times, their capital from

maintaining so great a quantity of productive labour as it would otherwise maintain, but it hinders it from

increasing so fast as it would otherwise increase, and consequently from maintaining a still greater quantity of

The natural good effects of the colony trade, however, more than counterbalance to Great Britain the bad

effects of the monopoly, so that, monopoly and all together, that trade, even as it carried on at present, is not

only advantageous, but greatly advantageous. The new market and the new employment which are opened by

the colony trade are of much greater extent than that portion of the old market and of the old employment

which is lost by the monopoly. The new produce and the new capital which has been created, if one may say

so, by the colony trade, maintain in Great Britain a greater quantity of productive labour than what can have

been thrown out of employment by the revulsion of capital from other trades of which the returns are more

frequent. If the colony trade, however, even as it is carried on at present, is advantageous to Great Britain, it

It is rather for the manufactured than for the rude produce of Europe that the colony trade opens a new

market. Agriculture is the proper business of all new colonies; a business which the cheapness of land renders

more advantageous than any other. They abound, therefore, in the rude produce of land, and instead of

importing it from other countries, they have generally a large surplus to export. In new colonies, agriculture

either draws hands from all other employments, or keeps them from going to any other employment. There

are few hands to spare for the necessary, and none for the ornamental manufactures. The greater part of the

manufactures of both kinds they find it cheaper to purchase of other countries than to make for themselves. It

is chiefly by encouraging the manufactures of Europe that the colony trade indirectly encourages its

agriculture. The manufactures of Europe, to whom that trade gives employment, constitute a new market for

the produce of the land; and the most advantageous of all markets, the home market for the corn and cattle,

for the bread and butcher's meat of Europe, is thus greatly extended by means of the trade to America.

But that the monopoly of the trade of populous and thriving colonies is not alone sufficient to establish, or

even to maintain manufactures in any country, the examples of Spain and Portugal sufficiently demonstrate.

Spain and Portugal were manufacturing countries before they had any considerable colonies. Since they had

In Spain and Portugal the bad effects of the monopoly, aggravated by other causes, have perhaps nearly

overbalanced the natural good effects of the colony trade. These causes seem to be other monopolies of

different kinds; the degradation of the value of gold and silver below what it is in most other countries; the

exclusion from foreign markets by improper taxes upon exportation, and the narrowing of the home market,

by still more improper taxes upon the transportation of goods from one part of the country to another; but

above all, that irregular and partial administration of justice, which often protects the rich and powerful

debtor from the pursuit of his injured creditor, and which makes the industrious part of the nation afraid to

prepare goods for the consumption of those haughty and great men to whom they dare not refuse to sell upon

In England, on the contrary, the natural good effects of the colony trade, assisted by other causes, have in a

great measure conquered the bad effects of the monopoly. These causes seem to be: the general liberty of

trade, which, notwithstanding some restraints, is at least equal, perhaps superior, to what it is in any other

country; the liberty of exporting, duty free, almost all sorts of goods which are the produce of domestic

industry to almost any foreign country; and what perhaps is of still greater importance, the unbounded liberty

of transporting them from any one part of our own country to any other without being obliged to give any

account to any public office, without being liable to question or examination of any kind; but above all, that

equal and impartial administration of justice which renders the rights of the meanest British subject

respectable to the greatest, and which, by securing to every man the fruits of his own industry, gives the

If the manufactures of Great Britain, however, have been advanced, as they certainly have, by the colony

trade, it has not been by means of the monopoly of that trade but in spite of the monopoly. The effect of the

monopoly has been, not to augment the quantity, but to alter the quality and shape of a part of the

manufactures of Great Britain, and to accommodate to a market, from which the returns are slow and distant,

what would otherwise have been accommodated to one from which the returns are frequent and near. Its

effect has consequently been to turn a part of the capital of Great Britain from an employment in which it

would have maintained a greater quantity of manufacturing industry to one in which it maintains a much

smaller, and thereby to diminish, instead of increasing, the whole quantity of manufacturing industry

The monopoly of the colony trade, therefore, like all the other mean and malignant expedients of the

mercantile system, depresses the industry of all other countries, but chiefly that of the colonies, without in the

least increasing, but on the contrary diminishing that of the country in whose favour it is established.

The monopoly hinders the capital of that country, whatever may at any particular time be the extent of that

capital, from maintaining so great a quantity of productive labour as it would otherwise maintain, and from

affording so great a revenue to the industrious inhabitants as it would otherwise afford. But as capital can be

increased only by savings from revenue, the monopoly, by hindering it from affording so great a revenue as it

would otherwise afford, necessarily hinders it from increasing so fast as it would otherwise increase, and

consequently from maintaining a still greater quantity of productive labour, and affording a still greater

revenue to the industrious inhabitants of that country. One great original source of revenue, therefore, the

wages of labour, the monopoly must necessarily have rendered at all times less abundant than it otherwise

By raising the rate of mercantile profit, the monopoly discourages the improvement of land. The profit of

improvement depends upon the difference between what the land actually produces, and what, by the

application of a certain capital, it can be made to produce. If this difference affords a greater profit than what

can be drawn from an equal capital in any mercantile employment, the improvement of land will draw capital

from all mercantile employments. If the profit is less, mercantile employments will draw capital from the

improvement of land. Whatever, therefore, raises the rate of mercantile profit, either lessens the superiority or

increases the inferiority of the profit of improvement; and in the one case hinders capital from going to

improvement, and in the other draws capital from it. But by discouraging improvement, the monopoly

necessarily retards the natural increase of another great original source of revenue, the rent of land. By raising

the rate of profit, too, the monopoly necessarily keeps up the market rate of interest higher than it otherwise

would be. But the price of land in proportion to the rent which it affords, the number of years purchase which

is commonly paid for it, necessarily falls as the rate of interest rises, and rises as the rate of interest falls. The

monopoly, therefore, hurts the interest of the landlord two different ways, by retarding the natural increase,

first, of his rent, and secondly, of the price which he would get for his land in proportion to the rent which it

The monopoly indeed raises the rate of mercantile profit, and thereby augments somewhat the gain of our

merchants. But as it obstructs the natural increase of capital, it tends rather to diminish than to increase the

sum total of the revenue which the inhabitants of the country derive from the profits of stock; a small profit

upon a great capital generally affording a greater revenue than a great profit upon a small one. The monopoly

raises the rate of profit, but it hinders the sum of profit from rising so high as it otherwise would do.

All the original sources of revenue, the wages of labour, the rent of land, and the profits of stock, the

monopoly renders much less abundant than they otherwise would be. To promote the little interest of one

little order of men in one country, it hurts the interest of all other orders of men in that country, and of all men

It is solely by raising the ordinary rate of profit that the monopoly either has proved or could prove

advantageous to any one particular order of men. But besides all the bad effects to the country in general,

which have already been mentioned as necessarily resulting from a high rate of profit, there is one more fatal,

perhaps, than all these put together, but which, if we may judge from experience, is inseparably connected

with it. The high rate of profit seems everywhere to destroy that parsimony which in other circumstances is

natural to the character of the merchant. When profits are high that sober virtue seems to be superfluous and

expensive luxury to suit better the affluence of his situation. But the owners of the great mercantile capitals

are necessarily the leaders and conductors of the whole industry of every nation, and their example has a

much greater influence upon the manners of the whole industrious part of it than that of any other order of

men. If his employer is attentive and parsimonious, the workman is very likely to be so too; but if the master

is dissolute and disorderly, the servant who shapes his work according to the pattern which his master

prescribes to him will shape his life too according to the example which he sets him. Accumulation is thus

prevented in the hands of all those who are naturally the most disposed to accumulate, and the funds destined

for the maintenance of productive labour receive no augmentation from the revenue of those who ought

naturally to augment them the most. The capital of the country, instead of increasing, gradually dwindles

away, and the quantity of productive labour maintained in it grows every day less and less. Have the

exorbitant profits of the merchants of Cadiz and Lisbon augmented the capital of Spain and Portugal? Have

they alleviated the poverty, have they promoted the industry of those two beggarly countries? Such has been

the tone of mercantile expense in those two trading cities that those exorbitant profits, far from augmenting

the general capital of the country, seem scarce to have been sufficient to keep up the capitals upon which they

were made. Foreign capitals are every day intruding themselves, if I may say so, more and more into the trade

of Cadiz and Lisbon. It is to expel those foreign capitals from a trade which their own grows every day more

and more insufficient for carrying on that the Spaniards and Portuguese endeavour every day to straighten

more and more the galling bands of their absurd monopoly. Compare the mercantile manners of Cadiz and

Lisbon with those of Amsterdam, and you will be sensible how differently the conduct and character of

merchants are affected by the high and by the low profits of stock. The merchants of London, indeed, have

not yet generally become such magnificent lords as those of Cadiz and Lisbon, but neither are they in general

such attentive and parsimonious burghers as those of Amsterdam. They are supposed, however, many of

them, to be a good deal richer than the greater part of the former, and not quite so rich as many of the latter.

But the rate of their profit is commonly much lower than that of the former, and a good deal higher than that

of the latter. Light come, light go, says the proverb; and the ordinary tone of expense seems everywhere to be

regulated, not so much according to the real ability of spending, as to the supposed facility of getting money

It is thus that the single advantage which the monopoly procures to a single order of men is in many different

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a

project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of

shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers. Such statesmen,

and such statesmen only, are capable of fancying that they will find some advantage in employing the blood

and treasure of their fellowcitizens to found and maintain such an empire. Say to a shopkeeper, "Buy me a

good estate, and I shall always buy my clothes at your shop, even though I should pay somewhat dearer than

what I can have them for at other shops"; and you will not find him very forward to embrace your proposal.

But should any other person buy you such an estate, the shopkeeper would be much obliged to your

benefactor if he would enjoin you to buy all your clothes at his shop. England purchased for some of her

subjects, who found themselves uneasy at home, a great estate in a distant country. The price, indeed, was

very small, and instead of thirty years' purchase, the ordinary price of land in the present times, it amounted

to little more than the expense of the different equipments which made the first discovery, reconnoitred the

coast, and took a fictitious possession of the country. The land was good and of great extent, and the

cultivators having plenty of good ground to work upon, and being for some time at liberty to sell their

produce where they pleased, became in the course of little more than thirty or forty years (between 1620 and

1660) so numerous and thriving a people that the shopkeepers and other traders of England wished to secure

to themselves the monopoly of their custom. Without pretending, therefore, that they had paid any part, either

of the original purchasemoney, or of the subsequent expense of improvement, they petitioned the Parliament

that the cultivators of America might for the future be confined to their shop; first, for buying all the goods

which they wanted from Europe; and, secondly, for selling all such parts of their own produce as those

traders might find it convenient to buy. For they did not find it convenient to buy every part of it. Some parts

of it imported into England might have interfered with some of the trades which they themselves carried on at

home. Those particular parts of it, therefore, they were willing that the colonists should sell where they

could the farther off the better; and upon that account purposed that their market should be confined to the

countries south of Cape Finisterre. A clause in the famous Act of Navigation established this truly shopkeeper

The maintenance of this monopoly has hitherto been the principal, or more properly perhaps the sole end and

purpose of the dominion which Great Britain assumes over her colonies. In the exclusive trade, it is supposed,

consists the great advantage of provinces, which have never yet afforded either revenue or military force for

the support of the civil government, or the defence of the mother country. The monopoly is the principal

badge of their dependency, and it is the sole fruit which has hitherto been gathered from that dependency.

Whatever expense Great Britain has hitherto laid out in maintaining this dependency has really been laid out

in order to support this monopoly. The expense of the ordinary peace establishment of the colonies amounted,

before the commencement of the present disturbances, to the pay of twenty regiments of foot; to the expense

of the artillery, stores, and extraordinary provisions with which it was necessary to supply them; and to the

expense of a very considerable naval force which was constantly kept up, in order to guard, from the

smuggling vessels of other nations, the immense coast of North America, and that of our West Indian islands.

The whole expense of this peace establishment was a charge upon the revenue of Great Britain, and was, at

the same time, the smallest part of what the dominion of the colonies has cost the mother country. If we

would know the amount of the whole, we must add to the annual expense of this peace establishment the

interest of the sums which, in consequence of her considering her colonies as provinces subject to her

dominion, Great Britain has upon different occasions laid out upon their defence. We must add to it, in

particular, the whole expense of the late war, and a great part of that of the war which preceded it. The late

war was altogether a colony quarrel, and the whole expense of it, in whatever part of the world it may have

been laid out, whether in Germany or the East Indies, ought justly to be stated to the account of the colonies.

It amounted to more than ninety millions sterling, including not only the new debt which was contracted, but

the two shillings in the pound additional land tax, and the sums which were every year borrowed from the

sinking fund. The Spanish war, which began in 1739, was principally a colony quarrel. Its principal object

was to prevent the search of the colony ships which carried on a contraband trade with the Spanish Main.

This whole expense is, in reality, a bounty which has been given in order to support a monopoly. The

pretended purpose of it was to encourage the manufactures, and to increase the commerce of Great Britain.

But its real effect has been to raise the rate of mercantile profit, and to enable our merchants to turn into a

branch of trade, of which the returns are more slow and distant than those of the greater part of other trades, a

greater proportion of their capital than they otherwise would have done; two events which, if a bounty could

have prevented, it might perhaps have been very well worth while to give such a bounty.

Under the present system of management, therefore, Great Britain derives nothing but loss from the dominion

To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies, and leave them to

elect their own magistrates, to enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper,

would be to propose such a measure as never was, and never will be adopted, by any nation in the world. No

nation ever voluntarily gave up the dominion of any province, how troublesome soever it might be to govern

it, and how small soever the revenue which it afforded might be in proportion to the expense which it

occasioned. Such sacrifices, though they might frequently be agreeable to the interest, are always mortifying

to the pride of every nation, and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, they are always contrary to the

private interest of the governing part of it, who would thereby be deprived of the disposal of many places of

trust and profit, of many opportunities of acquiring wealth and distinction, which the possession of the most

turbulent, and, to the great body of the people, the most unprofitable province seldom fails to afford. The

most visionary enthusiast would scarce be capable of proposing such a measure with any serious hopes at

least of its ever being adopted. If it was adopted, however, Great Britain would not only be immediately freed

from the whole annual expense of the peace establishment of the colonies, but might settle with them such a

treaty of commerce as would effectually secure to her a free trade, more advantageous to the great body of

the people, though less so to the merchants, than the monopoly which she at present enjoys. By thus parting

good friends, the natural affection of the colonies to the mother country which, perhaps, our late dissensions

have well nigh extinguished, would quickly revive. It might dispose them not only to respect, for whole

centuries together, that treaty of commerce which they had concluded with us at parting, but to favour us in

war as well as in trade, and, instead of turbulent and factious subjects, to become our most faithful,

affectionate, and generous allies; and the same sort of parental affection on the one side, and filial respect on

the other, might revive between Great Britain and her colonies, which used to subsist between those of

In order to render any province advantageous to the empire to which it belongs, it ought to afford, in time of

peace, a revenue to the public sufficient not only for defraying the whole expense of its own peace

establishment, but for contributing its proportion to the support of the general government of the empire.

Every province necessarily contributes, more or less, to increase the expense of that general government. If

any particular province, therefore, does not contribute its share towards defraying this expense, an unequal

burden must be thrown upon some other part of the empire. The extraordinary revenue, too, which every

province affords to the public in time of war, ought, from parity of reason, to bear the same proportion to the

extraordinary revenue of the whole empire which its ordinary revenue does in time of peace. That neither the

ordinary nor extraordinary revenue which Great Britain derives from her colonies, bears this proportion to the

whole revenue of the British empire, will readily be allowed. The monopoly, it has been supposed, indeed, by

increasing the private revenue of the people of Great Britain, and thereby enabling them to pay greater taxes,

compensates the deficiency of the public revenue of the colonies. But this monopoly, I have endeavoured to

show, though a very grievous tax upon the colonies, and though it may increase the revenue of a particular

order of men in Great Britain, diminishes instead of increasing that of the great body of the people; and

consequently diminishes instead of increasing the ability of the great body of the people to pay taxes. The

men, too, whose revenue the monopoly increases, constitute a particular order, which it is both absolutely

impossible to tax beyond the proportion of other orders, and extremely impolitic even to attempt to tax

beyond that proportion, as I shall endeavour to show in the following book. No particular resource, therefore,

The colonies may be taxed either by their own assemblies, or by the Parliament of Great Britain.

That the colony assemblies can ever be so managed as to levy upon their constituents a public revenue

sufficient not only to maintain at all times their own civil and military establishment, but to pay their proper

proportion of the expense of the general government of the British empire seems not very probable. It was a

long time before even the Parliament of England, though placed immediately under the eye of the sovereign,

could be brought under such a system of management, or could be rendered sufficiently liberal in their grants

for supporting the civil and military establishments even of their own country. It was only by distributing

among the particular Members of Parliament a great part either of the offices, or of the disposal of the offices

arising from this civil and military establishment, that such a system of management could be established

even with regard to the Parliament of England. But the distance of the colony assemblies from the eye of the

sovereign, their number, their dispersed situation, and their various constitutions, would render it very

difficult to manage them in the same manner, even though the sovereign had the same means of doing it; and

those means are wanting. It would be absolutely impossible to distribute among all the leading members of

all the colony assemblies such a share, either of the offices or of the disposal of the offices arising from the

general government of the British empire, as to dispose them to give up their popularity at home, and to tax

their constituents for the support of that general government, of which almost the whole emoluments were to

be divided among people who were strangers to them. The unavoidable ignorance of administration, besides,

concerning the relative importance of the different members of those different assemblies, the offences which

must frequently be given, the blunders which must constantly be committed in attempting to manage them in

this manner, seems to render such a system of management altogether impracticable with regard to them.

The colony assemblies, besides, cannot be supposed the proper judges of what is necessary for the defence

and support of the whole empire. The care of that defence and support is not entrusted to them. It is not their

business, and they have no regular means of information concerning it. The assembly of a province, like the

vestry of a parish, may judge very properly concerning the affairs of its own particular district; but can have

no proper means of judging concerning those of the whole empire. It cannot even judge properly concerning

the proportion which its own province bears to the whole empire; or concerning the relative degree of its

wealth and importance compared with the other provinces; because those other provinces are not under the

inspection and superintendency of the assembly of a particular province. What is necessary for the defence

and support of the whole empire, and in what proportion each part ought to contribute, can be judged of only

by that assembly which inspects and superintends the affairs of the whole empire.

It has been proposed, accordingly, that the colonies should be taxed by requisition, the Parliament of Great

Britain determining the sum which each colony ought to pay, and the provincial assembly assessing and

levying it in the way that suited best the circumstances of the province. What concerned the whole empire

would in this way be determined by the assembly which inspects and superintends the affairs of the whole

empire; and the provincial affairs of each colony might still be regulated by its own assembly. Though the

colonies should in this case have no representatives in the British Parliament, yet, if we may judge by

experience, there is no probability that the Parliamentary requisition would be unreasonable. The Parliament

of England has not upon any occasion shown the smallest disposition to overburden those parts of the empire

which are not represented in Parliament. The islands of Guernsey and Jersey, without any means of resisting

the authority of Parliament, are more lightly taxed than any part of Great Britain. Parliament in attempting to

exercise its supposed right, whether well or ill grounded, of taxing the colonies, has never hitherto demanded

of them anything which even approached to a just proportion to what was paid by their fellow subjects at

home. If the contribution of the colonies, besides, was to rise or fall in proportion to the rise or fall of the land

tax, Parliament could not tax them without taxing at the same time its own constituents, and the colonies

Examples are not wanting of empires in which all the different provinces are not taxed, if I may be allowed

the expression, in one mass; but in which the sovereign regulates the sum which each province ought to pay,

and in some provinces assesses and levies it as he thinks proper; while in others, he leaves it to be assessed

and levied as the respective states of each province shall determine. In some provinces of France, the king not

only imposes what taxes he thinks proper, but assesses and levies them in the way he thinks proper. From

others he demands a certain sum, but leaves it to the states of each province to assess and levy that sum as

they think proper. According to the scheme of taxing by requisition, the Parliament of Great Britain would

stand nearly in the same situation towards the colony assemblies as the King of France does towards the

states of those provinces which still enjoy the privilege of having states of their own, the provinces of France

But though, according to this scheme, the colonies could have no just reason to fear that their share of the

public burdens should ever exceed the proper proportion to that of their fellowcitizens at home; Great

Britain might have just reason to fear that it never would amount to that proper proportion. The Parliament of

Great Britain has not for some time past had the same established authority in the colonies, which the French

king has in those provinces of France which still enjoy the privilege of having states of their own. The colony

assemblies, if they were not very favourably disposed (and unless more skilfully managed than they ever

have been hitherto, they are not very likely to be so) might still find many pretences for evading or rejecting

the most reasonable requisitions of Parliament. A French war breaks out, we shall suppose; ten millions must

immediately be raised in order to defend the seat of the empire. This sum must be borrowed upon the credit

of some Parliamentary fund mortgaged for paying the interest. Part of this fund Parliament proposes to raise

by a tax to be levied in Great Britain, and part of it by a requisition to all the different colony assemblies of

America and the West Indies. Would people readily advance their money upon the credit of a fund, which

partly depended upon the good humour of all those assemblies, far distant from the seat of the war, and

sometimes, perhaps, thinking themselves not much concerned in the event of it? Upon such a fund no more

money would probably be advanced than what the tax to be levied in Great Britain might be supposed to

answer for. The whole burden of the debt contracted on account of the war would in this manner fall, as it

always has done hitherto, upon Great Britain; upon a part of the empire, and not upon the whole empire.

Great Britain is, perhaps, since the world began, the only state which, as it has extended its empire, has only

increased its expense without once augmenting its resources. Other states have generally disburdened

themselves upon their subject and subordinate provinces of the most considerable part of the expense of

defending the empire. Great Britain has hitherto suffered her subject and subordinate provinces to disburden

themselves upon her of almost this whole expense. In order to put Great Britain upon a footing of equality

with her own colonies, which the law has hitherto supposed to be subject and subordinate, it seems necessary,

upon the scheme of taxing them by Parliamentary requisition, that Parliament should have some means of

rendering its requisitions immediately effectual, in case the colony assemblies should attempt to evade or

reject them; and what those means are, it is not very easy to conceive, and it has not yet been explained.

Should the Parliament of Great Britain, at the same time, be ever fully established in the right of taxing the

colonies, even independent of the consent of their own assemblies, the importance of those assemblies would

from that moment be at an end, and with it, that of all the leading men of British America. Men desire to have

some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.

Upon the power which the greater part of the leading men, the natural aristocracy of every country, have of

preserving or defending their respective importance, depends the stability and duration of every system of

free government. In the attacks which those leading men are continually making upon the importance of one

another, and in the defence of their own, consists the whole play of domestic faction and ambition. The

leading men of America, like those of all other countries, desire to preserve their own importance. They feel,

or imagine, that if their assemblies, which they are fond of calling parliaments, and of considering as equal in

authority to the Parliament of Great Britain, should be so far degraded as to become the humble ministers and

executive officers of that Parliament, the greater part of their own importance would be at end. They have

rejected, therefore, the proposal of being taxed by Parliamentary requisition, and like other ambitious and

highspirited men, have rather chosen to draw the sword in defence of their own importance.

Towards the declension of the Roman republic, the allies of Rome, who had borne the principal burden of

defending the state and extending the empire, demanded to be admitted to all the privileges of Roman

citizens. Upon being refused, the social war broke out. During the course of that war, Rome granted those

privileges to the greater part of them one by one, and in proportion as they detached themselves from the

general confederacy. The Parliament of Great Britain insists upon taxing the colonies; and they refuse to be

taxed by a Parliament in which they are not represented. If to each colony, which should detach itself from

the general confederacy, Great Britain should allow such a number of representatives as suited the proportion

of what is contributed to the public revenue of the empire, in consequence of its being subjected to the same

taxes, and in compensation admitted to the same freedom of trade with its fellowsubjects at home; the

number of its representatives to be augmented as the proportion of its contribution might afterwards augment;

a new method of acquiring importance, a new and more dazzling object of ambition would be presented to

the leading men of each colony. Instead of piddling for the little prizes which are to be found in what may be

called the paltry raffle of colony faction; they might then hope, from the presumption which men naturally

have in their own ability and good fortune, to draw some of the great prizes which sometimes come from the

wheel of the great state lottery of British polities. Unless this or some other method is fallen upon, and there

seems to be none more obvious than this, of preserving the importance and of gratifying the ambition of the

leading men of America, it is not very probable that they will ever voluntarily submit to us; and we ought to

consider that the blood which must be shed in forcing them to do so is, every drop of it, blood either of those

who are, or of those whom we wish to have for our fellow citizens. They are very weak who flatter

themselves that, in the state to which things have come, our colonies will be easily conquered by force alone.

The persons who now govern the resolutions of what they call their Continental Congress, feel in themselves

at this moment a degree of importance which, perhaps, the greatest subjects in Europe scarce feel. From

shopkeepers, tradesmen, and attornies, they are become statesmen and legislators, and are employed in

contriving a new form of government for an extensive empire, which, they flatter themselves, will become,

and which, indeed, seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in the

world. Five hundred different people, perhaps, who in different ways act immediately under the Continental

Congress; and five hundred thousand, perhaps, who act under those five hundred, all feel in the same manner

a proportionable rise in their own importance. Almost every individual of the governing party in America

fills, at present in his own fancy, a station superior, not only to what he had ever filled before, but to what he

had ever expected to fill; and unless some new object of ambition is presented either to him or to his leaders,

It is a remark of the president Henaut, that we now read with pleasure the account of many little transactions

of the Ligue, which when they happened were not perhaps considered as very important pieces of news. But

every man then, says he, fancied himself of some importance; and the innumerable memoirs which have

come down to us from those times, were, the greater part of them, written by people who took pleasure in

recording and magnifying events in which, they flattered themselves, they had been considerable actors. How

obstinately the city of Paris upon that occasion defended itself, what a dreadful famine it supported rather

than submit to the best and afterwards to the most beloved of all the French kings, is well known. The greater

part of the citizens, or those who governed the greater part of them, fought in defence of their own

importance, which they foresaw was to be at an end whenever the ancient government should be

reestablished. Our colonies, unless they can be induced to consent to a union, are very likely to defend

themselves against the best of all mother countries as obstinately as the city of Paris did against one of the

The idea of representation was unknown in ancient times. When the people of one state were admitted to the

right of citizenship in another, they had no other means of exercising that right but by coming in a body to

vote and deliberate with the people of that other state. The admission of the greater part of the inhabitants of

Italy to the privileges of Roman citizens completely ruined the Roman republic. It was no longer possible to

distinguish between who was and who was not a Roman citizen. No tribe could know its own members. A

rabble of any kind could be introduced into the assemblies of the people, could drive out the real citizens, and

decide upon the affairs of the republic as if they themselves had been such. But though America were to send

fifty or sixty new representatives to Parliament, the doorkeeper of the House of Commons could not find any

great difficulty in distinguishing between who was and who was not a member. Though the Roman

constitution, therefore, was necessarily ruined by the union of Rome with the allied states of Italy, there is not

the least probability that the British constitution would be hurt by the union of Great Britain with her

colonies. That constitution, on the contrary, would be completed by it, and seems to be imperfect without it.

The assembly which deliberates and decides concerning the affairs of every part of the empire, in order to be

properly informed, ought certainly to have representatives from every part of it That this union, however,

could be easily effectuated, or that difficulties and great difficulties might not occur in the execution, I do not

pretend. I have yet heard of none, however, which appear insurmountable. The principal perhaps arise, not

from the nature of things, but from the prejudices and opinions of the people both on this and on the other

We, on this side of the water, are afraid lest the multitude of American representatives should overturn the

balance of the constitution, and increase too much either the influence of the crown on the one hand, or the

force of the democracy on the other. But if the number of American representatives were to be in proportion

to the produce of American taxation, the number of people to be managed would increase exactly in

proportion to the means of managing them; and the means of managing to the number of people to be

managed. The monarchical and democratical parts of the constitution would, after the union, stand exactly in

the same degree of relative force with regard to one another as they had done before.

The people on the other side of the water are afraid lest their distance from the seat of government might

expose them to many oppressions. But their representatives in Parliament, of which the number ought from

the first to be considerable, would easily be able to protect them from all oppression. The distance could not

much weaken the dependency of the representative upon the constituent, and the former would still feel that

he owed his seat in Parliament, and all the consequences which he derived from it, to the good will of the

latter. It would be the interest of the former, therefore, to cultivate that good will by complaining, with all the

authority of a member of the legislature, of every outrage which any civil or military officer might be guilty

of in those remote parts of the empire. The distance of America from the seat of government, besides, the

natives of that country might flatter themselves, with some appearance of reason too, would not be of very

long continuance. Such has hitherto been the rapid progress of that country in wealth, population, and

improvement, that in the course of little more than a century, perhaps, the produce of American might exceed

that of British taxation. The seat of the empire would then naturally remove itself to that part of the empire

The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two

greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind. Their consequences have already been

very great; but, in the short period of between two and three centuries which has elapsed since these

discoveries were made, it is impossible that the whole extent of their consequences can have been seen. What

benefits or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can

foresee. By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one

another's wants, to increase one another's enjoyments, and to encourage one another's industry, their general

tendency would seem to be beneficial. To the natives however, both of the East and West Indies, all the

commercial benefits which can have resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the dreadful

misfortunes which they have occasioned. These misfortunes, however, seem to have arisen rather from

accident than from anything in the nature of those events themselves. At the particular time when these

discoveries were made, the superiority of force happened to be so great on the side of the Europeans that they

were enabled to commit with impunity every sort of injustice in those remote countries. Hereafter, perhaps,

the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of

all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that equality of courage and force which, by inspiring

mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the rights of

one another. But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality of force than that mutual

communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements which an extensive commerce from all

countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it.

In the meantime one of the principal effects of those discoveries has been to raise the mercantile system to a

degree of splendour and glory which it could never otherwise have attained to. It is the object of that system

to enrich a great nation rather by trade and manufactures than by the improvement and cultivation of land,

rather by the industry of the towns than by that of the country. But, in consequence of those discoveries, the

commercial towns of Europe, instead of being the manufacturers and carriers for but a very small part of the

world (that part of Europe which is washed by the Atlantic Ocean, and the countries which lie round the

Baltic and Mediterranean seas), have now become the manufacturers for the numerous and thriving

cultivators of America, and the carriers, and in some respects the manufacturers too, for almost all the

different nations of Asia, Africa, and America. Two new worlds have been opened to their industry, each of

them much greater and more extensive than the old one, and the market of one of them growing still greater

The countries which possess the colonies of America, and which trade directly to the East Indies, enjoy,

indeed, the whole show and splendour of this great commerce. Other countries, however, notwithstanding all

the invidious restraints by which it is meant to exclude them, frequently enjoy a greater share of the real

benefit of it. The colonies of Spain and Portugal, for example, give more real encouragement to the industry

of other countries than to that of Spain and Portugal. In the single article of linen alone the consumption of

those colonies amounts, it is said, but I do not pretend to warrant the quantity, to more than three millions

sterling a year. But this great consumption is almost entirely supplied by France, Flanders, Holland, and

Germany. Spain and Portugal furnish but a small part of it. The capital which supplies the colonies with this

great quantity of linen is annually distributed among, and furnishes a revenue to the inhabitants of, those

other countries. The profits of it only are spent in Spain and Portugal, where they help to support the

Even the regulations by which each nation endeavours to secure to itself the exclusive trade of its own

colonies are frequently more hurtful to the countries in favour of which they are established than to those

against which they are established. The unjust oppression of the industry of other countries falls back, if I

may say so, upon the heads of the oppressors, and crushes their industry more than it does that of those other

countries. By those regulations for example, the merchant of Hamburg must send the linen which he destines

for the American market to London, and he must bring back from thence the tobacco which he destines for

the German market, because he can neither send the one directly to America nor bring back the other directly

from thence. By this restraint he is probably obliged to sell the one somewhat cheaper, and to sell the one

somewhat cheaper, and to buy the other somewhat dearer than he otherwise might have done; and his profits

are probably somewhat abridged by means of it. In this trade, however, between Hamburg and London, he

certainly receives the returns of his capital much more quickly than he could possibly have done in the direct

trade to America, even though we should suppose, what is by no means the case, that the payments of

America were as punctual as those of London. In the trade, therefore, to which those regulations confine the

merchant of Hamburg, his capital can keep in constant employment a much greater quantity of German

industry than it possibly could have done in the trade from which he is excluded. Though the one

employment, therefore, may to him perhaps be less profitable than the other, it cannot be less advantageous to

his country. It is quite otherwise with the employment into which the monopoly naturally attracts, if I may

say so, the capital of the London merchant. That employment may, perhaps, be more profitable to him than

the greater part of other employments, but, on account of the slowness of the returns, it cannot be more

After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of every country in Europe to engross to itself the whole advantage of

the trade of its own colonies, no country has yet been able to engross itself anything but the expense of

supporting in time of peace and of defending in time of war the oppressive authority which it assumes over

them. The inconveniencies resulting from the possession of its colonies, every country has engrossed to itself

completely. The advantages resulting from their trade it has been obliged to share with many other countries.

At first sight, no doubt, the monopoly of the great commerce of America naturally seems to be an acquisition

of the highest value. To the undiscerning eye of giddy ambition, it naturally presents itself amidst the

confused scramble of politics and war as a very dazzling object to fight for. The dazzling splendour of the

object, however, the immense greatness of the commerce, is the very quality which renders the monopoly of

it hurtful, or which makes one employment, in its own nature necessarily less advantageous to the country

than the greater part of other employments, absorb a much greater proportion of the capital of the country

The mercantile stock of every country, it has been shown in the second book, naturally seeks, if one may say

so, the employment most advantageous to that country. If it is employed in the carrying trade, the country to

which it belongs becomes the emporium of the goods of all the countries whose trade that stock carries on.

But the owner of that stock necessarily wishes to dispose of as great a part of those goods as he can at home.

He thereby saves himself the trouble, risk, and expense of exportation, and he will upon that account be glad

to sell them at home, not only for a much smaller price, but with somewhat a smaller profit than he might

expect to make by sending them abroad. He naturally, therefore, endeavours as much as he can to turn his

carrying trade into a foreign trade of consumption. If his stock, again, is employed in a foreign trade of

consumption, he will, for the same reason, be glad to dispose of at home as great a part as he can of the home

goods, which he collects in order to export to some foreign market, and he will thus endeavour, as much as he

can, to turn his foreign trade of consumption into a home trade. The mercantile stock of every country

naturally courts in this manner the near, and shuns the distant employment; naturally courts the employment

in which the returns are frequent, and shuns that in which they are distant and slow; naturally courts the

employment in which it can maintain the greatest quantity of productive labour in the country to which it

belongs, or in which its owner resides, and shuns that in which it can maintain there the smallest quantity. It

naturally courts the employment which in ordinary cases is most advantageous, and shuns that which in

But if in any of those distant employments, which in ordinary cases are less advantageous to the country, the

profit should happen to rise somewhat higher than what is sufficient to balance the natural preference which

is given to nearer employments, this superiority of profit will draw stock from those nearer employments, till

the profits of all return to their proper level. This superiority of profit, however, is a proof that, in the actual

circumstances of the society, those distant employments are somewhat understocked in proportion to other

employments, and that the stock of the society is not distributed in the properest manner among all the

different employments carried on in it. It is a proof that something is either bought cheaper or sold dearer

than it ought to be, and that some particular class of citizens is more or less oppressed either by paying more

or by getting less than what is suitable to that equality which ought to take place, and which naturally does

take place among all the different classes of them. Though the same capital never will maintain the same

quantity of productive labour in a distant as in a near employment, yet a distant employment may be as

necessary for the welfare of the society as a near one; the goods which the distant employment deals in being

necessary, perhaps, for carrying on many of the nearer employments. But if the profits of those who deal in

such goods are above their proper level, those goods will be sold dearer than they ought to be, or somewhat

above their natural price, and all those engaged in the nearer employments will be more or less oppressed by

this high price. Their interest, therefore, in this case requires that some stock should be withdrawn from those

nearer employments, and turned towards that distant one, in order to reduce its profits to their proper level,

and the price of the goods which it deals in to their natural price. In this extraordinary case, the public interest

requires that some stock should be withdrawn from those employments which in ordinary cases are more

advantageous, and turned towards one which in ordinary cases is less advantageous to the public; and in this

extraordinary case the natural interests and inclinations of men coincide as exactly with the public interest as

in all other ordinary cases, and lead them to withdraw stock from the near, and to turn it towards the distant

It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks

towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this

natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and

the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention

of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the

stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the

All the different regulations of the mercantile system necessarily derange more or less this natural and most

advantageous distribution of stock. But those which concern the trade to America and the East Indies derange

it perhaps more than any other, because the trade to those two great continents absorbs a greater quantity of

stock than any two other branches of trade. The regulations, however, by which this derangement is effected

in those two different branches of trade are not altogether the same. Monopoly is the great engine of both; but

it is a different sort of monopoly. Monopoly of one kind or another, indeed, seems to be the sole engine of the

In the trade to America every nation endeavours to engross as much as possible the whole market of its own

colonies by fairly excluding all other nations from any direct trade to them. During the greater part of the

sixteenth century, the Portuguese endeavoured to manage the trade to the East Indies in the same manner, by

claiming the sole right of sailing in the Indian seas, on account of the merit of having first found out the road

to them. The Dutch still continue to exclude all other European nations from any direct trade to their spice

islands. Monopolies of this kind are evidently established against all other European nations, who are thereby

not only excluded from a trade to which it might be convenient for them to turn some part of their stock, but

are obliged to buy the goods which that trade deals in somewhat dearer than if they could import them

But since the fall of the power of Portugal, no European nation has claimed the exclusive right of sailing in

the Indian seas, of which the principal ports are now open to the ships of all European nations. Except in

Portugal, however, and within these few years in France, the trade to the East Indies has in every European

country been subjected to an exclusive company. Monopolies of this kind are properly established against the

very nation which erects them. The greater part of that nation are thereby not only excluded from a trade to

which it might be convenient for them to turn some part of their stock, but are obliged to buy the goods which

that trade deals somewhat dearer than if it was open and free to all their countrymen. Since the establishment

of the English East India Company, for example, the other inhabitants of England, over and above being

excluded from the trade, must have paid in the price of the East India goods which they have consumed, not

only for all the extraordinary profits which the company may have made upon those goods in consequence of

their monopoly, but for all the extraordinary waste which the fraud and abuse, inseparable from the

management of the affairs of so great a company, must necessarily have occasioned. The absurdity of this

second kind of monopoly, therefore, is much more manifest than that of the first.

Both these kinds of monopolies derange more or less the natural distribution of the stock of the society; but

Monopolies of the first kind always attract to the particular trade in which they are established a greater

proportion of the stock of the society than what would go to that trade of its own accord.

Monopolies of the second kind may sometimes attract stock towards the particular trade in which they are

established, and sometimes repel it from that trade according to different circumstances. In poor countries

they naturally attract towards that trade more stock than would otherwise go to it. In rich countries they

Such poor countries as Sweden and Denmark, for example, would probably have never sent a single ship to

the East Indies had not the trade been subjected to an exclusive company. The establishment of such a

company necessarily encourages adventurers. Their monopoly secures them against all competitors in the

home market, and they have the same chance for foreign markets with the traders of other nations. Their

monopoly shows them the certainty of a great profit upon a considerable quantity of goods, and the chance of

a considerable profit upon a great quantity. Without such extraordinary encouragement, the poor traders of

such poor countries would probably never have thought of hazarding their small capitals in so very distant

and uncertain an adventure as the trade to the East Indies must naturally have appeared to them.

Such a rich country as Holland, on the contrary, would probably, in the case of a free trade, send many more

ships to the East Indies than it actually does. The limited stock of the Dutch East India Company probably

repels from that trade many great mercantile capitals which would otherwise go to it. The mercantile capital

of Holland is so great that it is, as it were, continually overflowing, sometimes into the public funds of

foreign countries, sometimes into loans to private traders and adventurers of foreign countries, sometimes

into the most roundabout foreign trades of consumption, and sometimes into the carrying trade. All near

employments being completely filled up, all the capital which can be placed in them with any tolerable profit

being already placed in them, the capital of Holland necessarily flows towards the most distant employments.

The trade to the East Indies, if it were altogether free, would probably absorb the greater part of this

redundant capital. The East Indies offer a market for the manufactures of Europe and for the gold and silver

as well as for several other productions of America greater and more extensive than both Europe and America

Every derangement of the natural distribution of stock is necessarily hurtful to the society in which it takes

place; whether it be by repelling from a particular trade the stock which would otherwise go to it, or by

attracting towards a particular trade that which would not otherwise come to it. If, without any exclusive

company, the trade of Holland to the East Indies would be greater than it actually is, that country must suffer

a considerable loss by part of its capital being excluded from the employment most convenient for that part.

And in the same manner, if, without an exclusive company, the trade of Sweden and Denmark to the East

Indies would be less than it actually is, or, what perhaps is more probable, would not exist at all, those two

countries must likewise suffer a considerable loss by part of their capital being drawn into an employment

which must be more or less unsuitable to their present circumstances. Better for them, perhaps, in their

present circumstances, to buy East India goods of other nations, even though they should pay somewhat

dearer, than to turn so great a part of their small capital to so very distant a trade, in which the returns are so

very slow, in which that capital can maintain so small a quantity of productive labour at home, where

productive labour is so much wanted, where so little is done, and where so much is to do.

Though without an exclusive company, therefore, a particular country should not be able to carry on any

direct trade to the East Indies, it will not from thence follow that such a company ought to be established

there, but only that such a country ought not in these circumstances to trade directly to the East Indies. That

such companies are not in general necessary for carrying on the East India trade is sufficiently demonstrated

by the experience of the Portuguese, who enjoyed almost the whole of it for more than a century together

No private merchant, it has been said, could well have capital sufficient to maintain factors and agents in the

different ports of the East Indies, in order to provide goods for the ships which he might occasionally send

thither; and yet, unless he was able to do this, the difficulty of finding a cargo might frequently make his

ships lose the season for returning, and the expense of so long a delay would not only eat up the whole profit

of the adventure, but frequently occasion a very considerable loss. This argument, however, if it proved

anything at all, would prove that no one great branch of trade could be carried on without an exclusive

company, which is contrary to the experience of all nations. There is no great branch of trade in which the

capital of any one private merchant is sufficient for carrying on all the subordinate branches which must be

carried on, in order to carry on the principal one. But when a nation is ripe for any great branch of trade, some

merchants naturally turn their capitals towards the principal, and some towards the subordinate branches of it;

and though all the different branches of it are in this manner carried on, yet it very seldom happens that they

are all carried on by the capital of one private merchant. If a nation, therefore, is ripe for the East India trade,

a certain portion of its capital will naturally divide itself among all the different branches of that trade. Some

of its merchants will find it for their interest to reside in the East Indies, and to employ their capitals there in

providing goods for the ships which are to be sent out by other merchants who reside in Europe. The

settlements which different European nations have obtained in the East Indies, if they were taken from the

exclusive companies to which they at present belong and put under the immediate protection of the sovereign,

would render this residence both safe and easy, at least to the merchants of the particular nations to whom

those settlements belong. If at any particular time that part of the capital of any country which of its own

accord tended and inclined, if I may say so, towards the East India trade, was not sufficient for carrying on all

those different branches of it, it would be a proof that, at that particular time, that country was not ripe for

that trade, and that it would do better to buy for some time, even at a higher price, from other European

nations, the East India goods it had occasion for, than to import them itself directly from the East Indies.

What it might lose by the high price of those goods could seldom be equal to the loss which it would sustain

by the distraction of a large portion of its capital from other employments more necessary, or more useful, or

more suitable to its circumstances and situation, than a direct trade to the East Indies.

Though the Europeans possess many considerable settlements both upon the coast of Africa and in the East

Indies, they have not yet established in either of those countries such numerous and thriving colonies as those

in the islands and continent of America. Africa, however, as well as several of the countries comprehended

under the general name of the East Indies, are inhabited by barbarous nations. But those nations were by no

means so weak and defenceless as the miserable and helpless Americans; and in proportion to the natural

fertility of the countries which they inhabited, they were besides much more populous. The most barbarous

nations either of Africa or of the East Indies were shepherds; even the Hottentots were so. But the natives of

every part of America, except Mexico and Peru, were only hunters; and the difference is very great between

the number of shepherds and that of hunters whom the same extent of equally fertile territory can maintain. In

Africa and the East Indies, therefore, it was more difficult to displace the natives, and to extend the European

plantations over the greater part of the lands of the original inhabitants. The genius of exclusive companies,

besides, is unfavourable, it has already been observed, to the growth of new colonies, and has probably been

the principal cause of the little progress which they have made in the East Indies. The Portuguese carried on

the trade both to Africa and the East Indies without any exclusive companies, and their settlements at Congo,

Angola, and Benguela on the coast of Africa, and at Goa in the East Indies, though much depressed by

superstition and every sort of bad government, yet bear some faint resemblance to the colonies of America,

and are partly inhabited by Portuguese who have been established there for several generations. The Dutch

settlements at the Cape of Good Hope and at Batavia are at present the most considerable colonies which the

Europeans have established either in Africa or in the East Indies, and both these settlements are peculiarly

fortunate in their situation. The Cape of Good Hope was inhabited by a race of people almost as barbarous

and quite as incapable of defending themselves as the natives of America. It is besides the halfway house, if

one may say so, between Europe and the East Indies, at which almost every European ship makes some stay,

both in going and returning. The supplying of those ships with every sort of fresh provisions, with fruit and

sometimes with wine, affords alone a very extensive market for the surplus produce of the colonists. What the

Cape of Good Hope is between Europe and every part of the East Indies, Batavia is between the principal

countries of the East Indies. It lies upon the most frequented road from Indostan to China and Japan, and is

nearly about midway upon that road. Almost all the ships, too, that sail between Europe and China touch at

Batavia; and it is, over and above all this, the centre and principal mart of what is called the country trade of

the East Indies, not only of that part of it which is carried on by Europeans, but of that which is carried on by

the native Indians; and vessels navigated by the inhabitants of China and Japan, of Tonquin, Malacca, Cochin

China, and the island of Celebes, are frequently to be seen in its port. Such advantageous situations have

enabled those two colonies to surmount all the obstacles which the oppressive genius of an exclusive

company may have occasionally opposed to their growth. They have enabled Batavia to surmount the

The English and Dutch companies, though they have established no considerable colonies, except the two

above mentioned, have both made considerable conquests in the East Indies. But in the manner in which they

both govern their new subjects, the natural genius of an exclusive company has shown itself most distinctly.

In the spice islands the Dutch are said to burn all the spiceries which a fertile season produces beyond what

they expect to dispose of in Europe with such a profit as they think sufficient. In the islands where they have

no settlements, they give a premium to those who collect the young blossoms and green leaves of the clove

and nutmeg trees which naturally grow there, but which the savage policy has now, it is said, almost

completely extirpated. Even in the islands where they have settlements they have very much reduced, it is

said, the number of those trees. If the produce even of their own islands was much greater than what suited

their market, the natives, they suspect, might find means to convey some part of it to other nations; and the

best way, they imagine, to secure their own monopoly is to take care that no more shall grow than what they

themselves carry to market. By different arts of oppression they have reduced the population of several of the

Moluccas nearly to the number which is sufficient to supply with fresh provisions and other necessaries of

life their own insignificant garrisons, and such of their ships as occasionally come there for a cargo of spices.

Under the government even of the Portuguese, however, those islands are said to have been tolerably well

inhabited. The English company have not yet had time to establish in Bengal so perfectly destructive a

system. The plan of their government, however, has had exactly the same tendency. It has not been

uncommon, I am well assured, for the chief, that is, the first clerk of a factory, to order a peasant to plough up

a rich field of poppies and sow it with rice or some other grain. The pretence was, to prevent a scarcity of

provisions; but the real reason, to give the chief an opportunity of selling at a better price a large quantity of

opium, which he happened then to have upon hand. Upon other occasions the order has been reversed; and a

rich field of rice or other grain has been ploughed up, in order to make room for a plantation of poppies;

when the chief foresaw that extraordinary profit was likely to be made by opium. The servants of the

company have upon several occasions attempted to establish in their own favour the monopoly of some of the

most important branches, not only of the foreign, but of the inland trade of the country. Had they been

allowed to go on, it is impossible that they should not at some time or another have attempted to restrain the

production of the particular articles of which they had thus usurped the monopoly, not only to the quantity

which they themselves could purchase, but to that which they could expect to sell with such a profit as they

might think sufficient. In the course of the century or two, the policy of the English company would in this

Nothing, however, can be more directly contrary to the real interest of those companies, considered as the

sovereigns of the countries which they have conquered, than this destructive plan. In almost all countries the

revenue of the sovereign is drawn from that of the people. The greater the revenue of the people, therefore,

the greater the annual produce of their land and labour, the more they can afford to the sovereign. It is his

interest, therefore, to increase as much as possible that annual produce. But if this is the interest of every

sovereign, it is peculiarly so of one whose revenue, like that of the sovereign of Bengal, arises chiefly from a

landrent. That rent must necessarily be in proportion to the quantity and value of the produce, and both the

one and the other must depend upon the extent of the market. The quantity will always be suited with more or

less exactness to the consumption of those who can afford to pay for it, and the price which they will pay will

always be in proportion to the eagerness of their competition. It is the interest of such a sovereign, therefore,

to open the most extensive market for the produce of his country, to allow the most perfect freedom of

commerce, in order to increase as much as possible the number and the competition of buyers; and upon this

account to abolish, not only all monopolies, but all restraints upon the transportation of the home produce

from one part of the country to another, upon its exportation to foreign countries, or upon the importation of

goods of any kind for which it can be exchanged. It is in this manner most likely to increase both the quantity

and value of that produce, and consequently of his own share of it, or of his own revenue.

But a company of merchants are, it seems, incapable of considering themselves as sovereigns, even after they

have become such. Trade, or buying in order to sell again, they still consider as their principal business, and

by a strange absurdity regard the character of the sovereign as but an appendix to that of the merchant, as

something which ought to be made subservient to it, or by means of which they may be enabled to buy

cheaper in India, and thereby to sell with a better profit in Europe. They endeavour for this purpose to keep

out as much as possible all competitors from the market of the countries which are subject to their

government, and consequently to reduce, at least, some part of the surplus produce of those countries to what

is barely sufficient for supplying their own demand, or to what they can expect to sell in Europe with such a

profit as they may think reasonable. Their mercantile habits draw them in this manner, almost necessarily,

though perhaps insensibly, to prefer upon all ordinary occasions the little and transitory profit of the

monopolist to the great and permanent revenue of the sovereign, and would gradually lead them to treat the

countries subject to their government nearly as the Dutch treat the Moluceas. It is the interest of the East

India Company, considered as sovereigns, that the European goods which are carried to their Indian

dominions should be sold there as cheap as possible; and that the Indian goods which are brought from thence

should bring there as good a price, or should be sold there as dear as possible. But the reverse of this is their

interest as merchants. As sovereigns, their interest is exactly the same with that of the country which they

But if the genius of such a government, even as to what concerns its direction in Europe, is in this manner

essentially and perhaps incurably faulty, that of its administration in India is still more so. That administration

is necessarily composed of a council of merchants, a profession no doubt extremely respectable, but which in

no country in the world carries along with it that sort of authority which naturally overawes the people, and

without force commands their willing obedience. Such a council can command obedience only by the

military force with which they are accompanied, and their government is therefore necessarily military and

despotical. Their proper business, however, is that of merchants. It is to sell, upon their masters' account, the

European goods consigned to them, and to buy in return Indian goods for the European market. It is to sell

the one as dear and to buy the other as cheap as possible, and consequently to exclude as much as possible all

rivals from the particular market where they keep their shop. The genius of the administration therefore, so

far as concerns the trade of the company, is the same as that of the direction. It tends to make government

subservient to the interest of monopoly, and consequently to stunt the natural growth of some parts at least of

the surplus produce of the country to what is barely sufficient for answering the demand of the company.

All the members of the administration, besides, trade more or less upon their own account, and it is in vain to

prohibit them from doing so. Nothing can be more completely foolish than to expect that the clerks of a great

countinghouse at ten thousand miles distance, and consequently almost quite out of sight, should, upon a

simple order from their masters, give up at once doing any sort of business upon their own account, abandon

for ever all hopes of making a fortune, of which they have the means in their hands, and content themselves

with the moderate salaries which those masters allow them, and which, moderate as they are, can seldom be

augmented, being commonly as large as the real profits of the company trade can afford. In such

circumstances, to prohibit the servants of the company from trading upon their own account can have scarce

any other effect than to enable the superior servants, under pretence of executing their masters' order, to

oppress such of the inferior ones as have had the misfortune to fall under their displeasure. The servants

naturally endeavour to establish the same monopoly in favour of their own private trade as of the public trade

of the company. If they are suffered to act as they could wish, they will establish this monopoly openly and

directly, by fairly prohibiting all other people from trading in the articles in which they choose to deal; and

this, perhaps, is the best and least oppressive way of establishing it. But if by an order from Europe they are

prohibited from doing this, they will, notwithstanding, endeavour to establish a monopoly of the same kind,

secretly and indirectly, in a way that is much more destructive to the country. They will employ the whole

authority of government, and pervert the administration of justice, in order to harass and ruin those who

interfere with them in any branch of commerce, which by means of agents, either concealed, or at least not

publicly avowed, they may choose to carry on. But the private trade of the servants will naturally extend to a

much greater variety of articles than the public trade of the company. The public trade of the company

extends no further than the trade with Europe, and comprehends a part only of the foreign trade of the

country. But the private trade of the servants may extend to all the different branches both of its inland and

foreign trade. The monopoly of the company can tend only to stunt the natural growth of that part of the

surplus produce which, in the case of a free trade, would be exported to Europe. That of the servants tends to

stunt the natural growth of every part of the produce in which they choose to deal, of what is destined for

home consumption, as well as of what is destined for exportation; and consequently to degrade the cultivation

of the whole country, and to reduce the number of its inhabitants. It tends to reduce the quantity of every sort

of produce, even that of the necessaries of life, whenever the servants of the company choose to deal in them,

to what those servants can both afford to buy and expect to sell with such a profit as pleases them.

From the nature of their situation, too, the servants must be more disposed to support with rigorous severity

their own interest against that of the country which they govern than their masters can be to support theirs.

The country belongs to their masters, who cannot avoid having some regard for the interest of what belongs

to them. But it does not belong to the servants. The real interest of their masters, if they were capable of

understanding it, is the same with that of the country, and it is from ignorance chiefly, and the meanness of

mercantile prejudice, that they ever oppress it. But the real interest of the servants is by no means the same

with that of the country, and the most perfect information would not necessarily put an end to their

oppressions. The regulations accordingly which have been sent out from Europe, though they have been

frequently weak, have upon most occasions been wellmeaning. More intelligence and perhaps less

goodmeaning has sometimes appeared in those established by the servants in India. It is a very singular

government in which every member of the administration wishes to get out of the country, and consequently

to have done with the government as soon as he can, and to whose interest, the day after he has left it and

carried his whole fortune with him, it is perfectly indifferent though the whole country was swallowed up by

I mean not, however, by anything which I have here said, to throw any odious imputation upon the general

character of the servants of the East India Company, and much less upon that of any particular persons. It is

the system of government, the situation in which they are placed, that I mean to censure, not the character of

those who have acted in it. They acted as their situation naturally directed, and they who have clamoured the

loudest against them would probably not have acted better themselves. In war and negotiation, the councils of

Madras and Calcutta have upon several occasions conducted themselves with a resolution and decisive

wisdom which would have done honour to the senate of Rome in the best days of that republic. The members

of those councils, however, had been bred to professions very different from war and polities. But their

situation alone, without education, experience, or even example, seems to have formed in them all at once the

great qualities which it required, and to have inspired them both with abilities and virtues which they

themselves could not well know that they possessed. If upon some occasions, therefore, it has animated them

to actions of magnanimity which could not well have been expected from them, we should not wonder if

Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect; always more or less inconvenient to the

countries in which they are established, and destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall under their

THOUGH the encouragement of exportation and the discouragement of importation are the two great engines

by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet with regard to some particular

commodities it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation and to encourage importation. Its

ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by an advantageous balance of

trade. It discourages the exportation of the materials of manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order

to give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those of other nations in all foreign

markets; and by restraining, in this manner, the exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it

proposes to occasion a much greater and more valuable exportation of others. It encourages the importation

of the materials of manufacture in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply,

and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commodities. I do not

observe, at least in our Statute Book, any encouragement given to the importation of the instruments of trade.

When manufactures have advanced to a certain pitch of greatness, the fabrication of the instruments of trade

becomes itself the object of a great number of very important manufactures. To give any particular

encouragement to the importation of such instruments would interfere too much with the interest of those

manufactures. Such importation, therefore, instead of being encouraged, has frequently been prohibited. Thus

the importation of wool cards, except from Ireland, or when brought in as wreck or prize goods, was

prohibited by the 3rd of Edward IV; which prohibition was renewed by the 39th of Elizabeth, and has been

The importation of the materials of manufacture has sometimes been encouraged by an exemption from the

The importation of sheep's wool from several different countries, of cotton wool from all countries, of

undressed flax, of the greater part of dyeing drugs, of the greater part of undressed hides from Ireland or the

British colonies, of sealskins from the British Greenland fishery, of pig and bar iron from the British colonies,

as well as of several other materials of manufacture, has been encouraged by an exemption from all duties, if

properly entered at the custom house. The private interest of our merchants and manufacturers may, perhaps,

have extorted from the legislature these exemptions as well as the greater part of our other commercial

regulations. They are, however, perfectly just and reasonable, and if, consistently with the necessities of the

state, they could be extended to all the other materials of manufacture, the public would certainly be a gainer.

The avidity of our great manufacturers, however, has in some cases extended these exemptions a good deal

beyond what can justly be considered as the rude materials of their work. By the 24th George III, c. 46, a

small duty of only one penny the pound was imposed upon the importation of foreign brown linen yam,

instead of much higher duties to which it had been subjected before, viz. of sixpence the pound upon sail

yarn, of one shilling the pound upon all French and Dutch yarn, and of two pounds thirteen shillings and

fourpence upon the hundredweight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn. But our manufacturers were not long

satisfied with this reduction. By the 29th of the same king, c. 15, the same law which gave a bounty upon the

exportation of British and Irish linen of which the price did not exceed eighteenpence the yard, even this

small duty upon the importation of brown linen yarn was taken away. In the different operations, however,

which are necessary for the preparation of linen yarn, a good deal more industry is employed than in the

subsequent operation of preparing linen cloth from linen yarn. To say nothing of the industry of the

flaxgrowers and flaxdressers, three or four spinners, at least, are necessary in order to keep one weaver in

constant employment; and more than fourfifths of the whole quantity of labour necessary for the preparation

of linen cloth is employed in that of linen yarn; but our spinners are poor people, women commonly scattered

about in all different parts of the country, without support or protection. It is not by the sale of their work, but

by that of the complete work of the weavers, that our great master manufacturers make their profits. As it is

their interest to sell the complete manufacture as dear, so is it to buy the materials as cheap as possible. By

extorting from the legislature bounties upon the exportation of their own linen, high duties upon the

importation of all foreign linen, and a total prohibition of the home consumption of some sorts of French

linen, they endeavour to sell their own goods as dear as possible. By encouraging the importation of foreign

linen yarn, and thereby bringing it into competition with that which is made by our own people, they

endeavour to buy the work of the poor spinners as cheap as possible. They are as intent to keep down the

wages of their own weavers as the earnings of the poor spinners, and it is by no means for the benefit of the

workman that they endeavour either to raise the price of the complete work or to lower that of the rude

materials. It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and the powerful that is principally

encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent is

Both the bounty upon the exportation of linen, and the exemption from duty upon the importation of foreign

yarn, which were granted only for fifteen years, but continued by two different prolongations, expire with the

end of the session of Parliament which shall immediately follow the 24th of June 1786.

The encouragement given to the importation of the materials of manufacture by bounties has been principally

The first bounties of this kind were those granted about the beginning of the present century upon the

importation of naval stores from America. Under this denomination were comprehended timber fit for masts,

yards, and bowsprits; hemp; tar, pitch, and turpentine. The bounty, however, of one pound the ton upon

mastingtimber, and that of six pounds the ton upon hemp, were extended to such as should be imported into

England from Scotland. Both these bounties continued without any variation, at the same rate, till they were

severally allowed to expire; that upon hemp on the 1st of January 1741, and that upon mastingtimber at the

The bounties upon the importation of tar, pitch, and turpentine underwent, during their continuance, several

alterations. Originally that upon tar was four pounds the ton; that upon pitch the same; and that upon

turpentine, three pounds the ton. The bounty of four pounds the ton upon tar was afterwards confined to such

as had been prepared in a particular manner; that upon other good, clean, and merchantable tar was reduced

to two pounds four shillings the ton. The bounty upon pitch was likewise reduced to one pound; and that

The second bounty upon the importation of any of the materials of manufacture, according to the order of

time, was that granted by the 21st George II, c. 30, upon the importation of indigo from the British

plantations. When the plantation indigo was worth threefourths of the price of the best French indigo, it was

by this act entitled to a bounty of sixpence the pound. This bounty, which, like most others, was granted only

for a limited time, was continued by several prolongations, but was reduced to fourpence the pound. It was

allowed to expire with the end of the session of Parliament which followed the 25th March 1781.

The third bounty of this kind was that granted (much about the time that we were beginning sometimes to

court and sometimes to quarrel with our American colonies) by the 4th George III, c. 26, upon the

importation of hemp, or undressed flax, from the British plantations. This bounty was granted for twentyone

years, from the 24th June 1764 to the 24th June 1785. For the first seven years it was to be at the rate of eight

pounds the ton, for the second at six pounds, and for the third at four pounds. It was not extended to Scotland,

of which the climate (although hemp is sometimes raised there in small quantities and of an inferior quality)

is not very fit for that produce. Such a bounty upon the importation of Scotch flax into England would have

been too great a discouragement to the native produce of the southern part of the United Kingdom.

The fourth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 5th George III, c. 45, upon the importation of wood

from America. It was granted for nine years, from the 1st January 1766 to the 1st January 1775. During the

first three years, it was to be for every hundred and twenty good deals, at the rate of one pound, and for every

load containing fifty cubic feet of other squared timber at the rate of twelve shillings. For the second three

years, it was for deals to be at. the rate of fifteen shillings, and for other squared timber at the rate of eight

shillings; and for the third three years, it was for deals to be at the rate of ten shillings, and for other squared

The fifth bounty of this kind was that granted by the 9th George III, c. 38, upon the importation of raw silk

from the British plantations. It was granted for twentyone years, from the 1st January 1770 to the 1st

January 1791. For the first seven years it was to be at the rate of twentyfive pounds for every hundred

pounds value; for the second at twenty pounds; and for the third at fifteen pounds. The management of the

silk worm, and the preparation of silk, requires so much hand labour, and labour is so very dear in America

that even this great bounty, I have been informed, was not likely to produce any considerable effect.

The sixth bounty of this kind was that granted by 2nd George III, c. 50, for the importation of pipe, hogshead,

and barrel staves and heading from the British plantations. It was granted for nine years, from 1st January

1772 to the 1st January 1781. For the first three years it was for a certain quantity of each to be at the rate of

six pounds; for the second three years at four pounds; and for the third three years at two pounds.

The seventh and last bounty of this kind was that granted by the 19th George III, c. 37, upon the importation

of hemp from Ireland. It was granted in the same manner as that for the importation of hemp and undressed

flax from America, for twentyone years, from the 24th June 1779 to the 24th June 1800. This term is

divided, likewise, into three periods of seven years each; and in each of those periods the rate of the Irish

bounty is the same with that of the American. It does not, however, like the American bounty, extend to the

importation of undressed flax. It would have been too great a discouragement to the cultivation of that plant

in Great Britain. When this last bounty was granted, the British and Irish legislatures were not in much better

humour with one another than the British and American had been before. But this boon to Ireland, it is to be

hoped, has been granted under more fortunate auspices than all those to America.

The same commodities upon which we thus gave bounties when imported from America were subjected to

considerable duties when imported from any other country. The interest of our American colonies was

regarded as the same with that of the mother country. Their wealth was considered as our wealth. Whatever

money was sent out to them, it was said, came all back to us by the balance of trade, and we could never

become a farthing the poorer by any expense which we could lay out upon them. They were our own in every

respect, and it was an expense laid out upon the improvement of our own property and for the profitable

employment of our own people. It is unnecessary, I apprehend, at present to say anything further in order to

expose the folly of a system which fatal experience has now sufficiently exposed. Had our American colonies

really been a part of Great Britain, those bounties might have been considered as bounties upon production,

and would still have been liable to all the objections to which such bounties are liable, but to no other.

The exportation of the materials of manufacture is sometimes discouraged by absolute prohibitions, and

Our woollen manufacturers have been more successful than any other class of workmen in persuading the

legislature that the prosperity of the nation depended upon the success and extension of their particular

business. They have not only obtained a monopoly against the consumers by an absolute prohibition of

importing woollen cloths from any foreign country, but they have likewise obtained another monopoly

against the sheep farmers and growers of wool by a similar prohibition of the exportation of live sheep and

wool. The severity of many of the laws which have been enacted for the security of the revenue is very justly

complained of, as imposing heavy penalties upon actions which, antecedent to the statutes that declared them

to be crimes, had always been understood to be innocent. But the cruellest of our revenue laws, I will venture

to affirm, are mild and gentle in comparison of some of those which the clamour of our merchants and

manufacturers has extorted from the legislature for the support of their own absurd and oppressive

monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws may be said to be all written in blood.

By the 8th of Elizabeth, c. 3, the exporter of sheep, lambs, or rams was for the first offence to forfeit all his

goods for ever, to suffer a year's imprisonment, and then to have his left hand cut off in a market town upon a

market day, to be there nailed up; and for the second offence to be adjudged a felon, and to suffer death

accordingly. To prevent the breed of our sheep from being propagated in foreign countries seems to have

been the object of this law. By the 13th and 14th of Charles II, c. 18, the exportation of wool was made

felony, and the exporter subjected to the same penalties and forfeitures as a felon.

For the honour of the national humanity, it is to be hoped that neither of these statutes were ever executed.

The first of them, however; so far as I know, has never been directly repealed, and Serjeant Hawkins seems to

consider it as still in force. It may however, perhaps, be considered as virtually repealed by the 12th of

Charles II, c. 32, sect. 3, which, without expressly taking away the penalties imposed by former statutes,

imposes a new penalty, viz., that of twenty shillings for every sheep exported, or attempted to be exported,

together with the forfeiture of the sheep and of the owner's share of the ship. The second of them was

expressly repealed by the 7th and 8th of William III, c. 28, sect. 4. By which it is declared that, "Whereas the

statute of the 13th and 14th of King Charles II, made against the exportation of wool, among other things in

the said act mentioned, doth enact the same to be deemed felony; by the severity of which penalty the

prosecution of offenders hath not been so effectually put in execution: Be it, therefore, enacted by the

authority aforesaid, that so much of the said act, which relates to the making the said offence felony, be

The penalties, however, which are either imposed by this milder statute, or which, though imposed by former

statutes, are not repealed by this one, are still sufficiently severe. Besides the forfeiture of the goods, the

exporter incurs the penalty of three shillings for every pound weight of wool either exported or attempted to

be exported, that is about four or five times the value. Any merchant or other person convicted of this offence

is disabled from requiring any debt or account belonging to him from any factor or other person. Let his

fortune be what it will, whether he is or is not able to pay those heavy penalties, the law means to ruin him

completely. But as the morals of the great body of the people are not yet so corrupt as those of the contrivers

of this statute, I have not heard that any advantage has ever been taken of this clause. If the person convicted

of this offence is not able to pay the penalties within three months after judgment, he is to be transported for

seven years, and if he returns before the expiration of that term, he is liable to the pains of felony, without

benefit of clergy. The owner of the ship, knowing this offence, forfeits all his interest in the ship and

furniture. The master and mariners, knowing this offence, forfeit all their goods and chattels, and suffer three

months' imprisonment. By a subsequent statute the master suffers six months' imprisonment.

In order to prevent exportation, the whole inland commerce of wool is laid under very burdensome and

oppressive restrictions. It cannot be packed in any box, barrel, cask, case, chest, or any other package, but

only in packs of leather or packcloth, on which must be marked on the outside the words wool or yam, in

large letters not less than three inches long, on pain of forfeiting the same and the package, and three shillings

for every pound weight, to be paid by the owner or packer. It cannot be loaden on any horse or cart, or carried

by land within five miles of the coast, but between sunrising and sunsetting, on pain of forfeiting the same,

the horses and carriages. The hundred next adjoining to the seacoast, out of or through which the wool is

carried or exported, forfeits twenty pounds, if the wool is under the value of ten pounds; and if of greater

value, then treble that value, together with treble costs, to be sued for within the year. The execution to be

against any two of the inhabitants, whom the sessions must reimburse, by an assessment on the other

inhabitants, as in the cases of robbery. And if any person compounds with the hundred for less than this

penalty, he is to be imprisoned for five years; and any other person may prosecute. These regulations take

But in the particular counties of Kent and Sussex, the restrictions are still more troublesome. Every owner of

wool within ten miles of the seacoast must given an account in writing, three days after shearing to the next

officer of the customs, of the number of his fleeces, and of the places where they are lodged. And before he

removes any part of them he must give the like notice of the number and weight of the fleeces, and of the

name and abode of the person to whom they are sold, and of the place to which it is intended they should be

carried. No person within fifteen miles of the sea, in the said counties, can buy any wool before he enters into

bond to the king that no part of the wool which he shall so buy shall be sold by him to any other person

within fifteen miles of the sea. If any wool is found carrying towards the seaside in the said counties, unless

it has been entered and security given as aforesaid, it is forfeited, and the offender also forfeits three shillings

for every pound weight. If any person lays any wool not entered as aforesaid within fifteen miles of the sea, it

must be seized and forfeited; and if, after such seizure, any person claim the same, he must give security to

the Exchequer that if he is cast upon trial he shall pay treble costs, besides all other penalties.

When such restrictions are imposed upon the inland trade, the coasting trade, we may believe, cannot be left

very free. Every owner of wool who carries or causes to be carried any wool to any port or place on the

seacoast, in order to be from thence transported by sea to any other place or port on the coast, must first cause

an entry thereof to be made at the port from whence it is intended to be conveyed, containing the weight,

marks, and number of the packages, before he brings the same within five miles of that port, on pain of

forfeiting the same, and also the horses, carts, and other carriages; and also of suffering and forfeiting as by

the other laws in force against the exportation of wool. This law, however (1st William III, c. 32), is so very

indulgent as to declare that, "This shall not hinder any person from carrying his wool home from the place of

shearing, though it be within five miles of the sea, provided that in ten days after shearing, and before he

remove the wool, he do under his hand certify to the next officer of the customs, the true number of fleeces,

and where it is housed; and do not remove the same, without certifying to such officer, under his hand, his

intention so to do, three days before." Bond must be given that the wool to be carried coastways is to be

landed at the particular port for which it is entered outwards; and if any part of it is landed without the

presence of an officer, not only the forfeiture of the wool is incurred as in other goods, but the usual

additional penalty of three shillings for every pound weight is likewise incurred.

Our woollen manufactures, in order to justify their demand of such extraordinary restrictions and regulations,

confidently asserted that English wool was of a peculiar quality, superior to that of any other country; that the

wool of other countries could not, without some mixture of it, be wrought up into any tolerable manufacture;

that fine cloth could not be made without it; that England, therefore, if the exportation of it could be totally

prevented, could monopolize to herself almost the whole woollen trade of the world; and thus, having no

rivals, could sell at what price she pleased, and in a short time acquire the most incredible degree of wealth

by the most advantageous balance of trade. This doctrine, like most other doctrines which are confidently

asserted by any considerable number of people, was, and still continues to be, most implicitly believed by a

much greater number by almost all those who are either unacquainted with the woollen trade, or who have

not made particular inquiries. It is, however, so perfectly false that English wool is in any respect necessary

for the making of fine cloth that it is altogether unfit for it. Fine cloth is made altogether of Spanish wool.

English wool cannot be even so mixed with Spanish wool as to enter into the composition without spoiling

It has been shown in the foregoing part of this work that the effect of these regulations has been to depress the

price of English wool, not only below what it naturally would be in the present times, but very much below

what it actually was in the time of Edward III. The price of Scots wool, when in consequence of the union it

became subject to the same regulations, is said to have fallen about one half. It is observed by the very

accurate and intelligent author of the Memoirs of Wool, the Reverend Mr. John Smith, that the price of the

best English wool in England is generally below what wool of a very inferior quality commonly sells for in

the market of Amsterdam. To depress the price of this commodity below what may be called its natural and

proper price was the avowed purpose of those regulations; and there seems to be no doubt of their having

This reduction of price, it may perhaps be thought, by discouraging the growing of wool, must have reduced

very much the annual produce of that commodity, though not below what it formerly was, yet below what, in

the present state of things, it probably would have been, had it, in consequence of an open and free market,

been allowed to rise to the natural and proper price. I am, however, disposed to believe that the quantity of

the annual produce cannot have been much, though it may perhaps have been a little, affected by these

regulations. The growing of wool is not the chief purpose for which the sheep farmer employs his industry

and stock. He expects his profit not so much from the price of the fleece as from that of the carcass; and the

average or ordinary price of the latter must even, in many cases, make up to him whatever deficiency there

may be in the average or ordinary price of the former. It has been observed in the foregoing part of this work

that, "Whatever regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of raw hides, below what it naturally

would be, must, in an improved and cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher's

meat. The price both of the great and small cattle which are fed on improved and cultivated land must be

sufficient to pay the rent which the landlord, and the profit which the farmer has reason to expect from

improved and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed them. Whatever part of this price,

therefore, is not paid by the wool and the hide must be paid by the carcass. The less there is paid for the one,

the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be divided upon the different parts of the

beast is indifferent to the landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and cultivated

country, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers cannot be much affected by such regulations,

though their interest as consumers may by the rise in the price of provisions." According to this reasoning,

therefore, this degradation in the price of wool is not likely, in an improved and cultivated country, to

occasion any diminution in the annual produce of that commodity, except so far as, by raising the price of

mutton, it may somewhat diminish the demand for, and consequently the production of, that particular

species of butcher's meat. Its effect, however, even in this way, it is probable, is not very considerable.

But though its effect upon the quantity of the annual produce may not have been very considerable, its effect

upon the quality, it may perhaps be thought, must necessarily have been very great. The degradation in the

quality of English wool, if not below what it was in former times, yet below what it naturally would have

been in the present state of improvement and cultivation, must have been, it may perhaps be supposed, very

nearly in proportion to the degradation of price. As the quality depends upon the breed, upon the pasture, and

upon the management and cleanliness of the sheep, during the whole progress of the growth of the fleece, the

attention to these circumstances, it may naturally enough be imagined, can never be greater than in proportion

to the recompense which the price of the fleece is likely to make for the labour and expense which that

attention requires. It happens, however, that the goodness of the fleece depends, in a great measure, upon the

health, growth, and bulk of the animal; the same attention which is necessary for the improvement of the

carcase is, in some respects, sufficient for that of the fleece. Notwithstanding the degradation of price,

English wool is said to have been improved considerably during the course even of the present century. The

improvement might perhaps have been greater if the price had been better; but the lowness of price, though it

may have obstructed, yet certainly it has not altogether prevented that improvement.

The violence of these regulations, therefore, seems to have affected neither the quantity nor the quality of the

annual produce of wool so much as it might have been expected to do (though I think it probable that it may

have affected the latter a good deal more than the former); and the interest of the growers of wool, though it

must have been hurt in some degree, seems, upon the whole, to have been much less hurt than could well

These considerations, however, will not justify the absolute prohibition of the exportation of wool. But they

To hurt in any degree the interest of any one order of citizens, for no other purpose but to promote that of

some other, is evidently contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign owes to all the

different orders of his subjects. But the prohibition certainly hurts, in some degree, the interest of the growers

Every different order of citizens is bound to contribute to the support of the sovereign or commonwealth. A

tax of five, or even of ten shillings upon the exportation of every ton of wool would produce a very

considerable revenue to the sovereign. It would hurt the interest of the growers somewhat less than the

prohibition, because it would not probably lower the price of wool quite so much. It would afford a sufficient

advantage to the manufacturer, because, though he might not buy his wool altogether so cheap as under the

prohibition, he would still buy it, at least, five or ten shillings cheaper than any foreign manufacturer could

buy it, besides saving the freight and insurance, which the other would be obliged to pay. It is scarce possible

to devise a tax which could produce any considerable revenue to the sovereign, and at the same time occasion

The prohibition, notwithstanding all the penalties which guard it, does not prevent the exportation of wool. It

is exported, it is well known, in great quantities. The great difference between the price in the home and that

in the foreign market presents such a temptation to smuggling that all the rigour of the law cannot prevent it.

This illegal exportation is advantageous to nobody but the smuggler. A legal exportation subject to a tax, by

affording a revenue to the sovereign, and thereby saving the imposition of some other, perhaps, more

burdensome and inconvenient taxes might prove advantageous to all the different subjects of the state.

The exportation of fuller's earth or fuller's clay, supposed to be necessary for preparing and cleansing the

woolen manufactures, has been subjected to nearly the same penalties as the exportation of wool. Even

tobaccopipe clay, though acknowledged to be different from fuller's clay, yet, on account of their

resemblance, and because fuller's clay might sometimes be exported as tobaccopipe clay, has been laid

By the 13th and 14th of Charles II, c. 7, the exportation, not only of raw hides, but of tanned leather, except

in the shape of boots, shoes, or slippers, was prohibited; and the law gave a monopoly to our bootmakers and

shoemakers, not only against our graziers, but against our tanners. By subsequent statutes our tanners have

got themselves exempted from this monopoly upon paying a small tax of only one shilling on the

hundredweight of tanned leather, weighing one hundred and twelve pounds. They have obtained likewise

the drawback of twothirds of the excise duties imposed upon their commodity even when exported without

further manufacture. All manufactures of leather may be exported duty free; and the exporter is besides

entitled to the drawback of the whole duties of excise. Our graziers still continue subject to the old monopoly.

Graziers separated from one another, and dispersed through all the different corners of the country, cannot,

without great difficulty, combine together for the purpose either of imposing monopolies upon their fellow

citizens, or of exempting themselves from such as may have been imposed upon them by other people.

Manufacturers of all kinds, collected together in numerous bodies in all great cities, easily can. Even the

horns of cattle are prohibited to be exported; and the two insignificant trades of the horner and combmaker

Restraints, either by prohibitions or by taxes, upon the exportation of goods which are partially, but not

completely manufactured, are not peculiar to the manufacture of leather. As long as anything remains to be

done, in order to fit any commodity for immediate use and consumption, our manufacturers think that they

themselves ought to have the doing of it. Woolen yarn and worsted are prohibited to be exported under the

same penalties as wool. Even white cloths are subject to a duty upon exportation, and our dyers have so far

obtained a monopoly against our clothiers. Our clothiers would probably have been able to defend themselves

against it, but it happens that the greater part of our principal clothiers are themselves likewise dyers.

Watchcases, clockcases, and dialplates for clocks and watches have been prohibited to be exported. Our

clockmakers and watchmakers are, it seems, unwilling that the price of this sort of workmanship should be

By some old statutes of Edward M, Henry VIII, and Edward VI, the exportation of all metals was prohibited.

Lead and tin were alone excepted probably on account of the great abundance of those metals, in the

exportation of which a considerable part of the trade of the kingdom in those days consisted. For the

encouragement of the mining trade, the 5th of William and Mary, c. 17, exempted from the prohibition iron,

copper, and mundic metal made from British ore. The exportation of all sorts of copper bars, foreign as well

as British, was afterwards permitted by the 9th and 10th of William III, c. 26. The exportation of

unmanufactured brass, of what is called gunmetal, bellmetal, and shroffmetal, still continues to be

The exportation of the materials of manufacture, where it is not altogether prohibited, is in many cases

By the 8th George I, c. 15, the exportation of all goods, the produce or manufacture of Great Britain, upon

which any duties had been imposed by former statutes, was rendered duty free. The following goods,

however, were excepted: alum, lead, lead ore, tin, tanned leather, copperas, coals, wool cards, white woolen

cloths, lapis calaminaris, skins of all sorts, glue, coney hair or wool, hares' wool, hair of all sorts, horses, and

litharge of lead. If you expect horses, all these are either materials of manufacture, or incomplete

manufactures (which may be considered as materials for still further manufacture), or instruments of trade.

This statute leaves them subject to all the old duties which had ever been imposed upon them, the old subsidy

By the same statute a great number of foreign drugs for dyers' use are exempted from all duties upon

importation. Each of them, however, is afterwards subjected to a certain duty, not indeed a very heavy one,

upon exportation. Our dyers, it seems, while they thought it for their interest to encourage the importation of

those drugs, by an exemption from all duties, thought it likewise for their interest to throw some small

discouragement upon their exportation. The avidity, however, which suggested this notable piece of

mercantile ingenuity, most probably disappointed itself of its object. It necessarily taught the importers to be

more careful than they might otherwise have been that their importation should not exceed what was

necessary for the supply of the home market. The home market was at all times likely to be more scantily

supplied; the commodities were at all times likely to be somewhat dearer there than they would have been

By the abovementioned statute, gum senega, or gum arabic, being among the enumerated dyeing drugs,

might be imported duty free. They were subjected, indeed, to a small poundage duty, amounting only to

threepence in the hundredweight upon their reexportation. France enjoyed, at that time, an exclusive trade to

the country most productive of those drugs, that which lies in the neighbourhood of the Senegal; and the

British market could not easily be supplied by the immediate importation of them from the place of growth.

By the 25th George II, therefore, gum senega was allowed to be imported (contrary to the general

dispositions of the Act of Navigation) from any part of Europe. As the law, however, did not mean to

encourage this species of trade, so contrary to the general principles of the mercantile policy of England, it

imposed a duty of ten shillings the hundredweight upon such importation, and no part of this duty was to be

afterwards drawn back upon its exportation. The successful war which began in 1755 gave Great Britain the

same exclusive trade to those countries which France had enjoyed before. Our manufacturers, as soon as the

peace was made, endeavoured to avail themselves of this advantage, and to establish a monopoly in their own

favour both against the growers and against the importers of this commodity. By the 5th George III,

therefore, c. 37, the exportation of gum senega from his Majesty's dominions in Africa was confined to Great

Britain, and was subjected to all the same restrictions, regulations, forfeitures, and penalties as that of the

enumerated commodities of the British colonies in America and the West Indies. Its importation, indeed, was

subjected to a small duty of sixpence the hundredweight, but its reexportation was subjected to the

enormous duty of one pound ten shillings the hundredweight. It was the intention of our manufacturers that

the whole produce of those countries should be imported into Great Britain, and, in order that they themselves

might be enabled to buy it at their own price, that no part of it should be exported again but at such an

expense as would sufficiently discourage that exportation. Their avidity, however, upon this, as well as upon

many other occasions, disappointed itself of its object. This enormous duty presented such a temptation to

smuggling that great quantities of this commodity were clandestinely exported, probably to all the

manufacturing countries of Europe, put particularly to Holland, not only from Great Britain but from Africa.

Upon this account, by the 14th George III, c. 10, this duty upon exportation was reduced to five shillings the

In the book of rates, according to which the Old Subsidy was levied, beaver skins were estimated at six

shillings and eightpence a piece, and the different subsidies and imposts, which before the year 1722 had

been laid upon their importation, amounted to onefifth part of the rate, or to sixteenpence upon each skin; all

of which, except half the Old Subsidy, amounting only to twopence, was drawn back upon exportation. This

duty upon the importation of so important a material of manufacture had been thought too high, and in the

year 1722 the rate was reduced to two shillings and sixpence, which reduced the duty upon importation to

sixpence, and of this only one half was to be drawn back upon exportation. The same successful war put the

country most productive of beaver under the dominion of Great Britain, and beaver skins being among the

enumerated commodities, their exportation from America was consequently confined to the market of Great

Britain. Our manufacturers soon bethought themselves of the advantage which they might make of this

circumstance, and in the year 1764 the duty upon the importation of beaverskin was reduced to one penny,

but the duty upon exportation was raised to sevenpence each skin, without any drawback of the duty upon

importation. By the same law, a duty of eighteenpence the pound was imposed upon the exportation of

beaverwool or wombs, without making any alteration in the duty upon the importation of that commodity,

which, when imported by Britain and in British shipping, amounted at that time to between fourpence and

Coals may be considered both as a material of manufacture and as an instrument of trade. Heavy duties,

accordingly, have been imposed upon their exportation, amounting at present (1783) to more than five

shillings the ton, or to more than fifteen shillings the chaldron, Newcastle measures, which is in most cases

more than the original value of the commodity at the coal pit, or even at the shipping port for exportation.

The exportation, however, of the instruments of trade, properly so called, is commonly restrained, not by high

duties, but by absolute prohibitions. Thus by the 7th and 8th of William III, c. 20, sect. 8, the exportation of

frames or engines for knitting gloves or stockings is prohibited under the penalty, not only of the forfeiture of

such frames or engines so exported, or attempted to be exported, but of forty pounds, one half to the king, the

other to the person who shall inform or sue for the same. In the same manner, by the 14th George III, c. 71,

the exportation to foreign parts of any utensils made use of in the cotton, linen, woollen, and silk

manufactures is prohibited under the penalty, not only of the forfeiture of such utensils, but of two hundred

pounds, to be paid by the person who shall offend in this manner, and likewise of two hundred pounds to be

paid by the master of the ship who shall knowingly suffer such utensils to be loaded on board his ship.

When such heavy penalties were imposed upon the exportation of the dead instruments of trade, it could not

well be expected that the living instrument, the artificer, should be allowed to go free. Accordingly, by the

5th George I, c. 27, the person who shall be convicted of enticing any artificer of, or in any of the

manufactures of Great Britain, to go into any foreign parts in order to practise or teach his trade, is liable for

the first offence to be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred pounds, and to three months'

imprisonment, and until the fine shall be paid; and for the second offence, to be fined in any sum at the

discretion of the court, and to imprisonment for twelve months, and until the fine shall be paid. By the 23rd

George II, c. 13, this penalty is increased for the first offence to five hundred pounds for every artificer so

enticed, and to twelve months' imprisonment, and until the fine shall be paid; and for the second offence, to

one thousand pounds, and to two years' imprisonment, and until the fine shall be paid.

By the former of those two statutes, upon proof that any person has been enticing any artificer, or that any

artificer has promised or contracted to go into foreign parts for the purposes aforesaid, such artificer may be

obliged to give security at the discretion of the court that he shall not go beyond the seas, and may be

If any artificer has gone beyond the seas, and is exercising or teaching his trade in any foreign country, upon

warning being given to him by any of his Majesty's ministers or consuls abroad, or by one of his Majesty's

Secretaries of State for the time being, if he does not, within six months after such warning, return into this

realm, and from thenceforth abide and inhabit continually within the same, he is from thenceforth declared

incapable of taking any legacy devised to him within this kingdom, or of being executor or administrator to

any person, or of taking any lands within this kingdom by descent, device, or purchase. He likewise forfeits

to the king all his lands, goods, and chattels, is declared an alien in every respect, and is put out of the king's

It is unnecessary, I imagine, to observe how contrary such regulations are to the boasted liberty of the subject,

of which we affect to be so very jealous; but which, in this case, is so plainly sacrificed to the futile interests

The laudable motive of all these regulations is to extend our own manufactures, not by their own

improvement, but by the depression of those of all our neighbours, and by putting an end, as much as

possible, to the troublesome competition of such odious and disagreeable rivals. Our master manufacturers

think it reasonable that they themselves should have the monopoly of the ingenuity of all their countrymen.

Though by restraining, in some trades, the number of apprentices which can be employed at one time, and by

imposing the necessity of a long apprenticeship in all trades, they endeavour, all of them, to confine the

knowledge of their respective employments to as small a number as possible; they are unwilling, however,

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be

attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly

self evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the

consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not

In the restraints upon the importation of all foreign commodities which can come into competition with those

of our own growth or manufacture, the interest of the home consumer is evidently sacrificed to that of the

producer. It is altogether for the benefit of the latter that the former is obliged to pay that enhancement of

It is altogether for the benefit of the producer that bounties are granted upon the exportation of some of his

productions. The home consumer is obliged to pay, first, the tax which is necessary for paying the bounty,

and secondly, the still greater tax which necessarily arises from the enhancement of the price of the

By the famous treaty of commerce with Portugal, the consumer is prevented by high duties from purchasing

of a neighbouring country a commodity which our own climate does not produce, but is obliged to purchase

it of a distant country, though it is acknowledged that the commodity of the distant country is of a worse

quality than that of the near one. The home consumer is obliged to submit to this inconveniency in order that

the producer may import into the distant country some of his productions upon more advantageous terms than

he would otherwise have been allowed to do. The consumer, too, is obliged to pay whatever enhancement in

the price if those very productions this forced exportation may occasion in the home market.

But in the system of laws which has been established for the management of our American and West Indian

colonies, the interest of the home consumer has been sacrificed to that of the producer with a more

extravagant profusion than in all our other commercial regulations. A great empire has been established for

the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops of our

different producers all the goods with which these could supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement

of price which this monopoly might afford our producers, the home consumers have been burdened with the

whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the

two last wars, more than two hundred millions have been spent, and a new debt of more than a hundred and

seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in

former wars. The interest of this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit which it

ever could be pretended was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that

trade, or than the whole value of the goods which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies.

It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the

consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has

been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far

the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the

interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to; and the interest, not so much of the

CHAPTER IX. Of the Agricultural Systems, or of those Systems of Political Economy which represent the

Produce of Land as either the sole or the principal Source of the Revenue and Wealth every Country

THE agricultural systems of political economy will not require so long an explanation as that which I have

That system which represents the produce of land as the sole source of the revenue and wealth of every

country has, so far as I know, never been adopted by any nation, and it at present exists only in the

speculations of a few men of great learning and ingenuity in France. It would not, surely, be worth while to

examine at great length the errors of a system which never has done, and probably never will do, any harm in

any part of the world. I shall endeavour to explain, however, as distinctly as I can, the great outlines of this

Mr. Colbert, the famous minister of Louis XIV, was a man of probity, of great industry and knowledge of

detail, of great experience and acuteness in the examination of public accounts, and of abilities, in short,

every way fitted for introducing method and good order into the collection and expenditure of the public

revenue. That minister had unfortunately embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system, in its nature

and essence a system of restraint and regulation, and such as could scarce fail to be agreeable to a laborious

and plodding man of business, who had been accustomed to regulate the different departments of public

offices, and to establish the necessary checks and controls for confining each to its proper sphere. The

industry and commerce of a great country he endeavoured to regulate upon the same model as the

departments of a public office; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way,

upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he bestowed upon certain branches of industry

extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints. He was not only disposed, like

other European ministers, to encourage more the industry of the towns than that of the country; but, in order

to support the industry of the towns, he was willing even to depress and keep down that of the country. In

order to render provisions cheap to the inhabitants of the towns, and thereby to encourage manufactures and

foreign commerce, he prohibited altogether the exportation of corn, and thus excluded the inhabitants of the

country from every foreign market for by far the most important part of the produce of their industry. This

prohibition, joined to the restraints imposed by the ancient provincial laws of France upon the transportation

of corn from one province to another, and to the arbitrary and degrading taxes which are levied upon the

cultivators in almost all the provinces, discouraged and kept down the agriculture of that country very much

below the state to which it would naturally have risen in so very fertile a soil and so very happy a climate.

This state of discouragement and depression was felt more or less in every different part of the country, and

many different inquiries were set on foot concerning the causes of it. One of those causes appeared to be the

preference given, by the institutions of Mr. Colbert, to the industry of the towns above that of the country.

If the rod be bent too much one way, says the proverb, in order to make it straight you must bend it as much

the other. The French philosophers, who have proposed the system which represents agriculture as the sole

source of the revenue and wealth of every country, seem to have adopted this proverbial maxim; and as in the

plan of Mr. Colbert the industry of the towns was certainly overvalued in comparison with that of the

The different orders of people who have ever been supposed to contribute in any respect towards the annual

produce of the land and labour of the country, they divide into three classes. The first is the class of the

proprietors of land. The second is the class of the cultivators, of farmers and country labourers, whom they

honour with the peculiar appellation of the productive class. The third is the class of artificers, manufacturers,

and merchants, whom they endeavour to degrade by the humiliating appellation of the barren or unproductive

The class of proprietors contributes to the annual produce by the expense which they may occasionally lay

out upon the improvement of the land, upon the buildings, drains, enclosures, and other ameliorations, which

they may either make or maintain upon it, and by means of which the cultivators are enabled, with the same

capital, to raise a greater produce, and consequently to pay a greater rent. This advanced rent may be

considered as the interest or profit due to the proprietor upon the expense or capital which he thus employs in

the improvement of his land. Such expenses are in this system called ground expenses (depenses foncieres.)

The cultivators or farmers contribute to the annual produce by what are in this system called the original and

annual expenses (depenses primitives et depenses annuelles) which they lay out upon the cultivation of the

land. The original expenses consist in the instruments of husbandry, in the stock of cattle, in the seed, and in

the maintenance of the farmer's family, servants, and cattle during at least a great part of the first year of his

occupancy, or till he can receive some return from the land. The annual expenses consist in the seed, in the

wear and tear of the instruments of husbandry, and in the annual maintenance of the farmer's servants and

cattle, and of his family too, so far as any part of them can be considered as servants employed in cultivation.

That part of the produce of the land which remains to him after paying the rent ought to be sufficient, first, to

replace to him within a reasonable time, at least during the term of his occupancy, the whole of his original

expenses, together with the ordinary profits of stock; and, secondly, to replace to him annually the whole of

his annual expenses, together likewise with the ordering profits of stock. Those two sorts of expenses are two

capitals which the farmer employs in cultivation; and unless they are regularly restored to him, together with

a reasonable profit, he cannot carry on his employment upon a level with other employments; but, from a

regard to his own interest, must desert it as soon as possible and seek some other. That part of the produce of

the land which is thus necessary for enabling the farmer to continue his business ought to be considered as a

fund sacred to cultivation, which, if the landlord violates, he necessarily reduces the produce of his own land,

and in a few years not only disables the farmer from paying this racked rent, but from paying the reasonable

rent which he might otherwise have got for his land. The rent which properly belongs to the landlord is no

more than the net produce which remains after paying in the completest manner all the necessary expenses

which must be previously laid out in order to raise the gross or the whole produce. It is because the labour of

the cultivators, over and above paying completely all those necessary expenses, affords a net produce of this

kind that this class of people are in this system peculiarly distinguished by the honourable appellation of the

productive class. Their original and annual expenses are for the same reason called, in this system, productive

expenses, because, over and above replacing their own value, they occasion the annual reproduction of this

The ground expenses, as they are called, or what the landlord lays out upon the improvement of his land, are

in this system, too, honoured with the appellation of productive expenses. Till the whole of those expenses,

together with the ordinary profits of stock, have been completely repaid to him by the advanced rent which he

gets from his land, that advanced rent ought to be regarded as sacred and inviolable, both by the church and

by the king; ought to be subject neither to tithe nor to taxation. If it is otherwise, by discouraging the

improvement of land the church discourages the future increase of her own tithes, and the king the future

increase of his own taxes. As in a wellordered state of things, therefore, those ground expenses, over and

above reproducing in the completest manner their own value, occasion likewise after a certain time a

reproduction of a net produce, they are in this system considered as productive expenses.

The ground expenses of the landlord, however, together with the original and the annual expenses of the

farmer, are the only three sorts of expenses which in this system are considered as productive. All other

expenses and all other orders of people, even those who in the common apprehensions of men are regarded as

the most productive, are in this account of things represented as altogether barren and unproductive.

Artificers and manufacturers in particular, whose industry, in the common apprehensions of men, increases so

much the value of the rude produce of land, are in this system represented as a class of people altogether

barren and unproductive. Their labour, it is said, replaces only the stock which employs them, together with

its ordinary profits. That stock consists in the materials, tools, and wages advanced to them by their

employer; and is the fund destined for their employment and maintenance. Its profits are the fund destined for

the maintenance of their employer. Their employer, as he advances to them the stock of materials, tools, and

wages necessary for their employment, so he advances to himself what is necessary for his own maintenance,

and this maintenance he generally proportions to the profit which he expects to make by the price of their

work. Unless its price repays to him the maintenance which he advances to himself, as well as the materials,

tools, and wages which he advances to his workmen, it evidently does not repay to him the whole expense

which he lays out upon it. The profits of manufacturing stock therefore are not, like the rent of land, a net

produce which remains after completely repaying the whole expense which must be laid out in order to obtain

them. The stock of the farmer yields him a profit as well as that of the master manufacturer; and it yields a

rent likewise to another person, which that of the master manufacturer does not. The expense, therefore, laid

out in employing and maintaining artificers and manufacturers does no more than continue, if one may say

so, the existence of its own value, and does not produce any new value. It is therefore altogether a barren and

unproductive expense. The expense, on the contrary, laid out in employing farmers and country labourers,

over and above continuing the existence of its own value, produces a new value, the rent of the landlord. It is

Mercantile stock is equally barren and unproductive with manufacturing stock. It only continues the existence

of its own value, without producing any new value. Its profits are only the repayment of the maintenance

which its employer advances to himself during the time that he employs it, or till he receives the returns of it.

They are only the repayment of a part of the expense which must be laid out in employing it.

The labour of artificers and manufacturers never adds anything to the value of the whole annual amount of

the rude produce of the land. It adds, indeed, greatly to the value of some particular parts of it. But the

consumption which in the meantime it occasions of other parts is precisely equal to the value which it adds to

those parts; so that the value of the whole amount is not, at any one moment of time, in the least augmented

by it. The person who works the lace of a pair of fine ruffles, for example, will sometimes raise the value of

perhaps a pennyworth of flax to thirty pounds sterling. But though at first sight he appears thereby to multiply

the value of a part of the rude produce about seven thousand and two hundred times, he in reality adds

nothing to the value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce. The working of that lace costs him

perhaps two years' labour. The thirty pounds which he gets for it when it is finished is no more than the

repayment of the subsistence which he advances to himself during the two years that he is employed about it.

The value which, by every day's, month's, or year's labour, he adds to the flax does no more than replace the

value of his own consumption during that day, month, or year. At no moment of time, therefore, does he add

anything to the value of the whole annual amount of the rude produce of the land: the portion of that produce

which he is continually consuming being always equal to the value which he is continually producing. The

extreme poverty of the greater part of the persons employed in this expensive though trifling manufacture

may satisfy us that the price of their work does not in ordinary cases exceed the value of their subsistence. It

is otherwise with the work of farmers and country labourers. The rent of the landlord is a value which, in

ordinary cases, it is continually producing, over and above replacing, in the most complete manner, the whole

consumption, the whole expense laid out upon the employment and maintenance both of the workmen and of

Artificers, manufacturers, and merchants can augment the revenue and wealth of their society by parsimony

only; or, as it in this system, by privation, that is, by depriving themselves a part of the funds destined for

their own subsistence. They annually reproduce nothing but those funds. Unless, therefore, they annually

save some part of them, unless they annually deprive themselves of the enjoyment of some part of them, the

revenue and wealth of their society can never be in the smallest degree augmented by means of their industry.

Farmers and country labourers, on the contrary, may enjoy completely the whole funds destined for their own

subsistence, and yet augment at the same time the revenue and wealth of their society. Over and above what

is destined for their own subsistence, their industry annually affords a net produce, of which the augmentation

necessarily augments the revenue and wealth of their society. Nations therefore which, like France or

England, consist in a great measure of proprietors and cultivators can be enriched by industry and enjoyment.

Nations, on the contrary, which, like Holland and Hamburg, are composed chiefly of merchants, artificers,

and manufacturers can grow rich only through parsimony and privation. As the interest of nations so

differently circumstanced is very different, so is likewise the common character of the people: in those of the

former kind, liberality, frankness and good fellowship naturally make a part of that common character: in the

latter, narrowness, meanness, and a selfish disposition, averse to all social pleasure and enjoyment.

The unproductive class, that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, is maintained and employed

altogether at the expense of the two other classes, of that of proprietors, and of that of cultivators. They

furnish it both with the materials of its work and with the fund of its subsistence, with the corn and cattle

which it consumes while it is employed about that work. The proprietors and cultivators finally pay both the

wages of all the workmen of the unproductive class, and of the profits of all their employers. Those workmen

and their employers are properly the servants of the proprietors and cultivators. They are only servants who

work without doors, as menial servants work within. Both the one and the other, however, are equally

maintained at the expense of the same masters. The labour of both is equally unproductive. It adds nothing to

the value of the sum total of the rude produce of the land. Instead of increasing the value of that sum total, it

The unproductive class, however, is not only useful, but greatly useful to the other two classes. By means of

the industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, the proprietors and cultivators can purchase both the

foreign goods and the manufactured produce of their own country which they have occasion for with the

produce of a much smaller quantity of their own labour than what they would be obliged to employ if they

were to attempt, in an awkward and unskilful manner, either to import the one or to make the other for their

own use. By means of the unproductive class, the cultivators are delivered from many cares which would

otherwise distract their attention from the cultivation of land. The superiority of produce, which, in

consequence of this undivided attention, they are enabled to raise, is fully sufficient to pay the whole expense

which the maintenance and employment of the unproductive class costs either the proprietors or themselves.

The industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers, though in its own nature altogether unproductive,

yet contributes in this manner indirectly to increase the produce of the land. It increases the productive

powers of productive labour by leaving it at liberty to confine itself to its proper employment, the cultivation

of land; and the plough goes frequently the easier and the better by means of the labour of the man whose

It can never be the interest of the proprietors and cultivators to restrain or to discourage in any respect the

industry of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The greater the liberty which this unproductive class

enjoys, the greater will be the competition in all the different trades which compose it, and the cheaper will

the other two classes be supplied, both with foreign goods and with the manufactured produce of their own

It can never be the interest of the unproductive class to oppress the other two classes. It is the surplus produce

of the land, or what remains after deducting the maintenance, first, of the cultivators, and afterwards of the

proprietors, that maintains and employs the unproductive class. The greater this surplus the greater must

likewise be the maintenance and employment of that class. The establishment of perfect justice, of perfect

liberty, and of perfect equality is the very simple secret which most effectually secures the highest degree of

The merchants, artificers, and manufacturers of those mercantile states which, like Holland and Hamburg,

consist chiefly of this unproductive class, are in the same manner maintained and employed altogether at the

expense of the proprietors and cultivators of land. The only difference is, that those proprietors and

cultivators are, the greater part of them, placed at a most inconvenient distance from the merchants, artificers,

and manufacturers whom they supply with the materials of their work and the fund of their subsistences the

Such mercantile states, however, are not only useful, but greatly useful to the inhabitants of those other

countries. They fill up, in some measure, a very important void, and supply the place of the merchants,

artificers, and manufacturers whom the inhabitants of those countries ought to find at home, but whom, from

It can never be the interest of those landed nations, if I may call them so, to discourage or distress the industry

of such mercantile states by imposing high duties upon their trade or upon the commodities which they

furnish. Such duties, by rendering those commodities dearer, could serve only to sink the real value of the

surplus produce of their own land, with which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of which

those commodities are purchased. Such duties could serve only to discourage the increase of that surplus

produce, and consequently the improvement and cultivation of their own land. The most effectual expedient,

on the contrary, for raising the value of that surplus produce, for encouraging its increase, and consequently

the improvement and cultivation of their own land would be to allow the most perfect freedom to the trade of

This perfect freedom of trade would even be the most effectual expedient for supplying them, in due time,

with all the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants whom they wanted at home, and for filling up in the

properest and most advantageous manner that very important void which they felt there.

The continual increase of the surplus produce of their land would, in due time, create a greater capital than

what could be employed with the ordinary rate of profit in the improvement and cultivation of land; and the

surplus part of it would naturally turn itself to the employment of artificers and manufacturers at home. But

those artificers and manufacturers, finding at home both the materials of their work and the fund of their

subsistence, might immediately even with much less art and skill be able to work as cheap as the like

artificers and manufacturers of such mercantile states who had both to bring from a great distance. Even

though, from want of art and skill, they might not for some time be able to work as cheap, yet, finding a

market at home, they might be able to sell their work there as cheap as that of the artificers and manufacturers

of such mercantile states, which could not be brought to that market but from so great a distance; and as their

art and skill improved, they would soon be able to sell it cheaper. The artificers and manufacturers of such

mercantile states, therefore, would immediately be rivalled in the market of those landed nations, and soon

after undersold and jostled out of it altogether. The cheapness of the manufactures of those landed nations, in

consequence of the gradual improvements of art and skill, would, in due time, extend their sale beyond the

home market, and carry them to many foreign markets, from which they would in the same manner gradually

This continual increase both of the rude and manufactured produce of those landed nations would in due time

create a greater capital than could, with the ordinary rate of profit, be employed either in agriculture or in

manufactures. The surplus of this capital would naturally turn itself to foreign trade, and be employed in

exporting to foreign countries such parts of the rude and manufactured produce of its own country as

exceeded the demand of the home market. In the exportation of the produce of their own country, the

merchants of a landed nation would have an advantage of the same kind over those of mercantile nations

which its artificers and manufacturers had over the artificers and manufacturers of such nations; the

advantage of finding at home that cargo and those stores and provisions which the others were obliged to

seek for at a distance. With inferior art and skill in navigation, therefore, they would be able to sell that cargo

as cheap in foreign markets as the merchants of such mercantile nations; and with equal art and skill they

would be able to sell it cheaper. They would soon, therefore, rival those mercantile nations in this branch of

According to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most advantageous method in which a landed

nation can raise up artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of its own is to grant the most perfect freedom of

trade to the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants of all other nations. It thereby raises the value of the

surplus produce of its own land, of which the continual increase gradually establishes a fund, which in due

time necessarily raises up all the artificers, manufacturers, and merchants whom it has occasion for.

When a landed nation, on the contrary, oppresses either by high duties or by prohibitions the trade of foreign

nations, it necessarily hurts its own interest in two different ways. First, by raising the price of all foreign

goods and of all sorts of manufactures, it necessarily sinks the real value of the surplus produce of its own

land, with which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of which it purchases those foreign goods

and manufactures. Secondly, by giving a sort of monopoly of the home market to its own merchants,

artificers, and manufacturers, it raises the rate of mercantile and manufacturing profit in proportion to that of

agricultural profit, and consequently either draws from agriculture a part of the capital which had before been

employed in it, or hinders from going to it a part of what would otherwise have gone to it. This policy,

therefore, discourages agriculture in two different ways; first, by sinking the real value of its produce, and

thereby lowering the rate of its profit; and, secondly, by raising the rate of profit in all other employments.

Agriculture is rendered less advantageous, and trade and manufactures more advantageous than they

otherwise would be; and every man is tempted by his own interest to turn, as much as he can, both his capital

Though, by this oppressive policy, a landed nation should be able to raise up artificers, manufacturers, and

merchants of its own somewhat sooner than it could do by the freedom of trade a matter, however, which is

not a little doubtful yet it would raise them up, if one may say so, prematurely, and before it was perfectly

ripe for them. By raising up too hastily one species of industry, it would depress another more valuable

species of industry. By raising up too hastily a species of industry which only replaces the stock which

employs it, together with the ordinary profit, it would depress a species of industry which, over and above

replacing that stock with its profit, affords likewise a net produce, a free rent to the landlord. It would depress

productive labour, by encouraging too hastily that labour which is altogether barren and unproductive.

In what manner, according to this system, the sum total of the annual produce of the land is distributed

among the three classes above mentioned, and in what manner the labour of the unproductive class does no

more than replace the value of its own consumption, without increasing in any respect the value of that sum

total, is represented by Mr. Quesnai, the very ingenious and profound author of this system, in some

arithmetical formularies. The first of these formularies, which by way of eminence he peculiarly distinguishes

by the name of the Economical Table, represents the manner in which he supposes the distribution takes

place in a state of the most perfect liberty and therefore of the highest prosperity in a state where the annual

produce is such as to afford the greatest possible net produce, and where each class enjoys its proper share of

the whole annual produce. Some subsequent formularies represent the manner in which he supposes this

distribution is made in different states of restraint and regulation; in which either the class of proprietors or

the barren and unproductive class is more favoured than the class of cultivators, and in which either the one

or the other encroaches more or less upon the share which ought properly to belong to this productive class.

Every such encroachment, every violation of that natural distribution, which the most perfect liberty would

establish, must, according to this system, necessarily degrade more or less, from one year to another, the

value and sum total of the annual produce, and must necessarily occasion a gradual declension in the real

wealth and revenue of the society; a declension of which the progress must be quicker or slower, according to

the degree of this encroachment, according as that natural distribution which the most perfect liberty would

establish is more or less violated. Those subsequent formularies represent the different degrees of declension

which, according to this system, correspond to the different degrees in which this natural distribution is

Some speculative physicians seem to have imagined that the health of the human body could be preserved

only by a certain precise regimen of diet and exercise, of which every, the smallest, violation necessarily

occasioned some degree of disease or disorder proportioned to the degree of the violation. Experience,

however, would seem to show that the human body frequently preserves, to all appearances at least, the most

perfect state of health under a vast variety of different regimens; even under some which are generally

believed to be very far from being perfectly wholesome. But the healthful state of the human body, it would

seem, contains in itself some unknown principle of preservation, capable either of preventing or of correcting,

in many respects, the bad effects even of a very faulty regimen. Mr. Quesnai, who was himself a physician,

and a very speculative physician, seems to have entertained a notion of the same kind concerning the political

body, and to have imagined that it would thrive and prosper only under a certain precise regimen, the exact

regimen of perfect liberty and perfect justice. He seems not to have considered that, in the political body, the

natural effort which every man is continually making to better his own condition is a principle of preservation

capable of preventing and correcting, in many respects, the bad effects of a political economy, in some

degree, both partial and oppressive. Such a political economy, though it no doubt retards more or less, is not

always capable of stopping altogether the natural progress of a nation towards wealth and prosperity, and still

less of making it go backwards. If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and

perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political body,

however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision for remedying many of the bad effects

of the folly and injustice of man, in the same manner as it has done in the natural body for remedying those of

The capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its representing the class of artificers,

manufacturers, and merchants as altogether barren and unproductive. The following observations may serve

First, this class, it is acknowledged, reproduces annually the value of its own annual consumption, and

continues, at least, the existence of the stock or capital which maintains and employs it. But upon this account

alone the denomination of barren or unproductive should seem to be very improperly applied to it. We should

not call a marriage barren or unproductive though it produced only a son and a daughter, to replace the father

and mother, and though it did not increase the number of the human species, but only continued it as it was

before. Farmers and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains and employs them,

reproduce annually a net produce, a free rent to the landlord. As a marriage which affords three children is

certainly more productive than one which affords only two; so the labour of farmers and country labourers is

certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the

Secondly, it seems, upon this account, altogether improper to consider artificers, manufacturers, and

merchants in the same light as menial servants. The labour of menial servants does not continue the existence

of the fund which maintains and employs them. Their maintenance and employment is altogether at the

expense of their masters, and the work which they perform is not of a nature to repay that expense. That work

consists in services which perish generally in the very instant of their performance, and does not fix or realize

itself in any vendible commodity which can replace the value of their wages and maintenance. The labour, on

the contrary, of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants naturally does fix and realize itself in some such

vendible commodity. It is upon this account that, in the chapter in which I treat of productive and

unproductive labour, I have classed artificers, manufacturers, and merchants among the productive labourers,

Thirdly, it seems upon every supposition improper to say that the labour of artificers, manufacturers, and

merchants does not increase the real revenue of the society. Though we should suppose, for example, as it

seems to be supposed in this system, that the value of the daily, monthly, and yearly consumption of this class

was exactly equal to that of its daily, monthly, and yearly production, yet it would not from thence follow that

its labour added nothing to the real revenue, to the real value of the annual produce of the land and labour of

the society. An artificer, for example, who, in the first six months after harvest, executes ten pounds' worth of

work, though he should in the same time consume ten pounds' worth of corn and other necessaries, yet really

adds the value of ten pounds to the annual produce of the land and labour of the society. While he has been

consuming a halfyearly revenue of ten pounds' worth of corn and other necessaries, he has produced an

equal value of work capable of purchasing, either to himself or some other person, an equal halfyearly

revenue. The value, therefore, of what has been consumed and produced during these six months is equal, not

to ten, but to twenty pounds. It is possible, indeed, that no more than ten pounds' worth of this value may ever

have existed at any one moment of time. But if the ten pounds' worth of corn and other necessaties, which

were consumed by the artificer, had been consumed by a soldier or by a menial servant, the value of that part

of the annual produce which existed at the end of the six months would have been ten pounds less than it

actually is in consequence of the labour of the artificer. Though the value of what the artificer produces,

therefore, should not at any one moment of time be supposed greater than the value he consumes, yet at every

moment of time the actually existing value of goods in the market is, in consequence of what he produces,

When the patrons of this system assert that the consumption of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants is

equal to the value of what they produce, they probably mean no more than that their revenue, or the fund

destined for their consumption, is equal to it. But if they had expressed themselves more accurately, and only

asserted that the revenue of this class was equal to the value of what they produced, it might readily have

occurred to the reader that what would naturally be saved out of this revenue must necessarily increase more

or less the real wealth of the society. In order, therefore, to make out something like an argument, it was

necessary that they should express themselves as they have done; and this argument, even supposing things

actually were as it seems to presume them to be, turns out to be a very inconclusive one.

Fourthly, farmers and country labourers can no more augment, without parsimony, the real revenue, the

annual produce of the land and labour of their society, than artificers, manufacturers, and merchants. The

annual produce of the land and labour of any society can be augmented only in two ways; either, first, by

some improvement in the productive powers of the useful labour actually maintained within it; or, secondly,

The improvement in the productive powers of useful labour depend, first, upon the improvement in the ability

of the workman; and, secondly, upon that of the machinery with which he works. But the labour of artificers

and manufacturers, as it is capable of being more subdivided, and the labour of each workman reduced to a

greater simplicity of operation than that of farmers and country labourers, so it is likewise capable of both

these sorts of improvements in a much higher degree. In this respect, therefore, the class of cultivators can

The increase in the quantity of useful labour actually employed within any society must depend altogether

upon the increase of the capital which employs it; and the increase of that capital again must be exactly equal

to the amount of the savings from the revenue, either of the particular persons who manage and direct the

employment of that capital, or of some other persons who lend it to them. If merchants, artificers, and

manufacturers are, as this system seems to suppose, naturally more inclined to parsimony and saving than

proprietors and cultivators, they are, so far, more likely to augment the quantity of useful labour employed

within their society, and consequently to increase its real revenue, the annual produce of its land and labour.

Fifthly and lastly, though the revenue of the inhabitants of every country was supposed to consist altogether,

as this system seems to suppose, in the quantity of subsistence which their industry could procure to them;

yet, even upon this supposition, the revenue of a trading and manufacturing country must, other things being

equal, always be much greater than that of one without trade or manufactures. By means of trade and

manufactures, a greater quantity of subsistence can be annually imported into a particular country than what

its own lands, in the actual state of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of a town, though they

frequently possess no lands of their own, yet draw to themselves by their industry such a quantity of the rude

produce of the lands of other people as supplies them, not only with the materials of their work, but with the

fund of their subsistence. What a town always is with regard to the country in its neighbourhood, one

independent state or country may frequently be with regard to other independent states or countries. It is thus

that Holland draws a great part of its subsistence from other countries; live cattle from Holstein and Jutland,

and corn from almost all the different countries of Europe. A small quantity of manufactured produce

purchases a great quantity of rude produce. A trading and manufacturing country, therefore, naturally

purchases with a small part of its manufactured produce a great part of the rude produce of other countries;

while, on the contrary, a country without trade and manufactures is generally obliged to purchase, at the

expense of a great part of its rude produce, a very small part of the manufactured produce of other countries.

The one exports what can subsist and accommodate but a very few, and imports the subsistence and

accommodation of a great number. The other exports the accommodation and subsistence of a great number,

and imports that of a very few only. The inhabitants of the one must always enjoy a much greater quantity of

subsistence than what their own lands, in the actual state of their cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants of

This system, however, with all its imperfections is, perhaps, the nearest approximation to the truth that has

yet been published upon the subject of political economy, and is upon that account well worth the

consideration of every man who wishes to examine with attention the principles of that very important

science. Though in representing the labour which is employed upon land as the only productive labour, the

notions which it inculcates are perhaps too narrow and confined; yet in representing the wealth of nations as

consisting, not in the unconsumable riches of money, but in the consumable goods annually reproduced by

the labour of the society, and in representing perfect liberty as the only effectual expedient for rendering this

annual reproduction the greatest possible, its doctrine seems to be in every respect as just as it is generous and

liberal. Its followers are very numerous; and as men are fond of paradoxes, and of appearing to understand

what surpasses the comprehension of ordinary people, the paradox which it maintains, concerning the

unproductive nature of manufacturing labour, has not perhaps contributed a little to increase the number of its

admirers. They have for some years past made a pretty considerable sect, distinguished in the French republic

of letters by the name of The Economists. Their works have certainly been of some service to their country;

not only by bringing into general discussion many subjects which had never been well examined before, but

by influencing in some measure the public administration in favour of agriculture. It has been in consequence

of their representations, accordingly, that the agriculture of France has been delivered from several of the

oppressions which it before laboured under. The term during which such a lease can be granted, as will be

valid against every future purchaser or proprietor of the land, has been prolonged from nine to twentyseven

years. The ancient provincial restraints upon the transportation of corn from one province of the kingdom to

another have been entirely taken away, and the liberty of exporting it to all foreign countries has been

established as the common law of the kingdom in all ordinary cases. This sect, in their works, which are very

numerous, and which treat not only of what is properly called Political Economy, or of the nature and causes

of the wealth of nations, but of every other branch of the system of civil government, all follow implicitly and

without any sensible variation, the doctrine of Mr. Quesnai. There is upon this account little variety in the

greater part of their works. The most distinct and best connected account of this doctrine is to be found in a

little book written by Mr. Mercier de la Riviere, some time intendant of Martinico, entitled, The Natural and

Essential Order of Political Societies. The admiration of this whole sect for their master, who was himself a

man of the greatest modesty and simplicity, is not inferior to that of any of the ancient philosophers for the

founders of their respective systems. "There have been, since the world began," says a very diligent and

respectable author, the Marquis de Mirabeau, "three great inventions which have principally given stability to

political societies, independent of many other inventions which have enriched and adorned them. The first is

the invention of writing, which alone gives human nature the power of transmitting, without alteration, its

laws, its contracts, its annals, and its discoveries. The second is the invention of money, which binds together

all the relations between civilised societies. The third is the Economical Table, the result of the other two,

which completes them both by perfecting their object; the great discovery of our age, but of which our

As the political economy of the nations of modern Europe has been more favourable to manufactures and

foreign trade, the industry of the towns, than to agriculture, the industry of the country; so that of other

nations has followed a different plan, and has been more favourable to agriculture than to manufactures and

The policy of China favours agriculture more than all other employments. In China the condition of a

labourer is said to be as much superior to that of an artificer as in most parts of Europe that of an artificer is to

that of a labourer. In China, the great ambition of every man is to get possession of some little bit of land,

either in property or in lease; and leases are there said to be granted upon very moderate terms, and to be

sufficiently secured to the lessees. The Chinese have little respect for foreign trade. Your beggarly

commerce! was the language in which the Mandarins of Pekin used to talk to Mr. de Lange, the Russian

envoy, concerning it. Except with Japan, the Chinese carry on, themselves, and in their own bottoms, little or

no foreign trade; and it is only into one or two ports of their kingdom that they even admit the ships of

foreign nations. Foreign trade therefore is, in China, every way confined within a much narrower circle than

that to which it would naturally extend itself, if more freedom was allowed to it, either in their own ships, or

Manufactures, as in a small bulk they frequently contain a great value, and can upon that account be

transported at less expense from one country to another than most parts of rude produce, are, in almost all

countries, the principal support of foreign trade. In countries, besides, less extensive and less favourably

circumstanced for inferior commerce than China, they generally require the support of foreign trade. Without

an extensive foreign market they could not well flourish, either in countries so moderately extensive as to

afford but a narrow home market or in countries where the communication between one province and another

was so difficult as to render it impossible for the goods of any particular place to enjoy the whole of that

home market which the country could afford. The perfection of manufacturing industry, it must be

remembered, depends altogether upon the division of labour; and the degree to which the division of labour

can be introduced into any manufacture is necessarily regulated, it has already been shown, by the extent of

the market. But the great extent of the empire of China, the vast multitude of its inhabitants, the variety of

climate, and consequently of productions in its different provinces, and the easy communication by means of

water carriage between the greater part of them, render the home market of that country of so great extent as

to be alone sufficient to support very great manufactures, and to admit of very considerable subdivisions of

labour. The home market of China is, perhaps, in extent, not much inferior to the market of all the different

countries of Europe put together. A more extensive foreign trade, however, which to this great home market

added the foreign market of all the rest of the world especially if any considerable part of this trade was

carried on in Chinese ships could scarce fail to increase very much the manufactures of China, and to

improve very much the productive powers of its manufacturing industry. By a more extensive navigation, the

Chinese would naturally learn the art of using and constructing themselves all the different machines made

use of in other countries, as well as the other improvements of art and industry which are practised in all the

different parts of the world. Upon their present plan they have little opportunity except that of the Japanese.

The policy of ancient Egypt too, and that of the Gentoo government of Indostan, seem to have favoured

Both in ancient Egypt and Indostan the whole body of the people was divided into different castes or tribes,

each of which was confined, from father to son, to a particular employment or class of employments. The son

of a priest was necessarily a priest; the son of a soldier, a soldier; the son of a labourer, a labourer; the son of

a weaver, a weaver; the son of a tailor, a tailor, etc. In both countries, the caste of the priests held the highest

rank, and that of the soldiers the next; and in both countries, the caste of the farmers and labourers was

The government of both countries was particularly attentive to the interest of agriculture. The works

constructed by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt for the proper distribution of the waters of the Nile were

famous in antiquity; and the ruined remains of some of them are still the admiration of travellers. Those of

the same kind which were constructed by the ancient sovereigns of Indostan for the proper distribution of the

waters of the Ganges as well as of many other rivers, though they have been less celebrated, seem to have

been equally great. Both countries, accordingly, though subject occasionally to dearths, have been famous for

their great fertility. Though both were extremely populous, yet, in years of moderate plenty, they were both

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious aversion to the sea; and as the Gentoo religion does not permit its

followers to light a fire, nor consequently to dress any victuals upon the water, it in effect prohibits them from

all distant sea voyages. Both the Egyptians and Indians must have depended almost altogether upon the

navigation of other nations for the exportation of their surplus produce; and this dependency, as it must have

confined the market, so it must have discouraged the increase of this surplus produce. It must have

discouraged, too, the increase of the manufactured produce more than that of the rude produce. Manufactures

require a much more extensive market than the most important parts of the rude produce of the land. A single

shoemaker will make more than three hundred pairs of shoes in the year; and his own family will not,

perhaps, wear out six pairs. Unless therefore he has the custom of at least fifty such families as his own, he

cannot dispose of the whole produce of his own labour. The most numerous class of artificers will seldom, in

a large country, make more than one in fifty or one in a hundred of the whole number of families contained in

it. But in such large countries as France and England, the number of people employed in agriculture has by

some authors been computed at a half, by others at a third, and by no author that I know of, at less than a fifth

of the whole inhabitants of the country. But as the produce of the agriculture of both France and England is,

the far greater part of it, consumed at home, each person employed in it must, according to these

computations, require little more than the custom of one, two, or at most, of four such families as his own in

order to dispose of the whole produce of his own labour. Agriculture, therefore, can support itself under the

discouragement of a confined market much better than manufactures. In both ancient Egypt and Indostan,

indeed, the confinement of the foreign market was in some measure compensated by the conveniency of

many inland navigations, which opened, in the most advantageous manner, the whole extent of the home

market to every part of the produce of every different district of those countries. The great extent of Indostan,

too, rendered the home market of that country very great, and sufficient to support a great variety of

manufactures. But the small extent of ancient Egypt, which was never equal to England, must at all times

have rendered the home market of that country too narrow for supporting any great variety of manufactures.

Bengal, accordingly, the province of Indostan, which commonly exports the greatest quantity of rice, has

always been more remarkable for the exportation of a great variety of manufactures than for that of its grain.

Ancient Egypt, on the contrary, though it exported some manufactures, fine linen in particular, as well as

some other goods, was always most distinguished for its great exportation of grain. It was long the granary of

The sovereigns of China, of ancient Egypt, and of the different kingdoms into which Indostan has at different

times been divided, have always derived the whole, or by far the most considerable part, of their revenue

from some sort of land tax or land rent. This land tax or land rent, like the tithe in Europe, consisted in a

certain proportion, a fifth, it is said, of the produce of the land, which was either delivered in kind, or paid in

money, according to a certain valuation, and which therefore varied from year to year according to all the

variations of the produce. It was natural therefore that the sovereigns of those countries should be particularly

attentive to the interests of agriculture, upon the prosperity or declension of which immediately depended the

The policy of the ancient republics of Greece, and that of Rome, though it honoured agriculture more than

manufactures or foreign trade, yet seems rather to have discouraged the latter employments than to have

given any direct or intentional encouragement to the former. In several of the ancient states of Greece, foreign

trade was prohibited altogether; and in several others the employments of artificers and manufacturers were

considered as hurtful to the strength and agility of the human body, as rendering it incapable of those habits

which their military and gymnastic exercises endeavoured to form in it, and as thereby disqualifying it more

or less for undergoing the fatigues and encountering the dangers of war. Such occupations were considered as

fit only for slaves, and the free citizens of the state were prohibited from exercising them. Even in those states

where no such prohibition took place, as in Rome and Athens, the great body of the people were in effect

excluded from all the trades which are, now commonly exercised by the lower sort of the inhabitants of

towns. Such trades were, at Athens and Rome, all occupied by the slaves of the rich, who exercised them for

the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, power, and protection made it almost impossible for a poor

freeman to find a market for his work, when it came into competition with that of the slaves of the rich.

Slaves, however, are very seldom inventive; and all the most important improvements, either in machinery, or

in the arrangement and distribution of work which facilitate and abridge labour, have been the discoveries of

freemen. Should a slave propose any improvement of this kind, his master would be very apt to consider the

proposal as the suggestion of laziness, and a desire to save his own labour at the master's expense. The poor

slave, instead of reward, would probably meet with much abuse, perhaps with some punishment. In the

manufactures carried on by slaves, therefore, more labour must generally have been employed to execute the

same quantity of work than in those carried on by freemen. The work of the former must, upon that account,

generally have been dearer than that of the latter. The Hungarian mines, it is remarked by Mr. Montesquieu,

though not richer, have always been wrought with less expense, and therefore with more profit, than the

Turkish mines in their neighbourhood. The Turkish mines are wrought by slaves; and the arms of those slaves

are the only machines which the Turks have ever thought of employing. The Hungarian mines are wrought by

freemen, who employ a great deal of machinery, by which they facilitate and abridge their own labour. From

the very little that is known about the price of manufactures in the times of the Greeks and Romans, it would

appear that those of the finer sort were excessively dear. Silk sold for its weight in gold. It was not, indeed, in

those times a European manufacture; and as it was all brought from the East Indies, the distance of the

carriage may in some measure account for the greatness of price. The price, however, which a lady, it is said,

would sometimes pay for a piece of very fine linen, seems to have been equally extravagant; and as linen was

always either a European, or at farthest, an Egyptian manufacture, this high price can be accounted for only

by the great expense of the labour which must have been employed about it, and the expense of this labour

again could arise from nothing but the awkwardness of the machinery which it made use of. The price of fine

woollens too, though not quite so extravagant, seems however to have been much above that of the present

times. Some cloths, we are told by Pliny, dyed in a particular manner, cost a hundred denarii, or three pounds

six shillings and eightpence the pound weight. Others dyed in another manner cost a thousand denarii the

pound weight, or thirtythree pounds six shillings and eightpence. The Roman pound, it must be

remembered, contained only twelve of our avoirdupois ounces. This high price, indeed, seems to have been

principally owing to the dye. But had not the cloths themselves been much dearer than any which are made in

the present times, so very expensive a dye would not probably have been bestowed upon them. The

disproportion would have been too great between the value of the accessory and that of the principal. The

price mentioned by the same author of some Triclinaria, a sort of woollen pillows or cushions made use of to

lean upon as they reclined upon their couches at table, passes all credibility; some of them being said to have

cost more than thirty thousand, others more than three hundred thousand pounds. This high price, too, is not

said to have arisen from the dye. In the dress of the people of fashion of both sexes there seems to have been

much less variety, it is observed by Doctor Arbuthnot, in ancient than in modern times; and the very little

variety which we find in that of the ancient statues confirms his observation. He infers from this that their

dress must upon the whole have been cheaper than ours; but the conclusion does not seem to follow. When

the expense of fashionable dress is very great, the variety must be very small. But when, by the improvements

in the productive powers of manufacturing art and industry, the expense of any one dress comes to be very

moderate, the variety will naturally be very great. The rich, not being able to distinguish themselves by the

expense of any one dress, will naturally endeavour to do so by the multitude and variety of their dresses.

The greatest and most important branch of the commerce of every nation, it has already been observed, is that

which is carried on between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. The inhabitants of the town

draw from the country the rude produce which constitutes both the materials of their work and the fund of

their subsistence; and they pay for this rude produce by sending back to the country a certain portion of it

manufactured and prepared for immediate use. The trade which is carried on between these two different sets

of people consists ultimately in a certain quantity of rude produce exchanged for a certain quantity of

manufactured produce. The dearer the latter, therefore, the cheaper the former; and whatever tends in any

country to raise the price of manufactured produce tends to lower that of the rude produce of the land, and

thereby to discourage agriculture. The smaller the quantity of manufactured produce which in any given

quantity of rude produce, or, what comes to the same thing, which the price of any given quantity of rude

produce is capable of purchasing, the smaller the exchangeable value of that given quantity of rude produce,

the smaller the encouragement which either the landlord has to increase its quantity by improving or the

farmer by cultivating the land. Whatever, besides, tends to diminish in any country the number of artificers

and manufacturers, tends to diminish the home market, the most important of all markets for the rude produce

Those systems, therefore, which, preferring agriculture to all other employments, in order to promote it,

impose restraints upon manufactures and foreign trade, act contrary to the very end which they propose, and

indirectly discourage that very species of industry which they mean to promote. They are so far, perhaps,

more inconsistent than even the mercantile system. That system, by encouraging manufactures and foreign

trade more than agriculture, turns a certain portion of the capital of the society from supporting a more

advantageous, to support a less advantageous species of industry. But still it really and in the end encourages

that species of industry which it means to promote. Those agricultural systems, on the contrary, really and in

It is thus that every system which endeavours, either by extraordinary encouragements to draw towards a

particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it,

or, by extraordinary restraints, force from a particular species of industry some share of the capital which

would otherwise be employed in it, is in reality subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It

retards, instead of accelerating, the progress of the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes,

instead of increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its land and labour.

All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and

simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate

the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry

and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely

discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable

delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient;

the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most

suitable to the interest of the society. According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three

duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common

understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent

societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice

or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and,

thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can

never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the

profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may

The proper performance of those several duties of the sovereign necessarily supposes a certain expense; and

this expense again necessarily requires a certain revenue to support it. In the following book, therefore, I shall

endeavour to explain, first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign or commonwealth; and which of

those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; and which of them by

that of some particular part only, or of some particular members of the society; secondly, what are the

different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards defraying the expenses

incumbent on the whole society, and what are the principal advantages and inconveniences of each of those

methods; and thirdly, what are the reasons and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to

mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of those debts upon

the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the society. The following book, therefore, will

Of the Expense of Defence THE first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the violence

and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only by means of a military force. But the

expense both of preparing this military force in time of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is very

different in the different states of society, in the different periods of improvement.

Among nations of hunters, the lowest and rudest state of society, such as we find it among the native tribes of

North America, every man is a warrior as well as a hunter. When he goes to war, either to defend his society

or to revenge the injuries which have been done to it by other societies, he maintains himself by his own

labour in the same manner as when he lives at home. His society, for in this state of things there is properly

neither sovereign nor commonwealth, is at no sort of expense, either to prepare him for the field, or to

Among nations of shepherds, a more advanced state of society, such as we find it among the Tartars and

Arabs, every man is, in the same manner, a warrior. Such nations have commonly no fixed habitation, but

live either in tents or in a sort of covered waggons which are easily transported from place to place. The

whole tribe or nation changes its situation according to the different seasons of the year, as well as according

to other accidents. When its herds and flocks have consumed the forage of one part of the country, it removes

to another, and from that to a third. In the dry season it comes down to the banks of the rivers; in the wet

season it retires to the upper country. When such a nation goes to war, the warriors will not trust their herds

and flocks to the feeble defence of their old men, their women and children; and their old men, their women

and children, will not be left behind without defence and without subsistence. The whole nation, besides,

being accustomed to a wandering life, even in time of peace, easily takes the field in time of war. Whether it

marches as an army, or moves about as a company of herdsmen, the way of life is nearly the same, though the

object proposed by it be very different. They all go to war together, therefore, and every one does as well as

he can. Among the Tartars, even the women have been frequently known to engage in battle. If they conquer,

whatever belongs to the hostile tribe is the recompense of the victory. But if they are vanquished, all is lost,

and not only their herds and flocks, but their women and children, become the booty of the conqueror. Even

the greater part of those who survive the action are obliged to submit to him for the sake of immediate

The ordinary life, the ordinary exercises of a Tartar or Arab, prepare him sufficiently for war. Running,

wrestling, cudgelplaying, throwing the javelin, drawing the bow, etc., are the common pastimes of those

who live in the open air, and are all of them the images of war. When a Tartar or Arab actually goes to war,

he is maintained by his own herds and flocks which he carries with him in the same manner as in peace. His

chief or sovereign, for those nations have all chiefs or sovereigns, is at no sort of expense in preparing him

for the field; and when he is in it the chance of plunder is the only pay which he either expects or requires.

An army of hunters can seldom exceed two or three hundred men. The precarious subsistence which the

chase affords could seldom allow a greater number to keep together for any considerable time. An army of

shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount to two or three hundred thousand. As long as nothing

stops their progress, as long as they can go on from one district, of which they have consumed the forage, to

another which is yet entire, there seems to be scarce any limit to the number who can march on together. A

nation of hunters can never be formidable to the civilised nations in their neighbourhood. A nation of

shepherds may. Nothing can be more contemptible than an Indian war in North America. Nothing, on the

contrary, can be more dreadful than Tartar invasion has frequently been in Asia. The judgment of

Thucydides, that both Europe and Asia could not resist the Scythians united, has been verified by the

experience of all ages. The inhabitants of the extensive but defenceless plains of Scythia or Tartary have been

frequently united under the dominion of the chief of some conquering horde or clan, and the havoc and

devastation of Asia have always signalized their union. The inhabitants of the inhospitable deserts of Arabia,

the other great nation of shepherds, have never been united but once; under Mahomet and his immediate

successors. Their union, which was more the effect of religious enthusiasm than of conquest, was signalized

in the same manner. If the hunting nations of America should ever become shepherds, their neighbourhood

In a yet more advanced state of society, among those nations of husbandmen who have little foreign

commerce, and no other manufactures but those coarse and household ones which almost every private

family prepares for its own use, every man, in the same manner, either is a warrior or easily becomes such.

They who live by agriculture generally pass the whole day in the open air, exposed to all the inclemencies of

the seasons. The hardiness of their ordinary life prepares them for the fatigues of war, to some of which their

necessary occupations bear a great analogy. The necessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to work in

the trenches, and to fortify a camp as well as to enclose a field. The ordinary pastimes of such husbandmen

are the same as those of shepherds, and are in the same manner the images of war. But as husbandmen have

less leisure than shepherds, they are not so frequently employed in those pastimes. They are soldiers, but

soldiers not quite so much masters of their exercise. Such as they are, however, it seldom costs the sovereign

Agriculture, even in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement: some sort of fixed habitation which

cannot be abandoned without great loss. When a nation of mere husbandmen, therefore, goes to war, the

whole people cannot take the field together. The old men, the women and children, at least, must remain at

home to take care of the habitation. All the men of the military age, however, may take the field, and, in small

nations of this kind, have frequently done so. In every nation the men of the military age are supposed to

amount to about a fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people. If the campaign, should begin after

seedtime, and end before harvest, both the husbandman and his principal labourers can be spared from the

farm without much loss. He trusts that the work which must be done in the meantime can be well enough

executed by the old men, the women, and the children. He is not unwilling, therefore, to serve without pay

during a short campaign, and it frequently costs the sovereign or commonwealth as little to maintain him in

the field as to prepare him for it. The citizens of all the different states of ancient Greece seem to have served

in this manner till after the second Persian war; and the people of Peloponnesus till after the Peloponnesian

war. The Peloponnesians, Thucydides observes, generally left the field in the summer, and returned home to

reap the harvest. The Roman people under their kings, and during the first ages of the republic, served in the

same manner. It was not till the siege of Veii that they who stayed at home began to contribute something

towards maintaining those who went to war. In the European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins

of the Roman empire, both before and for some time after the establishment of what is properly called the

feudal law, the great lords, with all their immediate dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense.

In the field, in the same manner as at home, they maintained themselves by their own revenue, and not by any

In a more advanced state of society, two different causes contribute to render it altogether impossible that

they who take the field should maintain themselves at their own expense. Those two causes are, the progress

Though a husbandman should be employed in an expedition, provided it begins after seedtime and ends

before harvest, the interruption of his business will not always occasion any considerable diminution of his

revenue. Without the intervention of his labour, nature does herself the greater part of the work which

remains to be done. But the moment that an artificer, a smith, a carpenter, or a weaver, for example, quits his

workhouse, the sole source of his revenue is completely dried up. Nature does nothing for him, he does all for

himself. When he takes the field, therefore, in defence of the public, as he has no revenue to maintain

himself, he must necessarily be maintained by the public. But in a country of which a great part of the

inhabitants are artificers and manufacturers, a great part of the people who go to war must be drawn from

those classes, and must therefore be maintained by the public as long as they are employed in its service.

When the art of war, too, has gradually grown up to be a very intricate and complicated science, when the

event of war ceases to be determined, as in the first ages of society, by a single irregular skirmish or battle,

but when the contest is generally spun out through several different campaigns, each of which lasts during the

greater part of the year, it becomes universally necessary that the public should maintain those who serve the

public in war, at least while they are employed in that service. Whatever in time of peace might be the

ordinary occupation of those who go to war, so very tedious and expensive a service would otherwise be far

too heavy a burden upon them. After the second Persian war, accordingly, the armies of Athens seem to have

been generally composed of mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly of citizens, but partly too of

foreigners, and all of them equally hired and paid at the expense of the state. From the time of the siege of

Veii, the armies of Rome received pay for their service during the time which they remained in the field.

Under the feudal governments the military service both of the great lords and of their immediate dependants

was, after a certain period, universally exchanged for a payment in money, which was employed to maintain

The number of those who can go to war, in proportion to the whole number of the people, is necessarily much

smaller in a civilised than in a rude state of society. In a civilised society, as the soldiers are maintained

altogether by the labour of those who are not soldiers, the number of the former can never exceed what the

latter can maintain, over and above maintaining, in a manner suitable to their respective stations, both

themselves and the other officers of government and law whom they are obliged to maintain. In the little

agrarian states of ancient Greece, a fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people considered

themselves as soldiers, and would sometimes, it is said, take a field. Among the civilised nations of modern

Europe, it is commonly computed that not more than onehundredth part of the inhabitants in any country

can be employed as soldiers without ruin to the country which pays the expenses of their service.

The expense of preparing the army for the field seems not to have become considerable in any nation till long

after that of maintaining it in the field had devolved entirely upon the sovereign or commonwealth. In all the

different republics of ancient Greece, to learn his military exercises was a necessary part of education

imposed by the state upon every free citizen. In every city there seems to have been a public field, in which,

under the protection of the public magistrate, the young people were taught their different exercises by

different masters. In this very simple institution consisted the whole expense which any Grecian state seems

ever to have been at in preparing its citizens for war. In ancient Rome the exercises of the Campus Martius

answered the same purpose with those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece. Under the feudal governments,

the many public ordinances that the citizens of every district should practise archery as well as several other

military exercises were intended for promoting the same purpose, but do not seem to have promoted it so

well. Either from want of interest in the officers entrusted with the execution of those ordinances, or from

some other cause, they appear to have been universally neglected; and in the progress of all those

governments, military exercises seem to have gone gradually into disuse among the great body of the people.

In the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, during the whole period of their existence, and under the feudal

governments for a considerable time after their first establishment, the trade of a soldier was not a separate,

distinct trade, which constituted the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens. Every

subject of the state, whatever might be the ordinary trade or occupation by which he gained his livelihood,

considered himself, upon all ordinary occasions, as fit likewise to exercise the trade of a soldier, and upon

The art of war, however, as it is certainly the noblest of all arts, so in the progress of improvement it

necessarily becomes one of the most complicated among them. The state of the mechanical, as well as of

some other arts, with which it is necessarily connected, determines the degree of perfection to which it is

capable of being carried at any particular time. But in order to carry it to this degree of perfection, it is

necessary that it should become the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens, and the

division of labour is as necessary for the improvement of this, as of every other art. Into other arts the

division of labour is naturally introduced by the prudence of individuals, who find that they promote their

private interest better by confining themselves to a particular trade than by exercising a great number. But it

is the wisdom of the state only which can render the trade of a soldier a particular trade separate and distinct

from all others. A private citizen who, in time of profound peace, and without any particular encouragement

from the public, should spend the greater part of his time in military exercises, might, no doubt, both improve

himself very much in them, and amuse himself very well; but he certainly would not promote his own

interest. It is the wisdom of the state only which can render it for his interest to give up the greater part of his

time to this peculiar occupation: and states have not always had this wisdom, even when their circumstances

had become such that the preservation of their existence required that they should have it.

A shepherd has a great deal of leisure; a husbandman, in the rude state of husbandry, has some; an artificer or

manufacturer has none at all. The first may, without any loss, employ a great deal of his time in martial

exercises; the second may employ some part of it; but the last cannot employ a single hour in them without

some loss, and his attention to his own interest naturally leads him to neglect them altogether. These

improvements in husbandry too, which the progress of arts and manufactures necessarily introduces, leave

the husbandman as little leisure as the artificer. Military exercises come to be as much neglected by the

inhabitants of the country as by those of the town, and the great body of the people becomes altogether

unwarlike. That wealth, at the same time, which always follows the improvements of agriculture and

manufactures, and which in reality is no more than the accumulated produce of those improvements,

provokes the invasion of all their neighbours. An industrious, and upon that account a wealthy nation, is of all

nations the most likely to be attacked; and unless the state takes some new measures for the public defence,

the natural habits of the people render them altogether incapable of defending themselves.

In these circumstances there seem to be but two methods by which the state can make any tolerable provision

It may either, first, by means of a very rigorous police, and in spite of the whole bent of the interest, genius,

and inclinations of the people, enforce the practice of military exercises, and oblige either all the citizens of

the military age, or a certain number of them, to join in some measure the trade of a soldier to whatever other

Or, secondly, by maintaining and employing a certain number of citizens in the constant practice of military

exercises, it may render the trade of a soldier a particular trade, separate and distinct from all others.

If the state has recourse to the first of those two expedients, its military force is said to consist in a militia; if

to the second, it is said to consist in a standing army. The practice of military exercises is the sole or principal

occupation of the soldiers of a standing army, and the maintenance or pay which the state affords them is the

principal and ordinary fund of their subsistence. The practice of military exercises is only the occasional

occupation of the soldiers of a militia, and they derive the principal and ordinary fund of their subsistence

from some other occupation. In a militia, the character of the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates

over that of the soldier; in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character: and in

this distinction seems to consist the essential difference between those two different species of military force.

Militias have been of several different kinds. In some countries the citizens destined for defending the states

seem to have been exercised only, without being, if I may say so, regimented; that is, without being divided

into separate and distinct bodies of troops, each of which performed its exercises under its own proper and

permanent officers. In the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, each citizen, as long as he remained at

home, seems to have practised his exercises either separately and independently, or with such of his equals as

he liked best, and not to have been attached to any particular body of troops till he was actually called upon to

take the field. In other countries, the militia has not only been exercised, but regimented. In England, in

Switzerland, and, I believe, in every other country of modern Europe where any imperfect military force of

this kind has been established, every militiaman is, even in time of peace, attached to a particular body of

troops, which performs its exercises under its own proper and permanent officers.

Before the invention of firearms, that army was superior in which the soldiers had, each individually, the

greatest skill and dexterity in the use of their arms. Strength and agility of body were of the highest

consequence, and commonly determined the state of battles. But this skill and dexterity in the use of their

arms could be acquired only, in the same manner as fencing is at present, by practising, not in great bodies,

but each man separately, in a particular school, under a particular master, or with his own particular equals

and companions. Since the invention of firearms, strength and agility of body, or even extraordinary dexterity

and skill in the use of arms, though they are far from being of no consequence, are, however, of less

consequence. The nature of the weapon, though it by no means puts the awkward upon a level with the

skilful, puts him more nearly so than he ever was before. All the dexterity and skill, it is supposed, which are

necessary for using it, can be well enough acquired by practising in great bodies.

Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more

importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of

their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself

every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannonshot, and frequently a long time before the battle

can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this

regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there

was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of

wounds or death. Every man, till some mortal weapon actually did approach him, saw clearly that no such

weapon was near him. In these circumstances, and among troops who had some confidence in their own skill

and dexterity in the use of their arms, it must have been a good deal less difficult to preserve some degree

regularity and order, not only in the beginning, but through the whole progress of an ancient battle, and till

one of the two armies was fairly defeated. But the habits of regularity, order, and prompt obedience to

A militia, however, in whatever manner it may be either disciplined or exercised, must always be much

The soldiers who are exercised only once a week, or once a month, can never be so expert in the use of their

arms as those who are exercised every day, or every other day; and though this circumstance may not be of so

much consequence in modern as it was in ancient times, yet the acknowledged superiority of the Prussian

troops, owing, it is said, very much to their superior expertness in their exercise, may satisfy us that it is, even

The soldiers who are bound to obey their officer only once a week or once a month, and who are at all other

times at liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, without being in any respect accountable to him,

can never be under the same awe in his presence, can never have the same disposition to ready obedience,

with those whose whole life and conduct are every day directed by him, and who every day even rise and go

to bed, or at least retire to their quarters, according to his orders. In what is called discipline, or in the habit of

ready obedience, a militia must always be still more inferior to a standing army than it may sometimes be in

what is called the manual exercise, or in the management and use of its arms. But in modern war the habit of

ready and instant obedience is of much greater consequence than a considerable superiority in the

Those militias which, like the Tartar or Arab militia, go to war under the same chieftains whom they are

accustomed to obey in peace are by far the best. In respect for their officers, in the habit of ready obedience,

they approach nearest to standing armies. The highland militia, when it served under its own chieftains, had

some advantage of the same kind. As the highlanders, however, were not wandering, but stationary

shepherds, as they had all a fixed habitation, and were not, in peaceable times, accustomed to follow their

chieftain from place to place, so in time of war they were less willing to follow him to any considerable

distance, or to continue for any long time in the field. When they had acquired any booty they were eager to

return home, and his authority was seldom sufficient to detain them. In point of obedience they were always

much inferior to what is reported of the Tartars and Arabs. As the highlanders too, from their stationary life,

spend less of their time in the open air, they were always less accustomed to military exercises, and were less

A militia of any kind, it must be observed, however, which has served for several successive campaigns in the

field, becomes in every respect a standing army. The soldiers are every day exercised in the use of their arms,

and, being constantly under the command of their officers, are habituated to the same prompt obedience

which takes place in standing armies. What they were before they took the field is of little importance. They

necessarily become in every respect a standing army after they have passed a few campaigns in it. Should the

war in America drag out through another campaign, the American militia may become in every respect a

match for that standing army of which the valour appeared, in the last war, at least not inferior to that of the

This distinction being well understood, the history of all ages, it will be found, bears testimony to the

irresistible superiority which a wellregulated standing army has over a militia.

One of the first standing armies of which we have any distinct account, in any well authenticated history, is

that of Philip of Macedon. His frequent wars with the Thracians, Illyrians, Thessalians, and some of the

Greek cities in the neighbourhood of Macedon, gradually formed his troops, which in the beginning were

probably militia, to the exact discipline of a standing army. When he was at peace, which he was very

seldom, and never for any long time together, he was careful not to disband that army. It vanquished and

subdued, after a long and violent struggle, indeed, the gallant and well exercised militias of the principal

republics of ancient Greece, and afterwards, with very little struggle, the effeminate and illexercised militia

of the great Persian empire. The fall of the Greek republics and of the Persian empire was the effect of the

irresistible superiority which a standing army has over every sort of militia. It is the first great revolution in

the affairs of mankind of which history has preserved any distinct or circumstantial account.

The fall of Carthage, and the consequent elevation of Rome, is the second. All the varieties in the fortune of

From the end of the first to the beginning of the second Carthaginian war the armies of Carthage were

continually in the field, and employed under three great generals, who succeeded one another in the

command: Hamilcar, his soninlaw Hasdrubal, and his son Hannibal; first in chastising their own rebellious

slaves, afterwards in subduing the revolted nations of Africa, and, lastly, in conquering the great kingdom of

Spain. The army which Hannibal led from Spain into Italy must necessarily, in those different wars, have

been gradually formed to the exact discipline of a standing army. The Romans, in the meantime, though they

had not been altogether at peace, yet they had not, during this period, been engaged in any war of very great

consequence, and their military discipline, it is generally said, was a good deal relaxed. The Roman armies

which Hannibal encountered at Trebia, Thrasymenus, and Cannae were militia opposed to a standing army.

This circumstance, it is probable, contributed more than any other to determine the fate of those battles.

The standing army which Hannibal left behind him in Spain had the like superiority over the militia which

the Romans sent to oppose it, and in a few years, under the command of his brother, the younger Hasdrubal,

Hannibal was ill supplied from home. The Roman militia, being continually in the field, became in the

progress of the war a well disciplined and wellexercised standing army, and the superiority of Hannibal

grew every day less and less. Hasdrubal judged it necessary to lead the whole, or almost the whole of the

standing army which he commanded in Spain, to the assistance of his brother in Italy. In this march he is said

to have been misled by his guides, and in a country which he did not know, was surprised and attacked by

another standing army, in every respect equal or superior to his own, and was entirely defeated.

When Hasdrubal had left Spain, the great Scipio found nothing to oppose him but a militia inferior to his

own. He conquered and subdued that militia, and, in the course of the war, his own militia necessarily

became a welldisciplined and wellexercised standing army. That standing army was afterwards carried to

Africa, where it found nothing but a militia to oppose it. In order to defend Carthage it became necessary to

recall the standing army of Hannibal. The disheartened and frequently defeated African militia joined it, and,

at the battle of Zama, composed the greater part of the troops of Hannibal. The event of that day determined

From the end of the second Carthaginian war till the fall of the Roman republic, the armies of Rome were in

every respect standing armies. The standing army of Macedon made some resistance to their arms. In the

height of their grandeur it cost them two great wars, and three great battles, to subdue that little kingdom, of

which the conquest would probably have been still more difficult had it not been for the cowardice of its last

king. The militias of all the civilised nations of the ancient world, of Greece, of Syria, and of Egypt, made but

a feeble resistance to the standing armies of Rome. The militias of some barbarous nations defended

themselves much better. The Scythian or Tartar militia, which Mithridates drew from the countries north of

the Euxine and Caspian seas, were the most formidable enemies whom the Romans had to encounter after the

second Carthaginian war. The Parthian and German militias, too, were always respectable, and upon several

occasions gained very considerable advantages over the Roman armies. In general, however, and when the

Roman armies were well commanded, they appear to have been very much superior; and if the Romans did

not pursue the final conquest either of Parthia or Germany, it was probably because they judged that it was

not worth while to add those two barbarous countries to an empire which was already too large. The ancient

Parthians appear to have been a nation of Scythian or Tartar extraction, and to have always retained a good

deal of the manners of their ancestors. The ancient Germans were, like the Scythians or Tartars, a nation of

wandering shepherds, who went to war under the same chiefs whom they were accustomed to follow in

peace. Their militia was exactly of the same kind with that of the Scythians or Tartars, from whom, too, they

Many different causes contributed to relax the discipline of the Roman armies. Its extreme severity was,

perhaps, one of those causes. In the days of their grandeur, when no enemy appeared capable of opposing

them, their heavy armour was laid aside as unnecessarily burdensome, their labourious exercises were

neglected as unnecessarily toilsome. Under the Roman emperors, besides, the standing armies of Rome, those

particularly which guarded the German and Pannonian frontiers, became dangerous to their masters, against

whom they used frequently to set up their own generals. In order to render them less formidable, according to

some authors, Dioclesian, according to others, Constantine, first withdrew them from the frontier, where they

had always before been encamped in great bodies, generally of two or three legions each, and dispersed them

in small bodies through the different provincial towns, from whence they were scarce ever removed but when

it became necessary to repel an invasion. Small bodies of soldiers quartered, in trading and manufacturing

towns, and seldom removed from those quarters, became themselves tradesmen, artificers, and

manufacturers. The civil came to predominate over the military character, and the standing armies of Rome

gradually degenerated into a corrupt, neglected, and undisciplined militia, incapable of resisting the attack of

the German and Scythian militias, which soon afterwards invaded the western empire. It was only by hiring

the militia of some of those nations to oppose to that of others that the emperors were for some time able to

defend themselves. The fall of the western empire is the third great revolution in the affairs of mankind of

which ancient history has preserved any distinct or circumstantial account. It was brought about by the

irresistible superiority which the militia of a barbarous has over that of a civilised nation; which the militia of

a nation of shepherds has over that of a nation of husbandmen, artificers, and manufacturers. The victories

which have been gained by militias have generally been, not over standing armies, but over other militias in

exercise and discipline inferior to themselves. Such were the victories which the Greek militia gained over

that of the Persian empire; and such too were those which in later times the Swiss militia gained over that of

The military force of the German and Scythian nations who established themselves upon the ruins of the

western empire continued for some time to be of the same kind in their new settlements as it had been in their

original country. It was a militia of shepherds and husbandmen, which, in time of war, took the field under

the command of the same chieftains whom it was accustomed to obey in peace. It was, therefore, tolerably

well exercised, and tolerably well disciplined. As arts and industry advanced, however, the authority of the

chieftains gradually decayed, and the great body of the people had less time to spare for military exercises.

Both the discipline and the exercise of the feudal militia, therefore, went gradually to ruin, and standing

armies were gradually introduced to supply the place of it. When the expedient of a standing army, besides,

had once been adopted by one civilised nation, it became necessary that all its neighbours should follow their

example. They soon found that their safety depended upon their doing so, and that their own militia was

The soldiers of a standing army, though they may never have seen an enemy, yet have frequently appeared to

possess all the courage of veteran troops and the very moment that they took the field to have been fit to face

the hardiest and most experienced veterans. In 1756, when the Russian army marched into Poland, the valour

of the Russian soldiers did not appear inferior to that of the Prussians, at that time supposed to be the hardiest

and most experienced veterans in Europe. The Russian empire, however, had enjoyed a profound peace for

near twenty years before, and could at that time have very few soldiers who had ever seen an enemy. When

the Spanish war broke out in 1739, England had enjoyed a profound peace for about eightandtwenty years.

The valour of her soldiers, however, far from being corrupted by that long peace, was never more

distinguished than in the attempt upon Carthagena, the first unfortunate exploit of that unfortunate war. In a

long peace the generals, perhaps, may sometimes forget their skill; but, where a wellregulated standing

When a civilised nation depends for its defence upon a militia, it is at all times exposed to be conquered by

any barbarous nation which happens to be in its neighbourhood. The frequent conquests of all the civilised

countries in Asia by the Tartars sufficiently demonstrates the natural superiority which the militia of a

barbarous has over that of a civilised nation. A wellregulated standing army is superior to every militia.

Such an army, as it can best be maintained by an opulent and civilised nation, so it can alone defend such a

nation against the invasion of a poor and barbarous neighbour. It is only by means of a standing army,

therefore, that the civilization of any country can be perpetuated, or even preserved for any considerable time.

As it is only by means of a wellregulated standing army that a civilised country can be defended, so it is

only by means of it that a barbarous country can be suddenly and tolerably civilised. A standing army

establishes, with an irresistible force, the law of the sovereign through the remotest provinces of the empire,

and maintains some degree of regular government in countries which could not otherwise admit of any.

Whoever examines, with attention, the improvements which Peter the Great introduced into the Russian

empire, will find that they almost all resolve themselves into the establishment of a well regulated standing

army. It is the instrument which executes and maintains all his other regulations. That degree of order and

internal peace which that empire has ever since enjoyed is altogether owing to the influence of that army.

Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous to liberty. It certainly is so

wherever the interest of the general and that of the principal officers are not necessarily connected with the

support of the constitution of the state. The standing army of Caesar destroyed the Roman republic. The

standing army of Cromwell turned the Long Parliament out of doors. But where the sovereign is himself the

general, and the principal nobility and gentry of the country the chief officers of the army, where the military

force is placed under the command of those who have the greatest interest in the support of the civil

authority, because they have themselves the greatest share of that authority, a standing army can never be

dangerous to liberty. On the contrary, it may in some cases be favourable to liberty. The security which it

gives to the sovereign renders unnecessary that troublesome jealousy, which, in some modern republics,

seems to watch over the minutest actions, and to be at all times ready to disturb the peace of every citizen.

Where the security of the magistrate, though supported by the principal people of the country, is endangered

by every popular discontent; where a small tumult is capable of bringing about in a few hours a great

revolution, the whole authority of government must be employed to suppress and punish every murmur and

complaint against it. To a sovereign, on the contrary, who feels himself supported, not only by the natural

aristocracy of the country, but by a wellregulated standing army, the rudest, the most groundless, and the

most licentious remonstrances can give little disturbance. He can safely pardon or neglect them, and his

consciousness of his own superiority naturally disposes him to do so. That degree of liberty which approaches

to licentiousness can be tolerated only in countries where the sovereign is secured by a wellregulated

standing army. It is in such countries only that the public safety does not require that the sovereign should be

trusted with any discretionary power for suppressing even the impertinent wantonness of this licentious

The first duty of the sovereign, therefore, that of defending the society from the violence and injustice of

other independent societies, grows gradually more and more expensive as the society advances in civilization.

The military force of the society, which originally cost the sovereign no expense either in time of peace or in

time of war, must, in the progress of improvement, first be maintained by him in time of war, and afterwards

The great change introduced into the art of war by the invention of firearms has enhanced still further both

the expense of exercising and disciplining any particular number of soldiers in time of peace, and that of

employing them in time of war. Both their arms and their ammunition are become more expensive. A musket

is a more expensive machine than a javelin or a bow and arrows; a cannon or a mortar than a balista or a

catapulta. The powder which is spent in a modern review is lost irrecoverably, and occasions a very

considerable expense. The javeline and arrows which were thrown or shot in an ancient one could easily be

picked up again, and were besides of very little value. The cannon and the mortar are not only much dearer,

but much heavier machines than the balista or catapulta, and require a greater expense, not only to prepare

them for the field, but to carry them to it. As the superiority of the modern artillery too over that of the

ancients is very great, it has become much more difficult, and consequently much more expensive, to fortify a

town so as to resist even for a few weeks the attack of that superior artillery. In modern times many different

causes contribute to render the defence of the society more expensive. The unavoidable effects of the natural

progress of improvement have, in this respect, been a good deal enhanced by a great revolution in the art of

war, to which a mere accident, the invention of gunpowder, seems to have given occasion.

In modern war the great expense of firearms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best afford

that expense, and consequently to an opulent and civilised over a poor and barbarous nation. In ancient times

the opulent and civilised found it difficult to defend themselves against the poor and barbarous nations. In

modern times the poor and barbarous find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and civilised.

The invention of firearms, an invention which at first sight appears to be so pernicious, is certainly favourable

THE second duty of the sovereign, that of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the

injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of

justice, requires, too, very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society.

Among nations of hunters, as there is scarce any property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or

three days' labour, so there is seldom any established magistrate or any regular administration of justice. Men

who have no property can injure one another only in their persons or reputations. But when one man kills,

wounds, beats, or defames another, though he to whom the injury is done suffers, he who does it receives no

benefit. It is otherwise with the injuries to property. The benefit of the person who does the injury is often

equal to the loss of him who suffers it. Envy, malice, or resentment are the only passions which can prompt

one man to injure another in his person or reputation. But the greater part of men are not very frequently

under the influence of those passions, and the very worst of men are so only occasionally. As their

gratification too, how agreeable soever it may be to certain characters, is not attended with any real or

permanent advantage, it is in the greater part of men commonly restrained by prudential considerations. Men

may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to

protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred

of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property,

passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is

great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and

the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation

of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only

under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the

labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at

all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from

whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to

chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the

establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two

Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows

up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination

The causes or circumstances which naturally introduce subordination, or which naturally, and antecedent to

any civil institution, give some men some superiority over the greater part of their brethren, seem to be four

The first of those causes or circumstances is the superiority of personal qualifications, of strength, beauty, and

agility of body; of wisdom and virtue, of prudence, justice, fortitude, and moderation of mind. The

qualifications of the body, unless supported by those of the mind, can give little authority in any period of

society. He is a very strong man, who, by mere strength of body, can force two weak ones to obey him. The

qualifications of the mind can alone give a very great authority. They are, however, invisible qualities; always

disputable, and generally disputed. No society, whether barbarous or civilised, has ever found it convenient to

settle the rules of precedency of rank and subordination according to those invisible qualities; but according

The second of those causes or circumstances is the superiority of age. An old man, provided his age is not so

far advanced as to give suspicion of dotage, is everywhere more respected than a young man of equal rank,

fortune, and abilities. Among nations of hunters, such as the native tribes of North America, age is the sole

foundation of rank and precedency. Among them, father is the appellation of a superior; brother, of an equal;

and son, of an inferior. In the most opulent and civilised nations, age regulates rank among those who are in

every other respect equal, and among whom, therefore, there is nothing else to regulate it. Among brothers

and among sisters, the eldest always takes place; and in the succession of the paternal estate everything which

cannot be divided, but must go entire to one person, such as a title of honour, is in most cases given to the

The third of those causes or circumstances is the superiority of fortune. The authority of riches, however,

though great in every age of society, is perhaps greatest in the rudest age of society which admits of any

considerable inequality of fortune. A Tartar chief, the increase of whose herds and stocks is sufficient to

maintain a thousand men, cannot well employ that increase in any other way than in maintaining a thousand

men. The rude state of his society does not afford him any manufactured produce, any trinkets or baubles of

any kind, for which he can exchange that part of his rude produce which is over and above his own

consumption. The thousand men whom he thus maintains, depending entirely upon him for their subsistence,

must both obey his orders in war, and submit to his jurisdiction in peace. He is necessarily both their general

and their judge, and his chieftainship is the necessary effect of the superiority of his fortune. In an opulent

and civilised society, a man may possess a much greater fortune and yet not be able to command a dozen

people. Though the produce of his estate may be sufficient to maintain, and may perhaps actually maintain,

more than a thousand people, yet as those people pay for everything which they get from him, as he gives

scarce anything to anybody but in exchange for an equivalent, there is scarce anybody who considers himself

as entirely dependent upon him, and his authority extends only over a few menial servants. The authority of

fortune, however, is very great even in an opulent and civilised society. That it is much greater than that

either of age or of personal qualities has been the constant complaint of every period of society which

admitted of any considerable inequality of fortune. The first period of society, that of hunters, admits of no

such inequality. Universal poverty establishes their universal equality, and the superiority either of age or of

personal qualities are the feeble but the sole foundations of authority and subordination. There is therefore

little or no authority or subordination in this period of society. The second period of society, that of

shepherds, admits of very great inequalities of fortune, and there is no period in which the superiority of

fortune gives so great authority to those who possess it. There is no period accordingly in which authority and

subordination are more perfectly established. The authority of an Arabian sherif is very great; that of a Tartar

The fourth of those causes or circumstances is the superiority of birth. Superiority of birth supposes an

ancient superiority of fortune in the family of the person who claims it. All families are equally ancient; and

the ancestors of the prince, though they may be better known, cannot well be more numerous than those of

the beggar. Antiquity of family means everywhere the antiquity either of wealth, or of that greatness which is

commonly either founded upon wealth, or accompanied with it. Upstart greatness is everywhere less

respected than ancient greatness. The hatred of usurpers, the love of the family of an ancient monarch, are, in

a great measure, founded upon the contempt which men naturally have for the former, and upon their

veneration for the latter. As a military officer submits without reluctance to the authority of a superior by

whom he has always been commanded, but cannot bear that his inferior should be set over his head, so men

easily submit to a family to whom they and their ancestors have always submitted; but are fired with

indignation when another family, in whom they had never acknowledged any such superiority, assumes a

The distinction of birth, being subsequent to the inequality of fortune, can have no place in nations of hunters,

among whom all men, being equal in fortune, must likewise be very nearly equal in birth. The son of a wise

and brave man may, indeed, even among them, be somewhat more respected than a man of equal merit who

has the misfortune to be the son of a fool or a coward. The difference, however, will not be very great; and

there never was, I believe, a great family in the world whose illustration was entirely derived from the

The distinction of birth not only may, but always does take place among nations of shepherds. Such nations

are always strangers to every sort of luxury, and great wealth can scarce ever be dissipated among them by

improvident profusion. There are no nations accordingly who abound more in families revered and honoured

on account of their descent from a long race of great and illustrious ancestors, because there are no nations

Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances which principally set one man above another. They are

the two great sources of personal distinction, and are therefore the principal causes which naturally establish

authority and subordination among men. Among nations of shepherds both those causes operate with their

full force. The great shepherd or herdsman, respected on account of his great wealth, and of the great number

of those who depend upon him for subsistence, and revered on account of the nobleness of his birth, and of

the immemorial antiquity of his illustrious family, has a natural authority over all the inferior shepherds or

herdsmen of his horde or clan. He can command the united force of a greater number of people than any of

them. His military power is greater than that of any of them. In time of war they are all of them naturally

disposed to muster themselves under his banner, rather than under that of any other person, and his birth and

fortune thus naturally procure to him some sort of executive power. By commanding, too, the united force of

a greater number of people than any of them, he is best able to compel any one of them who may have injured

another to compensate the wrong. He is the person, therefore, to whom all those who are too weak to defend

themselves naturally look up for protection. It is to him that they naturally complain of the injuries which

they imagine have been done to them, and his interposition in such cases is more easily submitted to, even by

the person complained of, than that of any other person would be. His birth and fortune thus naturally procure

It is in the age of shepherds, in the second period of society, that the inequality of fortune first begins to take

place, and introduces among men a degree of authority and subordination which could not possibly exist

before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is indispensably necessary for its

own preservation: and it seems to do this naturally, and even independent of the consideration of that

necessity. The consideration of that necessity comes no doubt afterwards to contribute very much to maintain

and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that

order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior

wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of

superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and

herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great

shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater

authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in

subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the

property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their

property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property,

is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against

The judicial authority of such a sovereign, however, far from being a cause of expense, was for a long time a

source of revenue to him. The persons who applied to him for justice were always willing to pay for it, and a

present never failed to accompany a petition. After the authority of the sovereign, too, was thoroughly

established, the person found guilty, over and above the satisfaction which he was obliged to make to the

party, was likewise forced to pay an amercement to the sovereign. He had given trouble, he had disturbed, he

had broke the peace of his lord the king, and for those offences an amercement was thought due. In the Tartar

governments of Asia, in the governments of Europe which were founded by the German and Scythian nations

who overturned the Roman empire, the administration of justice was a considerable source of revenue, both

to the sovereign and to all the lesser chiefs or lords who exercised under him any particular jurisdiction, either

over some particular tribe or clan, or over some particular territory or district. Originally both the sovereign

and the inferior chiefs used to exercise this jurisdiction in their own persons. Afterwards they universally

found it convenient to delegate it to some substitute, bailiff, or judge. This substitute, however, was still

obliged to account to his principal or constituent for the profits of the jurisdiction. Whoever reads the

instructions which were given to the judges of the circuit in the time of Henry II will see clearly that those

judges were a sort of itinerant factors, sent round the country for the purpose of levying certain branches of

the king's revenue. In those days the administration of justice not only afforded a certain revenue to the

sovereign, but to procure this revenue seems to have been one of the principal advantages which he proposed

This scheme of making the administration of justice subservient to the purposes of revenue could scarce fail

to be productive of several very gross abuses. The person who applied for justice with a large present in his

hand was likely to get something more than justice; while he who applied for it with a small one was likely to

get something less. Justice, too, might frequently be delayed in order that this present might be repeated. The

amercement, besides, of the person complained of, might frequently suggest a very strong reason for finding

him in the wrong, even when he had not really been so. That such abuses were far from being uncommon the

When the sovereign or chief exercised his judicial authority in his own person, how much soever he might

abuse it, it must have been scarce possible to get any redress, because there could seldom be anybody

powerful enough to call him to account. When he exercised it by a bailiff, indeed, redress might sometimes

be had. If it was for his own benefit only that the bailiff had been guilty of any act of injustice, the sovereign

himself might not always be unwilling to punish him, or to oblige him to repair the wrong. But if it was for

the benefit of his sovereign, if it was in order to make court to the person who appointed him and who might

prefer him, that he had committed any act of oppression, redress would upon most occasions be as impossible

as if the sovereign had committed it himself. In all barbarous governments, accordingly, in all those ancient

governments of Europe in particular which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the

administration of justice appears for a long time to have been extremely corrupt, far from being quite equal

and impartial even under the best monarchs, and altogether profligate under the worst.

Among nations of shepherds, where the sovereign or chief is only the greatest shepherd or herdsman of the

horde or clan, he is maintained in the same manner as any of his vassals or subjects, by the increase of his

own herds or flocks. Among those nations of husbandmen who are but just come out of the shepherd state,

and who are not much advanced beyond that state, such as the Greek tribes appear to have been about the

time of the Trojan war, and our German and Scythian ancestors when they first settled upon the ruins of the

western empire, the sovereign or chief is, in the same manner, only the greatest landlord of the country, and is

maintained, in the same manner as any other landlord, by a revenue derived from his own private estate, or

from what, in modern Europe, was called the demesne of the crown. His subjects, upon ordinary occasions,

contributed nothing to his support, except when, in order to protect them from the oppression of some of their

fellowsubjects, they stand in need of his authority. The presents which they make him upon such occasions

constitute the whole ordinary revenue, the whole of the emoluments which, except perhaps upon some very

extraordinary emergencies, he derives from his dominion over them. When Agamemnon, in Homer, offers to

Achilles for his friendship the sovereignty of seven Greek cities, the sole advantage which he mentions as

likely to be derived from it was that the people would honour him with presents. As long as such presents, as

long as the emoluments of justice, or what may be called the fees of court, constituted in this manner the

whole ordinary revenue which the sovereign derived from his sovereignty, it could not well be expected, it

could not even decently be proposed, that he should give them up altogether. It might, and it frequently was

proposed, that he should regulate and ascertain them. But after they had been so regulated and ascertained,

how to hinder a person who was allpowerful from extending them beyond those regulations was still very

difficult, not to say impossible. During the continuance of this state of things, therefore, the corruption of

justice, naturally resulting from the arbitrary and uncertain nature of those presents, scarce admitted of any

But when from different causes, chiefly from the continually increasing expenses of defending the nation

against the invasion of other nations, the private estate of the sovereign had become altogether insufficient for

defraying the expense of the sovereignty, and when it had become necessary that the people should, for their

own security, contribute towards this expense by taxes of different kinds, it seems to have been very

commonly stipulated that no present for the administration of justice should, under any pretence, be accepted

either by the sovereign, or by his bailiffs and substitutes, the judges. Those presents, it seems to have been

supposed, could more easily be abolished altogether than effectually regulated and ascertained. Fixed salaries

were appointed to the judges, which were supposed to compensate to them the loss of whatever might have

been their share of the ancient emoluments of justice, as the taxes more than compensated to the sovereign

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attorneys, at least,

must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they

actually perform it. The fees annually paid to lawyers and attorneys amount, in every court, to a much greater

sum than the salaries of the judges. The circumstance of those salaries being paid by the crown can nowhere

much diminish the necessary expense of a lawsuit. But it was not so much to diminish the expense, as to

prevent the corruption of justice, that the judges were prohibited from receiving any present or fee from the

The office of judge is in itself so very honourable that men are willing to accept of it, though accompanied

with very small emoluments. The inferior office of justice of peace, though attended with a good deal of

trouble, and in most cases with no emoluments at all, is an object of ambition to the greater part of our

country gentlemen. The salaries of all the different judges, high and low, together with the whole expense of

the administration and execution of justice, even where it is not managed with very good economy, makes, in

any civilised country, but a very inconsiderable part of the whole expense of government.

The whole expense of justice, too, might easily be defrayed by the fees of court; and, without exposing the

administration of justice to any real hazard of corruption, the public revenue might thus be discharged from a

certain, though, perhaps, but a small incumbrance. It is difficult to regulate the fees of court effectually where

a person so powerful as the sovereign is to share in them, and to derive any considerable part of his revenue

from them. It is very easy where the judge is the principal person who can reap any benefit from them. The

law can very easily oblige the judge to respect the regulation, though it might not always be able to make the

sovereign respect it. Where the fees of court are precisely regulated and ascertained, where they are paid all at

once, at a certain period of every process, into the hands of a cashier or receiver, to be by him distributed in

certain known proportions among the different judges after the process is decided, and not till it is decided,

there seems to be no more danger of corruption than where such fees are prohibited altogether. Those fees,

without occasioning any considerable increase in the expense of a lawsuit, might be rendered fully sufficient

for defraying the whole expense of justice. By not being paid to the judges till the process was determined,

they might be some incitement to the diligence of the court in examining and deciding it. In courts which

consisted of a considerable number of judges, by proportioning the share of each judge to the number of

hours and days which he had employed in examining the process, either in the court or in a committee by

order of the court, those fees might give some encouragement to the diligence of each particular judge. Public

services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being

performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them. In the different parliaments of

France, the fees of court (called epices and vacations) constitute the far greater part of the emoluments of the

judges. After all deductions are made, the net salary paid by the crown to a counsellor or judge in the

Parliament of Toulouse, in rank and dignity the second parliament of the kingdom, amounts only to a

hundred and fifty livres, about six pounds eleven shillings sterling a year. About seven years ago that sum

was in the same place the ordinary yearly wages of a common footman. The distribution of those epices, too,

is according to the diligence of the judges. A diligent judge gains a comfortable, though moderate, revenue by

his office: an idle one gets little more than his salary. Those Parliaments are perhaps, in many respects, not

very convenient courts of justice; but they have never been accused, they seem never even to have been

The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of the different courts of justice in

England. Each court endeavoured to draw to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account,

willing to take cognisance of many suits which were not originally intended to fall under its jurisdiction. The

Court of King's Bench, instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognisance of civil suits; the

plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing him justice, had been guilty of some trespass or

misdemeanour. The Court of Exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king's revenue, and for enforcing the

payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took cognisance of all other contract debts; the plaintiff

alleging that he could not pay the king because the defendant would not pay him. In consequence of such

fictions it came, in many cases, to depend altogether upon the parties before what court they would choose to

have their cause tried; and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and impartiality, to draw to itself as

many causes as it could. The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps,

originally in a great measure formed by this emulation which anciently took place between their respective

judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the

law would admit for every sort of injustice. Originally the courts of law gave damages only for breach of

contract. The Court of Chancery, as a court of conscience, first took upon it to enforce the specific

performance of agreements. When the breach of contract consisted in the nonpayment of money, the

damage sustained could be compensated in no other way than by ordering payment, which was equivalent to

a specific performance of the agreement. In such cases, therefore, the remedy of the courts of law was

sufficient. It was not so in others. When the tenant sued his lord for having unjustly outed him of his lease,

the damages which he recovered were by no means equivalent to the possession of the land. Such causes,

therefore, for some time, went all to the Court of Chancery, to the no small loss of the courts of law. It was to

draw back such causes to themselves that the courts of law are said to have invented the artificial and

fictitious Writ of Ejectment, the most effectual remedy for an unjust outer or dispossession of land.

A stampduty upon the law proceedings of each particular court, to be levied by that court, and applied

towards the maintenance of the judges and other officers belonging to it, might, in the same manner, afford

revenue sufficient for defraying the expense of the administration of justice, without bringing any burden

upon the general revenue of the society. The judges indeed might, in this case, be under the temptation of

multiplying unnecessarily the proceedings upon every cause, in order to increase, as much as possible, the

produce of such a stampduty. It has been the custom in modern Europe to regulate, upon most occasions,

the payment of the attorneys and clerks of court according to the number of pages which they had occasion to

write; the court, however, requiring that each page should contain so many lines, and each line so many

words. In order to increase their payment, the attorneys and clerks have contrived to multiply words beyond

all necessity, to the corruption of the law language of, I believe, every court of justice in Europe. A like

temptation might perhaps occasion a like corruption in the form of law proceedings.

But whether the administration of justice be so contrived as to defray its own expense, or whether the judges

be maintained by fixed salaries paid to them from some other fund, it does not seem necessary that the person

or persons entrusted with the executive power should be charged with the management of that fund, or with

the payment of those salaries. That fund might arise from the rent of landed estates, the management of each

estate being entrusted to the particular court which was to be maintained by it. That fund might arise even

from the interest of a sum of money, the lending out of which might, in the same manner, be entrusted to the

court which was to be maintained by it. A part, though indeed but a small part, of the salary of the judges of

the Court of Session in Scotland arises from the interest of a sum of money. The necessary instability of such

a fund seems, however, to render it an improper one for the maintenance of an institution which ought to last

The separation of the judicial from the executive power seems originally to have arisen from the increasing

business of the society, in consequence of its increasing improvement. The administration of justice became

so laborious and so complicated a duty as to require the undivided attention of the persons to whom it was

entrusted. The person entrusted with the executive power not having leisure to attend to the decision of

private causes himself, a deputy was appointed to decide them in his stead. In the progress of the Roman

greatness, the consul was too much occupied with the political affairs of the state to attend to the

administration of justice. A praetor, therefore, was appointed to administer it in his stead. In the progress of

the European monarchies which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the sovereigns and the

great lords came universally to consider the administration of justice as an office both too laborious and too

ignoble for them to execute in their own persons. They universally, therefore, discharged themselves of it by

When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce possible that justice should not frequently be

sacrificed to what is vulgarly called polities. The persons entrusted with the great interests of the state may,

even without any corrupt views, sometimes imagine it necessary to sacrifice to those interests the rights of a

private man. But upon the impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of every individual, the

sense which he has of his own security. In order to make every individual feel himself perfectly secure in the

possession of every right which belongs to him, it is not only necessary that the judicial should be separated

from the executive power, but that it should be rendered as much as possible independent of that power. The

judge should not be liable to be removed from his office according to the caprice of that power. The regular

the goodwill or even upon the good economy payment of his salary should not depend upon of that power.

THE third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public

institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great

society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small

number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of

individuals should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires, too, very different degrees of

After the public institutions and public works necessary for the defence of the society, and for the

administration of justice, both of which have already been mentioned, the other works and institutions of this

kind are chiefly those for facilitating the commerce of the society, and those for promoting the instruction of

the people. The institutions for instruction are of two kinds: those for the education of youth, and those for

the instruction of people of all ages. The consideration of the manner in which the expense of those different

sorts of public, works and institutions may be most properly defrayed will divide this third part of the present

That the erection and maintenance of the public works which facilitate the commerce of any country, such as

good roads, bridges, navigable canals, harbours, etc., must require very different degrees of expense in the

different periods of society is evident without any proof. The expense of making and maintaining the public

roads of any country must evidently increase with the annual produce of the land and labour of that country,

or with the quantity and weight of the goods which it becomes necessary to fetch and carry upon those roads.

The strength of a bridge must be suited to the number and weight of the carriages which are likely to pass

over it. The depth and the supply of water for a navigable canal must be proportioned to the number and

tonnage of the lighters which are likely to carry goods upon it; the extent of a harbour to the number of the

It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should be defrayed from that public

revenue, as it is commonly called, of which the collection and application is in most countries assigned to the

executive power. The greater part of such public works may easily be so managed as to afford a particular

revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense, without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of

A highway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may in most cases be both made and maintained by a

small toll upon the carriages which make use of them: a harbour, by a moderate portduty upon the tonnage

of the shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another institution for facilitating commerce, in many

countries, not only defrays its own expense, but affords a small revenue or seignorage to the sovereign. The

postoffice, another institution for the same purpose, over and above defraying its own expense, affords in

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the lighters which sail upon a navigable

canal, pay toll in proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public

works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarce possible to

invent a more equitable way of maintaining such works. This tax or toll too, though it is advanced by the

carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always be charged in the price of the goods. As the

expense of carriage, however, is very much reduced by means of such public works, the goods,

notwithstanding the toll come cheaper to the consumer than the; could otherwise have done; their price not

being so much raised by the toll as it is lowered by the cheapness of the carriage. The person who finally pays

this tax, therefore, gains by the application more than he loses by the payment of it. His payment is exactly in

proportion to his gain. It is in reality no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up in order

to get the rest. It seems impossible to imagine a more equitable method of raising a tax.

When the toll upon carriages of luxury upon coaches, postchaises, etc., is made somewhat higher in

proportion to their weight than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, etc., the indolence

and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor, by rendering

cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country.

When high roads, bridges, canals, etc., are in this manner made and supported by the commerce which is

carried on by means of them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, and consequently

where it is proper to make them. Their expenses too, their grandeur and magnificence, must be suited to what

that commerce can afford to pay. They must be made consequently as it is proper to make them. A

magnificent high road cannot be made through a desert country where there is little or no commerce, or

merely because it happens to lead to the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some great

lord to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river

at a place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighbouring palace:

things which sometimes happen in countries where works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue

In several different parts of Europe the ton or lockduty upon a canal is the property of private persons,

whose private interest obliges them to keep up the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable order, the navigation

necessarily ceases altogether, and along with it the whole profit which they can make by the tolls. If those

tolls were put under the management of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might

be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced them. The canal of Languedoc cost the

King of France and the province upwards of thirteen millions of livres, which (at twentyeight livres the

mark of silver, the value of French money in the end of the last century) amounted to upwards of nine

hundred thousand pounds sterling. When that great work was finished, the most likely method, it was found,

of keeping it in constant repair was to make a present of the tolls to Riquet the engineer, who planned and

conducted the work. Those tolls constitute at present a very large estate to the different branches of the family

of that gentleman, who have, therefore, a great interest to keep the work in constant repair. But had those tolls

been put under the management of commissioners, who had no such interest, they might perhaps have been

dissipated in ornamental and unnecessary expenses, while the most essential parts of the work were allowed

The tolls for the maintenance of a high road cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.

A high road, though entirely neglected, does not become altogether impassable, though a canal does. The

proprietors of the tolls upon a high road, therefore, might neglect altogether the repair of the road, and yet

continue to levy very nearly the same tolls. It is proper, therefore, that the tolls for the maintenance of such a

In Great Britain, the abuses which the trustees have committed in the management of those tolls have in many

cases been very justly complained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money levied is more than

double of what is necessary for executing, in the completest manner, the work which is often executed in very

slovenly manner, and sometimes not executed at all. The system of repairing the high roads by tolls of this

kind, it must be observed, is not of very long standing. We should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been

brought to that degree of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and improper persons are frequently

appointed trustees, and if proper courts of inspection and account have not yet been established for

controlling their conduct, and for reducing the tolls to what is barely sufficient for executing the work to be

done by them, the recency of the institution both accounts and apologizes for those defects, of which, by the

The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain is supposed to exceed so much what is necessary

for repairing the roads, that the savings, which, with proper economy, might be made from it, have been

considered, even by some ministers, as a very great resource which might at some time or another be applied

to the exigencies of the state. Government, it has been said, by taking the management of the turnpikes into

its own hands, and by employing the soldiers, who would work for a very small addition to their pay, could

keep the roads in good order at a much less expense than it can be done by trustees, who have no other

workmen to employ but such as derive their whole subsistence from their wages. A great revenue, half a

million perhaps,* it has been pretended, might in this manner be gained without laying any new burden upon

the people; and the turnpike roads might be made to contribute to the general expense of the state, in the same

manner as the post office does at present. * Since publishing the two first editions of this book, I have got

good reasons to believe that all the turnpike tolls levied in Great Britain do not produce a net revenue that

amounts to half a million; a sum which, under the management of Government, would not be sufficient to

That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner I have no doubt, though probably not near so

much as the projectors of this plan have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems liable to several very

First, if the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever be considered as one of the resources for

supplying the exigencies of the state, they would certainly be augmented as those exigencies were supposed

to require. According to the policy of Great Britain, therefore, they would probably be augmented very fast.

The facility with which a great revenue could be drawn from them would probably encourage administration

to recur very frequently to this resource. Though it may, perhaps, be more than doubtful whether half a

million could by any economy be saved out of the present tolls, it can scarce be doubted but that a million

might be saved out of them if they were doubled: and perhaps two millions if they were tripled.* This great

revenue, too, might be levied without the appointment of a single new officer to collect and receive it. But the

turnpike tolls being continually augmented in this manner, instead of facilitating the inland commerce of the

country as at present, would soon become a very great incumbrance upon it. The expense of transporting all

heavy goods from one part of the country to another would soon be so much increased, the market for all

such goods, consequently, would soon be so much narrowed, that their production would be in a great

measure discouraged, and the most important branches of the domestic industry of the country annihilated

altogether. * I have now good reasons to believe that all these conjectural sums are by much too large.

Secondly, a tax upon carriages in proportion to their weight, though a very equal tax when applied to the sole

purpose of repairing the roads, is a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, or to supply the

common exigencies of the state. When it is applied to the sole purpose above mentioned, each carriage is

supposed to pay exactly for the wear and tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is

applied to any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than that wear and tear, and

contributes to the supply of some other exigency of the state. But as the turnpike toll raises the price of goods

in proportion to their weight, and not to their value, it is chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse and bulky,

not by those of precious and light, commodities. Whatever exigency of the state therefore this tax might be

intended to supply, that exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the poor, not the rich; at the

expense of those who are least able to supply it, not of those who are most able.

Thirdly, if government should at any time neglect the reparation of the high roads, it would be still more

difficult than it is at present to compel the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. A large revenue

might thus be levied upon the people without any part of it being applied to the only purpose to which a

revenue levied in this manner ought ever to be applied. If the meanness and poverty of the trustees of

turnpike roads render it sometimes difficult at present to oblige them to repair their wrong, their wealth and

In France, the funds destined for the reparation of high roads are under the immediate direction of the

executive power. Those funds consist partly in a certain number of days' labour which the country people are

in most parts of Europe obliged to give to the reparation of the highways, and partly in such a portion of the

general revenue of the state as the king chooses to spare from his other expenses.

By the ancient law of France, as well as by that of most other parts of Europe, the labour of the country

people was under the direction of a local or provincial magistracy, which had no immediate dependency upon

the king's council. But by the present practice both the labour of the people, and whatever other fund the king

may choose to assign for the reparation of the high roads in any particular province or generality, are entirely

under the management of the intendant; an officer who is appointed and removed by the king's council, and

who receives his orders from it, and is in constant correspondence with it. In the progress of despotism the

authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of every other power in the state, and assumes to

itself the management of every branch of revenue which is destined for any public purpose. In France,

however, the great postroads, the roads which make the communication between the principal towns of the

kingdom, are in general kept in good order, and in some provinces are even a good deal superior to the

greater part of the turnpike roads of England. But what we call the crossroads, that is, the far greater part of

the roads in the country, are entirely neglected, and are in many places absolutely impassable for any heavy

carriage. In some places it is even dangerous to travel on horseback, and mules are the only conveyances

which can safely be trusted. The proud minister of an ostentatious court may frequently take pleasure in

executing a work of splendour and magnificence, such as a great highway, which is frequently seen by the

principal nobility, whose applauses not only flatter his vanity, but even contribute to support his interest at

court. But to execute a great number of little works, in which nothing that can be done can make any great

appearance, or excite the smallest degree of admiration in any traveller, and which, in short, have nothing to

recommend them but their extreme utility, is a business which appears in every respect too mean and paltry to

merit the attention of so great a magistrate. Under such an administration, therefore, such works are almost

In China, and in several other governments of Asia, the executive power charges itself both with the

reparation of the high roads and with the maintenance of the navigable canals. In the instructions which are

given to the governor of each province, those objects, it is said, are constantly recommended to him, and the

judgment which the court forms of his conduct is very much regulated by the attention which he appears to

have paid to this part of his instructions. This branch of public police accordingly is said to be very much

attended to in all those countries, but particularly in China, where the high roads, and still more the navigable

canals, it is pretended, exceed very much everything of the same kind which is known in Europe. The

accounts of those works, however, which have been transmitted to Europe, have generally been drawn up by

weak and wondering travellers; frequently by stupid and lying missionaries. If they had been examined by

more intelligent eyes, and if the accounts of them had been reported by more faithful witnesses, they would

not, perhaps, appear to be so wonderful. The account which Bernier gives of some works of this kind in

Indostan falls very much short of what had been reported of them by other travellers, more disposed to the

marvellous than he was. It may too, perhaps, be in those countries, as in France, where the great roads, the

great communications which are likely to be the subjects of conversation at the court and in the capital, are

attended to, and all the rest neglected. In China, besides, in Indostan, and in several other governments of

Asia, the revenue of the sovereign arises almost altogether from a land tax or land rent, which rises or falls

with the rise and fall of the annual produce of the land. The great interest of the sovereign, therefore, his

revenue, is in such countries necessarily and immediately connected with the cultivation of the land, with the

greatness of its produce, and with the value of its produce. But in order to render that produce both as great

and as valuable as possible, it is necessary to procure to it as extensive a market as possible, and consequently

to establish the freest, the easiest, and the least expensive communication between all the different parts of

the country; which can be done only by means of the best roads and the best navigable canals. But the

revenue of the sovereign does not, in any part of Europe, arise chiefly from a land tax or land rent. In all the

great kingdoms of Europe, perhaps, the greater part of it may ultimately depend upon the produce of the land:

but that dependency is neither so immediate, nor so evident. In Europe, therefore, the sovereign does not feel

himself so directly called upon to promote the increase, both in quantity and value, of the produce of the land,

or, by maintaining good roads and canals, to provide the most extensive market for that produce. Though it

should be true, therefore, what I apprehend is not a little doubtful, that in some parts of Asia this department

of the public police is very properly managed by the executive power, there is not the least probability that,

during the present state of things, it could be tolerably managed by that power in any part of Europe.

Even those public works which are of such a nature that they cannot afford any revenue for maintaining

themselves, but of which the conveniency is nearly confined to some particular place or district, are always

better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the management of a local or provincial

administration, than by the general revenue of the state, of which the executive power must always have the

management. Were the streets of London to be lighted and paved at the expense of the treasury, is there any

probability that they would be so well lighted and paved as they are at present, or even at so small an

expense? The expense, besides, instead of being raised by a local tax upon the inhabitants of each particular

street, parish, or district in London, would, in this case, be defrayed out of the general revenue of the state,

and would consequently be raised by a tax upon all the inhabitants of the kingdom, of whom the greater part

derive no sort of benefit from the lighting and paving of the streets of London.

The abuses which sometimes creep into the local and provincial administration of a local and provincial

revenue, how enormous soever they may appear, are in reality, however, almost always very trifling in

comparison of those which commonly take place in the administration and expenditure of the revenue of a

great empire. They are, besides, much more easily corrected. Under the local or provincial administration of

the justices of the peace in Great Britain, the six days' labour which the country people are obliged to give to

the reparation of the highways is not always perhaps very judiciously applied, but it is scarce ever exacted

with any circumstances of cruelty or oppression. In France, under the administration of the intendants, the

application is not always more judicious, and the exaction is frequently the most cruel and oppressive. Such

Corvees, as they are called, make one of the principal instruments of tyranny by which those officers chastise

any parish or communaute which has had the misfortune to fall under their displeasure.

The object of the public works and institutions above mentioned is to facilitate commerce in general. But in

order to facilitate some particular branches of it, particular institutions are necessary, which again require a

Some particular branches of commerce, which are carried on with barbarous and uncivilised nations, require

extraordinary protection. An ordinary store or countinghouse could give little security to the goods of the

merchants who trade to the western coast of Africa. To defend them from the barbarous natives, it is

necessary that the place where they are deposited should be, in some measure, fortified. The disorders in the

government of Indostan have been supposed to render a like precaution necessary even among that mild and

gentle people; and it was under pretence of securing their persons and property from violence that both the

English and French East India Companies were allowed to erect the first forts which they possessed in that

country. Among other nations, whose vigorous government will suffer no strangers to possess any fortified

place within their territory, it may be necessary to maintain some ambassador, minister, or counsel, who may

both decide, according to their own customs, the differences arising among his own countrymen, and, in their

disputes with the natives, may, by means of his public character, interfere with more authority, and afford

them a more powerful protection, than they could expect from any private man. The interests of commerce

have frequently made it necessary to maintain ministers in foreign countries where the purposes, either of war

or alliance, would not have required any. The commerce of the Turkey Company first occasioned the

establishment of an ordinary ambassador at Constantinople. The first English embassies to Russia arose

altogether from commercial interests. The constant interference which those interests necessarily occasioned

between the subjects of the different states of Europe, has probably introduced the custom of keeping, in all

neighbouring countries, ambassadors or ministers constantly resident even in the time of peace. This custom,

unknown to ancient times, seems not to be older than the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth

century; that is, than the time when commerce first began to extend itself to the greater part of the nations of

It seems not unreasonable that the extraordinary expense which the protection of any particular branch of

commerce may occasion should be defrayed by a moderate tax upon that particular branch; by a moderate

fine, for example, to be paid by the traders when they first enter into it, or, what is more equal, by a particular

duty of so much per cent upon the goods which they either import into, or export out of, the particular

countries with which it is carried on. The protection of trade in general, from pirates and freebooters, is said

to have given occasion to the first institution of the duties of customs. But, if it was thought reasonable to lay

a general tax upon trade, in order to defray the expense of protecting trade in general, it should seem equally

reasonable to lay a particular tax upon a particular branch of trade, in order to defray the extraordinary

The protection of trade in general has always been considered as essential to the defence of the

commonwealth, and, upon that account, a necessary part of the duty of the executive power. The collection

and application of the general duties of customs, therefore, have always been left to that power. But the

protection of any particular branch of trade is a part of the general protection of trade; a part, therefore, of the

duty of that power; and if nations always acted consistently, the particular duties levied for the purposes of

such particular protection should always have been left equally to its disposal. But in this respect, as well as

in many others, nations have not always acted consistently; and in the greater part of the commercial states of

Europe, particular companies of merchants have had the address to persuade the legislature to entrust to them

the performance of this part of the duty of the sovereign, together with all the powers which are necessarily

These companies, though they may, perhaps, have been useful for the first introduction of some branches of

commerce, by making, at their own expense, an experiment which the state might not think it prudent to

make, have in the long run proved, universally, either burdensome or useless, and have either mismanaged or

When those companies do not trade upon a joint stock, but are obliged to admit any person, properly

qualified, upon paying a certain fine, and agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member

trading upon his own stock, and at his own risk, they are called regulated companies. When they trade upon a

joint stock, each member sharing in the common profit or loss in proportion to his share in this stock, they are

called joint stock companies. Such companies, whether regulated or joint stock, sometimes have, and

Regulated companies resemble, in every respect, the corporations of trades so common in the cities and

towns of all the different countries of Europe, and are a sort of enlarged monopolies of the same kind. As no

inhabitant of a town can exercise an incorporated trade without first obtaining his freedom in the corporation,

so in most cases no subject of the state can lawfully carry on any branch of foreign trade, for which a

regulated company is established, without first becoming a member of that company. The monopoly is more

or less strict according as the terms of admission are more or less difficult; and according as the directors of

the company have more or less authority, or have it more or less in their power to manage in such a manner

as to confine the greater part of the trade to themselves and their particular friends. In the most ancient

regulated companies the privileges of apprenticeship were the same as in other corporations, and entitled the

person who had served his time to a member of the company to become himself a member, either without

paying any fine, or upon paying a much smaller one than what was exacted of other people. The usual

corporation spirit, wherever the law does not restrain it, prevails in all regulated companies. When they have

been allowed to act according to their natural genius, they have always, in order to confine the competition to

as small a number of persons as possible, endeavoured to subject the trade to many burden some regulations.

When the law has restrained them from doing this, they have become altogether useless and insignificant.

The regulated companies for foreign commerce which at present subsist in Great Britain are the ancient

merchant adventurers' company, now commonly called the Hamburg Company, the Russia Company, the

The terms of admission into the Hamburg Company are now said to be quite easy, and the directors either

have it not their power to subject the trade to any burdensome restraint or regulations, or, at least, have not of

late exercised that power. It has not always been so. About the middle of the last century, the fine for

admission was fifty, and at one time one hundred pounds, and the conduct of the company was said to be

extremely oppressive. In 1643, in 1645, and in 1661, the clothiers and free traders of the West of England

complained of them to Parliament as of monopolists who confined the trade and oppressed the manufactures

of the country. Though those complaints produced an Act of Parliament, they had probably intimidated the

company so far as to oblige them to reform their conduct. Since that time, at least, there has been no

complaints against them. By the 10th and 11th of William III, c. 6, the fine for admission into the Russia

Company was reduced to five pounds; and by the 25th of Charles II, c. 7, that for admission into the Eastland

Company to forty shillings, while, at the same time, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, all the countries on the

north side of the Baltic, were exempted from their exclusive charter. The conduct of those companies had

probably given occasion to those two Acts of Parliament. Before that time, Sir Josiah Child had represented

both these and the Hamburg Company as extremely oppressive, and imputed to their bad management the

low state of the trade which we at that time carried on to the countries comprehended within their respective

charters. But though such companies may not, in the present times, be very oppressive, they are certainly

altogether useless. To be merely useless, indeed, is perhaps the highest eulogy which can ever justly be

bestowed upon a regulated company; and all the three companies above mentioned seem, in their present

The fine for admission into the Turkey Company was formerly twentyfive pounds for all persons under

twentysix years of age, and fifty pounds for all persons above that age. Nobody but mere merchants could

be admitted; a restriction which excluded all shopkeepers and retailers. By a byelaw, no British

manufactures could be exported to Turkey but in the general ships of the company; and as those ships sailed

always from the port of London, this restriction confined the trade to that expensive port, and the traders to

those who lived in London and in its neighbourhood. By another byelaw, no person living within twenty

miles of London, and not free of the city, could be admitted a member; another restriction which, joined to

the foregoing, necessarily excluded all but the freemen of London. As the time for the loading and sailing of

those general ships depended altogether upon the directors, they could easily fill them with their own goods

and those of their particular friends, to the exclusion of others, who, they might pretend, had made their

proposals too late. In this state of things, therefore, this company was in every respect a strict and oppressive

monopoly. Those abuses gave occasion to the act of the 26th of George II, c. 18, reducing the fine for

admission to twenty pounds for all persons, without any distinction of ages, or any restriction, either to mere

merchants, or to the freemen of London; and granting to all such persons the liberty of exporting, from all the

ports of Great Britain to any port in Turkey, all British goods of which the exportation was not prohibited;

and of importing from thence all Turkish goods of which the importation was not prohibited, upon paying

both the general duties of customs, and the particular duties assessed for defraying the necessary expenses of

the company; and submitting, at the same time, to the lawful authority of the British ambassador and consuls

resident in Turkey, and to the bye laws of the company duly enacted. To prevent any oppression by those

byelaws, it was by the same act ordained, that if any seven members of the company conceived themselves

aggrieved by any byelaw which should be enacted after the passing of this act, they might appeal to the

Board of Trade and Plantations (to the authority of which a committee of the Privy Council has now

succeeded), provided such appeal was brought within twelve months after the byelaw was enacted; and that

if any seven members conceived themselves aggrieved by any byelaw which had been enacted before the

passing of this act, they might bring a like appeal, provided it was within twelve months after the day on

which this act was to take place. The experience of one year, however, may not always be sufficient to

discover to all the members of a great company, the pernicious tendency of a particular byelaw; and if

several of them should afterwards discover it, neither the Board of Trade, nor the committee of council, can

afford them any redress. The object, besides, of the greater part of the byelaws of all regulated companies,

as well as of all other corporations, is not so much to oppress those who are already members, as to

discourage others from becoming so; which may be done, not only by a high fine, but by many other

contrivances. The constant view of such companies is always to raise the rate of their own profit as high as

they can; to keep the market, both for the goods which they export, and for those which they import, as much

understocked as they can: which can be done only by restraining the competition, or by discouraging new

adventurers from entering into the trade. A fine even of twenty pounds, besides, though it may not perhaps be

sufficient to discourage any man from entering into the Turkey trade with an intention to continue in it, may

be enough to discourage a speculative merchant from hazarding a single adventure in it. In all trades, the

regular established traders, even though not incorporated, naturally combine to raise profits, which are noway

so likely to be kept, at all times, down to their proper level, as by the occasional competition of speculative

adventure. The Turkey trade, though in some measure laid open by this Act of Parliament, is still considered

by many people as very far from being altogether free. The Turkey Company contribute to maintain an

ambassador and two or three consuls, who, like other public ministers, ought to be maintained altogether by

the state, and the trade laid open to all his Majesty's subjects. The different taxes levied by the company, for

this and other corporation purposes, might afford avenue much more than sufficient to enable the state to

Regulated companies, it was observed by Sir Josiah Child, though they had frequently supported public

ministers, had never maintained any forts or garrisons in the countries to which they traded; whereas joint

stock companies frequently had. And in reality the former seem to be much more unfit for this sort of service

than the latter. First, the directors of a regulated company have no particular interest in the prosperity of the

general trade of the company for the sake of which such forts and garrisons are maintained. The decay of that

general trade may even frequently contribute to the advantage of their own private trade; as by diminishing

the number of their competitors it may enable them both to buy cheaper, and to sell dearer. The directors of a

joint stock company, on the contrary, having only their share in the profits which are made upon the common

stock committed to their management, have no private trade of their own of which the interest can be

separated from that of the general trade of the company. Their private interest is connected with the

prosperity of the general trade of the company, and with the maintenance of the forts and garrisons which are

necessary for its defence. They are more likely, therefore, to have that continual and careful attention which

that maintenance necessarily requires. Secondly, the directors of a joint stock company have always the

management of a large capital, the joint stock of the company, a part of which they may frequently employ,

with propriety, in building, repairing, and maintaining such necessary forts and garrisons. But the directors of

a regulated company, having the management of no common capital, have no other fund to employ in this

way but the casual revenue arising from the admission fines, and from the corporation duties imposed upon

the trade of the company. Though they had the same interest, therefore, to attend to the maintenance of such

forts and garrisons, they can seldom have the same ability to render that attention effectual. The maintenance

of a public minister requiring scarce any attention, and but a moderate and limited expense, is a business

Long after the time of Sir Josiah Child, however, in 1750, a regulated company was established, the present

company of merchants trading to Africa, which was expressly charged at first with the maintenance of all the

British forts and garrisons that lie between Cape Blanc and the Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards with that

of those only which lie between Cape Rouge and the Cape of Good Hope. The act which establishes this

company (the 23rd of George II, c. 3) seems to have had two distinct objects in view; first, to restrain

effectually the oppressive and monopolizing spirit which is natural to the directors of a regulated company;

and secondly, to force them, as much as possible, to give an attention, which is not natural to them, towards

For the first of these purposes the fine for admission is limited to forty shillings. The company is prohibited

from trading in their corporate capacity, or upon a joint stock; from borrowing money upon common seal, or

from laying any restraints upon the trade which may be carried on freely from all places, and by all persons

being British subjects, and paying the fine. The government is in a committee of nine persons who meet at

London, but who are chosen annually by the freemen of the company at London, Bristol, and Liverpool; three

from each place. No committeeman can be continued in office for more than three years together. Any

committeeman might be removed by the Board of Trade and Plantations, now by a committee council, after

being heard in his own defence. The committee are forbid to export negroes from Africa, or to import any

African goods into Great Britain. But as they are charged with the maintenance of forts and garrisons, they

may, for that purpose, export from Great Britain to Africa goods and stores of different kinds. Out of the

monies which they shall receive from the company, they are allowed a sum not exceeding eight hundred

pounds for the salaries of their clerks and agents at London, Bristol, and Liverpool, the house rent of their

office at London, and all other expenses of management, commission, and agency in England. What remains

of this sum, after defraying these different expenses, they may divide among themselves, as compensation for

their trouble, in what manner they think proper. By this constitution, it might have been expected that the

spirit of monopoly would have been effectually restrained, and the first of these purposes sufficiently

answered. It would seem, however, that it had not. Though by the 4th of George III, c. 20, the fort of Senegal,

with all its dependencies, had been vested in the company of merchants trading to Africa, yet in the year

following (by the 5th of George III, c. 44) not only Senegal and its dependencies, but the whole coast from

the port of Sallee, in south Barbary, to Cape Rouge, was exempted from the jurisdiction of that company, was

vested in the crown, and the trade to it declared free to all his Majesty's subjects. The company had been

suspected of restraining the trade, and of establishing some sort of improper monopoly. It is not, however,

very easy to conceive how, under the regulations of the 23rd of George II, they could do so. In the printed

debates of the House of Commons, not always the most authentic records of truth, I observe, however, that

they have been accused of this. The members of the committee of nine, being all merchants, and the

governors and factors, in their different forts and settlements, being all dependent upon them, it is not

unlikely that the latter might have given peculiar attention to the consignments and commissions of the

For the second of these, purposes, the maintenance of the forts and garrisons, an annual sum has been allotted

to them by Parliament, generally about L13,000. For the proper application of this sum, the committee is

obliged to account annually to the Cursitor Baron of Exchequer; which account is afterwards to be laid before

Parliament. But Parliament, which gives so little attention to the application of millions, is not likely to give

much to that of L13,000 a year; and the Cursitor Baron of Exchequer, from his profession and education, is

not likely to be profoundly skilled in the proper expense of forts and garrisons. The captains of his Majesty's

navy, indeed, or any other commissioned officers appointed by the Board of Admiralty, may inquire into the

condition of the forts and garrisons, and report their observations to that board. But that board seems to have

no direct jurisdiction over the committee, nor any authority to correct those whose conduct it may thus

inquire into; and the captains of his Majesty's navy, besides, are not supposed to be always deeply learned in

the science of fortification. Removal from an office which can be enjoyed only for the term of three years,

and of which the lawful emoluments, even during that term, are so very small, seems to be the utmost

punishment to which any committeeman is liable for any fault, except direct malversation, or

embezzlement, either of the public money, or of that of the company; and the fear of that punishment can

never be a motive of sufficient weight to force a continual and careful attention to a business to which he has

no other interest to attend. The committee are accused of having sent out bricks and stones from England for

the reparation of Cape Coast Castle on the coast of Guinea, a business for which Parliament had several times

granted an extraordinary sum of money. These bricks and stones too, which had thus been sent upon so long a

voyage, were said to have been of so bad a quality that it was necessary to rebuild from the foundation the

walls which had been repaired with them. The forts and garrisons which lie north of Cape Rouge are not only

maintained at the expense of the state, but are under the immediate government of the executive power; and

why those which lie south of that Cape, and which are, in part at least, maintained at the expense of the state,

should be under a different government, it seems not very easy even to imagine a good reason. The protection

of the Mediterranean trade was the original purpose of pretence of the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca,

and the maintenance and government of those garrisons has always been, very properly, committed, not to the

Turkey Company, but to the executive power. In the extent of its dominion consists, in a great measure, the

pride and dignity of that power; and it is not very likely to fail in attention to what is necessary for the

defence of that dominion. The garrisons at Gibraltar and Minorca, accordingly, have never been neglected;

though Minorca has been twice taken, and is now probably lost for ever, that disaster was never even imputed

to any neglect in the executive power. I would not, however, be understood to insinuate that either of those

expensive garrisons was ever, even in the smallest degree, necessary for the purpose for which they were

originally dismembered from the Spanish monarchy. That dismemberment, perhaps, never served any other

real purpose than to alienate from England her natural ally the King of Spain, and to unite the two principal

branches of the house of Bourbon in a much stricter and more permanent alliance than the ties of blood could

Joint stock companies, established by Royal Charter or by Act of Parliament, differ in several respects, not

First, in a private copartnery, no partner, without the consent of the company, can transfer his share to another

person, or introduce a new member into the company. Each member, however, may, upon proper warning,

withdraw from the copartnery, and demand payment from them of his share of the common stock. In a joint

stock company, on the contrary, no member can demand payment of his share from the company; but each

member can, without their consent, transfer his share to another person, and thereby introduce a new member.

The value of a share in a joint stock is always the price which it will bring in the market; and this may be

either greater or less, in any proportion, than the sum which its owner stands credited for in the stock of the

Secondly, in a private copartnery, each partner is bound for the debts contracted by the company to the whole

extent of his fortune. In a joint stock company, on the contrary, each partner is bound only to the extent of his

The trade of a joint stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is

frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of

those proprietors seldom pretend to understand anything of the business of the company, and when the spirit

of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive contentedly

such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them. This total exemption from

trouble and from risk, beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in joint stock

companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes in any private copartnery. Such companies,

therefore, commonly draw to themselves much greater stocks than any private copartnery can boast of. The

trading stock of the South Sea Company, at one time, amounted to upwards of thirtythree millions eight

hundred thousand pounds. The divided capital of the Bank of England amounts, at present, to ten millions

seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of such companies, however, being the managers

rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it

with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their

own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not for their

master's honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion,

therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. It is upon

this account that joint stock companies for foreign trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition

against private adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an exclusive privilege,

and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without an exclusive privilege they have commonly

mismanaged the trade. With an exclusive privilege they have both mismanaged and confined it.

The Royal African Company, the predecessors of the present African Company, had an exclusive privilege

by charter, but as that charter had not been confirmed by Act of Parliament, the trade, in consequence of the

Declaration of Rights, was, soon after the revolution, laid open to all his Majesty's subjects. The Hudson's

Bay Company are, as to their legal rights, in the same situation as the Royal African Company. Their

exclusive charter has not been confirmed by Act of Parliament. The South Sea Company, as long as they

continued to be a trading company, had an exclusive privilege confirmed by Act of Parliament; as have

The Royal African Company soon found that they could not maintain the competition against private

adventurers, whom, notwithstanding the Declaration of Rights, they continued for some time to call

interlopers, and to persecute as such. In 1698, however, the private adventurers were subjected to a duty of

ten per cent upon almost all the different branches of their trade, to be employed by the company in the

maintenance of their forts and garrisons But, notwithstanding this heavy tax, the company were still unable to

maintain the competition. Their stock and credit gradually declined. In 1712, their debts had become so great

that a particular Act of Parliament was thought necessary, both for their security and for that of their

creditors. It was enacted that the resolution of twothirds of these creditors in number and value should bind

the rest, both with regard to the time which should be allowed to the company for the payment of their debts,

and with regard to any other agreement which it might be thought proper to make with them concerning those

debts. In 1730, their affairs were in so great disorder that they were altogether incapable of maintaining their

forts and garrisons, the sole purpose and pretext of their institution. From that year, till their final dissolution,

the Parliament judged it necessary to allow the annual sum of ten thousand pounds for that purpose. In 1732,

after having been for many years losers by the trade of carrying negroes to the West Indies, they at last

resolved to give it up altogether; to sell to the private traders to America the negroes which they purchased

upon the coast; and to employ their servants in a trade to the inland parts of Africa for gold dust, elephants'

teeth, dyeing drugs, etc. But their success in this more confined trade was not greater than in their former

extensive one. Their affairs continued to go gradually to decline, till at last, being in every respect a bankrupt

company, they were dissolved by Act of Parliament, and their forts and garrisons vested in the present

regulated company of merchants trading to Africa. Before the erection of the Royal African Company, there

had been three other joint stock companies successively established, one after another, for the African trade.

They were all equally unsuccessful. They all, however, had exclusive charters, which, though not confirmed

by Act of Parliament, were in those days supposed to convey a real exclusive privilege.

The Hudson's Bay Company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had been much more fortunate than the

Royal African Company. Their necessary expense is much smaller. The whole number of people whom they

maintain in their different settlements and habitations, which they have honoured with the name of forts, is

said not to exceed a hundred and twenty persons. This number, however, is sufficient to prepare beforehand

the cargo of furs and other goods necessary for loading their ships, which, on account of the ice, can seldom

remain above six or eight weeks in those seas. This advantage of having a cargo ready prepared could not for

several years be acquired by private adventurers, and without it there seems to be no possibility of trading to

Hudson's Bay. The moderate capital of the company, which, it is said, does not exceed one hundred and ten

thousand pounds, may besides be sufficient to enable them to engross the whole, or almost the whole, trade

and surplus produce of the miserable, though extensive country, comprehended within their charter. No

private adventurers, accordingly, have ever attempted to trade to that country in competition with them. This

company, therefore, have always enjoyed an exclusive trade in fact, though they may have no right to it in

law. Over and above all this, the moderate capital of this company is said to be divided among a very small

number of proprietors. But a joint stock company, consisting of a small number of proprietors, with a

moderate capital, approaches very nearly to the nature of a private copartnery, and may be capable of nearly

the same degree of vigilance and attention. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if, in consequence of these

different advantages, the Hudson's Bay Company had, before the late war, been able to carry on their trade

with a considerable degree of success. It does not seem probable, however, that their profits ever approached

to what the late Mr. Dobbs imagined them. A much more sober and judicious writer, Mr. Anderson, author of

The Historical and Chronological Deduction of Commerce, very justly observes that, upon examining the

accounts of which Mr. Dobbs himself was given for several years together of their exports and imports, and

upon making proper allowances for their extraordinary risk and expense, it does not appear that their profits

deserve to be envied, or that they can much, if at all, exceed the ordinary profits of trade.

The South Sea Company never had any forts or garrisons to maintain, and therefore were entirely exempted

from one great expense to which other joint stock companies for foreign trade are subject. But they had an

immense capital divided among an immense number of proprietors. It was naturally to be expected, therefore,

that folly, negligence, and profusion should prevail in the whole management of their affairs. The knavery

and extravagance of their stockjobbing projects are sufficiently known, and the explication of them would

be foreign to the present subject. Their mercantile projects were not much better conducted. The first trade

which they engaged in was that of supplying the Spanish West Indies with negroes, of which (in consequence

of what was called the Assiento contract granted them by the Treaty of Utrecht) they had the exclusive

privilege. But as it was not expected that much profit could be made by this trade, both the Portuguese and

French companies, who had enjoyed it upon the same terms before them, having been ruined by it, they were

allowed, as compensation, to send annually a ship of a certain burden to trade directly to the Spanish West

Indies. Of the ten voyages which this annual ship was allowed to make, they are said to have gained

considerably by one, that of the Royal Caroline in 1731, and to have been losers, more or less, by almost all

the rest. Their ill success was imputed, by their factors and agents, to the extortion and oppression of the

Spanish government; but was, perhaps, principally owing to the profusion and depredations of those very

factors and agents, some of whom are said to have acquired great fortunes even in one year. In 1734, the

company petitioned the king that they might be allowed to dispose of the trade and tonnage of their annual

ship, on account of the little profit which they made by it, and to accept such equivalent as they could obtain

In 1724, this company had undertaken the whalefishery. Of this, indeed, they had no monopoly; but as long

as they carried it on, no other British subjects appear to have engaged in it. Of the eight voyages which their

ships made to Greenland, they were gainers by one, and losers by all the rest. After their eighth and last

voyage, when they had sold their ships, stores, and utensils, they found that their whole loss, upon this

branch, capital and interest included, amounted to upwards of two hundred and thirtyseven thousand

In 1722, this company petitioned the Parliament to be allowed to divide their immense capital of more than

thirtythree millions eight hundred thousand pounds, the whole of which had been lent to government, into

two equal parts: The one half, or upwards of sixteen millions nine hundred thousand pounds, to be put upon

the same footing with other government annuities, and not to be subject to the debts contracted, or losses

incurred, by the directors of the company in the prosecution of their mercantile projects; the other half to

remain, as before, a trading stock, and to be subject to those debts and losses. The petition was too reasonable

not to be granted. In 1733, they again petitioned the Parliament that threefourths of their trading stock might

be turned into annuity stock, and only onefourth remain as trading stock, or exposed to the hazards arising

from the bad management of their directors. Both their annuity and trading stocks had, by this time, been

reduced more than two millions each by several different payments from government; so that this fourth

amounted only to L3,662,784 8s. 6d. In 1748, all the demands of the company upon the King of Spain, in

consequence of the Assiento contract, were, by the Treaty of AixlaChapelle, given up for what was

supposed an equivalent. An end was put to their trade with the Spanish West Indies, the remainder of their

trading stock was turned into an annuity stock, and the company ceased in every respect to be a trading

It ought to be observed that in the trade which the South Sea Company carried on by means of their annual

ship, the only trade by which it ever was expected that they could make any considerable profit, they were not

without competitors, either in the foreign or in the home market. At Carthagena, Porto Bello, and La Vera

Cruz, they had to encounter the competition of the Spanish merchants, who brought from Cadiz, to those

markets, European goods of the same kind with the outward cargo of their ship; and in England they had to

encounter that of the English merchants, who imported from Cadiz goods of the Spanish West Indies of the

same kind with the inward cargo. The goods both of the Spanish and English merchants, indeed, were,

perhaps, subject to higher duties. But the loss occasioned by the negligence, profusion, and malversation of

the servants of the company had probably been a tax much heavier than all those duties. That a joint stock

company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can

come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.

The old English East India Company was established in 1600 by a charter from Queen Elizabeth. In the first

twelve voyages which they fitted out for India, they appear to have traded as a regulated company, with

separate stocks, though only in the general ships of the company. In 1612, they united into a joint stock. Their

charter was exclusive, and though not confirmed by Act of Parliament, was in those days supposed to convey

a real exclusive privilege. For many years, therefore, they were not much disturbed by interlopers. Their

capital, which never exceeded seven hundred and fortyfour thousand pounds, and of which fifty pounds was

a share, was not so exorbitant, nor their dealings so extensive, as to afford either a pretext for gross

negligence and profusion, or a cover to gross malversation. Notwithstanding some extraordinary losses,

occasioned partly by the malice of the Dutch East India Company, and partly by other accidents, they carried

on for many years a successful trade. But in process of time, when the principles of liberty were better

understood, it became every day more and more doubtful how far a Royal Charter, not confirmed by Act of

Parliament, could convey an exclusive privilege. Upon this question the decisions of the courts of justice

were not uniform, but varied with the authority of government and the humours of the times. Interlopers

multiplied upon them, and towards the end of the reign of Charles II, through the whole of that of James II

and during a part of that of William III, reduced them to great distress. In 1698, a proposal was made to

Parliament of advancing two millions to government at eight per cent, provided the subscribers were erected

into a new East India Company with exclusive privileges. The old East India Company offered seven hundred

thousand pounds, nearly the amount of their capital, at four per cent upon the same conditions. But such was

at that time the state of public credit, that it was more convenient for government to borrow two millions at

eight per cent than seven hundred thousand pounds at four. The proposal of the new subscribers was

accepted, and a new East India Company established in consequence. The old East India Company, however,

had a right to continue their trade till 1701. They had, at the same time, in the name of their treasurer,

subscribed, very artfully, three hundred and fifteen thousand pounds into the stock of the new. By a

negligence in the expression of the Act of Parliament which vested the East India trade in the subscribers to

this loan of two millions, it did not appear evident that they were all obliged to unite into a joint stock. A few

private traders, whose subscriptions amounted only to seven thousand two hundred pounds, insisted upon the

privilege of trading separately upon their own stocks and at their own risk. The old East India Company had a

right to a separate trade upon their old stock till 1701; and they had likewise, both before and after that

period, a right, like that of other private traders, to a separate trade upon the three hundred and fifteen

thousand pounds which they had subscribed into the stock of the new company. The competition of the two

companies with the private traders, and with one another, is said to have wellnigh ruined both. Upon a

subsequent occasion, in 1730, when a proposal was made to Parliament for putting the trade under the

management of a regulated company, and thereby laying it in some measure open, the East India Company,

in opposition to this proposal, represented in very strong terms what had been, at this time, the miserable

effects, as they thought them, of this competition. In India, they said, it raised the price of goods so high that

they were not worth the buying; and in England, by overstocking the market, it sunk their price so low that no

profit could be made by them. That by a more plentiful supply, to the great advantage and conveniency of the

public, it must have reduced, very much, the price of Indian goods in the English market, cannot well be

doubted; but that it should have raised very much their price in the Indian market seems not very probable, as

all the extraordinary demand which that competition could occasion must have been but as a drop of water in

the immense ocean of Indian Commerce. The increase of demand, besides, though in the beginning it may

sometimes raise the price of goods, never fails to lower it in the run. It encourages production, and thereby

increases the competition of the producers, who, in order to undersell one another, have recourse to new

divisions of labour and new improvements of art which might never otherwise have been thought of. The

miserable effects of which the company complained were the cheapness of consumption and the

encouragement given to production, precisely the two effects which it is the great business of political

economy to promote. The competition, however, of which they gave this doleful account, had not been

allowed to be of long continuance. In 1702, the two companies were, in some measure, united by an

indenture tripartite, to which the queen was the third party; and in 1708, they were, by Act of Parliament,

perfectly consolidated into one company by their present name of the The United Company of Merchants

trading to the East Indies. Into this act it was thought worth while to insert a clause allowing the separate

traders to continue their trade till Michaelmas 1711, but at the same time empowering the directors, upon

three years' notice, to redeem their little capital of seven thousand two hundred pounds, and thereby to

convert the whole stock of the company into a joint stock. By the same act, the capital of the company, in

consequence of a new loan to government, was augmented from two millions to three millions two hundred

thousand pounds. In 1743, the company advanced another million to government. But this million being

raised, not by a call upon the proprietors, but by selling annuities and contracting bonddebts, it did not

augment the stock upon which the proprietors could claim a dividend. It augmented, however, their trading

stock, it being equally liable with the other three millions two hundred thousand pounds to the losses

sustained, and debts contracted, by the company in prosecution of their mercantile projects. From 1708, or at

least from 1711, this company, being delivered from all competitors, and fully established in the monopoly of

the English commerce to the East Indies, carried on a successful trade, and from their profits made annually a

moderate dividend to their proprietors. During the French war, which began in 1741, the ambition of Mr.

Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, involved them in the wars of the Carnatic, and in the politics of

the Indian princes. After many signal successes, and equally signal losses, they at last lost Madras, at that

time their principal settlement in India. It was restored to them by the Treaty of AixlaChapelle; and about

this time the spirit of war and conquest seems to have taken possession of their servants in India, and never

since to have left them. During the French war, which began in 1755, their arms partook of the general good

fortune of those of Great Britain. They defended Madras, took Pondicherry, recovered Calcutta, and acquired

the revenues of a rich and extensive territory, amounting, it was then said, to upwards of three millions a year.

They remained for several years in quiet possession of this revenue: but in 1767, administration laid claim to

their territorial acquisitions, and the revenue arising from them, as of right belonging to the crown; and the

company, in compensation for this claim, agreed to pay the government four hundred thousand pounds a

year. They had before this gradually augmented their dividend from about six to ten per cent; that is, upon

their capital of three millions two hundred thousand pounds they had increased it by a hundred and

twentyeight thousand pounds, or had raised it from one hundred and ninetytwo thousand to three hundred

and twenty thousand pounds a year. They were attempting about this time to raise it still further, to twelve

and a half per cent, which would have made their annual payments to their proprietors equal to what they had

agreed to pay annually to government, or to four hundred thousand pounds a year.

But during the two years in which their agreement with government was to take place, they were restrained

from any further increase of dividend by two successive Acts of Parliament, of which the object was to

enable them to make a speedier progress in the payment of their debts, which were at this time estimated at

upwards of six or seven millions sterling. In 1769, they renewed their agreement with government for five

years more, and stipulated that during the course of that period they should be allowed gradually to increase

their dividend to twelve and a half per cent; never increasing it, however, more than one per cent in one year.

This increase of dividend, therefore, when it had risen to its utmost height, could augment their annual

payments, to their proprietors and government together, but by six hundred and eight thousand pounds

beyond what they had been before their late territorial acquisitions. What the gross revenue of those territorial

acquisitions was supposed to amount to has already been mentioned; and by an account brought by the

Cruttenden East Indiaman in 1768, the net revenue, clear of all deductions and military charges, was stated at

two millions fortyeight thousand seven hundred and fortyseven pounds. They were said at the same time to

possess another revenue, arising partly from lands, but chiefly from the customs established at their different

settlements, amounting to four hundred and thirtynine thousand pounds. The profits of their trade too,

according to the evidence of their chairman before the House of Commons, amounted at this time to at least

four hundred thousand pounds a year, according to that of their accountant, to at least five hundred thousand;

according to the lowest account, at least equal to the highest dividend that was to be paid to their proprietors.

So great a revenue might certainly have afforded an augmentation of six hundred and eight thousand pounds

in their annual payments, and at the same time have left a large sinking fund sufficient for the speedy

reduction of their debts. In 1773, however, their debts, instead of being reduced, were augmented by an arrear

to the treasury in the payment of the four hundred thousand pounds, by another to the customhouse for

duties unpaid, by a large debt to the bank for money borrowed, and by a fourth for bills drawn upon them

from India, and wantonly accepted, to the amount of upwards of twelve hundred thousand pounds. The

distress which these accumulated claims brought upon them, obliged them not only to reduce all at once their

dividend to six per cent, but to throw themselves upon the mercy of government, and to supplicate, first, a

release from further payment of the stipulated four hundred thousand pounds a year; and, secondly, a loan of

fourteen hundred thousand, to save them from immediate bankruptcy. The great increase of their fortune had,

it seems, only served to furnish their servants with a pretext for greater profusion, and a cover for greater

malversation, than in proportion even to that increase of fortune. The conduct of their servants in India, and

the general state of their affairs both in India and in Europe, became the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry, in

consequence of which several very important alternations were made in the constitution of their government,

both at home and abroad. In India their principal settlements of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, which had

before been altogether independent of one another, were subjected to a governorgeneral, assisted by a

council of four assessors, Parliament assuming to itself the first nomination of this governor and council who

were to reside at Calcutta; that city having now become, what Madras was before, the most important of the

English settlements in India. The Court of the Mayor of Calcutta, originally instituted for the trial of

mercantile causes which arose in city and neighbourhood, had gradually extended its jurisdiction with the

extension of the empire. It was now reduced and confined to the original purpose of its institution. Instead of

it a new supreme court of judicature was established, consisting of a chief justice and three judges to be

appointed by the crown. In Europe, the qualification necessary to entitle a proprietor to vote at their general

courts was raised from five hundred pounds, the original price of a share in the stock of the company, to a

thousand pounds. In order to vote upon this qualification too, it was declared necessary that he should have

possessed it, if acquired by his own purchase, and not by inheritance, for at least one year, instead of six

months, the term requisite before. The court of twentyfour directors had before been chosen annually; but it

was now enacted that each director should, for the future, be chosen for four years; six of them, however, to

go out of office by rotation every year, and not to be capable of being rechosen at the election of the six new

directors for the ensuing year. In consequence of these alterations, the courts, both of the proprietors and

directors, it was expected, would be likely to act with more dignity and steadiness than they had usually done

before. But it seems impossible, by any alterations, to render those courts, in any respect, fit to govern, or

even to share in the government of a great empire; because the greater part of their members must always

have too little interest in the prosperity of that empire to give any serious attention to what may promote it.

Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of small fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds'

share in India stock merely for the influence which he expects to acquire by a vote in the court of proprietors.

It gives him a share, though not in the plunder, yet in the appointment of the plunderers of India; the court of

directors, though they make that appointment, being necessarily more or less under the influence of the

proprietors, who not only elect those directors, but sometimes overrule the appointments of their servants in

India. Provided he can enjoy this influence for a few years, and thereby provide for a certain number of his

friends, he frequently cares little about the dividend, or even about the value of the stock upon which his vote

is founded. About the prosperity of the great empire, in the government of which that vote gives him a share,

he seldom cares at all. No other sovereigns ever were, or, from the nature of things, ever could be, so

perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their subjects, the improvement or waste of their

dominions, the glory or disgrace of their administration, as, from irresistible moral causes, the greater part of

the proprietors of such a mercantile company are, and necessarily must be. This indifference, too, was more

likely to be increased than diminished by some of the new regulations which were made in consequence of

the Parliamentary inquiry. By a resolution of the House of Commons, for example, it was declared, that when

the fourteen hundred thousand pounds lent to the company by government should be paid, and their

bonddebts be reduced to fifteen hundred thousand pounds, they might then, and not till then, divide eight

per cent upon their capital; and that whatever remained of their revenues and net profits at home should be

divided into four parts; three of them to be paid into the exchequer for the use of the public, and the fourth to

be reserved as a fund either for the further reduction of their bonddebts, or for the discharge of other

contingent exigencies which the company might labour under. But if the company were bad stewards, and

bad sovereigns, when the whole of their net revenue and profits belonged to themselves, and were at their

own disposal, they were surely not likely to be better when threefourths of them were to belong to other

people, and the other fourth, though to be laid out for the benefit of the company, yet to be so under the

It might be more agreeable to the company that their own servants and dependants should have either the

pleasure of wasting or the profit of embezzling whatever surplus might remain after paying the proposed

dividend of eight per cent than that it should come into the hands of a set of people with whom those

resolutions could scarce fail to set them, in some measure, at variance. The interest of those servants and

dependants might so far predominate in the court of proprietors as sometimes to dispose it to support the

authors of depredations which had been committed in direct violation of its own authority. With the majority

of proprietors, the support even of the authority of their own court might sometimes be a matter of less

The regulations of 1773, accordingly, did not put an end to the disorders of the company's government in

India. Notwithstanding that, during a momentary fit of good conduct, they had at one time collected into the

treasury of Calcutta more than three millions sterling; notwithstanding that they had afterwards extended,

either their dominion, or their depredations, over a vast accession of some of the richest and most fertile

countries in India, all was wasted and destroyed. They found themselves altogether unprepared to stop or

resist the incursion of Hyder Ali; and, in consequence of those disorders, the company is now (1784) in

greater distress than ever; and, in order to prevent immediate bankruptcy, is once more reduced to supplicate

the assistance of government. Different plans have been proposed by the different parties in Parliament for

the better management of its affairs. And all those plans seem to agree insupposing, what was indeed always

abundantly evident, that it is altogether unfit to govern its territorial possessions. Even the company itself

seems to be convinced of its own incapacity so far, and seems, upon that account, willing to give them up to

With the right of possessing forts and garrisons in distant and barbarous countries is necessarily connected

the right of making peace and war in those countries. The joint stock companies which have had the one right

have constantly exercised the other, and have frequently had it expressly conferred upon them. How unjustly,

how capriciously, how cruelly they have commonly exercised it, is too well known from recent experience.

When a company of merchants undertake, at their own risk and expense, to establish a new trade with some

remote and barbarous nation, it may not be unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint stock company, and

to grant them, in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a certain number of years. It is the easiest

and most natural way in which the state can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive

experiment, of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit. A temporary monopoly of this kind may be

vindicated upon the same principles upon which a like monopoly of a new machine is granted to its inventor,

and that of a new book to its author. But upon the expiration of the term, the monopoly ought certainly to

determine; the forts and garrisons, if it was found necessary to establish any, to be taken into the hands of

government, their value to be paid to the company, and the trade to be laid open to all the subjects of the

state. By a perpetual monopoly, all the other subjects of the state are taxed very absurdly in two different

ways: first, by the high price of goods, which, in the case of a free trade, they could buy much cheaper; and,

secondly, by their total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be both convenient and profitable

for many of them to carry on. It is for the most worthless of all purposes, too, that they are taxed in this

manner. It is merely to enable the company to support the negligence, profusion, and malversation of their

own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom allows the dividend of the company to exceed the ordinary

rate of profit in trades which are altogether free, and very frequently makes it fall even a good deal short of

that rate. Without a monopoly, however, a joint stock company, it would appear from experience, cannot long

carry on any branch of foreign trade. To buy in one market, in order to sell, with profit, in another, when

there are many competitors in both, to watch over, not only the occasional variations in the demand, but the

much greater and more frequent variations in the competition, or in the supply which that demand is likely to

get from other people, and to suit with dexterity and judgment both the quantity and quality of each

assortment of goods to all these circumstances, is a species of warfare of which the operations are continually

changing, and which can scarce ever be conducted successfully without such an unremitting exertion of

vigilance and attention as cannot long be expected from the directors of a joint stock company. The East India

Company, upon the redemption of their funds, and the expiration of their exclusive privilege, have right, by

Act of Parliament, to continue a corporation with a joint stock, and to trade in their corporate capacity to the

East Indies in common with the rest of their fellowsubjects. But in this situation, the superior vigilance and

attention of private adventurers would, in all probability, soon make them weary of the trade.

An eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political economy, the Abbe Morellet, gives a

list of fiftyfive joint stock companies for foreign trade which have been established in different parts of

Europe since the year 1600, and which, according to him, have all failed from mismanagement,

notwithstanding they had exclusive privileges. He has been misinformed with regard to the history of two or

three of them, which were not joint stock companies and have not failed. But, in compensation, there have

The only trades which it seems possible for a joint stock company to carry on successfully without an

exclusive privilege are those of which all the operations are capable of being reduced to what is called a

Routine, or to such a uniformity of method as admits of little or no variation. Of this kind is, first, the banking

trade; secondly, the trade of insurance from fire, and from sea risk and capture in time of war; thirdly, the

trade of making and maintaining a navigable cut or canal; and, fourthly, the similar trade of bringing water

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being

reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering

speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal, to the banking

company which attempts it. But the constitution of joint stock companies renders them in general more

tenacious of established rules than any private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, seem extremely well

fitted for this trade. The principal banking companies in Europe, accordingly, are joint stock companies,

many of which manage their trade very successfully without any exclusive privilege. The Bank of England

has no other exclusive privilege except that no other banking company in England shall consist of more than

six persons. The two banks of Edinburgh are joint stock companies without any exclusive privilege.

The value of the risk, either from fire, or from loss by sea, or by capture, though it cannot, perhaps, be

calculated very exactly, admits, however, of such a gross estimation as renders it, in some degree, reducible

to strict rule and method. The trade of insurance, therefore, may be carried on successfully by a joint stock

company without any exclusive privilege. Neither the London Assurance nor the Royal Exchange Assurance

When a navigable cut or canal has been once made, the management of it becomes quite simple and easy, and

it is reducible to strict rule and method. Even the making of it is so as it may be contracted for with

undertakers at so much a mile, and so much a lock. The same thing may be said of a canal, an aqueduct, or a

great pipe for bringing water to supply a great city. Such undertakings, therefore, may be, and accordingly

frequently are, very successfully managed by joint stock companies without any exclusive privilege.

To establish a joint stock company, however, for any undertaking, merely because such a company might be

capable of managing it successfully; or to exempt a particular set of dealers from some of the general laws

which take place with regard to all their neighbours, merely because they might be capable of thriving if they

had such an exemption, would certainly not be reasonable. To render such an establishment perfectly

reasonable, with the circumstance of being reducible to strict rule and method, two other circumstances ought

to concur. First, it ought to appear with the clearest evidence that the undertaking is of greater and more

general utility than the greater part of common trades; and secondly, that it requires a greater capital than can

easily be collected into a private copartnery. If a moderate capital were sufficient, the great utility of the

undertaking would not be a sufficient reason for establishing a joint stock company; because, in this case, the

demand for what it was to produce would readily and easily be supplied by private adventures. In the four

The great and general utility of the banking trade when prudently managed has been fully explained in the

second, book of this Inquiry. But a public bank which is to support public credit, and upon particular

emergencies to advance to government the whole produce of a tax, to the amount, perhaps, of several

millions, a year or two before it comes in, requires a greater capital than can easily be collected into any

The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private people, and by dividing among a great

many that loss which would ruin an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society. In order

to give this security, however, it is necessary that the insurers should have a very large capital. Before the

establishment of the two joint stock companies for insurance in London, a list, it is said, was laid before the

attorneygeneral of one hundred and fifty private insurers who had failed in the course of a few years.

That navigable cuts and canals, and the works which are sometimes necessary for supplying a great city with

water, are of great and general utility, while at the same time they frequently require a greater expense than

Except the four trades above mentioned, I have not been able to recollect any other in which all the three

circumstances requisite for rendering reasonable the establishment of a joint stock company concur. The

English copper company of London, the lead smelting company, the glass grinding company, have not even

the pretext of any great or singular utility in the object which they pursue; nor does the pursuit of that object

seem to require any expense unsuitable to the fortunes of many private men. Whether the trade which those

companies carry on is reducible to such strict rule and method as to render it fit for the management of a joint

stock company, or whether they have any reason to boast of their extraordinary profits, I do not pretend to

know. The mineadventurers' company has been long ago bankrupt. A share in the stock of the British Linen

Company of Edinburgh sells, at present, very much below par, though less so that it did some years ago. The

joint stock companies which are established for the publicspirited purpose of promoting some particular

manufacture, over and above managing their own affairs ill, to the dimunition of the general stock of the

society, can in other respects scarce ever fail to do more harm than good. Notwithstanding the most upright

intentions, the unavoidable partiality of their directors to particular branches of the manufacture of which the

undertakers mislead and impose upon them is a real discouragement to the rest, and necessarily breaks, more

or less, that natural proportion which would otherwise establish itself between judicious industry and profit,

and which, to the general industry of the country, is of all encouragements the greatest and the most effectual.

The institutions for the education of the youth may, in the same manner, furnish a revenue sufficient for

defraying their own expense. The fee or honorary which the scholar pays to the master naturally constitutes a

Even where the reward of the master does not arise altogether from this natural revenue, it still is not

necessary that it should be derived from that general revenue of the society, of which the collection and

application is, in most countries, assigned to the executive power. Through the greater part of Europe,

accordingly, the endowment of schools and colleges makes either no charge upon that general revenue, or but

a very small one. It everywhere arises chiefly from some local or provincial revenue, from the rent of some

landed estate, or from the interest of some sum of money allotted and put under the management of trustees

for this particular purpose, sometimes by the sovereign himself, and sometimes by some private donor.

Have those public endowments contributed in general to promote the end of their institution? Have they

contributed to encourage the diligence and to improve the abilities of the teachers? Have they directed the

course of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual and to the public, than those to which

it would naturally have gone of its own accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a probable

In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it is always in proportion to the

necessity they are under of making that exertion. This necessity is greatest with those to whom the

emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they expect their fortune, or even their

ordinary revenue and subsistence. In order to acquire this fortune, or even to get this subsistence, they must,

in the course of a year, execute a certain quantity of work of a known value; and, where the competition is

free, the rivalship of competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of employment, obliges

every man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness. The greatness of the objects

which are to be acquired by success in some particular professions may, no doubt, sometimes animate the

exertion of a few men of extraordinary spirit and ambition. Great objects, however, are evidently not

necessary in order to occasion the greatest exertions. Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in

mean professions, an object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions. Great objects,

on the contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of application, have seldom been sufficient to

occasion any considerable exertion. In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great

objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have ever in this country been eminent in

The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished more or less the necessity of

application in the teachers. Their subsistence, so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently derived from a

fund altogether independent of their success and reputation in their particular professions.

In some universities the salary makes but a part, and frequently but a small part, of the emoluments of the

teacher, of which the greater part arises from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The necessity of application,

though always more or less diminished, is not in this case entirely taken away. Reputation in his profession is

still of some importance to him, and he still has some dependency upon the affection, gratitude, and

favourable report of those who have attended upon his instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is

likely to gain in no way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and diligence with which he

In other universities the teacher is prohibited from receiving any honorary or fee from his pupils, and his

salary constitutes the whole of the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this case, set as

directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his

ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some

very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it

altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as

careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a lover of labour, it

is his interest to employ that activity in any way from which he can derive some advantage, rather than in the

If the authority to which he is subject resides in the body corporate, the college, or university, of which he

himself is a member, and which the greater part of the other members are, like himself, persons who either

are or ought to be teachers, they are likely to make a common cause, to be all very indulgent to one another,

and every man to consent that his neighbour may neglect his duty, provided he himself is allowed to neglect

his own. In the university of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years,

If the authority to which he is subject resides, not so much in the body corporate of which he is a member, as

in some other extraneous persons in the bishop of the diocese, for example; in the governor of the province;

or, perhaps, in some minister of state it is not indeed in this case very likely that he will be suffered to neglect

his duty altogether. All that such superiors, however, can force him to do, is to attend upon his pupils a

certain number of hours, that is, to give a certain number of lectures in the week or in the year. What those

lectures shall be must still depend upon the diligence of the teacher; and that diligence is likely to be

proportioned to the motives which he has for exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of this kind, besides, is

liable to be exercised both ignorantly and capriciously. In its nature it is arbitrary and discretionary, and the

persons who exercise it, neither attending upon the lectures of the teacher themselves, nor perhaps

understanding the sciences which it is his business to teach, are seldom capable of exercising it with

judgment. From the insolence of office, too, they are frequently indifferent how they exercise it, and are very

apt to censure or deprive him of his office wantonly, and without any just cause. The person subject to such

jurisdiction is necessarily degraded by it, and, instead of being one of the most respectable, is rendered one of

the meanest and most contemptible persons in the society. It is by powerful protection only that he can

effectually guard himself against the bad usage to which he is at all times exposed; and this protection he is

most likely to gain, not by ability or diligence in his profession, but by obsequiousness to the will of his

superiors, and by being ready, at all times, to sacrifice to that will the rights, the interest, and the honour of

the body corporate of which he is a member. Whoever has attended for any considerable time to the

administration of a French university must have had occasion to remark the effects which naturally result

Whatever forces a certain number of students to any college or university, independent of the merit or

reputation of the teachers, tends more or less to diminish the necessity of that merit or reputation.

The privileges of graduates in arts, in law, physic, and divinity, when they can be obtained only by residing a

certain number of years in certain universities, necessarily force a certain number of students to such

universities, independent of the merit or reputation of the teachers. The privileges of graduates are a sort of

statutes of apprenticeship, which have contributed to the improvement of education, just as the other statutes

The charitable foundations of scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc., necessarily attach a certain number of

students to certain colleges, independent altogether of the merit of those particular colleges. Were the

students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what college they liked best, such liberty might

perhaps contribute to excite some emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary, which

prohibited even the independent members of every particular college from leaving it and going to any other,

without leave first asked and obtained of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very much to

If in each college the tutor or teacher, who was to instruct each student in all arts and sciences, should not be

voluntarily chosen by the student, but appointed by the head of the college; and if, in case of neglect,

inability, or bad usage, the student should not be allowed to change him for another, without leave first asked

and obtained, such a regulation would not only tend very much to extinguish all emulation among the

different tutors of the same college, but to diminish very much in all of them the necessity of diligence and of

attention to their respective pupils. Such teachers, though very well paid by their students, might be as much

disposed to neglect them as those who are not paid by them at all, or who have no other recompense but their

If the teacher happens to be a man of sense, it must be an unpleasant thing to him to be conscious, while he is

lecturing his students, that he is either speaking or reading nonsense, or what is very little better than

nonsense. It must, too, be unpleasant to him to observe that the greater part of his students desert his lectures,

or perhaps attend upon them with plain enough marks of neglect, contempt, and derision. If he is obliged,

therefore, to give a certain number of lectures, these motives alone, without any other interest, might dispose

him to take some pains to give tolerably good ones. Several different expedients, however, may be fallen

upon which will effectually blunt the edge of all those incitements to diligence. The teacher, instead of

explaining to his pupils himself the science in which he proposes to instruct them, may read some book upon

it; and if this book is written in a foreign and dead language, by interpreting it to them into their own; or,

what would give him still less trouble, by making them interpret it to him, and by now and then making an

occasional remark upon it, he may flatter himself that he is giving a lecture. The slightest degree of

knowledge and application will enable him to do this without exposing himself to contempt or derision, or

saying anything that is really foolish, absurd, or ridiculous. The discipline of the college, at the same time,

may enable him to force all his pupils to the most regular attendance upon this sham lecture, and to maintain

the most decent and respectful behaviour during the whole time of the performance.

The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for

the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the

authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to

behave to him, as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume perfect

wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters,

however, really perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students ever

neglect theirs. No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the

attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt, be in

some degree requisite in order to oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of education

which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen

years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any

part of education. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that, so far from being disposed to

neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shows some serious intention of being of use

to them, they are generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and

Those parts of education, it is to be observed, for the teaching of which there are no public institutions, are

generally the best taught. When a young man goes to a fencing or a dancing school, he does not indeed

always learn to fence or to dance very well; but he seldom fails of learning to fence or to dance. The good

effects of the riding school are not commonly so evident. The expense of a riding school is so great, that in

most places it is a public institution. The three most essential parts of literary education, to read, write, and

account, it still continues to be more common to acquire in private than in public schools; and it very seldom

happens that anybody fails of acquiring them to the degree in which it is necessary to acquire them.

In England the public schools are much less corrupted than the universities. In the schools the youth are

taught, or at least may be taught, Greek and Latin; that is, everything which the masters pretend to teach, or

which, it is expected, they should teach. In the universities the youth neither are taught, nor always can find

any proper means of being taught, the sciences which it is the business of those incorporated bodies to teach.

The reward of the schoolmaster in most cases depends principally, in some cases almost entirely, upon the

fees or honoraries of his scholars. Schools have no exclusive privileges. In order to obtain the honours of

graduation, it is not necessary that a person should bring a certificate of his having studied a certain number

of years at a public school. If upon examination he appears to understand what is taught there, no questions

The parts of education which are commonly taught in universities, it may, perhaps, be said are not very well

taught. But had it not been for those institutions they would not have been commonly taught at all, and both

the individual and the public would have suffered a good deal from the want of those important parts of

The present universities of Europe were originally, the greater part of them, ecclesiastical corporations,

instituted for the education of churchmen. They were founded by the authority of the Pope, and were so

entirely under his immediate protection, that their members, whether masters or students, had all of them

what was then called the benefit of clergy, that is, were exempted from the civil jurisdiction of the countries

in which their respective universities were situated, and were amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals.

What was taught in the greater part of those universities was suitable to the end of their institution, either

When Christianity was first established by law, a corrupted Latin had become the common language of all the

western parts of Europe. The service of the church accordingly, and the translation of the Bible which was

read in churches, were both in that corrupted Latin; that is, in the common language of the country. After the

irruption of the barbarous nations who overturned the Roman empire, Latin gradually ceased to be the

language of any part of Europe. But the reverence of the people naturally preserves the established forms and

ceremonies of religion long after the circumstances which first introduced and rendered them reasonable are

no more. Though Latin, therefore, was no longer understood anywhere by the great body of the people, the

whole service of the church still continued to be performed in that language. Two different languages were

thus established in Europe, in the same manner as in ancient Egypt; a language of the priests, and a language

of the people; a sacred and a profane; a learned and an unlearned language. But it was necessary that the

priests should understand something of that sacred and learned language in which they were to officiate; and

the study of the Latin language therefore made, from the beginning, an essential part of university education.

It was not so with that either of the Greek or of the Hebrew language. The infallible decrees of the church had

pronounced the Latin translation of the Bible, commonly called the Latin Vulgate, to have been equally

dictated by divine inspiration, and therefore of equal authority with the Greek and Hebrew originals. The

knowledge of those two languages, therefore, not being indispensably requisite to a churchman, the study of

them did not for a long time make a necessary part of the common course of university education. There are

some Spanish universities, I am assured, in which the study of the Greek language has never yet made any

part of that course. The first reformers found the Greek text of the New Testament, and even the Hebrew text

of the Old, more favorable to their opinions than the Vulgate translation, which, as might naturally be

supposed, had been gradually accommodated to support the doctrines of the Catholic Church. They set

themselves, therefore, to expose the many errors of that translation, which the Roman Catholic clergy were

thus put under the necessity of defending or explaining. But this could not well be done without some

knowledge of the original languages, of which the study was therefore gradually introduced into the greater

part of universities, both of those which embraced, and of those which rejected, the doctrines of the

Reformation. The Greek language was connected with every part of that classical learning which, though at

first principally cultivated by Catholics and Italians, happened to come into fashion much about the same

time that the doctrines of the Reformation were set on foot. In the greater part of universities, therefore, that

language was taught previous to the study of philosophy, and as soon as the student had made some progress

in the Latin. The Hebrew language having no connection with classical learning, and, except the Holy

Scriptures, being the language of not a single book in any esteem, the study of it did not commonly

commence till after that of philosophy, and when the student had entered upon the study of theology.

Originally the first rudiments both of the Greek and Latin languages were taught in universities, and in some

universities they still continue to be so. In others it is expected that the student should have previously

acquired at least the rudiments of one or both of those languages, of which the study continues to make

The ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches; physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or

moral philosophy; and logic. This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things.

The great phenomena of nature the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, eclipses, comets; thunder, lightning,

and other extraordinary meteors; the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals are

objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so they naturally call forth the curiosity, of mankind to

inquire into their causes. Superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by referring all those wonderful

appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them

from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with, than the agency of the gods.

As those great phenomena are the first objects of human curiosity, so the science which pretends to explain

them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was cultivated. The first philosophers,

accordingly, of whom history has preserved any account, appear to have been natural philosophers.

In every age and country of the world men must have attended to the characters, designs, and actions of one

another, and many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down and

approved of by common consent. As soon as writing came into fashion, wise men, or those who fancied

themselves such, would naturally endeavour to increase the number of those established and respected

maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or improper conduct, sometimes in the

more artificial form of apologues, like what are called the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more simple

one of apophthegms, or wise sayings, like the Proverbs of Solomon, the verses of Theognis and Phocyllides,

and some part of the works of Hesiod. They might continue in this manner for a long time merely to multiply

the number of those maxims of prudence and morality, without even attempting to arrange them in any very

distinct or methodical order, much less to connect them together by one or more general principles from

which they were all deducible, like effects from their natural causes. The beauty of a systematical

arrangement of different observations connected by a few common principles was first seen in the rude

essays of those ancient times towards a system of natural philosophy. Something of the same kind was

afterwards attempted in morals. The maxims of common life were arranged in some methodical order, and

connected together by a few common principles, in the same manner as they had attempted to arrange and

connect the phenomena of nature. The science which pretends to investigate and explain those connecting

Different authors gave different systems both of natural and moral philosophy. But the arguments by which

they supported those different systems, for from being always demonstrations, were frequently at best but

very slender probabilities, and sometimes mere sophisms, which had no other foundation but the inaccuracy

and ambiguity of common language. Speculative systems have in all ages of the world been adopted for

reasons too frivolous to have determined the judgment of any man of common sense in a matter of the

smallest pecuniary interest. Gross sophistry has scarce ever had any influence upon the opinions of mankind,

except in matters of philosophy and speculation; and in these it has frequently had the greatest. The patrons of

each system of natural and moral philosophy naturally endeavoured to expose the weakness of the arguments

adduced to support the systems which were opposite to their own. In examining those arguments, they were

necessarily led to consider the difference between a probable and a demonstrative argument, between a

fallacious and a conclusive one: and Logic, or the science of the general principles of good and bad

reasoning, necessarily arose out of the observations which a scrutiny of this kind gave occasion to. Though in

its origin posterior both to physics and to ethics, it was commonly taught, not indeed in all, but in the greater

part of the ancient schools of philosophy, previously to either of those sciences. The student, it seems to have

been thought, to understand well the difference between good and bad reasoning before he was led to reason

This ancient division of philosophy into three parts was in the greater part of the universities of Europe

In the ancient philosophy, whatever was taught concerning the nature either of the human mind or of the

Deity, made a part of the system of physics. Those beings, in whatever their essence might be supposed to

consist, were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts, too, productive of the most important

effects. Whatever human reason could either conclude or conjecture concerning them, made, as it were, two

chapters, though no doubt two very important ones, of the science which pretended to give an account of the

origin and revolutions of the great system of the universe. But in the universities of Europe, where

philosophy was taught only as subservient to theology, it was natural to dwell longer upon these two chapters

than upon any other of the science. They were gradually more and more extended, and were divided into

many inferior chapters, till at last the doctrine of spirits, of which so little can be known, came to take up as

much room in the system of philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, of which so much can be known. The

doctrines concerning those two subjects were considered as making two distinct sciences. What are called

Metaphysics or Pneumatics were set in opposition to Physics, and were cultivated not only as the more

sublime, but, for the purposes of a particular profession, as the more useful science of the two. The proper

subject of experiment and observation, a subject in which a careful attention is capable of making so many

useful discoveries, was almost entirely neglected. The subject in which, after a few very simple and almost

obvious truths, the most careful attention can discover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty, and can

consequently produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was greatly cultivated.

When those two sciences had thus been set in opposition to one another, the comparison between them

naturally gave birth to a third, to what was called Ontology, or the science which treated of the qualities and

attributes which were common to both the subjects of the other two sciences. But if subtleties and sophisms

composed the greater part of the Metaphysics or Pneumatics of the schools, they composed the whole of this

Wherein consisted the happiness and perfection of a man, considered not only as an individual, but as the

member of a family, of a state, and of the great society of mankind, was the object which the ancient moral

philosophy proposed to investigate. In that philosophy the duties of human life were treated as subservient to

the happiness and perfection of human life. But when moral, as well as natural philosophy, came to be taught

only as subservient to theology, the duties of human life were treated of as chiefly subservient to the

happiness of a life to come. In the ancient philosophy the perfection of virtue was represented as necessarily

productive, to the person who possessed it, of the most perfect happiness in this life. In the modern

philosophy it was frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always, inconsistent with any

degree of happiness in this life; and heaven was to be earned only by penance and mortification, by the

austerities and abasement of a monk; not by the liberal, generous, and spirited conduct of a man. Casuistry

and an ascetic morality made up, in most cases, the greater part of the moral philosophy of the schools. By far

the most important of all the different branches of philosophy became in this manner by far the most

Such, therefore, was the common course of philosophical education in the greater part of the universities in

Europe. Logic was taught first: Ontology came in the second place: Pneumatology, comprehending the

doctrine concerning the nature of the human soul and of the Deity, in the third: in the fourth followed a

debased system of moral philosophy which was considered as immediately connected with the doctrines of

Pneumatology, with the immortality of the human soul, and with the rewards and punishments which, from

the justice of the Deity, were to be expected in a life to come: a short and superficial system of Physics

The alterations which the universities of Europe thus introduced into the ancient course of philosophy were

all meant for the education of ecclesiastics, and to render it a more proper introduction to the study of

theology. But the additional quantity of subtlety and sophistry, the casuistry and the ascetic morality which

those alterations introduced into it, certainly did not render it more proper for the education of gentlemen or

men of the world, or more likely either to improve the understanding, or to mend the heart.

This course of philosophy is what still continues to be taught in the greater part of the universities of Europe,

with more or less diligence, according as the constitution of each particular university happens to render

diligence more or less necessary to the teachers. In some of the richest and best endowed universities, the

tutors content themselves with teaching a few unconnected shreds and parcels of this corrupted course; and

The improvements which, in modern times, have been made in several different branches of philosophy have

not, the greater part of them, been made in universities, though some no doubt have. The greater part of

universities have not even been very forward to adopt those improvements after they were made; and several

of those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems

and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection after they had been hunted out of every other corner of

the world. In general, the richest and best endowed universities have been the slowest in adopting those

improvements, and the most averse to permit any considerable change in the established plan of education.

Those improvements were more easily introduced into some of the poorer universities, in which the teachers,

depending upon their reputation for the greater part of their subsistence, were obliged to pay more attention to

But though the public schools and universities of Europe were originally intended only for the education of a

particular profession, that of churchmen; and though they were not always very diligent in instructing their

pupils even in the sciences which were supposed necessary for that profession, yet they gradually drew to

themselves the education of almost all other people, particularly of almost all gentlemen and men of fortune.

No better method, it seems, could be fallen upon of spending, with any advantage, the long interval between

infancy and that period of life at which men begin to apply in good earnest to the real business of the world,

the business which is to employ them during the remainder of their days. The greater part of what is taught in

schools and universities, however, does not seem to be the most proper preparation for that business.

In England it becomes every day more and more the custom to send young people to travel in foreign

countries immediately upon their leaving school, and without sending them to any university. Our young

people, it is said, generally return home much improved by their travels. A young man who goes abroad at

seventeen or eighteen, and returns home at one and twenty, returns three or four years older than he was when

he went abroad; and at that age it is very difficult not to improve a good deal in three or four years. In the

course of his travels he generally acquires some knowledge of one or two foreign languages; a knowledge,

however, which is seldom sufficient to enable him either to speak or write them with propriety. In other

respects he commonly returns home more conceited, more unprincipled, more dissipated, and more incapable

of any serious application either to study or to business than he could well have become in so short a time had

he lived at home. By travelling so very young, by spending in the most frivolous dissipation the most

precious years of his life, at a distance from the inspection and control of his parents and relations, every

useful habit which the earlier parts of his education might have had some tendency to form in him, instead of

being riveted and confirmed, is almost necessarily either weakened or effaced. Nothing but the discredit into

which the universities are allowing themselves to fall could ever have brought into repute so very absurd a

practice as that of travelling at this early period of life. By sending his son abroad, a father delivers himself at

least for some time, from so disagreeable an object as that of a son unemployed, neglected, and going to ruin

Different plans and different institutions for education seem to have taken place in other ages and nations.

In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen was instructed, under the direction of the public

magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and in music. By gymnastic exercises it was intended to harden his body,

to sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of war; and as the Greek militia was,

by all accounts, one of the best that ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have

answered completely the purpose for which it was intended. By the other part, music, it was proposed, at least

by the philosophers and historians who have given us an account of those institutions, to humanize the mind,

to soften the temper, and to dispose it for performing all the social and moral duties both of public and private

In ancient Rome the exercises of the Campus Martius answered the purpose as those of the Gymnasium in

ancient Greece, and they seem to have answered it equally well. But among the Romans there was nothing

which corresponded to the musical education of the Greeks. The morals of the Romans, however, both in

private and public life, seem to have been not only equal, but, upon the whole, a good deal superior to those

of the Greeks. That they were superior in private life, we have the express testimony of Polybius and of

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two authors well acquainted with both nations; and the whole tenor if the Greek

and Roman history bears witness to the superiority of the public morals of the Romans. The good temper and

moderation of contending factions seems to be the most essential circumstances in the public morals of a free

people. But the factions of the Greeks were almost always violent and sanguinary; whereas, till the time of

the Gracchi, no blood had ever been shed in any Roman faction; and from the time of the Gracchi the Roman

republic may be considered as in reality dissolved. Notwithstanding, therefore, the very respectable authority

of Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius, and notwithstanding the very ingenious reasons by which Mr. Montesquieu

endeavours to support that authority, it seems probable that the musical education of the Greeks had no great

effect in mending their morals, since, without any such education, those of the Romans were upon the whole

superior. The respect of those ancient sages for the institutions of their ancestors had probably disposed them

to find much political wisdom in what was, perhaps, merely an ancient custom, continued without

interruption from the earliest period of those societies to the times in which they had arrived at a considerable

degree of refinement. Music and dancing are the great amusements of almost all barbarous nations, and the

great accomplishments which are supposed to fit any man for entertaining his society. It is so at this day

among the negroes on the coast of Africa. It was so among the ancient Celts, among the ancient

Scandinavians, and, as we may learn from Homer, among the ancient Greeks in the times preceding the

Trojan war. When the Greek tribes had formed themselves into little republics, it was natural that the study of

those accomplishments should, for a long time, make a part of the public and common education of the

The masters who instructed the young people, either in music or in military exercises, do not seem to have

been paid, or even appointed by the state, either in Rome or even in Athens, the Greek republic of whose laws

and customs we are the best informed. The state required that every free citizen should fit himself for

defending it in war, and should, upon that account, learn his military exercises. But it left him to learn them

of such masters as he could find, and it seems to have advanced nothing for this purpose but a public field or

In the early ages both of the Greek and Roman republics, the other parts of education seem to have consisted

in learning to read, write, and account according to the arithmetic of the times. These accomplishments the

richer citizens seem frequently to have acquired at home by the assistance of some domestic pedagogue, who

was generally either a slave or a freedman; and the poorer citizens, in the schools of such masters as made a

trade of teaching for hire. Such parts of education, however, were abandoned altogether to the care of the

parents or guardians of each individual. It does not appear that the state ever assumed any inspection or

direction of them. By a law of Solon, indeed, the children were acquitted from maintaining those parents in

their old age who had neglected to instruct them in some profitable trade or business.

In the progress of refinement, when philosophy and rhetoric came into fashion, the better sort of people used

to send their children to the schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, in order to be instructed in these

fashionable sciences. But those schools were not supported by the public. They were for a long time barely

tolerated by it. The demand for philosophy and rhetoric was for a long time so small that the first professed

teachers of either could not find constant employment in any one city, but were obliged to travel about from

place to place. In this manner lived Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many others. As the

demand increased, the schools both of philosophy and rhetoric became stationary; first in Athens, and

afterwards in several other cities. The state, however, seems never to have encouraged them further than by

assigning some of them a particular place to teach in, which was sometimes done, too, by private donors. The

state seems to have assigned the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno of Citta,

the founder of the Stoics. But Epicurus bequeathed his gardens to his own school. Till about the time of

Marcus Antonius, however, no teacher appears to have had any salary from the public, or to have had any

other emoluments but what arose from the honoraries or fees of his scholars. The bounty which that

philosophical emperor, as we learn from Lucian, bestowed upon one of the teachers of philosophy, probably

lasted no longer than his own life. There was nothing equivalent to the privileges of graduation, and to have

attended any of those schools was not necessary, in order to be permitted to practise any particular trade or

profession. If the opinion of their own utility could not draw scholars to them, the law neither forced anybody

to go to them nor rewarded anybody for having gone to them. The teachers had no jurisdiction over their

pupils, nor any other authority besides that natural authority, which superior virtue and abilities never fail to

procure from young people towards those who are entrusted with any part of their education.

At Rome, the study of the civil law made a part of the education, not of the greater part of the citizens, but of

some particular families. The young people, however, who wished to acquire knowledge in the law, had no

public school to go to, and had no other method of studying it than by frequenting the company of such of

their relations and friends as were supposed to understand it. It is perhaps worth while to remark, that though

the Laws of the Twelve Tables were, many of them, copied from those of some ancient Greek republics, yet

law never seems to have grown up to be a science in any republic of ancient Greece. In Rome it became a

science very early, and gave a considerable degree of illustration to those citizens who had the reputation of

understanding it. In the republics of ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, the ordinary courts of justice

consisted of numerous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of people, who frequently decided almost at random,

or as clamour, faction, and party spirit happened to determine. The ignominy of an unjust decision, when it

was to be divided among five hundred, a thousand, or fifteen hundred people (for some of their courts were

so very numerous), could not fall very heavy upon any individual. At Rome, on the contrary, the principal

courts of justice consisted either of a single judge or of a small number of judges, whose characters,

especially as they deliberated always in public, could not fail to be very much affected by any rash or unjust

decision. In doubtful cases such courts, from their anxiety to avoid blame, would naturally endeavour to

shelter themselves under the example or precedent of the judges who had sat before them, either in the same

or in some other court. This attention to practice and precedent necessarily formed the Roman law into that

regular and orderly system in which it has been delivered down to us; and the like attention has had the like

effects upon the laws of every other country where such attention has taken place. The superiority of

character in the Romans over that of the Greeks, so much remarked by Polybius and Dionysius of

Halicarnassus, was probably more owing to the better constitution of their courts of justice than to any of the

circumstances to which those authors ascribe it. The Romans are said to have been particularly distinguished

for their superior respect to an oath. But the people who were accustomed to make oath only before some

diligent and wellinformed court of justice would naturally be much more attentive to what they swore than

they who were accustomed to do the same thing before mobbish and disorderly assemblies.

The abilities, both civil and military, of the Greeks and Romans will readily be allowed to have been at least

equal to those of any modern nation. Our prejudice is perhaps rather to overrate them. But except in what

related to military exercises, the state seems to have been at no pains to form those great abilities, for I cannot

be induced to believe that the musical education of the Greeks could be of much consequence in forming

them. Masters, however, had been found, it seems, for instructing the better sort of people among those

nations in every art and science in which the circumstances of their society rendered it necessary or

convenient for them to be instructed. The demand for such instruction produced what it always produces the

talent for giving it; and the emulation which an unrestrained competition never fails to excite, appears to have

brought that talent to a very high degree of perfection. In the attention which the ancient philosophers excited,

in the empire which they acquired over the opinions and principles of their auditors, in the faculty which they

possessed of giving a certain tone and character to the conduct and conversation of those auditors, they

appear to have been much superior to any modern teachers. In modern times, the diligence of public teachers

is more or less corrupted by the circumstances which render them more or less independent of their success

and reputation in their particular professions. Their salaries, too, put the private teacher, who would pretend

to come into competition with them, in the same state with a merchant who attempts to trade without a

bounty in competition with those who trade with a considerable one. If he sells his goods at nearly the same

price, he cannot have the same profit, and at least, if not bankruptcy and ruin, will infallibly be his lot. If he

attempts to sell them much dearer, he is likely to have so few customers that his circumstances will not be

much mended. The privileges of graduation, besides, are in many countries necessary, or at least extremely

convenient, to most men of learned professions, that is, to the far greater part of those who have occasion for

a learned education. But those privileges can be obtained only by attending the lectures of the public teachers.

The most careful attendance upon the ablest instructions of any private teacher cannot always give any title to

demand them. It is from these different causes that the private teacher of any of the sciences which are

commonly taught in universities is in modern times generally considered as in the very lowest order of men

of letters. A man of real abilities can scarce find out a more humiliating or a more unprofitable employment

to turn them to. The endowment of schools and colleges have, in this manner, not only corrupted the

diligence of public teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones.

Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science would be taught for which there was

not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary, or convenient,

or at least fashionable, to learn. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded

and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere

useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere, but

in those incorporated societies for education whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure

independent of their reputation and altogether independent of their industry. Were there no public institutions

for education, a gentleman, after going through with application and abilities the most complete course of

education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world

completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen and men

There are no public institutions for the education of women, and there is accordingly nothing useless, absurd,

or fantastical in the common course of their education. They are taught what their parents or guardians judge

it necessary or useful for them to learn, and they are taught nothing else. Every part of their education tends

evidently to some useful purpose; either to improve the natural attractions of their person, or to form their

mind to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, and to economy; to render them both likely to become the mistresses

of a family, and to behave properly when they have become such. In every part of her life a woman feels

some conveniency or advantage from every part of her education. It seldom happens that a man, in any part

of his life, derives any conveniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and troublesome parts of

Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention, it may be asked, to the education of the people? Or if it

ought to give any, what are the different parts of education which it ought to attend to in the different orders

In some cases the state of the society necessarily places the greater part of individuals in such situations as

naturally form in them, without any attention of government, almost all the abilities and virtues which that

state requires, or perhaps can admit of. In other cases the state of the society does not place the part of

individuals in such situations, and some attention of government is necessary in order to prevent the almost

In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour,

that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to

one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary

employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects

are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to

exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally

loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a

human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a

part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and

consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of

the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very

particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in

war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard

with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his

body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other

employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this

manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved

and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must

It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called, of hunters, of shepherds, and even of

husbandmen in that rude state of husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures and the

extension of foreign commerce. In such societies the varied occupations of every man oblige every man to

exert his capacity and to invent expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring.

Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity which, in a civilised

society, seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those barbarous

societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been observed, is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some

measure a statesman, and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the society and the

conduct of those who govern it. How far their chiefs are good judges in peace, or good leaders in war, is

obvious to the observation of almost every single man among them. In such a society, indeed, no man can

well acquire that improved and refined understanding which a few men sometimes possess in a more civilised

state. Though in a rude society there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every individual, there is

not a great deal in those of the whole society. Every man does, or is capable of doing, almost every thing

which any other man does, or is capable of doing. Every man has a considerable degree of knowledge,

ingenuity, and invention: but scarce any man has a great degree. The degree, however, which is commonly

possessed, is generally sufficient for conducting the whole simple business of the society. In a civilised state,

on the contrary, though there is little variety in the occupations of the greater part of individuals, there is an

almost infinite variety in those of the whole society. These varied occupations present an almost infinite

variety of objects to the contemplation of those few, who, being attached to no particular occupation

themselves, have leisure and inclination to examine the occupations of other people. The contemplation of so

great a variety of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons and combinations, and

renders their understandings, in an extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. Unless those few,

however, happen to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities, though honourable to

themselves, may contribute very little to the good government or happiness of their society. Notwithstanding

the great abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of the human character may be, in a great measure,

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilised and commercial society the attention of

the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune. People of some rank and fortune are generally

eighteen or nineteen years of age before they enter upon that particular business, profession, or trade, by

which they propose to distinguish themselves in the world. They have before that full time to acquire, or at

least to fit themselves for afterwards acquiring, every accomplishment which can recommend them to the

public esteem, or render them worthy of it. Their parents or guardians are generally sufficiently anxious that

they should be so accomplished, and are, in most cases, willing enough to lay out the expense which is

necessary for that purpose. If they are not always properly educated, it is seldom from the want of expense

laid out upon their education, but from the improper application of that expense. It is seldom from the want of

masters, but from the negligence and incapacity of the masters who are to be had, and from the difficulty, or

rather from the impossibility, which there is in the present state of things of finding any better. The

employments, too, in which people of some rank or fortune spend the greater part of their lives are not, like

those of the common people, simple and uniform. They are almost all of them extremely complicated, and

such as exercise the head more than the hands. The understandings of those who are engaged in such

employments can seldom grow torpid for want of exercise. The employments of people of some rank and

fortune, besides, are seldom such as harass them from morning to night. They generally have a good deal of

leisure, during which they may perfect themselves in every branch either of useful or ornamental knowledge

of which they may have laid the foundation, or for which they may have acquired some taste in the earlier

It is otherwise with the common people. They have little time to spare for education. Their parents can scarce

afford to maintain them even in infancy. As soon as they are able to work they must apply to some trade by

which they can earn their subsistence. That trade, too, is generally so simple and uniform as to give little

exercise to the understanding, while, at the same time, their labour is both so constant and so severe, that it

leaves them little leisure and less inclination to apply to, or even to think of, anything else.

But though the common people cannot, in any civilised society, be so well instructed as people of some rank

and fortune, the most essential parts of education, however, to read, write, and account, can be acquired at so

early a period of life that the greater part even of those who are to be bred to the lowest occupations have

time to acquire them before they can be employed in those occupations. For a very small expense the public

can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people the necessity of

The public can facilitate this acquisition by establishing in every parish or district a little school, where

children may be taught for a reward so moderate that even a common labourer may afford it; the master being

partly, but not wholly, paid by the public, because, if he was wholly, or even principally, paid by it, he would

soon learn to neglect his business. In Scotland the establishment of such parish schools has taught almost the

whole common people to read, and a very great proportion of them to write and account. In England the

establishment of charity schools has had an effect of the same kind, though not so universally, because the

establishment is not so universal. If in those little schools the books, by which the children are taught to read,

were a little more instructive than they commonly are, and if, instead of a little smattering of Latin, which the

children of the common people are sometimes taught there, and which can scarce ever be of any use to them,

they were instructed in the elementary parts of geometry and mechanics, the literary education of this rank of

people would perhaps be as complete as it can be. There is scarce a common trade which does not afford

some opportunities of applying to it the principles of geometry and mechanics, and which would not therefore

gradually exercise and improve the common people in those principles, the necessary introduction to the most

The public can encourage the acquisition of those most essential parts of education by giving small

premiums, and little badges of distinction, to the children of the common people who excel in them.

The public can impose upon almost the whole body of the people the necessity of acquiring those most

essential parts of education, by obliging every man to undergo an examination or probation in them before he

can obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to set up any trade either in a village or town

It was in this manner, by facilitating the acquisition of their military and gymnastic exercises, by encouraging

it, and even by imposing upon the whole body of the people the necessity of learning those exercises, that the

Greek and Roman republics maintained the martial spirit of their respective citizens. They facilitated the

acquisition of those exercises by appointing a certain place for learning and practising them, and by granting

to certain masters the privilege of teaching in that place. Those masters do not appear to have had either

salaries or exclusive privileges of any kind. Their reward consisted altogether in what they got from their

scholars; and a citizen who had learnt his exercises in the public gymnasia had no sort of legal advantage over

one who had learnt them privately, provided the latter had learnt them equally well. Those republics

encouraged the acquisition of those exercises by bestowing little premiums and badges of distinction upon:

those who excelled in them. To have gained a prize in the Olympic, Isthmian, or Nemaean games, gave

illustration, not only to the person who gained it, but to his whole family and kindred. The obligation which

every citizen was under to serve a certain number of years, if called upon, in the armies of the republic,

sufficiently imposed the necessity of learning those exercises, without which he could not be fit for that

That in the progress of improvement the practice of military exercises, unless government takes proper pains

to support it, goes gradually to decay, and, together with it, the martial spirit of the great body of the people,

the example of modern Europe sufficiently demonstrates. But the security of every society must always

depend, more or less, upon the martial spirit of the great body of the people. In the present times, indeed, that

martial spirit alone, and unsupported by a welldisciplined standing army, would not perhaps be sufficient

for the defence and security of any society. But where every citizen had the spirit of a soldier, a smaller

standing army would surely be requisite. That spirit, besides, would necessarily diminish very much the

dangers to liberty, whether real or imaginary, which are commonly apprehended from a standing army. As it

would very much facilitate the operations of that army against a foreign invader, so it would obstruct them as

much if, unfortunately, they should ever be directed against the constitution of the state.

The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome seem to have been much more effectual for maintaining the

martial spirit of the great body of the people than the establishment of what are called the militias of modern

times. They were much more simple. When they were once established they executed themselves, and it

required little or no attention from government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour. Whereas to

maintain, even in tolerable execution, the complex regulations of any modern militia, requires the continual

and painful attention of government, without which they are constantly falling into total neglect and disuse.

The influence, besides, of the ancient institutions was much more universal. By means of them the whole

body of the people was completely instructed in the use of arms. Whereas it is but a very small part of them

who can ever be so instructed by the regulations of any modern militia, except, perhaps, that of Switzerland.

But a coward, a man incapable either of defending or of revenging himself, evidently wants one of the most

essential parts of the character of a man. He is as much mutilated and deformed in his mind as another is in

his body, who is either deprived of some of its most essential members, or has lost the use of them. He is

evidently the more wretched and miserable of the two; because happiness and misery, which reside altogether

in the mind, must necessarily depend more upon the healthful or unhealthful, the mutilated or entire state of

the mind, than upon that of the body. Even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the

defence of the society, yet to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness, which

cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading themselves through the great body of the people, would

still deserve the most serious attention of government, in the same manner as it would deserve its most

serious attention to prevent a leprosy or any other loathsome and offensive disease, though neither mortal nor

dangerous, from spreading itself among them, though perhaps no other public good might result from such

The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which, in a civilised society, seem so

frequently to benumb the understandings of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of

the intellectual faculties of a man, is, if possible, more contemptible than even a coward, and seems to be

mutilated and deformed in a still more essential part of the character of human nature. Though the state was

to derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention

that they should not be altogether uninstructed. The state, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from

their instruction. The more they are instructed the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and

superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed

and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. They feel

themselves, each individually, more respectable and more likely to obtain the respect of their lawful

superiors, and they are therefore more disposed to respect those superiors. They are more disposed to

examine, and more capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition, and they are,

upon that account, less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of

government. In free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon the favourable

judgment which the people may form of its conduct, it must surely be of the highest importance that they

The institutions for the instruction of people of all ages are chiefly those for religious instruction. This is a

species of instruction of which the object is not so much to render the people good citizens in this world, as to

prepare them for another and a better world in a life to come. The teachers of the doctrine which contains this

instruction, in the same manner as other teachers, may either depend altogether for their subsistence upon the

voluntary contributions of their hearers, or they may derive it from some other fund to which the law of their

country may entitle them; such as a landed estate, a tithe or land tax, an established salary or stipend. Their

exertion, their zeal and industry, are likely to be much greater in the former situation than in the latter. In this

respect the teachers of new religions have always had a considerable advantage in attacking those ancient and

established systems of which the clergy, reposing themselves upon their benefices, had neglected to keep up

the fervour of faith and devotion in the great body of the people, and having given themselves up to

indolence, were become altogether incapable of making any vigorous exertion in defence even of their own

establishment. The clergy of an established and wellendowed religion frequently become men of learning

and elegance, who possess all the virtues of gentlemen, or which can recommend them to the esteem of

gentlemen: but they are apt gradually to lose the qualities, both good and bad, which gave them authority and

influence with the inferior ranks of people, and which had perhaps been the original causes of the success and

establishment of their religion. Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of popular and bold, though perhaps

stupid and ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves as perfectly defenceless as the indolent, effeminate, and

fullfed nations of the southern parts of Asia when they were invaded by the active, hardy, and hungry

Tartars of the North. Such a clergy, upon such an emergency, have commonly no other resource than to call

upon the civil magistrate to persecute, destroy or drive out their adversaries, as disturbers of the public peace.

It was thus that the Roman Catholic clergy called upon the civil magistrates to persecute the Protestants, and

the Church of England to persecute the Dissenters; and that in general every religious sect, when it has once

enjoyed for a century or two the security of a legal establishment, has found itself incapable of making any

vigorous defence against any new sect which chose to attack its doctrine or discipline. Upon such occasions

the advantage in point of learning and good writing may sometimes be on the side of the established church.

But the arts of popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes, are constantly on the side of its adversaries. In

England those arts have been long neglected by the wellendowed clergy of the established church, and are at

present chiefly cultivated by the Dissenters and by the Methodists. The independent provisions, however,

which in many places have been made for dissenting teachers by means of voluntary subscriptions, of trust

rights, and other evasions of the law, seem very much to have abated the zeal and activity of those teachers.

They have many of them become very learned, ingenious, and respectable men; but they have in general

ceased to be very popular preachers. The Methodists, without half the learning of the Dissenters, are much

In the Church of Rome, the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are kept more alive by the powerful

motive of selfinterest than perhaps in any established Protestant church. The parochial clergy derive, many

of them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people; a source of

revenue which confession gives them many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their

whole subsistence from such oblations. It is with them as with the hussars and light infantry of some armies;

no plunder, no pay. The parochial clergy are like those teachers whose reward depends partly upon their

salary, and partly upon the fees or honoraries which they get from their pupils, and these must always depend

more or less upon their industry and reputation. The mendicant orders are like those teachers whose

subsistence depends altogether upon the industry. They are obliged, therefore, to use every art which can

animate the devotion of the common people. The establishment of the two great mendicant orders of St.

Dominic and St. Francis, it is observed by Machiavel, revived, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the

languishing faith and devotion of the Catholic Church. In Roman Catholic countries the spirit of devotion is

supported altogether by the monks and by the poorer parochial clergy. The great dignitaries of the church,

with all the accomplishments of gentlemen and men of the world, and sometimes with those of men of

learning, are careful enough to maintain the necessary discipline over their inferiors, but seldom give

"Most of the arts and professions in a state," says by far the most illustrious philosopher and historian of the

present age, "are of such a nature that, while they promote the interests of the society, they are also useful or

agreeable to some individuals; and in that case, the constant rule of the magistrate, except perhaps on the first

introduction of any art, is to leave the profession to itself, and trust its encouragement to the individuals who

reap the benefit of it. The artisans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their customers, increase as

much as possible their skill and industry; and as matters are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the

"But there are also some callings, which, though useful and even necessary in a state, bring no advantage or

pleasure to any individual, and the supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the retainers

of those professions. It must give them public encouragement in order to their subsistence, and it must

provide against that negligence to which they will naturally be subject, either by annexing particular honours

to the profession, by establishing a long subordination of ranks and a strict dependence, or by some other

expedient. The persons employed in the finances, fleets, and magistracy, are instances of this order of men.

"It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics belong to the first class, and that their

encouragement, as well as that of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of

individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit or consolation from their spiritual

ministry and assistance. Their industry and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional motive;

and their skill in the profession, as well as their address in governing the minds of the people, must receive

"But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find that this interested diligence of the clergy is what

every wise legislator will study to prevent; because in every religion except the true it is highly pernicious,

and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition,

folly, and delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and sacred in the eyes

of his retainers, will inspire them with the most violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually

endeavour, by some novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be paid to truth,

morals, or decency in the doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly

affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry and address in

practising on the passions and credulity of the populace. And in the end, the civil magistrate will find that he

has dearly paid for his pretended frugality, in saving a fixed establishment for the priests; and that in reality

the most decent and advantageous composition which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe their

indolence by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to be farther

active than merely to prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pastures. And in this manner

ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the end

But whatever may have been the good or bad effects of the independent provision of the clergy, it has,

perhaps, been very seldom bestowed upon them from any view to those effects. Times of violent religious

controversy have generally been times of equally violent political faction. Upon such occasions, each

political party has either found it, or imagined it, for its interest to league itself with some one or other of the

contending religious sects. But this could be done only by adopting, or at least by favouring, the tenets of that

particular sect. The sect which had the good fortune to be leagued with the conquering party necessarily

shared in the victory of its ally, by whose favour and protection it was soon enabled in some degree to silence

and subdue all its adversaries. Those adversaries had generally leagued themselves with the enemies of the

conquering party, and were therefore the enemies of that party. The clergy of this particular sect having thus

become complete masters of the field, and their influence and authority with the great body of the people

being in its highest vigour, they were powerful enough to overawe the chiefs and leaders of their own party,

and to oblige the civil magistrate to respect their opinions and inclinations. Their first demand was generally

that he should silence and subdue an their adversaries: and their second, that he should bestow an

independent provision on themselves. As they had generally contributed a good deal to the victory, it seemed

not unreasonable that they should have some share in the spoil. They were weary, besides, of humouring the

people, and of depending upon their caprice for a subsistence. In making this demand, therefore, they

consulted their own ease and comfort, without troubling themselves about the effect which it might have in

future times upon the influence and authority of their order. The civil magistrate, who could comply with this

demand only by giving them something which he would have chosen much rather to take, or to keep to

himself, was seldom very forward to grant it. Necessity, however, always forced him to submit at last, though

But if politics had never called in the aid of religion, had the conquering party never adopted the tenets of one

sect more than those of another when it had gained the victory, it would probably have dealt equally and

impartially with all the different sects, and have allowed every man to choose his own priest and his own

religion as he thought proper. There would in this case, no doubt' have been a great multitude of religious

sects. Almost every different congregation might probably have made a little sect by itself, or have

entertained some peculiar tenets of its own. Each teacher would no doubt have felt himself under the

necessity of making the utmost exertion and of using every art both to preserve and to increase the number of

his disciples. But as every other teacher would have felt himself under the same necessity, the success of no

one teacher, or sect of teachers, could have been very great. The interested and active zeal of religious

teachers can be dangerous and troublesome only where there is either but one sect tolerated in the society, or

where the whole of a large society is divided into two or three great sects; the teachers of each acting by

concert, and under a regular discipline and subordination. But that zeal must be altogether innocent where the

society is divided into two or three hundred, or perhaps into as many thousand small sects, of which no one

could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquility. The teachers of each sect, seeing themselves

surrounded on all sides with more adversaries than friends, would be obliged to learn that candour and

moderation which is so seldom to be found among the teachers of those great sects whose tenets, being

supported by the civil magistrate, are held in veneration by almost all the inhabitants of extensive kingdoms

and empires, and who therefore see nothing round them but followers, disciples, and humble admirers. The

teachers of each little sect, finding themselves almost alone, would be obliged to respect those of almost

every other sect, and the concessions which they would mutually find it both convenient and agreeable to

make to one another, might in time probably reduce the doctrine of the greater part of them to that pure and

rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism, such as wise men have in all

ages of the world wished to see established; but such as positive law has perhaps never yet established, and

probably never will establish, in any country: because, with regard to religion, positive law always has been,

and probably always will be, more or less influenced by popular superstition and enthusiasm. This plan of

ecclesiastical government, or more properly of no ecclesiastical government, was what the sect called

Independents, a sect no doubt of very wild enthusiasts, proposed to establish in England towards the end of

the civil war. If it had been established, though of a very unphilosophical origin, it would probably by this

time have been productive of the most philosophical good temper and moderation with regard to every sort of

religious principle. It has been established in Pennsylvania, where, though the Quakers happen to be the most

numerous, the law in reality favours no one sect more than another, and it is there said to have been

But though this equality of treatment should not be productive of this good temper and moderation in all, or

even in the greater part of the religious sects of a particular country, yet provided those sects were sufficiently

numerous, and each of them consequently too small to disturb the public tranquillity, the excessive zeal of

each for its particular tenets could not well be productive of any very harmful effects, but, on the contrary, of

several good ones: and if the government was perfectly decided both to let them all alone, and to oblige them

all to let alone one another, there is little danger that they would not of their own accord subdivide themselves

In every civilised society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has once been completely

established, there have been always two different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of

which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The

former is generally admired and revered by the common people: the latter is commonly more esteemed and

adopted by what are called people of fashion. The degree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the

vices of levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good

humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the

liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of

intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, etc., provided they are not accompanied

with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood or injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of

indulgence, and are easily either excused or pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, those

excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to

the common people, and a single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor

workman for ever, and to drive him through despair upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser

and better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such

excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition. The disorder

and extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion, and people of that

rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some degree of excess as one of the advantages of

their fortune, and the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach as one of the privileges which belong to

their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small degree of

Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom they have generally drawn

their earliest as well as their most numerous proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been

adopted by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions; for there have been some. It was the

system by which they could best recommend themselves to that order of people to whom they first proposed

their plan of reformation upon what had been before established. Many of them, perhaps the greater part of

them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some

degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has frequently recommended them more than

A man of rank and fortune is by his station the distinguished member of a great society, who attend to every

part of his conduct, and who thereby oblige him to attend to every part of it himself. His authority and

consideration depend very much upon the respect which this society bears to him. He dare not do anything

which would disgrace or discredit him in it, and he is obliged to a very strict observation of that species of

morals, whether liberal or austere, which the general consent of this society prescribes to persons of his rank

and fortune. A man of low condition, on the contrary, is far from being a distinguished member of any great

society. While he remains in a country village his conduct may be attended to, and he may be obliged to

attend to it himself. In this situation, and in this situation only, he may have what is called a character to lose.

But as soon as he comes into a great city he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and

attended to by nobody, and he is therefore very likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon himself to every

sort of low profligacy and vice. He never emerges so effectually from this obscurity, his conduct never

excites so much the attention of any respectable society, as by his becoming the member of a small religious

sect. He from that moment acquires a degree of consideration which he never had before. All his brother

sectaries are, for the credit of the sect, interested to observe his conduct, and if he gives occasion to any

scandal, if he deviates very much from those austere morals which they almost always require of one another,

to punish him by what is always a very severe punishment, even where no civil effects attend it, expulsion or

excommunication from the sect. In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have

been almost always remarkably regular and orderly; generally much more so than in the established church.

The morals of those little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial.

There are two very easy and effectual remedies, however, by whose joint operation the state might, without

violence, correct whatever was unsocial or disagreeably rigorous in the morals of all the little sects into which

The first of those remedies is the study of science and philosophy, which the state might render almost

universal among all people of middling or more than middling rank and fortune; not by giving salaries to

teachers in order to make them negligent and idle, but by instituting some sort of probation, even in the

higher and more difficult sciences, to be undergone by every person before he was permitted to exercise any

liberal profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for any honourable office of trust or profit. If

the state imposed upon this order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion to give itself

any trouble about providing them with proper teachers. They would soon find better teachers for themselves

than any whom the state could provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and

superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be

The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public diversions. The state, by encouraging, that

is by giving entire liberty to all those who for their own interest would attempt without scandal or indecency,

to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, music, dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations

and exhibitions, would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy humour

which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and enthusiasm. Public diversions have always been

the objects of dread and hatred to all the fanatical promoters of those popular frenzies. The gaiety and good

humour which those diversions inspire were altogether inconsistent with that temper of mind which was

fittest for their purpose, or which they could best work upon. Dramatic representations, besides, frequently

exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were upon that account,

In a country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more than those of another, it would not

be necessary that any of them should have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sovereign or

executive power; or that he should have anything to do either in appointing or in dismissing them from their

offices. In such a situation he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about them, further than to

keep the peace among them in the same manner as among the rest of his subjects; that is, to hinder them from

persecuting, abusing, or oppressing one another. But it is quite otherwise in countries where there is an

established or governing religion. The sovereign can in this case never be secure unless he has the means of

influencing in a considerable degree the greater part of the teachers of that religion.

The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation. They can act in concert, and pursue

their interest upon one plan and with one spirit, as much as if they were under the direction of one man; and

they are frequently, too, under such direction. Their interest as an incorporated body is never the same with

that of the sovereign, and is sometimes directly opposite to it. Their great interest is to maintain their

authority with the people; and this authority depends upon the supposed certainty and importance of the

whole doctrine which they inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity of adopting every part of it with the

most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery. Should the sovereign have the imprudence to appear

either to deride or doubt himself of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity attempt to

protect those who did either the one or the other, the punctilious honour of a clergy who have no sort of

dependency upon him is immediately provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to employ all the

terrors of religion in order to oblige the people to transfer their allegiance to some more orthodox and

obedient prince. Should he oppose any of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger is equally great. The

princes who have dared in this manner to rebel against the church, over and above this crime of rebellion

have generally been charged, too, with the additional crime of heresy, notwithstanding their solemn

protestations of their faith and humble submission to every tenet which she thought proper to prescribe to

them. But the authority of religion is superior to every other authority. The fears which it suggests conquer all

other fears. When the authorized teachers of religion propagate through the great body of the people doctrines

subversive of the authority of the sovereign, it is by violence only, or by the force of a standing army, that he

can maintain his authority. Even a standing army cannot in this case give him any lasting security; because if

the soldiers are not foreigners, which can seldom be the case, but drawn from the great body of the people,

which must almost always be the case, they are likely to be soon corrupted by those very doctrines. The

revolutions which the turbulence of the Greek clergy was continually occasioning at Constantinople, as long

as the eastern empire subsisted; the convulsions which, during the course of several centuries, the turbulence

of the Roman clergy was continually occasioning in every part of Europe, sufficiently demonstrate how

precarious and insecure must always be the situation of the sovereign who has no proper means of

influencing the clergy of the established and governing religion of his country.

Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evident enough, are not within the proper

department of a temporal sovereign, who, though he may be very well qualified for protecting, is seldom

supposed to be so for instructing the people. With regard to such matters, therefore, his authority can seldom

be sufficient to counterbalance the united authority of the clergy of the established church. The public

tranquillity, however, and his own security, may frequently depend upon the doctrines which they may think

proper to propagate concerning such matters. As he can seldom directly oppose their decision, therefore, with

proper weight and authority, it is necessary that he should be able to influence it; and be can influence it only

by the fears and expectations which he may excite in the greater part of the individuals of the order. Those

fears and expectations may consist in the fear of deprivation or other punishment, and in the expectation of

In all Christian churches the benefices of the clergy are a sort of freeholds which they enjoy, not during

pleasure, but during life or good behaviour. If they held them by a more precarious tenure, and were liable to

be turned out upon every slight disobligation either of the sovereign or of his ministers, it would perhaps be

impossible for them to maintain their authority with the people, who would then consider them as mercenary

dependents upon the court, in the security of whose instructions they could no longer have any confidence.

But should the sovereign attempt irregularly, and by violence, to deprive any number of clergymen of their

freeholds, on account, perhaps, of their having propagated, with more than ordinary zeal, some factious or

seditious doctrine, he would only render, by such persecution, both them and their doctrine ten times more

popular, and therefore ten times more troublesome and dangerous, than they had been before. Fear is in

almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against

any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency. To attempt to terrify them serves only

to irritate their bad humour, and to confirm them in an opposition which more gentle usage perhaps might

easily induce them either to soften or to lay aside altogether. The violence which the French government

usually employed in order to oblige all their parliaments, or sovereign courts of justice, to enregister any

unpopular edict, very seldom succeeded. The means commonly employed, however, the imprisonment of all

the refractory members, one would think were forcible enough. The princes of the house of Stewart

sometimes employed the like means in order to influence some of the members of the Parliament of England;

and they generally found them equally intractable. The Parliament of England is now managed in another

manner; and a very small experiment which the Duke of Choiseul made about twelve years ago upon the

Parliament of Paris, demonstrated sufficiently that all the parliaments of France might have been managed

still more easily in the same manner. That experiment was not pursued. For though management and

persuasion are always the easiest and the safest instruments of governments, as force and violence are the

worst and the most dangerous, yet such, it seems, is the natural insolence of man that he almost always

disdains to use the good instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The French

government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to use management and persuasion. But there

is no order of men, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all ages, upon whom it is so dangerous, or

rather so perfectly ruinous, to employ force and violence, as upon the respected clergy of any established

church. The rights, the privileges, the personal liberty of every individual ecclesiastic who is upon good terms

with his own order are, even in the most despotic governments, more respected than those of any other person

of nearly equal rank and fortune. It is so in every gradation of despotism, from that of the gentle and mild

government of Paris to that of the violent and furious government of Constantinople. But though this order of

men can scarce ever be forced, they may be managed as easily as any other; and the security of the sovereign,

as well as the public tranquillity, seems to depend very much upon the means which he has of managing

them; and those means seem to consist altogether in the preferment which he has to bestow upon them.

In the ancient constitution of the Christian church, the bishop of each diocese was elected by the joint votes

of the clergy and of the people of the episcopal city. The people did not long retain their right of election; and

while they did retain it, they almost always acted under the influence of the clergy, who in such spiritual

matters appeared to be their natural guides. The clergy, however, soon grew weary of the trouble of managing

them, and found it easier to elect their own bishops themselves. The abbot, in the same manner, was elected

by the monks of the monastery, at least in the greater part of the abbacies. All the inferior ecclesiastical

benefices comprehended within the diocese were collated by the bishop, who bestowed them upon such

ecclesiastics as he thought proper. All church preferments were in this manner in the disposal of the church.

The sovereign, though he might have some indirect influence in those elections, and though it was sometimes

usual to ask both his consent to elect and his approbation of the election, yet had no direct or sufficient means

of managing the clergy. The ambition of every clergyman naturally led him to pay court not so much to his

Through the greater part of Europe the Pope gradually drew to himself first the collation of almost all

bishoprics and abbacies, or of what were called Consistorial benefices, and afterwards, by various

machinations and pretences, of the greater part of inferior benefices comprehended within each diocese; little

more being left to the bishop than what was barely necessary to give him a decent authority with his own

clergy. By this arrangement the condition of the sovereign was still worse than it had been before. The clergy

of all the different countries of Europe were thus formed into a sort of spiritual army, dispersed in different

quarters, indeed, but of which all the movements and operations could now be directed by one head, and

conducted upon one uniform plan. The clergy of each particular country might be considered as a particular

detachment of that army, or which the operations could easily be supported and seconded by all the other

detachments quartered in the different countries round about. Each detachment was not only independent of

the sovereign of the country in which it was quartered, and by which it was maintained, but dependent upon a

foreign sovereign, who could at any time turn its arms against the sovereign of that particular country, and

Those arms were the most formidable that can well be imagined. In the ancient state of Europe, before the

establishment of arts and manufactures, the wealth of the clergy gave them the same sort of influence over the

common people which that of the great barons gave them over their respective vassals, tenants, and retainers.

In the great landed estates which the mistaken piety both of princes and private persons had bestowed upon

the church, jurisdictions were established of the same kind with those of the great barons, and for the same

reason. In those great landed estates, the clergy, or their bailiffs, could easily keep the peace without the

support or assistance either of the king or of any other person; and neither the king nor any other person could

keep the peace there without the support and assistance of the clergy. The jurisdictions of the clergy,

therefore, in their particular baronies or manors, were equally independent, and equally exclusive of the

authority of the king's courts, as those of the great temporal lords. The tenants of the clergy were, like those

of the great barons, almost all tenants at will, entirely dependent upon their immediate lords, and therefore

liable to be called out at pleasure in order to fight in any quarrel in which the clergy might think proper to

engage them. Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in the tithes, a very large portion

of the rents of all the other estates in every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both those species

of rents were, the greater part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine, cattle poultry, etc. The quantity exceeded

greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and there were neither arts nor manufactures for the

produce of which they could exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this immense

surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great barons employed the like surplus of their revenues,

in the most profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the hospitality and the charity of the

ancient clergy, accordingly, are said to have been very great. They not only maintained almost the whole poor

of every kingdom, but many knights and gentlemen had frequently no other means of subsistence than by

travelling about from monastery to monastery, under pretence of devotion, but in reality to enjoy the

hospitality of the clergy. The retainers of some particular prelates were often as numerous as those of the

greatest laylords; and the retainers of all the clergy taken together were, perhaps, more numerous than those

of all the laylords. There was always much more union among the clergy than among the laylords. The

former were under a regular discipline and subordination to the papal authority. The latter were under no

regular discipline or subordination, but almost always equally jealous of one another, and of the king. Though

the tenants and retainers of the clergy, therefore, had both together been less numerous than those of the great

laylords, and their tenants were probably much less numerous, yet their union would have rendered them

more formidable. The hospitality and charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a great

temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them

the highest respect and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and

almost all occasionally, fed by them. Everything belonging or related to so popular an order, its possessions,

its privileges, its doctrines, necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes of the common people, and every

violation of them, whether real or pretended, the highest act of sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness. In

this state of things, if the sovereign frequently found it difficult to resist the confederacy of a few of the great

nobility, we cannot wonder that he should find it still more so to resist the united force of the clergy of his

own dominions, supported by that of the clergy of all the neighbouring dominions. In such circumstances the

wonder is, not that he was sometimes obliged to yield, but that he ever was able to resist.

The privilege of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us who live in the present times appear the most

absurd), their total exemption from the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England was called the

benefit of the clergy, were the natural or rather the necessary consequences of this state of things. How

dangerous must it have been for the sovereign to attempt to punish a clergyman for any crime whatever, if his

own order were disposed to protect him, and to represent either the proof as insufficient for convicting so

holy a man, or the punishment as too severe to be inflicted upon one whose person had been rendered sacred

by religion? The sovereign could, in such circumstances, do no better than leave him to be tried by the

ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own order, were interested to restrain, as much as possible,

every member of it from committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such gross scandal as

In the state in which things were through the greater part of Europe during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and

thirteenth centuries, and for some time both before and after that period, the constitution of the Church of

Rome may be considered as the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and

security of civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind, which can

flourish only where civil government is able to protect them. In that constitution the grossest delusions of

superstition were supported in such a manner by the private interests of so great a number of people as put

them out of all danger from any assault of human reason: because though human reason might perhaps have

been able to unveil, even to the eyes of the common people, some of the delusions of superstition, it could

never have dissolved the ties of private interest. Had this constitution been attacked by no other enemies but

the feeble efforts of human reason, it must have endured for ever. But that immense and wellbuilt fabric,

which all the wisdom and virtue of man could never have shaken, much less have overturned, was by the

natural course of things, first weakened, and afterwards in part destroyed, and is now likely, in the course of a

The gradual improvements of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the same causes which destroyed the power

of the great barons, destroyed in the same manner, through the greater part of Europe, the whole temporal

power of the clergy. In the produce of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the clergy, like the great barons,

found something for which they could exchange their rude produce, and thereby discovered the means of

spending their whole revenues upon their own persons, without giving any considerable share of them to

other people. Their charity became gradually less extensive, their hospitality less liberal or less profuse. Their

retainers became consequently less numerous, and by degrees dwindled away altogether. The clergy too, like

the great barons, wished to get a better rent from their landed estates, in order to spend it, in the same manner,

upon the gratification of their own private vanity and folly. But this increase of rent could be got only by

granting leases to their tenants, who thereby became in a great measure independent of them. The ties of

interest which bound the inferior ranks of people to the clergy were in this manner gradually broken and

dissolved. They were even broken and dissolved sooner than those which bound the same ranks of people to

the great barons: because the benefices of the church being, the greater part of them, much smaller than the

estates of the great barons, the possessor of each benefice was much sooner able to spend the whole of its

revenue upon his own person. During the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the power of

the great barons was, through the greater part of Europe, in full vigour. But the temporal power of the clergy,

the absolute command which they had once had over the great body of the people, was very much decayed.

The power of the church was by that time very nearly reduced through the greater part of Europe to what

arose from her spiritual authority; and even that spiritual authority was much weakened when it ceased to be

supported by the charity and hospitality of the clergy. The inferior ranks of people no longer looked upon that

order, as they had done before, as the comforters of their distress, and the relievers of their indigence. On the

contrary, they were provoked and disgusted by the vanity, luxury, and expense of the richer clergy, who

appeared to spend upon their own pleasures what had always before been regarded as the patrimony of the

In this situation of things, the sovereigns in the different states of Europe endeavoured to recover the

influence which they had once had in the disposal of the great benefices of the church, by procuring to the

deans and chapters of each diocese the restoration of their ancient right of electing the bishop, and to the

monks of each abbacy that of electing the abbot. The reestablishing of this ancient order was the object of

several statutes enacted in England during the course of the fourteenth century, particularly of what is called

the Statute of Provisors; and of the Pragmatic Sanction established in France in the fifteenth century. In order

to render the election valid, it was necessary that the sovereign should both consent to it beforehand, and

afterwards approve of the person elected; and though the election was still supposed to be free, he had,

however, all the indirect means which his situation necessarily afforded him of influencing the clergy in his

own dominions. Other regulations of a similar tendency were established in other parts of Europe. But the

power of the pope in the collation of the great benefices of the church seems, before the Reformation, to have

been nowhere so effectually and so universally restrained as in France and England. The Concordat

afterwards, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right of presenting to all the

Since the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction and of the Concordat, the clergy of France have in general

shown less respect to the decrees of the papal court than the clergy of any other Catholic country. In all the

disputes which their sovereign has had with the pope, they have almost constantly taken party with the

former. This independency of the clergy of France upon the court of Rome seems to be principally founded

upon the Pragmatic Sanction and the Concordat. In the earlier periods of the monarchy, the clergy of France

appear to have been as much devoted to the pope as those of any other country. When Robert, the second

prince of the Capetian race, was most unjustly excommunicated by the court of Rome, his own servants, it is

said, threw the victuals which came from his table to the dogs, and refused to taste anything themselves

which little been polluted by the contact of a person in his situation. They were taught to do so, it may very

The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church, a claim in defence of which the court of Rome had

frequently shaken, and sometimes overturned the thrones of some of the greatest sovereigns in Christendom,

was in this manner either restrained or modified, or given up altogether, in many different parts of Europe,

even before the time of the Reformation. As the clergy had now less influence over the people, so the state

had more influence over the clergy. The clergy, therefore, had both less power and less inclination to disturb

The authority of the Church of Rome was in this state of declension when the disputes which gave birth to the

Reformation began in Germany, and soon spread themselves through every part of Europe. The new

doctrines were everywhere received with a high degree of popular favour. They were propagated with all that

enthusiastic zeal which commonly animates the spirit of party when it attacks established authority. The

teachers of those doctrines, though perhaps in other respects not more learned than many of the divines who

defended the established church, seem in general to have been better acquainted with ecclesiastical history,

and with the origin and progress of that system of opinions upon which the authority of the church was

established, and they had thereby some advantage in almost every dispute. The austerity of their manners

gave them authority with the common people, who contrasted the strict regularity of their conduct with the

disorderly lives of the greater part of their own clergy. They possessed, too, in a much higher degree than

their adversaries all the arts of popularity and of gaining proselytes, arts which the lofty and dignified sons of

the church had long neglected as being to them in a great measure useless. The reason of the new doctrines

recommended them to some, their novelty to many; the hatred and contempt of the established clergy to a

still greater number; but the zealous, passionate, and fanatical, though frequently coarse and rustic, eloquence

with which they were almost everywhere inculcated, recommended them to by far the greatest number.

The success of the new doctrines was almost everywhere so great that the princes who at that time happened

to be on bad terms with the court of Rome were by means of them easily enabled, in their own dominions, to

overturn the church, which, having lost the respect and veneration of the inferior ranks of people, could make

scarce any resistance. The court of Rome had disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern parts of

Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant to be worth the managing. They universally,

therefore, established the Reformation in their own dominions. The tyranny of Christian II and of Troll,

Archbishop of Upsala, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them both from Sweden. The pope favoured the

tyrant and the archbishop, and Gustavus Vasa found no difficulty in establishing the Reformation in Sweden.

Christian II was afterwards deposed from the throne of Denmark, where his conduct had rendered him as

odious as in Sweden. The pope, however, was still disposed to favour him, and Frederick of Holstein, who

had mounted the throne in his stead, revenged himself by following the example of Gustavus Vasa. The

magistrates of Berne and Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with the pope, established with great ease the

Reformation in their respective cantons, where just before some of the clergy had, by an imposture somewhat

In this critical situation of its affairs, the papal court was at sufficient pains to cultivate the friendship of the

powerful sovereigns of France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that time Emperor of Germany. With

their assistance it was enabled, though not without great difficulty and much bloodshed, either to suppress

altogether or to obstruct very much the progress of the Reformation in their dominions. It was well enough

inclined, too, to be complaisant to the King of England. But from the circumstances of the times, it could not

be so without giving offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V, King of Spain and Emperor of Germany.

Henry VIII accordingly, though he did not embrace himself the greater part of the doctrines of the

Reformation, was yet enabled, by their general prevalence, to suppress all the monasteries, and to abolish the

authority of the Church of Rome in his dominions. That he should go so far, though he went no further, gave

some satisfaction to the patrons of the Reformation, who having got possession of the government in the

reign of his son and successor, completed without any difficulty the work which Henry VIII had begun.

In some countries, as in Scotland, where the government was weak, unpopular, and not very firmly

established, the Reformation was strong enough to overturn, not only the church, but the state likewise for

Among the followers of the Reformation dispersed in all the different countries of Europe, there was no

general tribunal which, like that of the court of Rome, or an oecumenical council, could settle all disputes

among them, and with irresistible authority prescribe to all of them the precise limits of orthodoxy. When the

followers of the Reformation in one country, therefore, happened to differ from their brethren in another, as

they had no common judge to appeal to, the dispute could never be decided; and many such disputes arose

among them. Those concerning the government of the church, and the right of conferring ecclesiastical

benefices, were perhaps the most interesting to the peace and welfare of civil society. They gave birth

accordingly to the two principal parties of sects among the followers of the Reformation, the Lutheran and

Calvinistic sects, the only sects among them of which the doctrine and discipline have ever yet been

The followers of Luther, together with what is called the Church of England, preserved more or less of the

episcopal government, established subordination among the clergy, gave the sovereign the disposal of all the

bishoprics and other consistorial benefices within his dominions, and thereby rendered him the real head of

the church; and without depriving the bishop of the right of collating to the smaller benefices within his

diocese, they, even to those benefices, not only admitted, but favoured the right of presentation both in the

sovereign and in all other laypatrons. This system of church government was from the beginning favourable

to peace and good order, and to submission to the civil sovereign. It has never, accordingly, been the occasion

of any tumult or civil commotion in any country in which it has once been established. The Church of

England in particular has always valued herself, with great reason, upon the unexceptionable loyalty of her

principles. Under such a government the clergy naturally endeavour to recommend themselves to the

sovereign, to the court, and to the nobility and gentry of the country, by whose influence they chiefly expect

to obtain preferment. They pay court to those patrons sometimes, no doubt, by the vilest flattery and

assentation, but frequently, too, by cultivating all those arts which best deserve, and which are therefore most

likely to gain them the esteem of people of rank and fortune; by their knowledge in all the different branches

of useful and ornamental learning, by the decent liberality of their manners, by the social good humour of

their conversation, and by their avowed contempt of those absurd and hypocritical austerities which fanatics

inculcate and pretend to practise, in order to draw upon themselves the veneration, and upon the greater part

of men of rank and fortune, who avow that they do not practise them, the abhorrence of the common people.

Such a clergy, however, while they pay their court in this manner to the higher ranks of life, are very apt to

neglect altogether the means of maintaining their influence and authority with the lower. They are listened to,

esteemed, and respected by their superiors; but before their inferiors they are frequently incapable of

defending, effectually and to the conviction of such hearers, their own sober and moderate doctrines against

The followers of Zwingli, or more properly those of Calvin, on the contrary, bestowed upon the people of

each parish, whenever the church became vacant, the right of electing their own pastor, and established at the

same time the most perfect equality among the clergy. The former part of this institution, as long as it

remained in vigour, seems to have been productive of nothing but disorder and confusion, and to have tended

equally to corrupt the morals both of the clergy and of the people. The latter part seems never to have had any

As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing their own pastors, they acted almost

always under the influence of the clergy, and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order. The

clergy, in order to preserve their influence in those popular elections, became, or affected to become, many of

them, fanatics themselves, encouraged fanaticism among the people, and gave the preference almost always

to the most fanatical candidate. So small a matter as the appointment of a parish priest occasioned almost

always a violent contest, not only in one parish, but in all the neighbouring parishes, who seldom failed to

take part in the quarrel. When the parish happened to be situated in a great city, it divided all the inhabitants

into two parties; and when that city happened either to constitute itself a little republic, or to be the head and

capital of a little republic, as is the case with many of the considerable cities in Switzerland and Holland,

every paltry dispute of this kind, over and above exasperating the animosity of all their other factions,

threatened to leave behind it both a new schism in the church, and a new faction in the state. In those small

republics, therefore, the magistrate very soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the public peace,

to assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant benefices. In Scotland, the most extensive country in

which this Presbyterian form of church government has ever been established, the rights of patronage were in

effect abolished by the act which established Presbytery in the beginning of the reign of William III. That act

at least put it in the power of certain classes of people in each parish to purchase, for a very small price, the

right of electing their own pastor. The constitution which this act established was allowed to subsist for about

twoandtwenty years, but was abolished by the 10th of Queen Anne, c. 12, on account of the confusions

and disorders which this more popular mode of, election had almost everywhere occasioned. In so extensive a

country as Scotland, however, a tumult in a remote parish was not so likely to give disturbance to government

as in a smaller state. The 10th of Queen Anne restored the rights of patronage. But though in Scotland the law

gives the benefice without any exception to the person presented by the patron, yet the church requires

sometimes (for she has not in this respect been very uniform in her decisions) a certain concurrence of the

people before she will confer upon the presentee what is called the cure of souls, or the ecclesiastical

jurisdiction in the parish. She sometimes at least, from an affected concern for the peace of the parish, delays

the settlement till this concurrence can be procured. The private tampering of some of the neighbouring

clergy, sometimes to procure, but more frequently to prevent, this concurrence, and the popular arts which

they cultivate in order to enable them upon such occasions to tamper more effectually, are perhaps the causes

which principally keep up whatever remains of the old fanatical spirit, either in the clergy or in the people of

The equality which the Presbyterian form of church government establishes among the clergy, consists, first,

in the equality of authority or ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, secondly, in the equality of benefice. In all

Presbyterian churches the equality of authority is perfect: that of benefice is not so. The difference, however,

between one benefice and another is seldom so considerable as commonly to tempt the possessor even of the

small one to pay court to his patron by the vile arts of flattery and assentation in order to get a better. In all

the Presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are thoroughly established, it is by nobler and better

arts that the established clergy in general endeavour to gain the favour of their superiors; by their learning, by

the irreproachable regularity of their life, and by the faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their

patrons even frequently complain of the independency of their spirit, which they are apt to construe into

ingratitude for past favours, but which at worst, perhaps, is seldom any more than that indifference which

naturally arises from the consciousness that no further favours of the kind are ever to be expected. There is

scarce perhaps to be found anywhere in Europe a more learned, decent, independent, and respectable set of

men than the greater part of the Presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland.

Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be very great, and this mediocrity of

benefice, though it may no doubt be carried, too far, has, however, some very agreeable effects. Nothing but

the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. The vices of levity and vanity

necessarily render him ridiculous, and are, besides, almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common

people. In his own conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of morals which the common

people respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection by that plan of life which his own interest and

situation would lead him to follow. The common people look upon him with that kindness with which we

naturally regard one who approaches somewhat to our own condition, but who, we think, ought to be in a

higher. Their kindness naturally provokes his kindness. He becomes careful to instruct them, and attentive to

assist and relieve them. He does not even despise the prejudices of people who are disposed to be so

favourable to him, and never treats them with those contemptuous and arrogant airs which we so often meet

with in the proud dignitaries of opulent and wellendowed churches. The Presbyterian clergy, accordingly,

have more influence over the minds of the common people than perhaps the clergy of any other established

church. It is accordingly in Presbyterian countries only that we ever find the common people converted,

without persecution, completely, and almost to a man, to the established church.

In countries where church benefices are the greater part of them very moderate, a chair in a university is

generally a better establishment than a church benefice. The universities have, in this case, the picking and

choosing of their members from all the churchmen of the country, who, in every country, constitute by far the

most numerous class of men of letters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many of them very

considerable, the church naturally draws from the universities the greater part of their eminent men of letters,

who generally find some patron who does himself honour by procuring them church preferment. In the

former situation we are likely to find the universities filled with the most eminent men of letters that are to be

found in the country. In the latter we are likely to find few eminent men among them, and those few among

the youngest members of the society, who are likely, too, to be drained away from it before they can have

acquired experience and knowledge enough to be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr. de Voltaire, that

Father Porrie, a Jesuit of no great eminence in the republic of letters, was the only professor they had ever

had in France whose works were worth the reading. In a country which has produced so many eminent men

of letters, it must appear somewhat singular that scarce one of them should have been a professor in a

university. The famous Gassendi was, in the beginning of his life, a professor in the University of Aix. Upon

the first dawning of his genius, it was represented to him that by going into the church he could easily find a

much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well as a better situation for pursuing his studies; and he

immediately followed the advice. The observation of Mr. de Voltaire may be applied, I believe, not only to

France, but to all other Roman Catholic countries. We very rarely find, in any of them, an eminent man of

letters who is a professor in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions of law and physic; professions

from which the church is not so likely to draw them. After the Church of Rome, that of England is by far the

richest and best endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the church is continually draining

the universities of all their best and ablest members; and an old college tutor, who is known and distinguished

in Europe as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be found there as in any Roman Catholic country. In

Geneva, on the contrary, in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the Protestant countries of Germany, in

Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, the most eminent men of letters whom those countries have

produced, have, not all indeed, but the far greater part of them, been professors in universities. In those

countries the universities are continually draining the church of all its most eminent men of letters.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark that, if we expect the poets, a few orators, and a few historians, the

far greater part of the other eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to have been either

public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or of rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true

from the days of Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch and Epictetus, of

Suetonius and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the necessity of teaching, year after year, any particular

branch of science, seems, in reality, to be the most effectual method for rendering him completely master of it

himself. By being obliged to go every year over the same ground, if he is good for anything, he necessarily

becomes, in a few years, well acquainted with every part of it: and if upon any particular point he should

form too hasty an opinion one year, when he comes in the course of his lectures to reconsider the same

subject the year thereafter, he is very likely to correct it. As to be a teacher of science is certainly the natural

employment of a mere man of letters, so is it likewise, perhaps, the education which is most likely to render

him a man of solid learning and knowledge. The mediocity of church benefices naturally tends to draw the

greater part of men of letters, in the country where it takes place, to the employment in which they can be the

most useful to the public, and, at the same time, to give them the best education, perhaps, they are capable of

receiving. It tends to render their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful as possible.

The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as may arise from particular lands or

manors, is a branch, it ought to be observed, of the general revenue of the state which is thus diverted to a

purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe, for example, is a real landtax, which puts it

out of the power of the proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence of the state as they

otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land, however, is, according to some, the sole fund, and, according

to others, the principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the exigencies of the state must be

ultimately supplied. The more of this fund that is given to the church, the less, it is evident, can be spared to

the state. It may be laid down as a certain maxim that, all other things being supposed equal, the richer the

church, the poorer must necessarily be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other; and,

in all cases, the less able must the state be to defend itself. In several Protestant countries, particularly in all

the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, the revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman Catholic Church,

the tithes and church lands, has been found a fund sufficient, not only to afford competent salaries to the

established clergy, but to defray, with little or no addition, all the other expenses of the state. The magistrates

of the powerful canton of Berne, in particular, have accumulated out of the savings from this fund a very

large sum, supposed to amount to several millions, part of which is deposited in a public treasure, and part is

placed at interest in what are called the public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe; chiefly in

those of France and Great Britain. What may be the amount of the whole expense which the church, either of

Berne, or of any other Protestant canton, costs the state, I do not pretend to know. By a very exact account it

appears that, in 1755, the whole revenue of the clergy of the Church of Scotland, including their glebe or

church lands, and the rent of their manses or dwellinghouses, estimated according to a reasonable valuation,

amounted only to L68,514 1s. 5 1/12d. This very moderate revenue affords a decent subsistence to nine

hundred and fortyfour ministers. The whole expense of the church, including what is occasionally laid out

for the building and reparation of churches, and of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to

exceed eighty or eightyfive thousand pounds a year. The most opulent church in Christendom does not

maintain better the uniformity of faith, the fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere

morals in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed Church of Scotland. All the good

effects, both civil and religious, which an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced by it

as completely as by any other. The greater part of the Protestant churches of Switzerland, which in general

are not better endowed than the Church of Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree. In the

greater part of the Protestant cantons there is not a single person to be found who does not profess himself to

be of the established church. If he professes himself to be of any other, indeed, the law obliges him to leave

the canton. But so severe, or rather indeed so oppressive a law, could never have been executed in such free

countries had not the diligence of the clergy beforehand converted to the established church the whole body

of the people, with the exception of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In some parts of Switzerland,

accordingly, where, from the accidental union of a Protestant and Roman Catholic country, the conversion

has not been so complete, both religions are not only tolerated but established by law.

The proper performance of every service seems to require that its pay or recompense should be, as exactly as

possible, proportioned to the nature of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is very apt to

suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of those who are employed in it. If it is very much

overpaid, it is apt to suffer, perhaps, still more by their negligence and idleness. A man of a large revenue,

whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live like other men of large revenues, and to spend a great

part of his time in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman this train of life not only

consumes the time which ought to be employed in the duties of his function, but in the eyes of the common

people destroys almost entirely that sanctity of character which can alone enable him to perform those duties

Over and above the expenses necessary for enabling the sovereign to perform his several duties, a certain

expense is requisite for the support of his dignity. This expense varies both with the different periods of

In an opulent and improved society, where all the different orders of people are growing every day more

expensive in their houses, in their furniture, in their tables, in their dress, and in their equipage, it cannot well

be expected that the sovereign should alone hold out against the fashion. He naturally, therefore, or rather

necessarily, becomes more expensive in all those different articles too. His dignity even seems to require that

As in point of dignity a monarch is more raised above his subjects than the chief magistrate of any republic is

ever supposed to be above his fellowcitizens, so a greater expense is necessary for supporting that higher

dignity. We naturally expect more splendour in the court of a king than in the mansionhouse of a doge or

The expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid

out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the

general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in

The expense of the administration of justice, too, may, no doubt, be considered as laid out for the benefit of

the whole society. There is no impropriety, therefore, in its being defrayed by the general contribution of the

whole society. The persons, however, who gave occasion to this expense are those who, by their injustice in

one way or another, make it necessary to seek redress or protection from the courts of justice. The persons

again most immediately benefited by this expense are those whom the courts of justice either restore to their

rights or maintain in their rights. The expense of the administration of justice, therefore, may very properly be

defrayed by the particular contribution of one or other, or both, of those two different sets of persons,

according as different occasions may require, that is, by the fees of court. It cannot be necessary to have

recourse to the general contribution of the whole society, except for the conviction of those criminals who

Those local or provincial expenses of which the benefit is local or provincial (what is laid out, for example,

upon the police of a particular town or district) ought to be defrayed by a local or provincial revenue, and

ought to be no burden upon the general revenue of the society. It is unjust that the whole society should

contribute towards an expense of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

The expense of maintaining good roads and communications is, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and

may, therefore, without any injustice. be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society. This

expense, however, is most immediately and directly beneficial to those who travel or carry goods from one

place to another, and to those who consume such goods. The turnpike tolls in England, and the duties called

peages in other countries, lay it altogether upon those two different sets of people, and thereby discharge the

The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the

whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole

society. This expense, however, might perhaps with equal propriety, and even with some advantage, be

defrayed altogether by those who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or by the

voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for either the one or the other.

When the institutions or public works which are beneficial to the whole society either cannot be maintained

altogether, or are not maintained altogether by the contribution of such particular members of the society as

are most immediately benefited by them, the deficiency must in most cases be made up by the general

contribution of the whole society. The general revenue of the society, over and above defraying the expense

of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, must make up for the

deficiency of many particular branches of revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue I shall

THE revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending the society and of supporting the dignity

of the chief magistrate, but all the other necessary expenses of government for which the constitution of the

state has not provided any particular revenue, may be drawn either, first, from some fund which peculiarly

belongs to the sovereign or commonwealth, and which is independent of the revenue of the people; or,

THE funds or sources of revenue which may peculiarly belong to the sovereign or commonwealth must

The sovereign, like any other owner of stock, may derive a revenue from it, either by employing it himself, or

The revenue of a Tartar or Arabian chief consists in profit. It arises principally from the milk and increase of

his own herds and flocks, of which he himself superintends the management, and is the principal shepherd or

herdsman of his own horde or tribe. It is, however, in this earliest and rudest state of civil government only

that profit has ever made the principal part of the public revenue of a monarchial state.

Small republics have sometimes derived a considerable revenue from the profit of mercantile projects. The

republic of Hamburg is said to do so from the profits of a public wine cellar and apothecary's shop. The state

cannot be very great of which the sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade of a wine merchant or

apothecary. The profit of a public bank has been a source of revenue to more considerable states. It has been

so not only to Hamburg, but to Venice and Amsterdam. A revenue of this kind has even by some people been

thought not below the attention of so great an empire as that of Great Britain. Reckoning the ordinary

dividend of the Bank of England at five and a half per cent and its capital at ten millions seven hundred and

eighty thousand pounds, the net annual profit, after paying the expense of management, must amount, it is

said, to five hundred and ninetytwo thousand nine hundred pounds. Government, it is pretended, could

borrow this capital at three per cent interest, and by taking the management of the bank into its own hands,

might make a clear profit of two hundred and sixtynine thousand five hundred pounds a year. The orderly,

vigilant, and parsimonious administration of such aristocracies as those of Venice and Amsterdam is

extremely proper, it appears from experience, for the management of a mercantile project of this kind. But

whether such a government as that of England which, whatever may be its virtues, has never been famous

for good economy; which, in time of peace, has generally conducted itself with the slothful and negligent

profusion that is perhaps natural to monarchies; and in time of war has constantly acted with all the

thoughtless extravagance that democracies are apt to fall into could be safely trusted with the management

The post office is properly a mercantile project. The government advances the expense of establishing the

different offices, and of buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid with a large profit by

the duties upon what is carried. It is perhaps the only mercantile project which has been successfully

managed by, I believe, every sort of government. The capital to be advanced is not very considerable. There

Princes, however, have frequently engaged in many other mercantile projects, and have been willing, like

private persons, to mend their fortunes by becoming adventurers in the common branches of trade. They have

scarce ever succeeded. The profusion with which the affairs of princes are always managed renders it almost

impossible that they should. The agents of a prince regard the wealth of their master as inexhaustible; are

careless at what price they buy; are careless at what price they sell; are careless at what expense they

transport his goods from one place to another. Those agents frequently live with the profusion of princes, and

sometimes too, in spite of that profusion, and by a proper method of making up their accounts, acquire the

fortunes of princes. It was thus, as we are told by Machiavel, that the agents of Lorenzo of Medicis, not a

prince of mean abilities, carried on his trade. The republic of Florence was several times obliged to pay the

debt into which their extravagance had involved him. He found it convenient, accordingly, to give up the

business of merchant, the business to which his family had originally owed their fortune, and in the latter part

of his life to employ both what remained of that fortune, and the revenue of the state of which he had the

No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and sovereign. If the trading spirit of the

English East India Company renders them very bad sovereigns, the spirit of sovereignty seems to have

rendered them equally bad traders. While they were traders only they managed their trade successfully, and

were able to pay from their profits a moderate dividend to the proprietors of their stock. Since they became

sovereigns, with a revenue which, it is said, was originally more than three millions sterling, they have been

obliged to beg extraordinary assistance of government in order to avoid immediate bankruptcy. In their

former situation, their servants in India considered themselves as the clerks of merchants: in their present

A state may sometimes derive some part of its public revenue from the interest of money, as well as from the

profits of stock. If it has amassed a treasure, it may lend a part of that treasure either to foreign states, or to its

The canton of Berne derives a considerable revenue by lending a part of its treasure to foreign states; that is,

by placing it in the public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe, chiefly in those of France and

England. The security of this revenue must depend, first, upon the security of the funds in which it is placed,

or upon the good faith of the government which has the management of them; and, secondly, upon the

certainty or probability of the continuance of peace with the debtor nation. In the case of a war, the very first

act of hostility, on the part of the debtor nation, might be the forfeiture of the funds of its creditor. This policy

of lending money to foreign states is, so far as I know, peculiar to the canton of Berne.

The city of Hamburg has established a sort of public pawnshop, which lends money to the subjects of the

state upon pledges at six per cent interest. This pawnshop or Lombard, as it is called, affords a revenue, it is

pretended, to the state of a hundred and fifty thousand crowns, which, at four and sixpence the crown,

The government of Pennsylvania, without amassing any treasure, invented a method of lending, not money

indeed, but what is equivalent to money, to its subjects. By advancing to private people at interest, and upon

land security to double the value, paper bills of credit to be redeemed fifteen years after their date, and in the

meantime made transferable from hand to hand like bank notes, and declared by act of assembly to be a legal

tender in all payments from one inhabitant of the province to another, it raised a moderate revenue, which

went a considerable way towards defraying an annual expense of about L4500, the whole ordinary expense of

that frugal and orderly government. The success of an expedient of this kind must have depended upon three

different circumstances; first, upon the demand for some other instrument of commerce besides gold and

silver money; or upon the demand for such a quantity of consumable stock as could not be had without

sending abroad the greater part of their gold and silver money in order to purchase it; secondly, upon the

good credit of the government which made use of this expedient; and, thirdly, upon the moderation with

which it was used, the whole value of the paper bills of credit never exceeding that of the gold and silver

money which would have been necessary for carrying on their circulation had there been no paper bills of

credit. The same expedient was upon different occasions adopted by several other American colonies: but,

from want of this moderation, it produced, in the greater part of them, much more disorder than conveniency.

The unstable and perishable nature of stock and credit, however, render them unfit to be trusted to as the

principal funds of that sure, steady, and permanent revenue which can alone give security and dignity to

government. The government of no great nation that was advanced beyond the shepherd state seems ever to

Land is a fund of a more stable and permanent nature; and the rent of public lands, accordingly, has been the

principal source of the public revenue of many a great nation that was much advanced beyond the shepherd

state. From the produce or rent of the public lands, the ancient republics of Greece and Italy derived, for a

long time, the greater part of that revenue which defrayed the necessary expenses of the commonwealth. The

rent of the crown lands constituted for a long time the greater part of the revenue of the ancient sovereigns of

War and the preparation for war are the two circumstances which in modern times occasion the greater part

of the necessary expense of all great states. But in the ancient republics of Greece and Italy every citizen was

a soldier, who both served and prepared himself for service at his own expense. Neither of those two

circumstances, therefore, could occasion any very considerable expense to the state. The rent of a very

moderate landed estate might be fully sufficient for defraying all the other necessary expenses of government.

In the ancient monarchies of Europe, the manners and customs of the times sufficiently Prepared the great

body of the people for war; and when they took the field, they were, by the condition of their feudal tenures,

to be maintained either at their own expense, or at that of their immediate lords, without bringing any new

charge upon the sovereign. The other expenses of government were, the greater part of them, very moderate.

The administration of justice, it has been shown, instead of being a cause of expense, was a source of

revenue. The labour of the country people, for three days before and for three days after harvest, was thought

a fund sufficient for making and maintaining all the bridges, highways, and other public works which the

commerce of the country was supposed to require. In those days the principal expense of the sovereign seems

to have consisted in the maintenance of his own family and household. The officers of his household,

accordingly, were then the great officers of state. The lord treasurer received his rents. The lord steward and

lord chamberlain looked after the expense of his family. The care of his stables was committed to the lord

constable and the lord marshal. His houses were all built in the form of castles, and seem to have been the

principal fortresses which he possessed. The keepers of those houses or castles might be considered as a sort

of military governors. They seem to have been the only military officers whom it was necessary to maintain

in time of peace. In these circumstances the rent of a great landed estate might, upon ordinary occasions, very

In the present state of the greater part of the civilised monarchies of Europe, the rent of all the lands in the

country, managed as they probably would be if they all belonged to one proprietor, would scarce perhaps

amount to the ordinary revenue which they levy upon the people even in peaceable times. The ordinary

revenue of Great Britain, for example, including not only what is necessary for defraying the current expense

of the year, but for paying the interest of the public debts, and for sinking a part of the capital of those debts,

amounts to upwards of ten millions a year. But the landtax, at four shillings in the pound, falls short of two

millions a year. This landtax, as it is called, however, is supposed to be onefifth, not only of the rent of all

the land, but of that of all the houses, and of the interest of all the capital stock of Great Britain, that part of it

only excepted which is either let to the public, or employed as farming stock in the cultivation of land. A very

considerable part of the produce of this tax arises from the rent of houses, and the interest of capital stock.

The landtax of the city of London, for example, at four shillings in the pound, amounts to L123,399 6s. 7d.

That of the city of Westminster, to L63,092 1s. 5d. That of the palaces of Whitehall and St. James's, to

L30,754 6s. 3d. A certain proportion of the landtax is in the same manner assessed upon all the other cities

and towns corporate in the kingdom, and arises almost altogether, either from the rent of houses, or from

what is supposed to be the interest of trading and capital stock. According to the estimation, therefore, by

which Great Britain is rated to the landtax, the whole mass of revenue arising from the rent of all the lands,

from that of all the houses, and from the interest of all the capital stock, that part of it only excepted which is

either lent to the public, or employed in the cultivation of land, does not exceed ten millions sterling a year,

the ordinary revenue which government levies upon the people even in peaceable times. The estimation by

which Great Britain is rated to the landtax is, no doubt, taking the whole kingdom at an average, very much

below the real value; though in several particular counties and districts it is said to be nearly equal to that

value. The rent of the lands alone, exclusively of that of houses, and of the interest of stock, has by many

people been estimated at twenty millions, an estimation made in a great measure at random, and which, I

apprehend, is as likely to be above as below the truth. But if the lands of Great Britain, in the present state of

their cultivation, do not afford a rent of more than twenty millions a year, they could not well afford the half,

most probably not the fourth part of that rent, if they all belonged to a single proprietor, and were put under

the negligent, expensive, and oppressive management of his factors and agents. The crown lands of Great

Britain do not at present afford the fourth part of the rent which could probably be drawn from them if they

were the property of private persons. If the crown lands were more extensive, it is probable they would be

The revenue which the great body of the people derives from land is in proportion, not to the rent, but to the

produce of the land. The whole annual produce of the land of every country, if we except what is reserved for

seed, is either annually consumed by the great body of the people, or exchanged for something else that is

consumed by them. Whatever keeps down the produce of the land below what it would otherwise rise to

keeps down the revenue of the great body of the people still more than it does that of the proprietors of land.

The rent of land, that portion of the produce which belongs to the proprietors, is scarce anywhere in Great

Britain supposed to be more than a third part of the whole produce. If the land which in one state of

cultivation affords a rent of ten millions sterling a year would in another afford a rent of twenty millions, the

rent being, in both cases, supposed a third part of the produce, the revenue of the proprietors would be less

than it otherwise might be by ten millions a year only; but the revenue of the great body of the people would

be less than it otherwise might be by thirty millions a year, deducting only what would be necessary for seed.

The population of the country would be less by the number of people which thirty millions a year, deducting

always the seed, could maintain according to the particular mode of living and expense which might take

Though there is not at present, in Europe, any civilised state of any kind which derives the greater part of its

public revenue from the rent of lands which are the property of the state, yet in all the great monarchies of

Europe there are still many large tracts of land which belong to the crown. They are generally forest; and

sometimes forest where, after travelling several miles, you will scarce find a single tree; a mere waste and

loss of country in respect both of produce and population. In every great monarchy of Europe the sale of the

crown lands would produce a very large sum of money, which, if applied to the payment of the public debts,

would deliver from mortgage a much greater revenue than any which those lands have ever afforded to the

crown. In countries where lands, improved and cultivated very highly, and yielding at the time of sale as great

a rent as can easily be got from them, commonly sell at thirty years' purchase, the unimproved, uncultivated,

and lowrented crown lands might well be expected to sell at forty, fifty, or sixty years' purchase. The crown

might immediately enjoy the revenue which this great price would redeem from mortgage. In the course of a

few years it would probably enjoy another revenue. When the crown lands had become private property, they

would, in the course of a few years, become well improved and well cultivated. The increase of their produce

would increase the population of the country by augmenting the revenue and consumption of the people. But

the revenue which the crown derives from the duties of customs and excise would necessarily increase with

The revenue which, in any civilised monarchy, the crown derives from the crown lands, though it appears to

cost nothing to individuals, in reality costs more to the society than perhaps any other equal revenue which

the crown enjoys. It would, in all cases, be for the interest of the society to replace this revenue to the crown

by some other equal revenue, and to divide the lands among the people, which could not well be done better,

Lands for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence parks, gardens, public walks, etc., possessions which

are everywhere considered as causes of expense, not as sources of revenue seem to be the only lands which,

Public stock and public lands, therefore, the two sources of revenue which may peculiarly belong to the

sovereign or commonwealth, being both improper and insufficient funds for defraying the necessary expense

of any great and civilised state, it remains that this expense must, the greater part of it, be defrayed by taxes

of one kind or another; the people contributing a part of their own private revenue in order to make up a

THE private revenue of individuals, it has been shown in the first book of this Inquiry, arises ultimately from

three different sources: Rent, Profit, and Wages. Every tax must finally be paid from some one or other of

those three different sorts of revenue, or from all of them indifferently. I shall endeavour to give the best

account I can, first, of those taxes which, it is intended, should fall upon rent; secondly, of those which, it is

intended, should fall upon profit; thirdly, of those which, it is intended, should fall upon wages; and, fourthly,

of those which, it is intended, should fall indifferently upon all those three different sources of private

revenue. The particular consideration of each of these four different sorts of taxes will divide the second part

of the present chapter into four articles, three of which will require several other subdivisions. Many of those

taxes, it will appear from the following review, are not finally paid from the fund, or source of revenue, upon

Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maxims

I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible,

in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy

under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the

expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to

their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the

equality or inequality of taxation. Every tax, it must be observed once for all, which falls finally upon one

only of the three sorts of revenue above mentioned, is necessarily unequal in so far as it does not affect the

other two. In the following examination of different taxes I shall seldom take much further notice of this sort

of inequality, but shall, in most cases, confine my observations to that inequality which is occasioned by a

particular tax falling unequally even upon that particular sort of private revenue which is affected by it.

II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment,

the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every

other person. Where it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put more or less in the power of the

taxgathered, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of

such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself. The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence

and favours the corruption of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where they are neither

insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great

importance that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all

III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for

the contributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which such

rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay;

or, when he is most likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of

luxury are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He

pays them by little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy, or not

to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniency from such

IV. Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little

as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either take out or

keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than it brings into the public treasury, in the four

following ways. First, the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the

greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the

people. Secondly, it may obstruct the industry the people, and discourage them from applying to certain

branches of business which might give maintenance and unemployment to great multitudes. While it obliges

the people to pay, it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might enable them more

easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur who

attempt unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefit

which the community might have received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax offers a

great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling must rise in proportion to the temptation. The

law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then punishes those who

yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment, too, in proportion to the very circumstance which

ought certainly to alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime. Fourthly, by subjecting the people to the

frequent visits and the odious examination of the taxgatherers, it may expose them to much unnecessary

trouble, vexation, and oppression; and though vexation is not, strictly speaking, expense, it is certainly

equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem himself from it. It is in some one or

other of these four different ways that taxes are frequently so much more burdensome to the people than they

The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention

of all nations. All nations have endeavoured, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes as equal as

they could contrive; as certain, as convenient to the contributor, both in the time and in the mode of payment,

and, in proportion to the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome to the people. The

following short review of some of the principal taxes which have taken place in different ages and countries

will show that the endeavours of all nations have not in this respect been equally successful.

A tax upon the rent of land may either every district being valued at a certain rent, be imposed according to a

certain canon, which valuation is not afterwards to be altered, or it may be imposed in such a manner as to

vary with every variation in the real rent of the land, and to rise or fall with the improvement or declension of

A landtax which, like that of Great Britain, is assessed upon each district according to a certain invariable

canon, though it should be equal at the time of its first establishment, necessarily becomes unequal in process

of time, according to the unequal degrees of improvement or neglect in the cultivation of the different parts of

the country. In England, the valuation according to which the different countries and parishes were assessed

to the landtax by the 4th of William and Mary was very unequal even at its first establishment. This tax,

therefore, so far offends against the first of the four maxims above mentioned. It is perfectly agreeable to the

other three. It is perfectly certain. The time of payment for the tax, being the same as that for the rent, is as

convenient as it can be to the contributor though the landlord is in all cases the real contributor, the tax is

commonly advanced by the tenant, to whom the landlord is obliged to allow it in the payment of the rent.

This tax is levied by a much smaller number of officers than any other which affords nearly the same

revenue. As the tax upon each district does not rise with the rise of the rent, the sovereign does not share in

the profits of the landlord's improvements. Those improvements sometimes contribute, indeed, to the

discharge of the other landlords of the district. But the aggravation of the tax which may sometimes occasion

upon a particular estate is always so very small that it never can discourage those improvements, nor keep

down the produce of the land below what it would otherwise rise to. As it has no tendency to diminish the

quantity, it can have none to raise the price of that produce. It does not obstruct the industry of the people. It

subjects the landlord to no other inconveniency besides the unavoidable one of paying the tax.

The advantage, however, which the landlord has derived from the invariable constancy of the valuation by

which all the lands of Great Britain are rated to the landtax, has been principally owing to some

It has been owing in part to the great prosperity of almost every part of the country, the rents of almost all the

estates of Great Britain having, since the time when this valuation was first established, been continually

rising, and scarce any of them having fallen. The landlords, therefore, have almost all gained the difference

between the tax which they would have paid according to the present rent of their estates, and that which they

actually pay according to the ancient valuation. Had the state of the country been different, had rents been

gradually falling in consequence of the declension of cultivation, the landlords would almost all have lost this

difference. In the state of things which has happened to take place since the revolution, the constancy of the

valuation has been advantageous to the landlord and hurtful to the sovereign. In a different state of things it

As the tax is made payable in money, so the valuation of the land is expressed in money. Since the

establishment of this valuation the value of silver has been pretty uniform, and there has been no alteration in

the standard of the coin either as to weight or fineness. Had silver risen considerably in its value, as it seems

to have done in the course of the two centuries which preceded the discovery of the mines of America, the

constancy of the valuation might have proved very oppressive to the landlord. Had silver fallen considerably

in its value, as it certainly did for about a century at least after the discovery of those mines, the same

constancy of valuation would have reduced very much this branch of the revenue of the sovereign. Had any

considerable alteration been made in the standard of the money, either by sinking the same quantity of silver

to a lower denomination, or by raising it to a higher; had an ounce of silver, for example, instead of being

coined into five shillings and twopence, been coined either into pieces which bore so low a denomination as

two shillings and sevenpence, or into pieces which bore so high a one as ten shillings and fourpence, it would

in the one case have hurt the revenue of the proprietor, in the other that of the sovereign.

In circumstances, therefore, somewhat different from those which have actually taken place, this constancy of

valuation might have been a very great inconveniency, either to the contributors, or to the commonwealth. In

the course of ages such circumstances, however, must, at some time or other, happen. But though empires,

like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality. Every

constitution, therefore, which it is meant should be as permanent as the empire itself, ought to be convenient,

not in certain circumstances only, but in all circumstances; or ought to be suited, not to those circumstances

which are transitory, occasional, or accidental, but to those which are necessary and therefore always the

A tax upon the rent of land which varies with every variation of the rent, or which rises and falls according to

the improvement or neglect of cultivation, is recommended by that sect of men of letters in France who call

themselves The Economists as the most equitable of all taxes. All taxes, they pretend, fall ultimately upon the

rent of land, and ought therefore to be imposed equally upon the fund which must finally pay them. That all

taxes ought to fall as equally as possible upon the fund which must finally pay them is certainly true. But

without entering into the disagreeable discussion of the metaphysical arguments by which they support their

very ingenious theory, it will sufficiently appear, from the following review, what are the taxes which fall

finally upon the rent of the land, and what are those which fall finally upon some other fund.

In the Venetian territory all the arable lands which are given in lease to farmers are taxed at a tenth of the

rent. The leases are recorded in a public register which is kept by the officers of revenue in each province or

district. When the proprietor cultivates his own lands, they are valued according to an equitable estimation,

and he is allowed a deduction of onefifth of the tax, so that for such lands he pays only eight instead of ten

A landtax of this kind is certainly more equal than the landtax of England. It might not, perhaps, be

altogether so certain, and the assessment of the tax might frequently occasion a good deal more trouble to the

Such a system of administration, however, might perhaps be contrived as would, in a great measure, both

The landlord and tenant, for example, might jointly be obliged to record their lease in a public register. Proper

penalties might be enacted against concealing or misrepresenting any of the conditions; and if part of those

penalties were to be paid to either of the two parties who informed against and convicted the other of such

concealment or misrepresentation, it would effectually deter them from combining together in order to

defraud the public revenue. All the conditions of the lease might be sufficiently known from such a record.

Some landlords, instead of raising the rent, take a fine for the renewal of the lease. This practice is in most

cases the expedient of a spendthrift, who for a sum of ready money sells a future revenue of much greater

value. It is in most cases, therefore, hurtful to the landlords. It is frequently hurtful to the tenant, and it is

always hurtful to the community. It frequently takes from the tenant so great a part of his capital, and thereby

diminishes so much his ability to cultivate the land, that he finds it more difficult to pay a small rent than it

would otherwise have been to pay a great one. Whatever diminishes his ability to cultivate, necessarily keeps

down, below what it would otherwise have been, the most important part of the revenue of the community.

By rendering the tax upon such fines a good deal heavier than upon the ordinary rent, this hurtful practice

might be discouraged, to the no small advantage of all the different parties concerned, of the landlord, of the

Some leases prescribe to the tenant a certain mode of cultivation and a certain succession of crops during the

whole continuance of the lease. This condition, which is generally the effect of the landlord's conceit of his

own superior knowledge (a conceit in most cases very ill founded), ought always to be considered as an

additional rent; as a rent in service instead of a rent in money. In order to discourage the practice, which is

generally a foolish one, this species of rent might be valued rather high, and consequently taxed somewhat

Some landlords, instead of a rent in money, require a rent in kind, in corn, cattle, poultry, wine, oil, etc.;

others, again, require a rent in service. Such rents are always more hurtful to the tenant than beneficial to the

landlord. They either take more or keep more out of the pocket of the former than they put into that of the

latter. In every country where they take place the tenants are poor and beggarly, pretty much according to the

degree in which they take place. By valuing, in the same manner, such rents rather high, and consequently

taxing them somewhat higher than common money rents, a practice which is hurtful to the whole community

When the landlord chose to occupy himself a part of his own lands, the rent might be valued according to an

equitable arbitration of the farmers and landlords in the neighbourhood, and a moderate abatement of the tax

might be granted to him, in the same manner as in the Venetian territory, provided the rent of the lands which

he occupied did not exceed a certain sum. It is of importance that the landlord should be encouraged to

cultivate a part of his own land. His capital is generally greater than that of the tenant, and with less skill he

can frequently raise a greater produce. The landlord can afford to try experiments, and is generally disposed

to do so. His unsuccessful experiments occasion only a moderate loss to himself. His successful ones

contribute to the improvement and better cultivation of the whole country. It might be of importance,

however, that the abatement of the tax should encourage him to cultivate to a certain extent only. If the

landlords should, the greater part of them, be tempted to farm the whole of their own lands, the country

(instead of sober and industrious tenants, who are bound by their own interest to cultivate as well as their

capital and skill will allow them) would be filled with idle and profligate bailiffs, whose abusive management

would soon degrade the cultivation and reduce the annual produce of the land, to the diminution, not only of

the revenue of their masters, but of the most important part of that of the whole society.

Such a system of administration might, perhaps, free a tax of this kind from any degree of uncertainty which

could occasion either oppression or inconveniency of the contributor; and might at the same time serve to

introduce into the common management of land such a plan or policy as might contribute a good deal to the

The expense of levying a landtax which varied with every variation of the rent would no doubt be somewhat

greater than that of levying one which was already rated according to a fixed valuation. Some additional

expense would necessarily be incurred both by the different register offices which it would be proper to

establish in the different districts of the country, and by the different valuations which might occasionally be

made of the lands which the proprietor chose to occupy himself. The expense of all this, however, might be

very moderate, and much below what is incurred in the levying of many other taxes which afford a very

inconsiderable revenue in comparison of what might easily be drawn from a tax of this kind.

The discouragement which a variable landtax of this kind might give to the improvement of land seems to

be the most important objection which can be made to it. The landlord would certainly be less disposed to

improve when the sovereign, who contributed nothing to the expense, was to share in the profit of the

improvement. Even this objection might perhaps be obviated by allowing the landlord, before he began his

improvement, to ascertain, in conjunction with the officers of revenue, the actual value of his lands according

to the equitable arbitration of a certain number of landlords and farmers in the neighborhood, equally chosen

by both parties, and by rating him according to this valuation for such a number of years as might be fully

sufficient for his complete indemnification. To draw the attention of the sovereign towards the improvement

of the land, from a regard to the increase of his own revenue, is one of the principal advantages proposed by

this species of landtax. The term, therefore, allowed for the indemnification of the landlord ought not to be a

great deal longer than what was necessary for that purpose, lest the remoteness of the interest should

discourage too much this attention. It had better, however, be somewhat too long than in any respect too

short. No incitement to the attention of the sovereign can ever counterbalance the smallest discouragement to

that of the landlord. The attention of the sovereign can be at best but a very general and vague consideration

of what is likely to contribute to the better cultivation of the greater part of his dominions. The attention of

the landlord is a particular and minute consideration of what is likely to be the most advantageous application

of every inch of ground upon his estate. The principal attention of the sovereign ought to be to encourage, by

every means in his power, the attention both of the landlord and of the farmer, by allowing both to pursue

their own interest in their own way and according to their own judgment; by giving to both the most perfect

security that they shall enjoy the full recompense of their own industry; and by procuring to both the most

extensive market for every part of their produce, in consequence of establishing the easiest and safest

communications both by land and by water through every part of his own dominions as well as the most

If by such a system of administration a tax of this kind could be so managed as to give, not only no

discouragement, but, on the contrary, some encouragement to the improvement of land, it does not appear

likely to occasion any other inconveniency to the landlord, except always the unavoidable one of being

In all the variations of the state of the society, in the improvement and in the declension of agriculture; in all

the variations in the value of silver, and in all those in the standard of the coin, a tax of this kind would, of its

own accord and without any attention of government, readily suit itself to the actual situation of things, and

would be equally just and equitable in all those different changes. It would, therefore, be much more proper

to be established as a perpetual and unalterable regulation, or as what is called a fundamental law of the

commonwealth, than any tax which was always to be levied according to a certain valuation.

Some states, instead of the simple and obvious expedient of a register of leases, have had recourse to the

laborious and expensive one of an actual survey and valuation of all the lands in the country. They have

suspected, probably, that the lessor and lessee, in order to defraud the public revenue, might combine to

conceal the real terms of the lease. DomesdayBook seems to have been the result of a very accurate survey

In the ancient dominions of the King of Prussia, the landtax is assessed according to an actual survey and

valuation, which is reviewed and altered from time to time. According to that valuation, the lay proprietors

pay from twenty to twentyfive per cent of their revenue. Ecclesiastics from forty to fortyfive per cent. The

survey and valuation of Silesia was made by order of the present king; it is said with great accuracy.

According to that valuation, the lands belonging to the Bishop of Breslaw are taxed at twentyfive per cent of

their rent. The other revenues of the ecclesiastics of both religions, at fifty per cent. The commanderies of the

Teutonic order, and of that of Malta, at forty per cent. Lands held by a noble tenure, at thirtyeight and

onethird per cent. Lands held by a base tenure, at thirtyfive and onethird per cent.

The survey and valuation of Bohemia is said to have been the work of more than a hundred years. It was not

perfected till after the peace of 1748, by the orders of the present empress queen. The survey of the duchy of

Milan, which was begun in the time of Charles VI, was not perfected till after 1760. It is esteemed one of the

most accurate that has ever been made. The survey of Savoy and Piedmont was executed under the orders of

In the dominions of the King of Prussia the revenue of the church is taxed much higher than that of lay

proprietors. The revenue of the church is, the greater part of it, a burden upon the rent of land. It seldom

happens that any part of it is applied towards the improvement of land, or is so employed as to contribute in

any respect towards increasing the revenue of the great body of the people. His Prussian Majesty had

probably, upon that account, thought it reasonable that it should contribute a good deal more towards

relieving the exigencies of the state. In some countries the lands of the church are exempted from all taxes. In

others they are taxed more lightly than other lands. In the duchy of Milan, the lands which the church

In Silesia, lands held by a noble tenure are taxed three per cent higher than those held by a base tenure. The

honours and privileges of different kinds annexed to the former, his Prussian Majesty had probably imagined,

would sufficiently compensate to the proprietor a small aggravation of the tax; while at the same time the

humiliating inferiority of the latter would be in some measure alleviated by being taxed somewhat more

lightly. In other countries, the system of taxation, instead of alleviating, aggravates this inequality. In the

dominions of the King of Sardinia, and in those provinces of France which are subject to what is called the

real or predial taille, the tax falls altogether upon the lands held by a base tenure. Those held by a noble one

A landtax assessed according to a general survey and valuation, how equal soever it may be at first, must, in

the course of a very moderate period of time, become unequal. To prevent its becoming so would require the

continual and painful attention of government to all the variations in the state and produce of every different

farm in the country. The governments of Prussia, of Bohemia, of Sardinia, and of the duchy of Milan actually

exert an attention of this kind; an attention so unsuitable to the nature of government that it is not likely to be

of long continuance, and which, if it is continued, will probably in the longrun occasion much more trouble

In 1666, the generality of Montauban was assessed to the real or predial taille according, it is said, to a very

exact survey and valuation. By 1727, this assessment had become altogether unequal. In order to remedy this

inconveniency, government has found no better expedient than to impose upon the whole generality an

additional tax of a hundred and twenty thousand livres. This additional tax is rated upon all the different

districts subject to the taille according to the old assessment. But it is levied only upon those which in the

actual state of things are by that assessment undertaxed, and it is applied to the relief of those which by the

same assessment are overtaxed. Two districts, for example, one of which ought in the actual state of things to

be taxed at nine hundred, the other at eleven hundred livres, are by the old assessment both taxed at a

thousand livres. Both these districts are by the additional tax rated at eleven hundred livres each. But this

additional tax is levied only upon the district undercharged, and it is applied altogether to the relief of that

overcharged, which consequently pays only nine hundred livres. The government neither gains nor loses by

the additional tax, which is applied altogether to remedy the inequalities arising from the old assessment. The

application is pretty much regulated according to the discretion of the intendant of the generality, and must,

Taxes upon the produce of land are in reality taxes upon the rent; and though they may be originally

advanced by the farmer, are finally paid by the landlord. When a certain portion of the produce is to be paid

away for a tax, the farmer computes, as well as he can, what the value of this portion is, one year with

another, likely to amount to, and he makes a proportionable abatement in the rent which he agrees to pay to

the landlord. There is no farmer who does not compute beforehand what the church tithe, which is a landtax

The tithe, and every other landtax of this kind, under the appearance of perfect equality, are very unequal

taxes; a certain portion of the produce being, in different situations, equivalent to a very different portion of

the rent. In some very rich lands the produce is so great that the one half of it is fully sufficient to replace to

the farmer his capital employed in cultivation, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the

neighbourhood. The other half, or, what comes to the same thing, the value of the other half, he could afford

to pay as rent to the landlord, if there was no tithe. But if a tenth of the produce is taken from him in the way

of tithe, he must require an abatement of the fifth part of his rent, otherwise he cannot get back his capital

with the ordinary profit. In this case the rent of the landlord, instead of amounting to a half or fivetenths of

the whole produce, will amount only to fourtenths of it. In poorer lands, on the contrary, the produce is

sometimes so small, and the expense of cultivation so great, that it requires fourfifths of the whole produce

to replace to the farmer his capital with the ordinary profit. In this case, though there was no tithe, the rent of

the landlord could amount to no more than onefifth or twotenths of the whole produce. But if the farmer

pays onetenth of the produce in the way of tithe, he must require an equal abatement of the rent of the

landlord, which will thus be reduced to onetenth only of the whole produce. Upon the rent of rich lands, the

tithe may sometimes be a tax of no more than onefifth part, or four shillings in the pound; whereas upon that

of poorer lands, it may sometimes be a tax of onehalf, or of ten shillings in the pound.

The tithe, as it is frequently a very unequal tax upon the rent, so it is always a great discouragement both to

the improvements of the landlord and to the cultivation of the farmer. The one cannot venture to make the

most important, which are generally the most expensive improvements, nor the other to raise the most

valuable, which are generally too the most expensive crops, when the church, which lays out no part of the

expense, is to share so very largely in the profit. The cultivation of madder was for a long time confined by

the tithe to the United Provinces, which, being Presbyterian countries, and upon that account exempted from

this destructive tax, enjoyed a sort of monopoly of that useful dyeing drug against the rest of Europe. The late

attempts to introduce the culture of this plant into England have been made only in consequence of the statute

which enacted that five shillings an acre should be received in lieu of all manner of tithe upon madder.

As through the greater part of Europe the church, so in many different countries of Asia the state, is

principally supported by a landtax, proportioned, not to the rent, but to the produce of the land. In China, the

principal revenue of the sovereign consists in a tenth part of the produce of all lands of the empire. This tenth

part, however, is estimated so very moderately that, in many provinces, it is said not to exceed a thirtieth part

of the ordinary produce. The landtax or landrent which used to be paid to the Mahometan government of

Bengal, before that country fell into the hands of the English East India Company, is said to have amounted

to about a fifth part of the produce. The landtax of ancient Egypt is said likewise to have amounted to a fifth

In Asia, this sort of landtax is said to interest the sovereign in the improvement and cultivation of land. The

sovereigns of China, those of Bengal while under the Mahometan government, and those of ancient Egypt,

are said accordingly to have been extremely attentive to the making and maintaining of good roads and

navigable canals, in order to increase, as much as possible, both the quantity and value of every part of the

produce of the land, by procuring to every part of it the most extensive market which their own dominions

could afford. The tithe of the church is divided into such small portions that no one of its proprietors can have

any interest of this kind. The parson of a parish could never find his account in making a road or canal to a

distant part of the country, in order to extend the market for the produce of his own particular parish. Such

taxes, when destined for the maintenance of the state, have some advantages which may serve in some

measure to balance their inconveniency. When destined for the maintenance of the church, they are attended

Taxes upon the produce of land may be levied either in kind, or, according to a certain valuation, in money.

The parson of a parish, or a gentleman of small fortune who lives upon his estate, may sometimes, perhaps,

find some advantage in receiving, the one his tithe, and the other his rent, in kind. The quantity to be

collected, and the district within which it is to be collected, are so small that they both can oversee, with their

own eyes, the collection and disposal of every part of what is due to them. A gentleman of great fortune, who

lived in the capital, would be in danger of suffering much by the neglect, and more by the fraud of his factors

and agents, if the rents of an estate in a distant province were to be paid to him in this manner. The loss of the

sovereign from the abuse and depredation of his taxgatherers would necessarily be much greater. The

servants of the most careless private person are, perhaps, more under the eye of their master than those of the

most careful prince; and a public revenue which was paid in kind would suffer so much from the

mismanagement of the collectors that a very small part of what was levied upon the people would ever arrive

at the treasury of the prince. Some part of the public revenue of China, however, is said to be paid in this

manner. The mandarins and other taxgatherers will, no doubt, find their advantage in continuing the practice

A tax upon the produce of land which is levied in money may be levied either according to a valuation which

varies with all the variations of the market price, or according to a fixed valuation, a bushel of wheat, for

example, being always valued at one and the same money price, whatever may be the state of the market. The

produce of a tax levied in the former way will vary only according to the variations in the real produce of the

land, according to the improvement or neglect of cultivation. The produce of a tax levied in the latter way

will vary, not only according to the variations in the produce of the land, but according to both those in the

value of the precious metals and those in the quantity of those metals which is at different times contained in

coin of the same denomination. The produce of the former will always bear the same proportion to the value

of the real produce of the land. The produce of the latter may, at different times, bear very different

When, instead either of a certain portion of the produce of land, or of the price of a certain portion, a certain

sum of money is to be paid in full compensation for all tax or tithe, the tax becomes, in this case, exactly of

the same nature with the landtax of England. It neither rises nor falls with the rent of the land. It neither

encourages nor discourages improvement. The tithe in the greater part of those parishes which pay what is

called a Modus in lieu of all other tithe is a tax of this kind. During the Mahometan government of Bengal,

instead of the payment in kind of a fifth part of the produce, a modus, and, it is said, a very moderate one,

was established in the greater part of the districts or zemindaries of the country. Some of the servants of the

East India Company, under pretence of restoring the public revenue to its proper value, have, in some

provinces, exchanged this modus for a payment in kind. Under their management this change is likely both to

discourage cultivation, and to give new opportunities for abuse in the collection of the public revenue which

has fallen very much below what it was said to have been when it first fell under the management of the

company. The servants of the company may, perhaps, have profited by this change, but at the expense, it is

The rent of a house may be distinguished into two parts, of which the one may very properly be called the

The buildingrent is the interest or profit of the capital expended in building the house. In order to put the

trade of a builder upon a level with other trades, it is necessary that this rent should be sufficient, first, to pay

him the same interest which he would have got for his capital if he had lent it upon good security; and,

secondly, to keep the house in constant repair, or, what comes to the same thing, to replace, within a certain

term of years, the capital which had been employed in building it. The buildingrent, or the ordinary profit of

building, is, therefore, everywhere regulated by the ordinary interest of money. Where the market rate of

interest is four per cent the rent of a house which, over and above paying the groundrent, affords six or six

and a half per cent upon the whole expense of building, may perhaps afford a sufficient profit to the builder.

Where the market rate of interest is five per cent, it may perhaps require seven or seven and a half per cent. If,

in proportion to the interest of money, the trade of the builder affords at any time a much greater profit than

this, it will soon draw so much capital from other trades as will reduce the profit to its proper level. If it

affords at any time much less than this, other trades will soon draw so much capital from it as will again raise

Whatever part of the whole rent of a house is over and above what is sufficient for affording this reasonable

profit naturally goes to the groundrent; and where the owner of the ground and the owner of the building are

two different persons, is, in most cases, completely paid to the former. This surplus rent is the price which the

inhabitant of the house pays for some real or supposed advantage of the situation. In country houses at a

distance from any great town, where there is plenty of ground to choose upon, the groundrent is scarce

anything, or no more than what the ground which the house stands upon would pay if employed in

agriculture. In country villas in the neighborhood of some great town, it is sometimes a good deal higher, and

the peculiar conveniency or beauty of situation is there frequently very well paid for. Groundrents are

generally highest in the capital, and in those particular parts of it where there happens to be the greatest

demand for houses, whatever be the reason of that demand, whether for trade and business, for pleasure and

A tax upon houserent, payable by the tenant and proportioned to the whole rent of each house, could not, for

any considerable time at least, affect the buildingrent. If the builder did not get his reasonable profit, he

would be obliged to quit the trade; which, by raising the demand for building, would in a short time bring

back his profit to its proper level with that of other trades. Neither would such a tax fall altogether upon the

groundrent; but it would divide itself in such a manner as to fall partly upon the inhabitant of the house, and

Let us suppose, for example, that a particular person judges that he can afford for houserent an expense of

sixty pounds a year; and let us suppose, too, that a tax of four shillings in the pound, or of onefifth, payable

by the inhabitant, is laid upon houserent. A house of sixty pounds rent will in this case cost him

seventytwo pounds a year, which is twelve pounds more than he thinks he can afford. He will, therefore,

content himself with a worse house, or a house of fifty pounds rent, which, with the additional ten pounds

that he must pay for the tax, will make up the sum of sixty pounds a year, the expense which he judges he can

afford; and in order to pay the tax he will give up a part of the additional conveniency which he might have

had from a house of ten pounds a year more rent. He will give up, I say, a part of this additional conveniency;

for he will seldom be obliged to give up the whole, but will, in consequence of the tax, get a better house for

fifty pounds a year than he could have got if there had been no tax. For as a tax of this kind by taking away

this particular competitor, must diminish the competition for houses of sixty pounds rent, so it must likewise

diminish it for those of fifty pounds rent, and in the same manner for those of all other rents, except the

lowest rent, for which it would for some time increase the competition. But the rents of every class of houses

for which the competition was diminished would necessarily be more or less reduced. As no part of this

reduction, however, could, for any considerable time at least, affect the buildingrent, the whole of it must in

the longrun necessarily fall upon the groundrent. The final payment of this tax, therefore, would fall partly

upon the inhabitant of the house, who, in order to pay his share, would be obliged to give up a part of his

conveniency, and partly upon the owner of the ground, who, in order to pay his share, would be obliged to

give up a part of his revenue. In what proportion this final payment would be divided between them it is not

perhaps very easy to ascertain. The division would probably be very different in different circumstances, and

a tax of this kind might, according to those different circumstances, affect very unequally both the inhabitant

The inequality with which a tax of this kind might fall upon the owners of different groundrents would arise

altogether from the accidental inequality of this division. But the inequality with which it might fall upon the

inhabitants of different houses would arise not only from this, but from another cause. The proportion of the

expense of houserent to the whole expense of living is different in the different degrees of fortune. It is

perhaps highest in the highest degree, and it diminishes gradually through the inferior degrees, so as in

general to be lowest in the lowest degree. The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They

find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and

vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to

the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon houserents, therefore,

would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be

anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense,

not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

The rent of houses, though it in some respects resembles the rent of land, is in one respect essentially

different from it. The rent of land is paid for the use of a productive subject. The land which pays it produces

it. The rent of houses is paid for the use of an unproductive subject. Neither the house nor the ground which it

stands upon produce anything. The person who pays the rent, therefore, must draw it from some other source

of revenue distinct from the independent of this subject. A tax upon the rent of houses, so far as it falls upon

the inhabitants, must be drawn from the same source as the rent itself, and must be paid from their revenue,

whether derived from the wages of labour, the profits of stock, or the rent of land. So far as it falls upon the

inhabitants, it is one of those taxes which fall, not upon one only, but indifferently upon all the three different

sources of revenue, and is in every respect of the same nature as a tax upon any other sort of consumable

commodities. In general there is not, perhaps, any one article of expense or consumption by which the

liberality or narrowness of a man's whole expense can be better judged of than by his houserent. A

proportional tax upon this particular article of expense might, perhaps, produce a more considerable revenue

than any which has hitherto been drawn from it in any part of Europe. If the tax indeed was very high, the

greater part of people would endeavour to evade it, as much as they could, by contenting themselves with

smaller houses, and by turning the greater part of their expense into some other channel.

The rent of houses might easily be ascertained with sufficient accuracy by a policy of the same kind with that

which would be necessary for ascertaining the ordinary rent of land. Houses not inhabited ought to pay no

tax. A tax upon them would fall altogether upon the proprietor, who would thus be taxed for a subject which

afforded him neither conveniency nor revenue. Houses inhabited by the proprietor ought to be rated, not

according to the expense which they might have cost in building, but according to the rent which an equitable

arbitration might judge them likely to bring if leased to a tenant. If rated according to the expense which they

may have cost in building, a tax of three or four shillings in the pound, joined with other taxes, would ruin

almost all the rich and great families of this, and, I believe, of every other civilised country. Whoever will

examine, with attention, the different town and country houses of some of the richest and greatest families in

this country will find that, at the rate of only six and a half or seven per cent upon the original expense of

building, their houserent is nearly equal to the whole net rent of their estates. It is the accumulated expense

of several successive generations, laid out upon objects of great beauty and magnificance, indeed; but, in

Groundrents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon groundrents

would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the groundrent, who acts

always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground. More or less

can be got for it according as the competitors happen to be richer or poorer, or can afford to gratify their

fancy for a particular spot of ground at a greater or smaller expense. In every country the greatest number of

rich competitors is in the capital, and it is there accordingly that the highest groundrents are always to be

found. As the wealth of those competitors would in no respect be increased by a tax upon groundrents, they

would not probably be disposed to pay more for the use of the ground. Whether the tax was to be advanced

by the inhabitant, or by the owner of the ground, would be of little importance. The more the inhabitant was

obliged to pay for the tax, the less he would incline to pay for the ground; so that the final payment of the tax

would fall altogether upon the owner of the groundrent. The groundrents of uninhabited houses ought to

Both groundrents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases,

enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be taken from him in

order to defray the expenses of the state, no discouragement will thereby be given to any sort of industry. The

annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the

people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Groundrents and the ordinary rent of land are,

therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.

Groundrents seem, in this respect, a more proper subject of peculiar taxation than even the ordinary rent of

land. The ordinary rent of land is, in many cases, owing partly at least to the attention and good management

of the landlord. A very heavy tax might discourage too, much this attention and good management.

Groundrents, so far as they exceed the ordinary rent of land, are altogether owing to the good government of

the sovereign, which, by protecting the industry either of the whole people, or of the inhabitants of some

particular place, enables them to pay so much more than its real value for the ground which they build their

houses upon; or to make to its owner so much more than compensation for the loss which he might sustain by

this use of it. Nothing can be more reasonable than that a fund which owes its existence to the good

government of the state should be taxed peculiarly, or should contribute something more than the greater part

Though, in many different countries of Europe, taxes have been imposed upon the rent of houses, I do not

know of any in which groundrents have been considered as a separate subject of taxation. The contrivers of

taxes have, probably, found some difficulty in ascertaining what part of the rent ought to be considered as

groundrent, and what part ought to be considered as buildingrent. It should not, however, seem very

In Great Britain the rent of houses is supposed to be taxed in the same proportion as the rent of land by what

is called the annual landtax. The valuation, according to which each different parish and district is assessed

to this tax, is always the same. It was originally extremely unequal, and it still continues to be so. Through the

greater part of the kingdom this tax falls still more lightly upon the rent of houses than upon that of land. In

some few districts only, which were originally rated high, and in which the rents of houses have fallen

considerably, the landtax of three or four shillings in the pound is said to amount to an equal proportion of

the real rent of houses. Untenanted houses, though by law subject to the tax, are, in most districts, exempted

from it by the favour of the assessors; and this exemption sometimes occasions some little variation in the

rate of particular houses, though that of the district is always the same. Improvements of rent, by new

buildings, repairs, etc., go to the discharge of the district, which occasions still further variations in the rate of

In the province of Holland every house is taxed at two and a half per cent of its value, without any regard

either to the rent which it actually pays, or to the circumstances of its being tenanted or untenanted. There

seems to be a hardship in obliging the proprietor to pay a tax for an untenanted house, from which he can

derive no revenue, especially so very heavy a tax. In Holland, where the market rate of interest does not

exceed three per cent, two and a half per cent upon the whole value of the house must, in most cases, amount

to more than a third of the buildingrent, perhaps of the whole rent. The valuation, indeed, according to

which the houses are rated, though very unequal, is said to be always below the real value. When a house is

rebuilt, improved, or enlarged, there is a new valuation, and the tax is rated accordingly.

The contrivers of the several taxes which in England have, at different times, been imposed upon houses,

seem to have imagined that there was some great difficulty in ascertaining, with tolerable exactness, what

was the real rent of every house. They have regulated their taxes, therefore, according to some more obvious

circumstances, such as they had probably imagined would, in most cases, bear some proportion to the rent.

The first tax of this kind was hearthmoney, or a tax of two shillings upon every hearth. In order to ascertain

how many hearths were in the house, it was necessary that the taxgatherer should enter every room in it.

This odious visit rendered the tax odious. Soon after the revolution, therefore, it was abolished as a badge of

The next tax of this kind was a tax of two shillings upon every dwellinghouse inhabited. A house with ten

windows to pay four shillings more. A house with twenty windows and upwards to pay eight shillings. This

tax was afterwards so far altered that houses with twenty windows, and with less than thirty, were ordered to

pay ten shillings, and those with thirty windows and upwards to pay twenty shillings. The number of

windows can, in most cases, be counted from the outside, and, in all cases, without entering every room in the

house. The visit of the taxgatherer, therefore, was less offensive in this tax than in the hearthmoney.

This tax was afterwards repealed, and in the room of it was established the windowtax, which has

undergone, too, several alterations and augmentations. The windowtax, as it stands at present (January

1775), over and above the duty of three shillings upon every house in England, and of one shilling upon every

house in Scotland, lays a duty upon every window, which, in England, augments gradually from twopence,

the lowest rate, upon houses with not more than seven windows, to two shillings, the highest rate, upon

The principal objection to all such taxes of the worst is their inequality, an inequality of the worst kind, as

they must frequently fall much heavier upon the poor than upon the rich. A house of ten pounds rent in a

country town may sometimes have more windows than a house of five hundred pounds rent in London; and

though the inhabitant of the former is likely to be a much poorer man than that of the latter, yet so far as his

contribution is regulated by the windowtax, he must contribute more to the support of the state. Such taxes

are, therefore, directly contrary to the first of the four maxims above mentioned. They do not seem to offend

The natural tendency of the windowtax, and of all other taxes upon houses, is to lower rents. The more a

man pays for the tax, the less, it is evident, he can afford to pay for the rent. Since the imposition of the

windowtax, however, the rents of houses have upon the whole risen, more or less, in almost every town and

village of Great Britain with which I am acquainted. Such has been almost everywhere the increase of the

demand for houses, that it has raised the rents more than the windowtax could sink them; one of the many

proofs of the great prosperity of the country, and of the increasing revenue of its inhabitants. Had it not been

The revenue or profit arising from stock naturally divides itself into two parts; that which pays the interest,

and which belongs to the owner of the stock, and that surplus part which is over and above what is necessary

This latter part of profit is evidently a subject not taxable directly. It is the compensation, and in most cases it

is no more than a very moderate compensation, for the risk and trouble of employing the stock. The employer

must have this compensation, otherwise he cannot, consistently with his own interest, continue the

employment. If he was taxed directly, therefore, in proportion to the whole profit, he would be obliged either

to raise the rate of his profit, or to charge the tax upon the interest of money; that is, to pay less interest. If he

raised the rate of his profit in proportion to the tax, the whole tax, though it might be advanced by him, would

be finally paid by one or other of two different sets of people, according to the different ways in which he

might employ the stock of which he had the management. If he employed it as a farming stock in the

cultivation of land, he could raise the rate of his profit only by retaining a greater portion, or, what comes to

the same thing, the price of a greater portion of the produce of the land; and as this could be done only by a

reduction of rent, the final payment of the tax would fall upon the landlord. If he employed it as a mercantile

or manufacturing stock, he could raise the rate of his profit only by raising the price of his goods; in which

case the final payment of the tax would fall altogether upon the consumers of those goods. If he did not raise

the rate of his profit, he would be obliged to charge the whole tax upon that part of it which was allotted for

the interest of money. He could afford less interest for whatever stock he borrowed, and the whole weight of

the tax would in this case fall ultimately upon the interest of money. So far as he could not relieve himself

from the tax in the one way, he would be obliged to relieve himself in the other.

The interest of money seems at first sight a subject equally capable of being taxed directly as the rent of land.

Like the rent of land, it is a net produce which remains after completely compensating the whole risk and

trouble of employing the stock. As a tax upon the rent of land cannot raise rents; because the net produce

which remains after replacing the stock of the farmer, together with his reasonable profit, cannot be greater

after the tax than before it, so, for the same reason, a tax upon the interest of money could not raise the rate of

interest; the quantity of stock or money in the country, like the quantity of land, being supposed to remain the

same after the tax as before it. The ordinary rate of profit, it has been shown in the first book, is everywhere

regulated by the quantity of stock to be employed in proportion to the quantity of the employment, or of the

business which must be done by it. But the quantity of the employment, or of the business to be done by

stock, could neither be increased nor diminished by any tax upon the interest of money. If the quantity of the

stock to be employed, therefore, was neither increased nor diminished by it, the ordinary rate of profit would

necessarily remain the same. But the portion of this profit necessary for compensating the risk and trouble of

the employer would likewise remain the same, that risk and trouble being in no respect altered. The residue,

therefore, that portion which belongs to the owner of the stock, and which pays the interest of money, would

necessarily remain the same too. At first sight, therefore, the interest of money seems to be a subject as fit to

There are, however, two different circumstances which render the interest of money a much less proper

First, the quantity and value of the land which any man possesses can never be a secret, and can always be

ascertained with great exactness. But the whole amount of the capital stock which he possesses is almost

always a secret, and can scarce ever be ascertained with tolerable exactness. It is liable, besides, to almost

continual variations. A year seldom passes away, frequently not a month, sometimes scarce a single day, in

which it does not rise or fall more or less. An inquisition into every man's private circumstances, and an

inquisition which, in order to accommodate the tax to them, watched over all the fluctuations of his fortunes,

would be a source of such continual and endless vexation as no people could support.

Secondly, land is a subject which cannot be removed; whereas stock easily may. The proprietor of land is

necessarily a citizen of the particular country in which his estate lies. The proprietor of stock is properly a

citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country. He would be apt to abandon the

country in which he was exposed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to a burdensome tax, and

would remove his stock to some other country where he could either carry on his business, or enjoy his

fortune more at his ease. By removing his stock he would put an end to all the industry which it had

maintained in the country which he left. Stock cultivates land; stock employs labour. A tax which tended to

drive away stock from any particular country would so far tend to dry up every source of revenue both to the

sovereign and to the society. Not only the profits of stock, but the rent of land and the wages of labour would

The nations, accordingly, who have attempted to tax the revenue arising from stock, instead of any severe

inquisition of this kind, have been obliged to content themselves with some very loose, and, therefore, more

or less arbitrary, estimation. The extreme inequality and uncertainty of a tax assessed in this manner can be

compensated only by its extreme moderation, in consequence of which every man finds himself rated so very

much below his real revenue that he gives himself little disturbance though his neighbour should be rated

By what is called the landtax in England, it was intended that stock should be taxed in the same proportion

as land. When the tax upon land was at four shillings in the pound, or at onefifth of the supposed rent, it was

intended that stock should be taxed at onefifth of the supposed interest. When the present annual landtax

was first imposed, the legal rate of interest was six per cent. Every hundred pounds stock, accordingly, was

supposed to be taxed at twentyfour shillings, the fifth part of six pounds. Since the legal rate of interest has

been reduced to five per cent every hundred pounds stock is supposed to be taxed at twenty shillings only.

The sum to be raised by what is called the landtax was divided between the country and the principal towns.

The greater part of it was laid upon the country; and of what was laid upon the towns, the greater part was

assessed upon the houses. What remained to be assessed upon the stock or trade of the towns (for the stock

upon the land was not meant to be taxed) was very much below the real value of that stock or trade. Whatever

inequalities, therefore, there might be in the original assessment gave little disturbance. Every parish and

district still continues to be rated for its land, its houses, and its stock, according to the original assessment;

and the almost universal prosperity of the country, which in most places has raised very much the value of all

these, has rendered those inequalities of still less importance now. The rate, too, upon each district continuing

always the same, the uncertainty of this tax so far as it might be assessed upon the stock of any individual,

has been very much diminished, as well as rendered of much less consequence. If the greater part of the lands

of England are not rated to the landtax at half their actual value, the greater part of the stock of England is,

perhaps, scarce rated at the fiftieth part of its actual value. In some towns the whole landtax is assessed upon

houses, as in Westminster, where stock and trade are free. It is otherwise in London.

In all countries a severe inquisition into the circumstances of private persons has been carefully avoided.

At Hamburg every inhabitant is obliged to pay to the state onefourth per cent of all that he possesses; and as

the wealth of the people of Hamburg consists principally in stock, this tax may be considered as a tax upon

stock. Every man assesses himself, and, in the presence of the magistrate, puts annually into the public coffer

a certain sum of money which he declares upon oath to be onefourth per cent of all that he possesses, but

without declaring what it amounts to, or being liable to any examination upon that subject. This tax is

generally supposed to be paid with great fidelity. In a small republic, where the people have entire confidence

in their magistrates, are convinced of the necessity of the tax for the support of the state, and believe that it

will be faithfully applied to that purpose, such conscientious and voluntary payment may sometimes be

The canton of Unterwald in Switzerland is frequently ravaged by storms and inundations, and is thereby

exposed to extraordinary expenses. Upon such occasions the people assemble, and every one is said to

declare with the greatest frankness what he is worth in order to be taxed accordingly. At Zurich the law

orders that, in cases of necessity, every one should be taxed in proportion to his revenue the amount of

which he is obliged to declare upon oath. They have no suspicion, it is said, that any of their fellowcitizens

will deceive them. At Basel the principal revenue of the state arises from a small custom upon goods

exported. All the citizens make oath that they will pay every three months all the taxes imposed by the law.

All merchants and even all innkeepers are trusted with keeping themselves the account of the goods which

they sell either within or without the territory. At the end of every three months they send this account to the

treasurer with the amount of the tax computed at the bottom of it. It is not suspected that the revenue suffers

To oblige every citizen to declare publicly upon oath the amount of his fortune must not, it seems, in those

Swiss cantons be reckoned a hardship. At Hamburg it would be reckoned the greatest. Merchants engaged in

the hazardous protects of trade all tremble at the thoughts of being obliged at all to expose the real state of

their circumstances. The ruin of their credit and the miscarriage of their projects, they foresee, would too

often be the consequence. A sober and parsimonious people, who are strangers to all such projects, do not

In Holland, soon after the exaltation of the late Prince of Orange to the stadtholdership, a tax of two per cent,

or the fiftieth penny, as it was called, was imposed upon the whole substance of every citizen. Every citizen

assessed himself and paid his tax in the same manner as at Hamburg, and it was in general supposed to have

been paid with great fidelity. The people had at that time the greatest affection for their new government,

which they had just established by a general insurrection. The tax was to be paid but once, in order to relieve

the state in a particular exigency. It was, indeed, too heavy to be permanent. In a country where the market

rate of interest seldom exceeds three per cent, a tax of two per cent amounts to thirteen shillings and

fourpence in the pound upon the highest net revenue which is commonly drawn from stock. It is a tax which

very few people could pay without encroaching more or less upon their capitals. In a particular exigency the

people may, from great public zeal, make a great effort, and give up even a part of their capital in order to

relieve the state. But it is impossible that they should continue to do so for any considerable time; and if they

did, the tax would ruin them so completely as to render them altogether incapable of supporting the state.

The tax upon stock imposed by the Landtax Bill in England, though it is proportioned to the capital, is not

intended to diminish or take away any part of that capital. It is meant only to be a tax upon the interest of

money proportioned to that upon the rent of land, so that when the latter is at four shillings in the pound, the

former may be at four shillings in the pound too. The tax at Hamburg and the still more moderate tax of

Unterwald and Zurich are meant, in the same manner, to be taxes, not upon the capital, but upon the interest

or net revenue of stock. That of Holland was meant to be a tax upon the capital.

In some countries extraordinary taxes are imposed upon the profits of stock, sometimes when employed in

Of the former kind are in England the tax upon hawkers and pedlars, that upon hackney coaches and chairs,

and that which the keepers of alehouses pay for a licence to retail ale and spirituous liquors. During the late

war, another tax of the same kind was proposed upon shops. The war having been undertaken, it was said, in

defence of the trade of the country, the merchants, who were to profit by it, ought to contribute towards the

A tax, however, upon the profits of stock employed in any particular branch of trade can never fall finally

upon the dealers (who must in all ordinary cases have their reasonable profit, and where the competition is

free can seldom have more than that profit), but always upon the consumers, who must be obliged to pay in

the price of the goods the tax which the dealer advances; and generally with some overcharge.

A tax of this kind when it is proportioned to the trade of the dealer is finally paid by the consumer, and

occasions no oppression to the dealer. When it is not so proportioned, but is the same upon all dealers, though

in this case, too, it is finally paid by the consumer, yet it favours the great, and occasions some oppression to

the small dealer. The tax of five shillings a week upon every hackney coach, and that of ten shillings a year

upon every hackney chair, so far as it is advanced by the different keepers of such coaches and chairs, is

exactly enough proportioned to the extent of their respective dealings. It neither favours the great, nor

oppresses the smaller dealer. The tax of twenty shillings a year for a licence to sell ale; of forty shillings for a

licence to sell spirituous liquors; and of forty shillings more for a licence to sell wine, being the same upon all

retailers, must necessarily give some advantage to the great, and occasion some oppression to the small

dealers. The former must find it more easy to get back the tax in the price of their goods than the latter. The

moderation of the tax, however, renders this inequality of less importance, and it may to many people appear

not improper to give some discouragement to the multiplication of little alehouses. The tax upon shops, it

was intended, should be the same upon all shops. It could not well have been otherwise. It would have been

impossible to proportion with tolerable exactness the tax upon a shop to the extent of the trade carried on in it

without such an inquisition as would have been altogether insupportable in a free country. If the tax had been

considerable, it would have oppressed the small, and forced almost the whole retail trade into the hands of the

great dealers. The competition of the former being taken away, the latter would have enjoyed a monopoly of

the trade, and like all other monopolists would soon have combined to raise their profits much beyond what

was necessary for the payment of the tax. The final payment, instead of falling upon the shopkeeper, would

have fallen upon the consumer, with a considerable overcharge to the profit of the shopkeeper. For these

reasons the project of a tax upon shops was laid aside, and in the room of it was substituted the subsidy, 1759.

What in France is called the personal taille is, perhaps, the most important tax upon the profits of stock

In the disorderly state of Europe during the prevalence of the feudal government, the sovereign was obliged

to content himself with taxing those who were too weak to refuse to pay taxes. The great lords, though

willing to assist him upon particular emergencies, refused to subject themselves to any constant tax, and he

was not strong enough to force them. The occupiers of land all over Europe were, the greater part of them,

originally bondmen. Through the greater part of Europe they were gradually emancipated. Some of them

acquired the property of landed estates which they held by some base or ignoble tenure, sometimes under the

king, and sometimes under some other great lord, like the ancient copyholders of England. Others without

acquiring the property, obtained leases for terms of years of the lands which they occupied under their lord,

and thus became less dependent upon him. The great lords seem to have beheld the degree of prosperity and

independency which this inferior order of men had thus come to enjoy with a malignant and contemptuous

indignation, and willingly consented that the sovereign should tax them. In some countries this tax was

confined to the lands which were held in property by an ignoble tenure; and, in this case, the taille was said to

be real. The landtax established by the late King of Sardinia, and the taille in the provinces of Languedoc,

Provence, Dauphine, and Brittany, in the generality of Montauban, and in the elections of Agen and

Comdom, as well as in some other districts of France, are taxes upon lands held in property by an ignoble

tenure. In other countries the tax was laid upon the supposed profits of all those who held in farm or lease

lands belonging to other people, whatever might be the tenure by which the proprietor held them; and in this

case the taille was said to be personal. In the greater part of those provinces of France which are called the

Countries of Elections the taille is of this kind. The real taille, as it is imposed only upon a part of the lands of

the country, is necessarily an unequal, but it is not always an arbitrary tax, though it is so upon some

occasions. The personal taille, as it is intended to be proportioned to the profits of a certain class of people

In France the personal taille at present (1775) annually imposed upon the twenty generalities called the

Countries of Elections amounts to 40,107,239 livres, 16 sous. The proportion in which this sum is assessed

upon those different provinces varies from year to year according to the reports which are made to the king's

council concerning the goodness or badness of the crops, as well as other circumstances which may either

increase or diminish their respective abilities to pay. Each generality it divided into a certain number of

elections, and the proportion in which the sum imposed upon the whole generality is divided among those

different elections varies likewise from year to year according to the reports made to the council concerning

their respective abilities. It seems impossible that the council, with the best intentions, can ever proportion

with tolerable exactness either of those two assessments to the real abilities of the province or district upon

which they are respectively laid. Ignorance and misinformation must always, more or less, mislead the most

upright council. The proportion which each parish ought to support of what is assessed upon the whole

election, and that which each individual ought to support of what is assessed upon his particular parish, are

both in the same manner varied, from year to year, according as circumstances are supposed to require. These

circumstances are judged of, in the one case, by the officers of the election, in the other by those of the parish,

and both the one and the other are, more or less, under the direction and influence of the intendant. Not only

ignorance and misinformation, but friendship, party animosity, and private resentment are said frequently to

mislead such assessors. No man subject to such a tax, it is evident, can ever be certain, before he is assessed,

of what he is to pay. He cannot even be certain after he is assessed. If any person has been taxed who ought to

have been exempted, or if any person has been taxed beyond his proportion, though both must pay in the

meantime, yet if they complain, and make good their complaints, the whole parish is reimposed next year in

order to reimburse them. If any of the contributors become bankrupt or insolvent, the collector is obliged to

advance his tax, and the whole parish is reimposed next year in order to reimburse the collector. If the

collector himself should become bankrupt, the parish which elects him must answer for his conduct to the

receiver general of the election. But, as it might be troublesome for the receiver to prosecute the whole parish,

he takes at his choice five or six of the richest contributors and obliges them to make good what had been lost

by the insolvency of the collector. The parish is afterwards reimposed in order to reimburse those five or six.

Such reimpositions are always over and above the taille of the particular year in which they are laid on.

When a tax is imposed upon the profits of stock in a particular branch of trade, the traders are all careful to

bring no more goods to market than what they can sell at a price sufficient to reimburse them for advancing

the tax. Some of them withdraw a part of their stocks from the trade, and the market is more sparingly

supplied than before. The price of the goods rises, and the final payment of the tax falls upon the consumer.

But when a tax is imposed upon the profits of stock employed in agriculture, it is not the interest of the

farmers to withdraw any part of their stock from that employment. Each farmer occupies a certain quantity of

land, for which hi pays rent. For the proper cultivation of this land a certain quantity of stock is necessary,

and by withdrawing any part of this necessary quantity, the farmer is not likely to be more able to pay either

the rent or the tax. In order to pay the tax, it can never be his interest to diminish the quantity of his produce,

nor consequently to supply the market more sparingly than before. The tax, therefore, will never enable him

to raise the price of his produce so as to reimburse himself by throwing the final payment upon the consumer.

The farmer, however, must have his reasonable profit as well as every other dealer, otherwise he must give up

the trade. After the imposition of a tax of this kind, he can get this reasonable profit only by paying less rent

to the landlord. The more he is obliged to pay in the way of tax the less he can afford to pay in the way of

rent. A tax of this kind imposed during the currency of a lease may, no doubt, distress or ruin the farmer.

In the countries where the personal taille takes place, the farmer is commonly assessed in proportion to the

stock which he appears to employ in cultivation. He is, upon this account, frequently afraid to have a good

team of horses or oxen, but endeavours to cultivate with the meanest and most wretched instruments of

husbandry that he can. Such is his distrust in the justice of his assessors that he counterfeits poverty, and

wishes to appear scarce able to pay anything for fear of being obliged to pay too much. By this miserable

policy he does not, perhaps, always consult his own interest in the most effectual manner, and he probably

loses more by the diminution of his produce than he saves by that of his tax. Though, in consequence of this

wretched cultivation, the market is, no doubt, somewhat worse supplied, yet the small rise of price which may

occasion, as it is not likely even to indemnify the farmer for the diminution of his produce, it is still less

likely to enable him to pay more rent to the landlord. The public, the farmer, the landlord, all suffer more or

less by this degraded cultivation. That the personal taille tends, in many different ways, to discourage

cultivation, and consequently to dry up the principal source of the wealth of every great country, I have

What are called polltaxes in the southern provinces of North America, and in the West Indian Islands annual

taxes of so much a head upon every negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain species of stock

employed in agriculture. As the planters are, the greater part of them, both farmers and landlords, the final

payment of the tax falls upon them in their quality of landlords without any retribution.

Taxes of so much a head upon the bondmen employed in cultivation seem anciently to have been common all

over Europe. There subsists at present a tax of this kind in the empire of Russia. It is probably upon this

account that polltaxes of all kinds have often been represented as badges of slavery. Every tax, however, is

to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to government,

indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master. A polltax upon

slaves is altogether different from a polltax upon freemen. The latter is paid by the persons upon whom it is

imposed; the former by a different set of persons. The latter is either altogether arbitrary or altogether

unequal, and in most cases is both the one and the other; the former, though in some respects unequal,

different slaves being of different values, is in no respect arbitrary. Every master who knows the number of

his own slaves knows exactly what he has to pay. Those different taxes, however, being called by the same

The taxes which in Holland are imposed upon men and maidservants are taxes, not upon stock, but upon

expense, and so far resemble the taxes upon consumable commodities. The tax of a guinea a head for every

manservant which has lately been imposed in Great Britain is of the same kind. It falls heaviest upon the

middling rank. A man of two hundred a year may keep a single manservant. A man of ten thousand a year

Taxes upon the profits of stock in particular employments can never affect the interest of money. Nobody

will lend his money for less interest to those who exercise the taxed than to those who exercise the untaxed

employments. Taxes upon the revenue arising from stock in all employments where the government attempts

to levy them with any degree of exactness, will, in many cases, fall upon the interest of money. The

Vingtieme, or twentieth penny, in France is a tax of the same kind with what is called the landtax in

England, and is assessed, in the same manner, upon the revenue arising from land, houses, and stock. So far

as it affects stock it is assessed, though not with great rigour, yet with much more exactness than that part of

the landtax of England which is imposed upon the same fund. It, in many cases, falls altogether upon the

interest of money. Money is frequently sunk in France upon what are called Contracts for the constitution of a

rent; that is, perpetual annuities redeemable at any time by the debtor upon repayment of the sum originally

advanced, but of which this redemption is not exigible by the creditor except in particular cases. The

Vingtieme, seems not to have raised the rate of those annuities, though it is exactly levied upon them all.

While property remains in the possession of the same person, whatever permanent taxes may have been

imposed upon it, they have never been intended to diminish or take away any part of its capital value, but

only some part of the revenue arising from it. But when property changes hands, when it is transmitted either

from the dead to the living, or from the living to the living, such taxes have frequently been imposed upon it

The transference of all sorts of property from the dead to the living, and that of immovable property, of lands

and houses, from the living to the living, are transactions which are in their nature either public and notorious,

or such as cannot be long concealed. Such transactions, therefore, may be taxed directly. The transference of

stock, or movable property, from the living to the living, by the lending of money, is frequently a secret

transaction, and may always be made so. It cannot easily, therefore, be taxed directly. It has been taxed

indirectly in two different ways; first, by requiring that the deed containing the obligation to repay should be

written upon paper or parchment which had paid a certain stampduty, otherwise not to be valid; secondly,

by requiring, under the like penalty of invalidity, that it should be recorded either in a public or secret

frequently been imposed likewise upon the deeds transferring property of all kinds from the dead to the

living, and upon those transferring immovable property from the living to the living, transactions which

The Vicesima Hereditatum, the twentieth penny of inheritances imposed by Augustus upon the ancient

Romans, was a tax upon the transference of property from the dead to the living. Dion Cassius, the author

who writes concerning it the least indistinctly, says that it was imposed upon all successions, legacies, and

donations in case of death, except upon those to the nearest relations and to the poor.

Of the same kind is the Dutch tax upon successions. Collateral successions are taxed, according to the degree

of relation, from five to thirty per cent upon the whole value of the succession. Testamentary donations, or

legacies to collaterals, are subject to the like duties. Those from husband to wife, or from wife to husband, to

the fiftieth penny. The Luctuosa Hereditas, the mournful succession of ascendants to descendants, to the

twentieth penny only. Direct successions, or those of descendants to ascendants, pay no tax. The death of a

father, to such of his children as live in the same house with him, is seldom attended with any increase, and

frequently with a considerable diminution of revenue, by the loss of his industry, of his office, or of some

liferent estate of which he may have been in possession. That tax would be cruel and oppressive which

aggravated their loss by taking from them any part of his succession. It may, however, sometimes be

otherwise with those children who, in the language of the Roman law, are said to be emancipated; in that of

the Scotch law, to be forisfamiliated; that is, who have received their portion, have got families of their own,

and are supported by funds separate and independent of those of their father. Whatever part of his succession

might come to such children would be a real addition to their fortune, and might therefore, perhaps, without

more inconveniency than what attends all duties of this kind, be liable to some tax.

The casualties of the feudal law were taxes upon the transference of land, both from the dead to the living,

and from the living to the living. In ancient times they constituted in every part of Europe one of the principal

The heir of every immediate vassal of the crown paid a certain duty, generally a year's rent, upon receiving

the investiture of the estate. If the heir was a minor, the whole rents of the estate during the continuance of the

minority devolved to the superior without any other charge besides the maintenance of the minor, and the

payment of the widow's dower when there happened to be a dowager upon the land. When the minor came to

be of age, another tax, called Relief, was still due to the superior, which generally amounted likewise to a

year's rent. A long minority, which in the present times so frequently disburdens a great estate of all its

incumbrances and restores the family to their ancient splendour, could in those times have no such effect. The

waste, and not the disincumbrance of the estate, was the common effect of a long minority.

By the feudal law the vassal could not alienate without the consent of his superior, who generally extorted a

fine or composition for granting it. This fine, which was at first arbitrary, came in many countries to be

regulated at a certain portion of the price of the land. In some countries where the greater part of the other

feudal customs have gone into disuse, this tax upon the alienation of land still continues to make a very

considerable branch of the revenue of the sovereign. In the canton of Berne it is so high as a sixth part of the

price of all noble fiefs, and a tenth part of that of all ignoble ones. In the canton of Lucerne the tax upon the

sale of lands is not universal, and takes place only in certain districts. But if any person sells his land in order

to remove out of the territory, he pays ten per cent upon the whole price of the sale. Taxes of the same kind

upon the sale either of all lands, or of lands held by certain tenures, take place in many other countries, and

Such transactions may be taxed indirectly by means either of stampduties, or of duties upon registration, and

those duties either may or may not be proportioned to the value of the subject which is transferred.

In Great Britain the stampduties are higher or lower, not so much according to the value of the property

transferred (an eighteenpenny or halfcrown stamp being sufficient upon a bond for the largest sum of

money) as according to the nature of the deed. The highest do not exceed six pounds upon every sheet of

paper or skin of parchment, and these high duties fall chiefly upon grants from the crown, and upon certain

law proceedings, without any regard to the value of the subject. There are in Great Britain no duties on the

registration of deeds or writings, except the fees of the officers who keep the register, and these are seldom

more than a reasonable recompense for their labour. The crown derives no revenue from them.

In Holland there are both stampduties and duties upon registration, which in some cases are, and in some are

not, proportioned to the value of the property transferred. All testaments must be written upon stamped paper

of which the price is proportioned to the property disposed of, so that there are stamps which cost from

threepence, or three stivers a sheet, to three hundred florins, equal to about twentyseven pounds ten shillings

of our money. If the stamp is of an inferior price to what the testator ought to have made use of, his

succession is confiscated. This is over and above all their other taxes on succession. Except bills of exchange,

and some other mercantile bills, all other deeds, bonds, and contracts are subject to a stampduty. This duty,

however, does not rise in proportion to the value of the subject. All sales of land and of houses, and all

mortgages upon either, must be registered, and, upon registration, pay a duty to the state of two and a half per

cent upon the amount of the price or of the mortgage. This duty is extended to the sale of all ships and vessels

of more than two tons burden, whether decked or undecked. These, it seems, are considered as a sort of

houses upon the water. The sale of movables, when it is ordered by a court of justice, is subject to the like

In France there are both stampduties and duties upon registration. The former are considered as a branch of

the aides or excise, and in the provinces where those duties take place are levied by the excise officers. The

latter are considered as a branch of the domain of the crown, and are levied by a different set of officers.

Those modes of taxation, by stampduties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention. In

the course of little more than a century, however, stampduties have, in Europe, become almost universal,

and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of

Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead to the living fall finally as well as immediately upon

the person to whom the property is transferred. Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether upon the seller. The

seller is almost always under the necessity of selling, and must, therefore, take such a price as he can get. The

buyer is scarce ever under the necessity of buying, and will, therefore, only give such a price as he likes. He

considers what the land will cost him in tax and price together. The more he is obliged to pay in the way of

tax, the less he will be disposed to give in the way of price. Such taxes, therefore, fall almost always upon a

necessitous person, and must, therefore, be frequently very cruel and oppressive. Taxes upon the sale of

newbuilt houses, where the building is sold without the ground, fall generally upon the buyer, because the

builder must generally have his profit, otherwise he must give up the trade. If he advances the tax, therefore,

the buyer must generally repay it to him. Taxes upon the sale of old houses, for the same reason as those upon

the sale of land, fall generally upon the seller, whom in most cases either conveniency or necessity obliges to

sell. The number of newbuilt houses that are annually brought to market is more or less regulated by the

demand. Unless the demand is such as to afford the builder his profit, after paying all expenses, he will build

no more houses. The number of old houses which happen at any time to come to market is regulated by

accidents of which the greater part have no relation to the demand. Two or three great bankruptcies in a

mercantile town will bring many houses to sale which must be sold for what can be got for them. Taxes upon

the sale of groundrents fall altogether upon the seller, for the same reason as those upon the sale of land.

Stampduties, and duties upon the registration of bonds and contracts for borrowed money, fall altogether

upon the borrower, and, in fact, are always paid by him. Duties of the same kind upon law proceedings fall

upon the suitors. They reduce to both the capital value of the subject in dispute. The more it costs to acquire

All taxes upon the transference of property of every kind, so far as they diminish the capital value of that

property, tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. They are all more or

less unthrifty taxes that increase the revenue of the sovereign, which seldom maintains any but unproductive

labourers, at the expense of the capital of the people, which maintains none but productive.

Such taxes, even when they are proportioned to the value of the property transferred, are still unequal, the

frequency of transference not being always equal in property of equal value. When they are not proportioned

to this value, which is the case with the greater part of the stampduties and duties of registration, they are

still more so. They are in no respect arbitrary, but are or may be in all cases perfectly clear and certain.

Though they sometimes fall upon the person who is not very able to pay, the time of payment is in most cases

sufficiently convenient for him. When the payment becomes due, he must in most cases have the money to

pay. They are levied at very little expense, and in general subject the contributors to no other inconveniency

In France the stampduties are not much complained of. Those of registration, which they call the Controle,

are. They give occasion, it is pretended, to much extortion in the officers of the farmersgeneral who collect

the tax, which is in a great measure arbitrary and uncertain. In the greater part of the libels which have been

written against the present system of finances in France the abuses of the Controle make a principal article.

Uncertainty, however, does not seem to be necessarily inherent in the nature of such taxes. If the popular

complaints are well founded, the abuse must arise, not so much from the nature of the tax as from the want of

The registration of mortgages, and in general of all rights upon immovable property, as it gives great security

both to creditors and purchasers, is extremely advantageous to the public. That of the greater part of deeds of

other kinds is frequently inconvenient and even dangerous to individuals, without any advantage to the

public. All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist. The

credit of individuals ought certainly never to depend upon so very slender a security as the probity and

religion of the inferior officers of revenue. But where the fees of registration have been made a source of

revenue to the sovereign, register offices have commonly been multiplied without end, both for the deeds

which ought to be registered, and for those which ought not. In France there are several different sorts of

secret registers. This abuse, though not perhaps a necessary, it must be acknowledged, is a very natural effect

Such stampduties as those in England upon cards and dice, upon newspapers and periodical pamphlets, etc.,

are properly taxes upon consumption; the final payment falls upon the persons who use or consume such

commodities. Such stampduties as those upon licences to retail ale, wine, and spirituous liquors, though

intended, perhaps, to fall upon the profits of the retailers, are likewise finally paid by the consumers of those

liquors. Such taxes, though called by the same name, and levied by the same officers and in the same manner

with the stampduties above mentioned upon the transference of property, are, however, of a quite different

The wages of the inferior classes of workmen, I have endeavoured to show in the first book, are everywhere

necessarily regulated by two different circumstances; the demand for labour, and the ordinary or average

price of provisions. The demand for labour, according as it happens to be either increasing, stationary, or

declining, or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining population, regulates the subsistence of the

labourer, and determines in what degree it shall be, either liberal, moderate, or scanty. The ordinary or

average price of provisions determines the quantity of money which must be paid to the workman in order to

enable him, one year with another, to purchase this liberal, moderate, or scanty subsistence. While the

demand for labour and the price of provisions, therefore, remain the same, a direct tax upon the wages of

labour can have no other effect than to raise them somewhat higher than the tax. Let us suppose, for example,

that in a particular place the demand for labour and the price of provisions were such as to render ten shillings

a week the ordinary wages of labour, and that a tax of onefifth, or four shillings in the pound, was imposed

upon wages. If the demand for labour and the price of provisions remained the same, it would still be

necessary that the labourer should in that place earn such a subsistence as could be bought only for ten

shillings a week free wages. But in order to leave him such free wages after paying such a tax, the price of

labour must in that place soon rise, not to twelve shillings a week only, but to twelve and sixpence; that is, in

order to enable him to pay a tax of onefifth, his wages must necessarily soon rise, not onefifth part only,

but onefourth. Whatever was the proportion of the tax, the wages of labour must in all cases rise, not only in

that proportion, but in a higher proportion. If the tax, for example, was onetenth, the wages of labour must

A direct tax upon the wages of labour, therefore, though the labourer might perhaps pay it out of his hand,

could not properly be said to be even advanced by him; at least if tile demand for labour and the average price

of provisions remained the same after the tax as before it. In all such cases, not only the tax but something

more than the tax would in reality be advanced by the person who immediately employed him. The final

payment would in different cases fall upon different persons. The rise which such a tax might occasion in the

wages of manufacturing labour would be advanced by the master manufacturer, who would both be entitled

and obliged to charge it, with a profit, upon the price of his goods. The final payment of this rise of wages,

therefore, together with the additional profit of the master manufacturer, would fall upon the consumer. The

rise which such a tax might occasion in the wages of country labour would be advanced by the farmer, who,

in order to maintain the same number of labourers as before, would be obliged to employ a greater capital. In

order to get back this greater capital, together with the ordinary profits of stock, it would be necessary that he

should retain a larger portion, or what comes to the same thing, the price of a larger portion, of the produce of

the land, and consequently that he should pay less rent to the landlord. The final payment of this rise of

wages, therefore, would in this case fall upon the landlord, together with the additional profit of the farmer

who had advanced it. In all cases a direct tax upon the wages of labour must, in the longrun, occasion both a

greater reduction in the rent of land, and a greater rise in the price of manufactured goods, than would have

followed from the proper assessment of a sum equal to the produce of the tax partly upon the rent of land, and

If direct taxes upon the wages of labour have not always occasioned a proportionable rise in those wages, it is

because they have generally occasioned a considerable fall in the demand for labour. The declension of

industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, the diminution of the annual produce of the land and

labour of the country, have generally been the effects of such taxes. In consequence of them, however, the

price of labour must always be higher than it otherwise would have been in the actual state of the demand:

and this enhancement of price, together with the profit of those who advance it, must always be finally paid

A tax upon the wages of country labour does not raise the price of the rude produce of land in proportion to

the tax, for the same reason that a tax upon the farmer's profit does not raise that price in that proportion.

Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries. In France that part of

the taille which is charged upon the industry of workmen and daylabourers in country villages is properly a

tax of this kind. Their wages are computed according to the common rate of the district in which they reside,

and that they may be as little liable as possible to any overcharge, their yearly gains are estimated at no more

than two hundred working days in the year. The tax of each individual is varied from year to year according

to different circumstances, of which the collector or the commissary whom the intendant appoints to assist

him are the judges. In Bohemia, in consequence of the alteration in the system of finances which was begun

in 1748, a very heavy tax is imposed upon the industry of artificers. They are divided into four classes. The

highest class pay a hundred florins a year which, at twoandtwenty pence halfpenny a florin, amounts to L9

7s. 6d. The second class are taxed at seventy; the third at fifty; and the fourth, comprehending artificers in

The recompense of ingenious artists and of men of liberal professions, I have endeavoured to show in the first

book, necessarily keeps a certain proportion to the emoluments of inferior trades. A tax upon this

recompense, therefore, could have no other effect than to raise it somewhat higher than in proportion to the

tax. If it did not rise in this manner, the ingenious arts and the liberal professions, being no longer upon a

level with other trades, would be so much deserted that they would soon return to that level.

The emoluments of offices are not, like those of trades and professions, regulated by the free competition of

the market, and do not, therefore, always bear a just proportion to what the nature of the employment

requires. They are, perhaps, in most countries, higher than it requires; the persons who have the

administration of government being generally disposed to reward both themselves and their immediate

dependants rather more than enough. The emoluments of offices, therefore, can in most cases very well bear

to be taxed. The persons, besides, who enjoy public offices, especially the more lucrative, are in all countries

the objects of general envy, and a tax upon their emoluments, even though it should be somewhat higher than

upon any other sort of revenue, is always a very popular tax. In England, for example, when by the landtax

every other sort of revenue was supposed to be assessed at four shillings in the pound, it was very popular to

lay a real tax of five shillings and sixpence in the pound upon the salaries of offices which exceeded a

hundred pounds a year, the pensions of the younger branches of the royal family, the pay of the officers of the

army and navy, and a few others less obnoxious to envy excepted. There are in England no other direct taxes

The taxes which, it is intended, should fall indifferently upon every different species of revenue, are

capitation taxes, and taxes upon consumable commodities. These must be paid indifferently from whatever

revenue the contributors may possess; from the rent of their land, from the profits of their stock, or from the

Capitation taxes, if it is attempted to proportion them to the fortune or revenue of each contributor, become

altogether arbitrary. The state of a man's fortune varies from day to day, and without an inquisition more

intolerable than any tax, and renewed at least once every year, can only be guessed at. His assessment,

therefore, must in most cases depend upon the good or bad humour of his assessors, and must, therefore, be

Capitation taxes, if they are proportioned not to the supposed fortune, but to the rank of each contributor,

become altogether unequal, the degrees of fortune being frequently unequal in the same degree of rank.

Such taxes, therefore, if it is attempted to render them equal, become altogether arbitrary and uncertain, and if

it is attempted to render them certain and not arbitrary, become altogether unequal. Let the tax be light or

heavy, uncertainty is always a great grievance. In a light tax a considerable degree of inequality may be

In the different polltaxes which took place in England during the reign of William III the contributors were,

the greater part of them, assessed according to the degree of their rank; as dukes, marquisses, earls, viscounts,

barons, esquires, gentlemen, the eldest and youngest sons of peers, etc. All shopkeepers and tradesmen worth

more than three hundred pounds, that is, the better sort of them, were subject to the same assessment, how

great soever might be the difference in their fortunes. Their rank was more considered than their fortune.

Several of those who in the first polltax were rated according to their supposed fortune were afterwards

rated according to their rank. Serjeants, attorneys, and proctors at law, who in the first polltax were assessed

at three shillings in the pound of their supposed income, were afterwards assessed as gentlemen. In the

assessment of a tax which was not very heavy, a considerable degree of inequality had been found less

In the capitation which has been levied in France without any interruption since the beginning of the present

century, the highest orders of people are rated according to their rank by an invariable tariff; the lower orders

of people, according to what is supposed to be their fortune, by an assessment which varies from year to year.

The officers of the king's court, the judges and other officers in the superior courts of justice, the officers of

the troops, etc., are assessed in the first manner. The inferior ranks of people in the provinces are assessed in

the second. In France the great easily submit to a considerable degree of inequality in a tax which, so far as it

affects them, is not a very heavy one, but could not brook the arbitrary assessment of an intendant. The

inferior ranks of people must, in that country, suffer patiently the usage which their superiors think proper to

In England the different polltaxes never produced the sum which had been expected from them, or which, it

was supposed, they might have produced, had they been exactly levied. In France the capitation always

produces the sum expected from it. The mild government of England, when it assessed the different ranks of

people to the polltax, contented itself with what that assessment happened to produce, and required no

compensation for the loss which the state might sustain either by those who could not pay, or by those who

would not pay (for there were many such), and who, by the indulgent execution of the law, were not forced to

pay. The more severe government of France assesses upon each generality a certain sum, which the intendant

must find as he can. If any province complains of being assessed too high, it may, in the assessment of next

year, obtain an abatement proportioned to the overcharge of the year before. But it must pay in the meantime.

The intendant, in order to be sure of finding the sum assessed upon his generality, was empowered to assess it

in a larger sum that the failure or inability of some of the contributors might be compensated by the

overcharge of the rest, and till 1765 the fixation of this surplus assessment was left altogether to his

discretion. In that year, indeed, the council assumed this power to itself. In the capitation of the provinces, it

is observed by the perfectly wellinformed author of the Memoires upon the impositions in France, the

proportion which falls upon the nobility, and upon those whose privileges exempt them from the taille, is the

least considerable. The largest falls upon those subject to the taille, who are assessed to the capitation at so

Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied upon the lower ranks of people, are direct taxes upon the wages of

Capitation taxes are levied at little expense, and, where they are rigorously exacted, afford a very sure

revenue to the state. It is upon this account that in countries where the ease, comfort, and security of the

inferior ranks of people are little attended to, capitation taxes are very common. It is in general, however, but

a small part of the public revenue which, in a great empire, has ever been drawn from such taxes, and the

greatest sum which they have ever afforded might always have been found in some other way much more

The impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their revenue, by any capitation, seems to have given

occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities. The state, not knowing how to tax, directly

and proportionably, the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to tax it indirectly by taxing their expense, which,

it is supposed, will in most cases be nearly in proportion to their revenue. Their expense is taxed by taxing the

By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of

life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest

order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and

Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the

greater part of Europe, a creditable daylabourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt,

the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed,

nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather

shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear

in public without them. In Scotland, custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the lowest order of men;

but not to the same order of women, who may, without any discredit, walk about barefooted. In France they

are necessaries neither to men nor to women, the lowest rank of both sexes appearing there publicly, without

any discredit, sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted. Under necessaries, therefore, I

comprehend not only those things which nature, but those things which the established rules of decency have

rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people. All other things I call luxuries, without meaning by this

appellation to throw the smallest degree of reproach upon the temperate use of them. Beer and ale, for

example, in Great Britain, and wine, even in the wine countries, I call luxuries. A man of any rank may,

without any reproach, abstain totally from tasting such liquors. Nature does not render them necessary for the

As the wages of labour are everywhere regulated, partly by the demand for it, and partly by the average price

of the necessary articles of subsistence, whatever raises this average price must necessarily raise those wages

so that the labourer may still be able to purchase that quantity of those necessary articles which the state of

the demand for labour, whether increasing, stationary, or declining, requires that he should have. A tax upon

those articles necessarily raises their price somewhat higher than the amount of the tax, because the dealer,

who advances the tax, must generally get it back with a profit. Such a tax must, therefore, occasion a rise in

It is thus that a tax upon the necessaries of life operates exactly in the same manner as a direct tax upon the

wages of labour. The labourer, though he may pay it out of his hand, cannot, for any considerable time at

least, be properly said even to advance it. It must always in the longrun be advanced to him by his

immediate employer in the advanced rate of his wages. His employer, if he is a manufacturer, will charge

upon the price of his goods this rise of wages, together with a profit; so that the final payment of the tax,

together with this overcharge, will fall upon the consumer. If his employer is a farmer, the final payment,

It is otherwise with taxes upon what I call luxuries, even upon those of the poor. The rise in the price of the

taxed commodities will not necessarily occasion any rise in the wages of labour. A tax upon tobacco, for

example, though a luxury of the poor as well as of the rich, will not raise wages. Though it is taxed in

England at three times, and in France at fifteen times its original price, those high duties seem to have no

effect upon the wages of labour. The same thing may be said of the taxes upon tea and sugar, which in

England and Holland have become luxuries of the lowest ranks of people, and of those upon chocolate, which

in Spain is said to have become so. The different taxes which in Great Britain have in the course of the

present century been imposed upon spirituous liquors are not supposed to have had any effect upon the wages

of labour. The rise in the price of porter, occasioned by an additional tax of three shillings upon the barrel of

strong beer, has not raised the wages of common labour in London. These were about eighteen pence and

The high price of such commodities does not necessarily diminish the ability of the inferior ranks of people to

bring up families. Upon the sober and industrious poor, taxes upon such commodities act as sumptuary laws,

and dispose them either to moderate, or to refrain altogether from the use of superfluities which they can no

longer easily afford. Their ability to bring up families, in consequence of this forced frugality, instead of

being diminished, is frequently, perhaps, increased by the tax. It is the sober and industrious poor who

generally bring up the most numerous families, and who principally supply the demand for useful labour. All

the poor, indeed, are not sober and industrious, and the dissolute and disorderly might continue to indulge

themselves in the use of such commodities after this rise of price in the same manner as before without

regarding the distress which this indulgence might bring upon their families. Such disorderly persons,

however, seldom rear up numerous families, their children generally perishing from neglect, mismanagement,

and the scantiness or unwholesomeness of their food. If by the strength of their constitution they survive the

hardships to which the bad conduct of their parents exposes them, yet the example of that bad conduct

commonly corrupts their morals, so that, instead of being useful to society by their industry, they become

public nuisances by their vices and disorders. Though the advanced price of the luxuries of the poor,

therefore, might increase somewhat the distress of such disorderly families, and thereby diminish somewhat

their ability to bring up children, it would not probably diminish much the useful population of the country.

Any rise in the average price of necessaries, unless it is compensated by a proportionable rise in the wages of

labour, must necessarily diminish more or less the ability of the poor to bring up numerous families, and

consequently to supply the demand for useful labour, whatever may be the state of that demand, whether

increasing, stationary, or declining, or such as requires an increasing, stationary, or declining population.

Taxes upon luxuries have no tendency to raise the price of any other commodities except that of the

commodities taxed. Taxes upon necessaries, by raising the wages of labour, necessarily tend to raise the price

of all manufactures, and consequently to diminish the extent of their sale and consumption. Taxes upon

luxuries are finally paid by the consumers of the commodities taxed without any retribution. They fall

indifferently upon every species of revenue, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, and the rent of land.

Taxes upon necessaries, so far as they affect the labouring poor, are finally paid, partly by landlords in the

diminished rent of their lands, and partly by rich consumers, whether landlords or others, in the advanced

price of manufactured goods, and always with a considerable overcharge. The advanced price of such

manufactures as are real necessaries of life, and are destined for the consumption of the poor, of coarse

woollens, for example, must be compensated to the poor by a further advancement of their wages. The

middling and superior ranks of people, if they understand their own interest, ought always to oppose all taxes

upon the necessaries of life, as well as all direct taxes upon the wages of labour. The final payment of both

the one and the other falls altogether upon themselves, and always with a considerable overcharge. They fall

heaviest upon the landlords, who always pay in a double capacity; in that of landlords by the reduction of

their rent, and in that of rich consumers by the increase of their expense. The observation of Sir Matthew

Decker, that certain taxes are, in the price of certain goods, sometimes repeated and accumulated four or five

times, is perfectly just with regard to taxes upon the necessaries of life. In the price of leather, for example,

you must pay not only for the tax upon the leather of your own shoes, but for a part of that upon those of the

shoemaker and the tanner. You must pay, too, for the tax upon the salt, upon the soap, and upon the candles

which those workmen consume while employed in your service, and for the tax upon the leather which the

saltmaker, the soapmaker, and the candlemaker consume while employed in their service.

In Great Britain, the principal taxes upon the necessaries of life are those upon the four commodities just now

Salt is a very ancient and a very universal subject of taxation. It was taxed among the Romans, and it is so at

present in, I believe, every part of Europe. The quantity annually consumed by any individual is so small, and

may be purchased so gradually, that nobody, it seems to have been thought, could feel very sensibly even a

pretty heavy tax upon it. It is in England taxed at three shillings and fourpence a bushel about three times

the original price of the commodity. In some other countries the tax is still higher. Leather is a real necessary

of life. The use of linen renders soap such. In countries where the winter nights are long, candles are a

necessary instrument of trade. Leather and soap are in Great Britain taxed at three halfpence a pound, candles

at a penny; taxes which, upon the original price of leather, may amount to about eight or ten per cent; upon

that of soap to about twenty or fiveandtwenty per cent; and upon that of candles to about fourteen or

fifteen per cent; taxes which, though lighter than that upon salt, are still very heavy. As all those four

commodities are real necessaries of life, such heavy taxes upon them must increase somewhat the expense of

the sober and industrious poor, and must consequently raise more or less the wages of their labour.

In a country where the winters are so cold as in Great Britain, fuel is, during that season, in the strictest sense

of the word, a necessary of life, not only for the purpose of dressing victuals, but for the comfortable

subsistence of many different sorts of workmen who work within doors; and coals are the cheapest of all fuel.

The price of fuel has so important an influence upon that of labour that all over Great Britain manufactures

have confined themselves principally to the coal countries, other parts of the country, on account of the high

price of this necessary article, not being able to work so cheap. In some manufactures, besides, coal is a

necessary instrument of trade, as in those of glass, iron, and all other metals. If a bounty could in any case be

reasonable, it might perhaps be so upon the transportation of coals from those parts of the country in which

they abound to those in which they are wanted. But the legislature, instead of a bounty, has imposed a tax of

three shillings and threepence a ton upon coal carried coastways, which upon most sorts of coal is more than

sixty per cent of the original price at the coalpit. Coals carried either by land or by inland navigation pay no

duty. Where they are naturally cheap, they are consumed duty free: where they are naturally dear, they are

Such taxes, though they raise the price of subsistence, and consequently the wages of labour, yet they afford a

considerable revenue to government which it might not be easy to find in any other way. There may,

therefore, be good reasons for continuing them. The bounty upon the exportation of corn, so far as it tends in

the actual state of tillage to raise the price of that necessary article, produces all the like bad effects, and

instead of affording any revenue, frequently occasions a very great expense to government. The high duties

upon the importation of foreign corn, which in years of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, and the

absolute prohibition of the importation either of live cattle or of salt provisions, which takes place in the

ordinary state of the law, and which, on account of the scarcity, is at present suspended for a limited time

with regard to Ireland and the British plantations, have all the bad effects of taxes upon the necessaries of life,

and produce no revenue to government. Nothing seems necessary for the repeal of such regulations but to

convince the public of the futility of that system in consequence of which they have been established.

Taxes upon the necessaries of life are much higher in many other countries than in Great Britain. Duties upon

flour and meal when ground at the mill, and upon bread when baked at the oven, take place in many

countries. In Holland the money price of the bread consumed in towns is supposed to be doubled by means of

such taxes. In lieu of a part of them, the people who live in the country pay every year so much a head

according to the sort of bread they are supposed to consume. Those who consume wheaten bread pay three

guilders fifteen stivers about six shillings and ninepence halfpenny. These, and some other taxes of the same

kind, by raising the price of labour, are said to have ruined the greater part of the manufactures of Holland.

Similar taxes, though not quite so heavy, take place in the Milanese, in the states of Genoa, in the duchy of

Modena, in the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, and in the ecclesiastical state. A French author of

some note has proposed to reform the finances of his country by substituting in the room of the greater part of

other taxes this most ruinous of all taxes. There is nothing so absurd, says Cicero, which has not sometimes

Taxes upon butchers' meat are still more common than those upon bread. It may indeed be doubted whether

butchers' meat is anywhere a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and

butter, or oil where butter is not to be had, it is known from experience, can, without any butchers' meat,

afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet. Decency

nowhere requires that any man should eat butchers' meat, as it in most places requires that he should wear a

Consumable commodities, whether necessaries or luxuries, may be taxed in two different ways. The

consumer may either pay an annual sum on account of his using or consuming goods of a certain kind, or the

goods may be taxed while they remain in the hands of the dealer, and before they are delivered to the

consumer. The consumable goods which last a considerable time before they are consumed altogether are

most properly taxed in the one way; those of which the consumption is either immediate or more speedy, in

the other. The coachtax and platetax are examples of the former method of imposing: the greater part of

A coach may, with good management, last ten or twelve years. It might be taxed, once for all, before it comes

out of the hands of the coachmaker. But it is certainly more convenient for the buyer to pay four pounds a

year for the privilege of keeping a coach than to pay all at once forty or fortyeight pounds additional price to

the coachmaker, or a sum equivalent to what the tax is likely to cost him during the time he uses the same

coach. A service of plate, in the same manner, may last more than a century. It is certainly easier for the

consumer to pay five shillings a year for every hundred ounces of plate, near one per cent of the value, than to

redeem this long annuity at fiveandtwenty or thirty years' purchase, which would enhance the price at least

fiveandtwenty or thirty per cent. The different taxes which affect houses are certainly more conveniently

paid by moderate annual payments than by a heavy tax of equal value upon the first building or sale of the

It was the wellknown proposal of Sir Matthew Decker that all commodities, even those of which the

consumption is either immediate or very speedy, should be taxed in this manner, the dealer advancing

nothing, but the consumer paying a certain annual sum for the licence to consume certain goods. The object

of his scheme was to promote all the different branches of foreign trade, particularly the carrying trade, by

taking away all duties upon importation and exportation, and thereby enabling the merchant to employ his

whole capital and credit in the purchase of goods and the freight of ships, no part of either being diverted

towards the advancing of taxes. The project, however, of taxing, in this manner, goods of immediate or

speedy consumption seems liable to the four following very important objections. First, the tax would be

more unequal, or not so well proportioned to the expense and consumption of the different contributors as in

the way in which it is commonly imposed. The taxes upon ale, wine, and spirituous liquors, which are

advanced by the dealers, are finally paid by the different consumers exactly in proportion to their respective

consumption. But if the tax were to be paid by purchasing a licence to drink those liquors, the sober would, in

proportion to his consumption, be taxed much more heavily than the drunken consumer. A family which

exercised great hospitality would be taxed much more lightly than one who entertained fewer guests.

Secondly, this mode of taxation, by paying for an annual, halfyearly, or quarterly licence to consume certain

goods, would diminish very much one of the principal conveniences of taxes upon goods of speedy

consumption the piecemeal payment. In the price of threepence halfpenny, which is at present paid for a pot

of porter, the different taxes upon malt, hops, and beer, together with the extraordinary profit which the

brewer charges for having advanced them, may perhaps amount to about three halfpence. If a workman can

conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a

pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance. He pays the tax

piecemeal as he can afford to pay it, and when he can afford to pay it, and every act of payment is perfectly

voluntary, and what he can avoid if he chooses to do so. Thirdly, such taxes would operate less as sumptuary

laws. When the licence was once purchased, whether the purchaser drank much or drank little, his tax would

be the same. Fourthly, if a workman were to pay all at once, by yearly, halfyearly, or quarterly payments, a

tax equal to what he at present pays, with little or no inconveniency, upon all the different pots and pints of

porter which he drinks in any such period of time, the sum might frequently distress him very much. This

mode of taxation, therefore, it seems evident, could never, without the most grievous oppression, produce a

revenue nearly equal to what is derived from the present mode without any oppression. In several countries,

however, commodities of an immediate or very speedy consumption are taxed in this manner. In Holland

people pay so much a head for a licence to drink tea. I have already mentioned a tax upon bread, which, so far

as it is consumed in farmhouses and country villages, is there levied in the same manner.

The duties of excise are imposed briefly upon goods of home produce destined for home consumption. They

are imposed only upon a few sorts of goods of the most general use. There can never be any doubt either

concerning the goods which are subject to those duties, or concerning the particular duty which each species

of goods is subject to. They fall almost altogether upon what I call luxuries, excepting always the four duties

above mentioned, upon salt soap, leather, candles, and, perhaps, that upon green glass.

The duties of customs are much more ancient than those of excise. They seem to have been called customs as

denoting customary payments which had been in use from time immemorial. They appear to have been

originally considered as taxes upon the profits of merchants. During the barbarous times of feudal anarchy,

merchants, like all the other inhabitants of burghs, were considered as little better than emancipated

bondmen, whose persons were despised, and whose gains were envied. The great nobility, who had consented

that the king should tallage the profits of their own tenants, were not unwilling that he should tallage likewise

those of an order of men whom it was much less their interest to protect. In those ignorant times it was not

understood that the profits of merchants are a subject not taxable directly, or that the final payment of all such

The gains of alien merchants were looked upon more unfavourably than those of English merchants. It was

natural, therefore, that those of the former should be taxed more heavily than those of the latter. This

distinction between the duties upon aliens and those upon English merchants, which was begun from

ignorance, has been continued from the spirit of monopoly, or in order to give our own merchants an

With this distinction, the ancient duties of customs were imposed equally upon all sorts of goods, necessaries

as well as luxuries, goods exported as well as goods imported. Why should the dealers in one sort of goods, it

seems to have been thought, be more favoured than those in another? or why should the merchant exporter be

The ancient customs were divided into three branches. The first, and perhaps the most ancient of all those

duties, was that upon wool and leather. It seems to have been chiefly or altogether an exportation duty. When

the woollen manufacture came to be established in England, lest the king should lose any part of his customs

upon wool by the exportation of woollen cloths, a like duty was imposed upon them. The other two branches

were, first, a duty upon wine, which, being imposed at so much a ton, was called a tonnage, and, secondly, a

duty upon all other goods, which, being imposed at so much a pound of their supposed value, was called a

poundage. In the fortyseventh year of Edward III a duty of sixpence in the pound was imposed upon all

goods exported and imported, except wools, woolfells, leather, and wines, which were subject to particular

duties. In the fourteenth of Richard II this duty was raised to one shilling in the pound, but three years

afterwards it was again reduced to sixpence. It was raised to eightpence in the second year of Henry IV, and

in the fourth year of the same prince to one shilling. From this time to the ninth year of William III this duty

continued at one shilling in the pound. The duties of tonnage and poundage were generally granted to the

king by one and the same Act of Parliament, and were called the Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage. The

Subsidy of Poundage having continued for so long a time at one shining in the pound, or at five per cent, a

subsidy came, in the language of the customs, to denote a general duty of this kind of five per cent. This

subsidy, which is now called the Old Subsidy, still continues to be levied according to the book of rates

established in the twelfth of Charles II. The method of ascertaining, by a book of rates, the value of goods

subject to this duty is said to be older than the time of James I. The New Subsidy imposed by the ninth and

tenth of William III was an additional five per cent upon the greater part of goods. The Onethird and the

Twothird Subsidy made up between them another five per cent of which they were proportionable parts.

The Subsidy of 1747 made a fourth five per cent upon the greater part of goods; and that of 1759 a fifth upon

some particular sorts of goods. Besides those five subsidies, a great variety of other duties have occasionally

been imposed upon particular sorts of goods, in order sometimes to relieve the exigencies of the state, and

sometimes to regulate the trade of the country according to the principles of the mercantile system.

That system has come gradually more and more into fashion. The Old Subsidy was imposed indifferently

upon exportation as well as importation. The four subsequent subsidies, as well as the other duties which

have been occasionally imposed upon particular sorts of goods have, with a few exceptions, been laid

altogether upon importation. The greater part of the ancient duties which had been imposed upon the

exportation of the goods of home produce and manufacture have either been lightened or taken away

altogether. In most cases they have been taken away. Bounties have even been given upon the exportation of

some of them. Drawbacks too, sometimes of the whole, and, in most cases, of a part of the duties which are

paid upon the importation of foreign goods, have been granted upon their exportation. Only half the duties

imposed by the Old Subsidy upon importation are drawn back upon exportation: but the whole of those

imposed by the latter subsidies and other imposts are, upon the greater part of goods, drawn back in the same

manner. This growing favour of exportation, and discouragement of importation, have suffered only a few

exceptions, which chiefly concern the materials of some manufactures. These our merchants and

manufacturers are willing should come as cheap as possible to themselves, and as dear as possible to their

rivals and competitors in other countries. Foreign materials are, upon this account, sometimes allowed to be

imported duty free; Spanish wool, for example, flax, and raw linen yarn. The exportation of the materials of

home produce, and of those which are the particular produce of our colonies, has sometimes been prohibited,

and sometimes subjected to higher duties. The exportation of English wool has been prohibited. That of

beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum Senega has been subjected to higher duties. Great Britain, by the

conquest of Canada and Senegal, having got almost the monopoly of those commodities.

That the mercantile system has not been very favourable to the revenue of the great body of the people, to the

annual produce of the land and labour of the country, I have endeavoured to show in the fourth book of this

Inquiry. It seems not to have been more favourable to the revenue of the sovereign, so far at least as that

In consequence of that system, the importation of several sorts of goods has been prohibited altogether. This

prohibition has in some cases entirely prevented, and in others has very much diminished the importation of

those commodities by reducing the importers to the necessity of smuggling. It has entirely prevented the

importation of foreign woollens, and it has very much diminished that of foreign silks and velvets. In both

cases it has entirely annihilated the revenue of customs which might have been levied upon such importation.

The high duties which have been imposed upon the importation of many different sorts of foreign goods, in

order to discourage their consumption in Great Britain, have in many cases served only to encourage

smuggling, and in all cases have reduced the revenue of the customs below what more moderate duties would

have afforded. The saying of Dr. Swift, that in the arithmetic of the customs two and two, instead of making

four, make sometimes only one, holds perfectly true with regard to such heavy duties which never could have

been imposed had not the mercantile system taught us, in many cases, to employ taxation as an instrument,

The bounties which are sometimes given upon the exportation of home produce and manufactures, and the

drawbacks which are paid upon the reexportation of the greater part of foreign goods, have given occasion

to many frauds, and to a species of smuggling more destructive of the public revenue than any other. In order

to obtain the bounty or drawback, the goods, it is well known, are sometimes shipped and sent to sea, but

soon afterwards clandestinely relanded in some other part of the country. The defalcation of the revenue of

customs occasioned by the bounties and drawbacks, of which a great part are obtained fraudulently, is very

great. The gross produce of the customs in the year which ended on the 5th of January 1755 amounted to

L5,068,000. The bounties which were paid out of this revenue, though in that year there was no bounty upon

corn, amounted to L167,800. The drawbacks which were paid upon debentures and certificates, to

L2,156,800. Bounties and drawbacks together amounted to L2,324,600. In consequence of these deductions

the revenue of the customs amounted only to L2,743,400: from which, deducting L287,900 for the expense of

management in salaries and other incidents, the net revenue of the customs for that year comes out to be

L2,455,500. The expense of management amounts in this manner to between five and six per cent upon the

gross revenue of the customs, and to something more than ten per cent upon what remains of that revenue

Heavy duties being imposed upon almost all goods imported, our merchant importers smuggle as much and

make entry of as little as they can. Our merchant exporters, on the contrary, make entry of more than they

export; sometimes out of vanity, and to pass for great dealers in goods which pay no duty, and sometimes to

gain a bounty or a drawback. Our exports, in consequence of these different frauds, appear upon the

customhouse books greatly to overbalance our imports, to the unspeakable comfort of those politicians who

All goods imported, unless particularly exempted, and such exemptions are not very numerous, are liable to

some duties of customs. If any goods are imported not mentioned in the book of rates, they are taxed at 4s. 9

9/20d. for every twenty shillings value, according to the oath of the importer, that is, nearly at five subsidies,

or five poundage duties. The book of rates is extremely comprehensive, and enumerates a great variety of

articles, many of them little used, and therefore not well known. It is upon this account frequently uncertain

under what article a particular sort of goods ought to be classed, and consequently what duty they ought to

pay. Mistakes with regard to this sometimes ruin the customhouse officer, and frequently occasion much

trouble, expense, and vexation to the importer. In point of perspicuity, precision, and distinctness, therefore,

In order that the greater part of the members of any society should contribute to the public revenue in

proportion to their respective expense, it does not seem necessary that every single article of that expense

should be taxed. The revenue which is levied by the duties of excise is supposed to fall as equally upon the

contributors as that which is levied by the duties of customs, and the duties of excise are imposed upon a few

articles only of the most general use and consumption. It has been the opinion of many people that, by proper

management, the duties of customs might likewise, without any loss to the public revenue, and with great

The foreign articles of the most general use and consumption in Great Britain seem at present to consist

chiefly in foreign wines and brandies; in some of the productions of America and the West Indies sugar,

rum, tobacco, cocoanuts, etc.; and in some of those of the East Indies tea, coffee, chinaware, spiceries of

all kinds, several sorts of piecegoods, etc. These different articles afford, perhaps, at present, the greater part

of the revenue which is drawn from the duties of customs. The taxes which at present subsist upon foreign

manufactures, if you except those upon the few contained in the foregoing enumeration, have the greater part

of them been imposed for the purpose, not of revenue, but of monopoly, or to give our own merchants an

advantage in the home market. By removing all prohibitions, and by subjecting all foreign manufactures to

such moderate taxes as it was found from experience afforded upon each article the greatest revenue to the

public, our own workmen might still have a considerable advantage in the home market, and many articles,

some of which at present afford no revenue to government, and others a very inconsiderable one, might

High taxes, sometimes by diminishing the consumption of the taxed commodities, and sometimes by

encouraging smuggling, frequently afford a smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from

When the diminution of revenue is the effect of the diminution of consumption there can be but one remedy,

When the diminution of the revenue is the diminution of the revenue is the effect of the encouragement given

to smuggling, it may perhaps be remedied in two ways; either by diminishing the temptation to smuggle, or

by increasing the difficulty of smuggling. The temptation to smuggle can be diminished only by the lowering

of the tax, and the difficulty of smuggling can be increased only by establishing that system of administration

The excise laws, it appears, I believe, from experience, obstruct and embarrass the operations of the smuggler

much more effectually than those of the customs. By introducing into the customs a system of administration

as similar to that of the excise as the nature of the different duties will admit, the difficulty of smuggling

might be very much increased. This alteration, it has been supposed by many people, might very easily be

The importer of commodities liable to any duties of customs, it has been said, might as his option be allowed

either to carry them to his own private warehouse, or to lodge them in a warehouse provided either at his own

expense or at that of the public, but under the key of the customhouse officer, and never to be opened but in

his presence. If the merchant carried them to his own private warehouse, the duties to be immediately paid,

and never afterwards to be drawn back, and that warehouse to be at all times subject to the visit and

examination of the customhouse officer, in order to ascertain how far the quantity contained in it

corresponded with that for which the duty had been paid. If he carried them to the public warehouse, no duty

to be paid till they were taken out for home consumption. If taken out for exportation, to be duty free, proper

security being always given that they should be so exported. The dealers in those particular commodities,

either by wholesale or retail, to be at all times subject to the visit and examination of the customhouse

officer, and to be obliged to justify by proper certificates the payment of the duty upon the whole quantity

contained in their shops or warehouses. What are called the exciseduties upon rum imported are at present

levied in this manner, and the same system of administration might perhaps be extended to all duties upon

goods imported, provided always that those duties were, like the duties of excise, confined to a few sorts of

goods of the most general use and consumption. If they were extended to almost all sorts of goods, as at

present, public warehouses of sufficient extent could not easily be provided, and goods of a very delicate

nature, or of which the preservation required much care and attention, could not safely be trusted by the

If by such a system of administration smuggling, to any considerable extent, could be prevented even under

pretty high duties, and if every duty was occasionally either heightened or lowered according as it was most

likely, either the one way or the other, to afford the greatest revenue to the state, taxation being always

employed as an instrument of revenue and never of monopoly, it seems not improbable that a revenue at least

equal to the present net revenue of the customs might be drawn from duties upon the importation of only a

few sorts of goods of the most general use and consumption, and that the duties of customs might thus be

brought to the same degree of simplicity, certainty, and precision as those of excise. What the revenue at

present loses by drawbacks upon the reexportation of foreign goods which are afterwards relanded and

consumed at home would under this system be saved altogether. If to this saving, which would alone be very

considerable, were added the abolition of all bounties upon the exportation of home produce in all cases in

which those bounties were not in reality drawbacks of some duties of excise which had before been

advanced, it cannot well be doubted but that the net revenue of customs might, after an alteration of this kind,

If by such a change of system the public revenue suffered no loss, the trade and manufactures of the country

would certainly gain a very considerable advantage. The trade in the commodities not taxed, by far the

greatest number, would be perfectly free, and might be carried on to and from all parts of the world with

every possible advantage. Among those commodities would be comprehended all the necessaries of life and

all the materials of manufacture. So far as the free importation of the necessaries of life reduced their average

money price in the home market it would reduce the money price of labour, but without reducing in any

respect its real recompense. The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life

which it will purchase. That of the necessaries of life is altogether independent of the quantity of money

which can be had for them. The reduction in the money price of labour would necessarily be attended with a

proportionable one in that of all home manufactures, which would thereby gain some advantage in all foreign

markets. The price of some manufactures would be reduced in a still greater proportion by the free

importation of the raw materials. If raw silk could be imported from China and Indostan duty free, the silk

manufacturers in England could greatly undersell those of both France and Italy. There would be no occasion

to prohibit the importation of foreign silks and velvets. The cheapness of their goods would secure to our own

workmen not only the possession of the home, but a very great command of the foreign market. Even the

trade in the commodities taxed would be carried on with much more advantage than at present. If those

commodities were delivered out of the public warehouse for foreign exportation, being in this case exempted

from all taxes, the trade in them would be perfectly free. The carrying trade in all sorts of goods would under

this system enjoy every possible advantage. If those commodities were delivered out for home consumption,

the importer not being obliged to advance the tax till he had an opportunity of selling his goods, either to

some dealer, or to some consumer, he could always afford to sell them cheaper than if he had been obliged to

advance it at the moment of importation. Under the same taxes, the foreign trade of consumption even in the

taxed commodities might in this manner be carried on with much more advantage than it can be at present.

It was the object of the famous excise scheme of Sir Robert Walpole to establish, with regard to wine and

tobacco, a system not very unlike that which is here proposed. But though the bill which was then brought

into Parliament comprehended those two commodities, only it was generally supposed to be meant as an

introduction to a more extensive scheme of the same kind, faction, combined with the interest of smuggling

merchants, raised so violent, though so unjust, a clamour against that bill, that the minister thought proper to

drop it, and from a dread of exciting a clamour of the same kind, none of his successors have dared to resume

The duties upon foreign luxuries imported for home consumption, though they sometimes fall upon the poor,

fall principally upon people of middling or more than middling fortune. Such are, for example, the duties

The duties upon the cheaper luxuries of home produce destined for home consumption fall pretty equally

upon people of all ranks in proportion to their respective expense. The poor pay the duties upon malt, hops,

beer, and ale, upon their own consumption: the rich, upon both their own consumption and that of their

The whole consumption of the inferior ranks of people, or of those below the middling rank, it must be

observed, is in every country much greater, not only in quantity, but in value, than that of the middling and of

those above the middling rank. The whole expense of the inferior is much greater than that of the superior

ranks. In the first place, almost the whole capital of every country is annually distributed among the inferior

ranks of people as the wages of productive labour. Secondly, a great part of the revenue arising from both the

rent of land and the profits of stock is annually distributed among the same rank in the wages and

maintenance of menial servants, and other unproductive labourers. Thirdly, some part of the profits of stock

belongs to the same rank as a revenue arising from the employment of their small capitals. The amount of the

profits annually made by small shopkeepers, tradesmen, and retailers of all kinds is everywhere very

considerable, and makes a very considerable portion of the annual produce. Fourthly, and lastly, some part

even of the rent of land belongs to the same rank, a considerable part of those who are somewhat below the

middling rank, and a small part even to the lowest rank, common labourers sometimes possessing in property

an acre or two of land. Though the expense of those inferior ranks of people, therefore, taking them

individually, is very small, yet the whole mass of it, taking them collectively, amounts always to by much the

largest portion of the whole expense of the society; what remains of the annual produce of the land and labour

of the country for the consumption of the superior ranks being always much less, not only in quantity, but in

value. The taxes upon expense, therefore, which fall chiefly upon that of the superior ranks of people, upon

the smaller portion of the annual produce, are likely to be much less productive than either those which fall

indifferently upon the expense of all ranks, or even those which fall chiefly upon that of the inferior ranks;

than either those which fall indifferently upon the whole annual produce, or those which fall chiefly upon the

larger portion of it. The excise upon the materials and manufacture of homemade fermented and spirituous

liquors is accordingly, of all the different taxes upon expense, by far the most productive; and this branch of

the excise falls very much, perhaps principally, upon the expense of the common people. In the year which

ended on the 5th of July 1775, the gross produce of this branch of the excise amounted to L3,341,837 9s. 9d.

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxurious and not the necessary expense of the inferior

ranks of people that ought ever to be taxed. The final payment of any tax upon their necessary expense would

fall altogether upon the superior ranks of people; upon the smaller portion of the annual produce, and not

upon the greater. Such a tax must in all cases either raise the wages of labour, or lessen the demand for it. It

could not raise the wages of labour without throwing the final payment of the tax upon the superior ranks of

people. It could not lessen the demand for labour without lessening the annual produce of the land and labour

of the country, the fund from which all taxes must be finally paid. Whatever might be the state to which a tax

of this kind reduced the demand for labour, it must always raise wages higher than they otherwise would be

in that state, and the final payment of this enhancement of wages must in all cases fall upon the superior ranks

Fermented liquors brewed, and spirituous liquors distilled, not for sale, but for private use, are not in Great

Britain liable to any duties of excise. This exemption, of which the object is to save private families from the

odious visit and examination of the taxgatherer, occasions the burden of those duties to fall frequently much

lighter upon the rich than upon the poor. It is not, indeed, very common to distil for private use, though it is

done sometimes. But in the country many middling and almost all rich and great families brew their own

beer. Their strong beer, therefore, costs them eight shillings a barrel less than it costs the common brewer,

who must have his profit upon the tax as well as upon all the other expense which he advances. Such

families, therefore, must drink their beer at least nine or ten shillings a barrel cheaper than any liquor of the

same quality can be drunk by the common people, to whom it is everywhere more convenient to buy their

beer, by little and little, from the brewery or the alehouse. Malt, in the same manner, that is made for the use

of a private family is not liable to the visit or examination of the taxgatherer; but in this case the family must

compound at seven shillings and sixpence a head for the tax. Seven shillings and sixpence are equal to the

excise upon ten bushels of malt a quantity fully equal to what all the different members of any sober family,

men, women, and children, are at an average likely to consume. But in rich and great families, where country

hospitality is much practised, the malt liquors consumed by the members of the family make but a small part

of the consumption of the house. Either on account of this composition, however, or for other reasons, it is

not near so common to malt as to brew for private use. It is difficult to imagine any equitable reason why

those who either brew or distil for private use should not be subject to a composition of the same kind.

A greater revenue than what is at present drawn from all the heavy taxes upon malt, beer, and ale might be

raised, it has frequently been said, by a much lighter tax upon malt, the opportunities of defrauding the

revenue being much greater in a brewery than in a malthouse, and those who brew for private use being

exempted from all duties or composition for duties, which is not the case with those who malt for private use.

In the porter brewery of London a quarter of malt is commonly brewed into more than two barrels and a half,

sometimes into three barrels of porter. The different taxes upon malt amount to six shillings a quarter, those

upon strong beer and ale to eight shillings a barrel. In the porter brewery, therefore, the different taxes upon

malt, beer, and ale amount to between twentysix and thirty shillings upon the produce of a quarter of malt.

In the country brewery for common country sale a quarter of malt is seldom brewed into less than two barrels

of strong and one barrel of small beer, frequently into two barrels and a half of strong beer. The different

taxes upon small beer amount to one shilling and fourpence a barrel. In the country brewery, therefore, the

different taxes upon malt, beer, and ale seldom amount to less than twentythree shillings and fourpence,

frequently to twentysix shillings, upon the produce of a quarter of malt. Taking the whole kingdom at an

average, therefore, the whole amount of the duties upon malt, beer, and ale cannot be estimated at less than

twentyfour or twentyfive shillings upon the produce of a quarter of malt. But by taking off all the different

duties upon beer and ale, and by tripling the malttax, or by raising it from six to eighteen shillings upon the

quarter of malt, a greater revenue, it is said, might be raised by this single tax than what is at present drawn

Under the old malt tax, indeed, is comprehended a tax of four shillings upon the hogshead of cyder, and

another of ten shillings upon the barrel of mum. In 1774, the tax upon cyder produced only L3083 6s. 8d. It

probably fell somewhat short of its usual amount, all the different taxes upon cyder having, that year,

produced less than ordinary. The tax upon mum, though much heavier, is still less productive, on account of

the smaller consumption of that liquor. But to balance whatever may be the ordinary amount of those two

taxes, there is comprehended under what is called the country excise, first, the old excise of six shillings and

eightpence upon the hogshead of cyder; secondly, a like tax of six shillings and eightpence upon the

hogshead of verjuice; thirdly, another of eight shillings and ninepence upon the hogshead of vinegar; and,

lastly, a fourth tax of elevenpence upon the gallon of mead or metheglin: the produce of those different taxes

will probably much more than counterbalance that of the duties imposed by what is called the annual malt tax

Malt is consumed not only in the brewery of beer and ale, but in the manufacture of wines and spirits. If the

malt tax were to be raised to eighteen shillings upon the quarter, it might be necessary to make some

abatement in the different excises which are imposed upon those particular sorts of low wines and spirits of

which malt makes any part of the materials. In what are called malt spirits it makes commonly but a third part

of the materials, the other twothirds being either raw barley, or onethird barley and onethird wheat. In the

distillery of malt spirits, both the opportunity and the temptation to smuggle are much greater than either in a

brewery or in a malthouse; the opportunity on account of the smaller bulk and greater value of the

commodity, and the temptation on account of the superior height of the duties, which amount to 3s. 10 2/3d.*

upon the gallon of spirits. By increasing the duties upon malt, and reducing those upon the distillery, both the

opportunities and the temptation to smuggle would be diminished, which might occasion a still further

augmentation of revenue. * Though the duties directly imposed upon proof spirits amount only to 2s. 6d. per

gallon, these added to the duties upon the low wines, from which they are distilled, amount to 3s. 10 2/3d.

Both low wines and proof spirits are, to prevent frauds, now rated according to what they gauge in the wash.

It has for some time past been the policy of Great Britain to discourage the consumption of spirituous liquors,

on account of their supposed tendency to ruin the health and to corrupt the morals of the common people.

According to this policy, the abatement of the taxes upon the distillery ought not to be so great as to reduce,

in any respect, the price of those liquors. Spirituous liquors might remain as dear as ever, while at the same

time the wholesome and invigorating liquors of beer and ale might be considerably reduced in their price.

The people might thus be in part relieved from one of the burdens of which they at present complain the

The objections of Dr. Davenant to this alteration in the present system of excise duties seem to be without

foundation. Those objections are, that the tax, instead of dividing itself as at present pretty equally upon the

profit of the maltster, upon that of the brewer, and upon that of the retailer, would, so far as it affected profit,

fall altogether upon that of the maltster; that the maltster could not so easily get back the amount of the tax in

the advanced price of his malt as the brewer and retailer in the advanced price of their liquor; and that so

No tax can ever reduce, for any considerable time, the rate of profit in any particular trade which must always

keep its level with other trades in the neighbourhood. The present duties upon malt, beer, and ale do not

affect the profits of the dealers in those commodities, who all get back the tax with an additional profit in the

enhanced price of their goods. A tax, indeed, may render the goods upon which it is imposed so dear as to

diminish the consumption of them. But the consumption of malt is in malt liquors, and a tax of eighteen

shillings upon the quarter of malt could not well render those liquors dearer than the different taxes,

amounting to twentyfour or twentyfive shillings, do at present. Those liquors, on the contrary, would

probably become cheaper, and the consumption of them would be more likely to increase than to diminish.

It is not very easy to understand why it should be more difficult for the maltster to get back eighteen shillings

in the advanced price of his malt than it is at present for the brewer to get back twentyfour or twentyfive,

sometimes thirty, shillings in that of his liquor. The maltster, indeed, instead of a tax of six shillings, would

be obliged to advance one of eighteen shillings upon every quarter of malt. But the brewer is at present

obliged to advance a tax of twentyfour or twentyfive, sometimes thirty, shillings upon every quarter of

malt which he brews. It could not be more inconvenient for the maltster to advance a lighter tax than it is at

present for the brewer to advance a heavier one. The maltster doth not always keep in his granaries a stock of

malt which it will require a longer time to dispose of than the stock of beer and ale which the brewer

frequently keeps in his cellars. The former, therefore, may frequently get the returns of his money as soon as

the latter. But whatever inconveniency might arise to the maltster from being obliged to advance a heavier

tax, it could easily be remedied by granting him a few months' longer credit than is at present commonly

Nothing could reduce the rent and profit of barley land which did not reduce the demand for barley. But a

change of system which reduced the duties upon a quarter of malt brewed into beer and ale from twentyfour

and twentyfive shillings to eighteen shillings would be more likely to increase than diminish that demand.

The rent and profit of barley land, besides, must always be nearly equal to those of other equally fertile and

equally wellcultivated land. If they were less, some part of the barley land would soon be turned to some

other purpose; and if they were greater, more land would soon be turned to the raising of barley. When the

ordinary price of any particular produce of land is at what may be called a monopoly price, a tax upon it

necessarily reduces the rent and profit of the land which grows it. A tax upon the produce of those precious

vineyards of which the wine falls so much short of the effectual demand that its price is always above the

natural proportion to that of the produce of other equally fertile and equally well cultivated land would

necessarily reduce the rent and profit of those vineyards. The price of the wines being already the highest that

could be got for the quantity commonly sent to market, it could not be raised higher without diminishing that

quantity, and the quantity could not be diminished without still greater loss, because the lands could not be

turned to any other equally valuable produce. The whole weight of the tax, therefore, would fall upon the rent

and profit properly upon the rent of the vineyard. When it has been proposed to lay any new tax upon sugar,

our sugar planters have frequently complained that the whole weight of such taxes fell, not upon the

consumer, but upon the producer, they never having been able to raise the price of their sugar after the tax

higher than it was before. The price had, it seems, before the tax been a monopoly price, and the argument

adduced to show that sugar was an improper subject of taxation demonstrated, perhaps, that it was a proper

one, the gains of monopolists, whenever they can be come at, being certainly of all subjects the most proper.

But the ordinary price of barley has never been a monopoly price, and the rent and profit of barley land have

never been above their natural proportion to those of other equally fertile and equally wellcultivated land.

The different taxes which have been imposed upon malt, beer, and ale have never lowered the price of barley,

have never reduced the rent and profit of barley land. The price of malt to the brewer has constantly risen in

proportion to the taxes imposed upon it, and those taxes, together with the different duties upon beer and ale,

have constantly either raised the price, or what comes to the same thing, reduced the quality of those

commodities to the consumer. The final payment of those taxes has fallen constantly upon the consumer, and

The only people likely to suffer by the change of system here proposed are those who brew for their own

private use. But the exemption which this superior rank of people at present enjoy from very heavy taxes

which are paid by the poor labourer and artificer is surely most unjust and unequal, and ought to be taken

away, even though this change was never to take place. It has probably been the interest of this superior order

of people, however, which has hitherto prevented a change of system that could not well fail both to increase

Besides such duties as those of customs and excise above mentioned, there are several others which affect the

price of goods more unequally and more indirectly. Of this kind are the duties which in French are called

Peages, which in old Saxon times were called Duties of Passage, and which seem to have been originally

established for the same purpose as our turnpike tolls, or the tolls upon our canals and navigable rivers, for

the maintenance of the road or of the navigation. Those duties, when applied to such purposes, are most

properly imposed according to the bulk or weight of the goods. As they were originally local and provincial

duties, applicable to local and provincial purposes, the administration of them was in most cases entrusted to

the particular town, parish, or lordship in which they were levied, such communities being in some way or

other supposed to be accountable for the application. The sovereign, who is altogether unaccountable, has in

many countries assumed to himself the administration of those duties, and though he has in most cases

enhanced very much the duty, he has in many entirely neglected the application. If the turnpike tolls of Great

Britain should ever become one of the resources of government, we may learn, by the example of many other

nations, what would probably be the consequence. Such tolls are no doubt finally paid by the consumer; but

the consumer is not taxed in proportion to his expense when he pays, not according to the value, but

according to the bulk or weight of what he consumes. When such duties are imposed, not according to the

bulk or weight, but according to the supposed value of the goods, they become properly a sort of inland

customs or excises which obstruct very much the most important of all branches of commerce, the interior

In some small states duties similar to those passage duties are imposed upon goods carried across the

territory, either by land or by water, from one foreign country to another. These are in some countries called

transitduties. Some of the little Italian states which are situated upon the Po and the rivers which run into it

derive some revenue from duties of this kind which are paid altogether by foreigners, and which, perhaps, are

the only duties that one state can impose upon the subjects of another without obstructing in any respect the

industry or commerce of its own. The most important transitduty in the world is that levied by the King of

Such taxes upon luxuries as the greater part of the duties of customs and excise, though they all fall

indifferently upon every different species of revenue, and are paid finally, or without any retribution, by

whoever consumes the commodities upon which they are imposed, yet they do not always fall equally or

proportionably upon the revenue of every individual. As every man's humour regulates the degree of his

consumption, every man contributes rather according to his humour than in proportion to his revenue; the

profuse contribute more, the parsimonious less, than their proper proportion. During the minority of a man of

great fortune he contributes commonly very little, by his consumption, towards the support of that state from

whose protection he derives a great revenue. Those who live in another country contribute nothing, by their

consumption, towards the support of the government of that country in which is situated the source of their

revenue. If in this latter country there should be no landtax, nor any considerable duty upon the transference

either of movable or of immovable property, as is the case in Ireland, such absentees may derive a great

revenue from the protection of a government to the support of which they do not contribute a single shilling.

This inequality is likely to be greatest in a country of which the government is in some respects subordinate

and dependent upon that of some other. The people who possess the most extensive property in the dependent

will in this case generally choose to live in the governing country. Ireland is precisely in this situation, and

we cannot, therefore, wonder that the proposal of a tax upon absentees should be so very popular in that

country. It might, perhaps, be a little difficult to ascertain either what sort or what degree of absence would

subject a man to be taxed as an absentee, or at what precise time the tax should either begin or end. If you

except, however, this very peculiar situation, any inequality in the contribution of individuals which can arise

from such taxes is much more than compensated by the very circumstance which occasions that inequality

the circumstance that every man's contribution is altogether voluntary, it being altogether in his power either

to consume or not to consume the commodity taxed. Where such taxes, therefore, are properly assessed, and

upon proper commodities, they are paid with less grumbling than any other. When they are advanced by the

merchant or manufacturer, the consumer, who finally pays them, soon comes to confound them with the price

Such taxes are or may be perfectly certain, or may be assessed so as to leave no doubt concerning either what

ought to be paid, or when it ought to be paid; concerning either the quantity or the time of payment. Whatever

uncertainty there may sometimes be, either in the duties of customs in Great Britain, or in other duties of the

same kind in other countries, it cannot arise from the nature of those duties, but from the inaccurate or

Taxes upon luxuries generally are, and always may be, paid piecemeal, or in proportion as the contributors

have occasion to purchase the goods upon which they are imposed. In the time and mode of payment they

are, or may be, of all taxes the most convenient. Upon the whole, such taxes, are, perhaps, as agreeable to the

three first of the four general maxims concerning taxation as any other. They offend in every respect against

Such taxes, in proportion to what they bring into the public treasury of the state, always take out or keep out

of the pockets of the people more than almost any other taxes. They seem to do this in all the four different

First, the levying of such taxes, even when imposed in the most judicious manner, requires a great number of

customhouse and excise officers, whose salaries and perquisites are a real tax upon the people, which brings

nothing into the treasury of the state. This expense, however, it must be acknowledged, is more moderate in

Great Britain than in most other countries. In the year which ended on the 5th of July 1775, the gross produce

of the different duties, under the management of the commissioners of excise in England, amounted to

L5,507,308 18s. 8 1/4d., which was levied at an expense of little more than five and a half per cent. From this

gross produce, however, there must be deducted what was paid away in bounties and drawbacks upon the

exportation of excisable goods, which will reduce the net produce below five millions.* The levying of the

salt duty, an excise duty, but under a different management, is much more expensive. The net revenue of the

customs does not amount to two millions and a half, which is levied at an expense of more than ten per cent

in the salaries of officers, and other incidents. But the perquisites of customhouse officers are everywhere

much greater than their salaries; at some ports more than double or triple those salaries. If the salaries of

officers, and other incidents, therefore, amount to more than ten per cent upon the net revenue of the customs,

the whole expense of levying that revenue may amount, in salaries and perquisites together, to more than

twenty or thirty per cent. The officers of excise receive few or no perquisites, and the administration of that

branch of the revenue, being of more recent establishment, is in general less corrupted than that of the

customs, into which length of time has introduced and authorized many abuses. By charging upon malt the

whole revenue which is at present levied by the different duties upon malt and malt liquors, a saving, it is

supposed, of more than fifty thousand pounds might be made in the annual expense of the excise. By

confining the duties of customs to a few sorts of goods, and by levying those duties according to the excise

laws, a much greater saving might probably be made in the annual expense of the customs. * The net produce

of that year, after deducting all expenses and allowances, amounted to L4,975,652 19s. 6d.

Secondly, such taxes necessarily occasion some obstruction or discouragement to certain branches of

industry. As they always raise the price of the commodity taxed, they so far discourage its consumption, and

consequently its production. If it is a commodity of home growth or manufacture, less labour comes to be

employed in raising and producing it. If it is a foreign commodity of which the tax increases in this manner

the price, the commodities of the same kind which are made at home may thereby, indeed, gain some

advantage in the home market, and a greater quantity of domestic industry may thereby be turned toward

preparing them. But though this rise of price in a foreign commodity may encourage domestic industry in one

particular branch, it necessarily discourages that industry in almost every other. The dearer the Birmingham

manufacturer buys his foreign wine, the cheaper he necessarily sells that part of his hardware with which, or,

what comes to the same thing, with the price of which he buys it. That part of his hardware, therefore,

becomes of less value to him, and he has less encouragement to work at it. The dearer the consumers in one

country pay for the surplus produce of another, the cheaper they necessarily sell that part of their own surplus

produce with which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of which they buy it. That part of their

own surplus produce becomes of less value to them, and they have less encouragement to increase its

quantity. All taxes upon consumable commodities, therefore, tend to reduce the quantity of productive labour

below what it otherwise would be, either in preparing the commodities taxed, if they are home commodities,

or in preparing those with which they are purchased, if they are foreign commodities. Such taxes, too, always

alter, more or less, the natural direction of national industry, and turn it into a channel always different from,

and generally less advantageous than that in which it would have run of its own accord.

Thirdly, the hope of evading such taxes by smuggling gives frequent occasion to forfeitures and other

penalties which entirely ruin the smuggler; a person who, though no doubt highly blamable for violating the

laws of his country, is frequently incapable of violating those of natural justice, and would have been, in

every respect, an excellent citizen had not the laws of his country made that a crime which nature never

meant to be so. In those corrupted governments where there is at least a general suspicion of much

unnecessary expense, and great misapplication of the public revenue, the laws which guard it are little

respected. Not many people are scrupulous about smuggling when, without perjury, they can find any easy

and safe opportunity of doing so. To pretend to have any scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a

manifest encouragement to the violation of the revenue laws, and to the perjury which almost always attends

it, would in most countries be regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hypocrisy which, instead of gaining

credit with anybody, serve only to expose the person who affects to practise them to the suspicion of being a

greater knave than most of his neighbours. By this indulgence of the public, the smuggler is often encouraged

to continue a trade which he is thus taught to consider as in some measure innocent, and when the severity of

the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently disposed to defend with violence what he has been

accustomed to regard as his just property. From being at first, perhaps, rather imprudent than criminal, he at

last too often becomes one of the hardiest and most determined violators of the laws of society. By the ruin of

the smuggler, his capital, which had before been employed in maintaining productive labour, is absorbed

either in the revenue of the state or in that of the revenue officer, and is employed in maintaining

unproductive, to the diminution of the general capital of the society and of the useful industry which it might

Fourthly, such taxes, by subjecting at least the dealers in the taxed commodities to the frequent visits and

odious examination of the taxgatherers, expose them sometimes, no doubt, to some degree of oppression,

and always to much trouble and vexation; and though vexation, as has already been said, is not, strictly

speaking, expense, it is certainly equivalent to the expense at which every man would be willing to redeem

himself from it. The laws of excise, though more effectual for the purpose for which they were instituted, are,

in this respect, more vexatious than those of the customs. When a merchant has imported goods subject to

certain duties of customs, when he has paid those duties, and lodged the goods in his warehouse, he is not in

most cases liable to any further trouble or vexation from the customhouse officer. It is otherwise with goods

subject to duties of excise. The dealers have no respite from the continual visits and examination of the excise

officers. The duties of excise are, upon this account, more unpopular than those of the customs; and so are the

officers who levy them. Those officers, it is pretended, though in general, perhaps, they do their duty fully as

well as those of the customs, yet as that duty obliges them to be frequently very troublesome to some of their

neighbours, commonly contract a certain hardness of character which the others frequently have not. This

observation, however, may very probably be the mere suggestion of fraudulent dealers whose smuggling is

The inconveniencies, however, which are, perhaps, in some degree inseparable from taxes upon consumable

commodities, fall as light upon the people of Great Britain as upon those of any other country of which the

government is nearly as expensive. Our state is not perfect, and might be mended, but it is as good or better

In consequence of the notion that duties upon consumable goods were taxes upon the profits of merchants,

those duties have, in some countries, been repeated upon every successive sale of the goods. If the profits of

the merchant importer or merchant manufacturer were taxed, equality seemed to require that those of all the

middle buyers who intervened between either of them and the consumer should likewise be taxed. The

famous alcavala of Spain seems to have been established upon this principle. It was at first a tax of ten per

cent, afterwards of fourteen per cent, and is at present of only six per cent upon the sale of every sort of

property whether movable or immovable, and it is repeated every time the property is sold. The levying of

this tax requires a multitude of revenue officers sufficient to guard the transportation of goods, not only from

one province to another, but from one shop to another. It subjects not only the dealers in some sorts of goods,

but those in all sorts, every farmer, every manufacturer, every merchant and shopkeeper, to the continual

visits and examination of the taxgatherers. Through the greater part of a country in which a tax of this kind

is established nothing can be produced for distant sale. The produce of every part of the country must be

proportioned to the consumption of the neighborhood. It is to the alcavala, accordingly, that Ustaritz imputes

the ruin of the manufactures of Spain. He might have imputed to it likewise the declension of agriculture, it

being imposed not only upon manufactures, but upon the rude produce of the land.

In the kingdom of Naples there is a similar tax of three per cent upon the value of all contracts, and

consequently upon that of all contracts of sale. It is both lighter than the Spanish tax, and the greater part of

towns and parishes are allowed to pay a composition in lieu of it. They levy this composition in what manner

they please, generally in a way that gives no interruption to the interior commerce of the place. The

The uniform system of taxation which, with a few exceptions of no great consequence, takes place in all the

different parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, leaves the interior commerce of the country, the

inland and coasting trade, almost entirely free. The inland trade is almost perfectly free, and the greater part

of goods may be carried from one end of the kingdom to the other without requiring any permit or letpass,

without being subject to question, visit, or examination from the revenue officers. There are a few exceptions,

but they are such as can give no interruption to any important branch of the inland commerce of the country.

Goods carried coastwise, indeed, require certificates or coastcockets. If you except coals, however, the rest

are almost all dutyfree. This freedom of interior commerce, the effect of the uniformity of the system of

taxation, is perhaps one of the principal causes of the prosperity of Great Britain, every great country being

necessarily the best and most extensive market for the greater part of the productions of its own industry. If

the same freedom, in consequence of the same uniformity, could be extended to Ireland and the plantations,

both the grandeur of the state and the prosperity of every part of the empire would probably be still greater

In France, the different revenue laws which take place in the different provinces require a multitude of

revenue officers to surround not only the frontiers of the kingdom, but those of almost each particular

province, in order either to prevent the importation of certain goods, or to subject it to the payment of certain

duties, to the no small interruption of the interior commerce of the country. Some provinces are allowed to

compound for the gabelle or salttax. Others are exempted from it altogether. Some provinces are exempted

from the exclusive sale of tobacco, which the farmersgeneral enjoy through the greater part of the kingdom.

The aides, which correspond to the excise in England, are very different in different provinces. Some

provinces are exempted from them, and pay a composition or equivalent. In those in which they take place

and are in farm there are many local duties which do not extend beyond a particular town or district. The

traites, which correspond to our customs, divide the kingdom into three great parts; first, the provinces

subject to the tariff of 1664, which are called the provinces of the five great farms, and under which are

comprehended Picardy, Normandy, and the greater part of the interior provinces of the kingdom; secondly,

the provinces subject to the tariff of 1667, which are called the provinces reckoned foreign, and under which

are comprehended the greater part of the frontier provinces; and, thirdly, those provinces which are said to be

treated as foreign, or which, because they are allowed a free commerce with foreign countries, are in their

commerce with other provinces of France subjected to the same duties as other foreign countries. These are

Alsace, the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities of Dunkirk, Bayonne, and

Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the five great farms (called so on account of an ancient division of the

duties of customs into five great branches, each of which was originally the subject of a particular farm,

though they are now all united into one), and in those which are said to be reckoned foreign, there are many

local duties which do not extend beyond a particular town or district. There are some such even in the

provinces which are said to be treated as foreign, particularly in the city of Marseilles. It is unnecessary to

observe how much both the restraints upon the interior commerce of the country and the number of the

revenue officers must be multiplied in order to guard the frontiers of those different provinces and districts

Over and above the general restraints arising from this complicated system of revenue laws, the commerce of

wine, after corn perhaps the most important production of France, is in the greater part of the provinces

subject to particular restraints, arising from the favour which has been shown to the vineyards of particular

provinces and districts, above those of others. The provinces most famous for their wines, it will be found, I

believe, are those in which the trade in that article is subject to the fewest restraints of this kind. The

extensive market which such provinces enjoy, encourages good management both in the cultivation of their

Such various and complicated revenue laws are not peculiar to France. The little duchy of Milan is divided

into six provinces, in each of which there is a different system of taxation with regard to several different

sorts of consumable goods. The still smaller territories of the Duke of Parma are divided into three or four,

each of which has, in the same manner, a system of its own. Under such absurd management, nothing but the

great fertility of the soil and happiness of the climate could preserve such countries from soon relapsing into

Taxes upon consumable commodities may either be levied by an administration of which the officers are

appointed by government and are immediately accountable to government, of which the revenue must in this

case vary from year to year according to the occasional variations in the produce of the tax, or they may be let

in farm for a rent certain, the farmer being allowed to appoint his own officers, who, though obliged to levy

the tax in the manner directed by the law, are under his immediate inspection, and are immediately

accountable to him. The best and most frugal way of levying a tax can never be by farm. Over and above

what is necessary for paying the stipulated rent, the salaries of the officers, and the whole expense of

administration, the farmer must always draw from the produce of the tax a certain profit proportioned at least

to the advance which he makes, to the risk which he runs, to the trouble which he is at, and to the knowledge

and skill which it requires to manage so very complicated a concern. Government, by establishing an

administration under their own immediate inspection of the same kind with that which the farmer establishes,

might at least save this profit, which is almost always exorbitant. To farm any considerable branch of the

public revenue requires either a great capital or a great credit; circumstances which would alone restrain the

competition for such an undertaking to a very small number of people. Of the few who have this capital or

credit, a still smaller number have the necessary knowledge or experience; another circumstance which

restrains the competition still further. The very few, who are in condition to become competitors, find it more

for their interest to combine together; to become copartners instead of competitors, and when the farm is set

up to auction, to offer no rent but what is much below the real value. In countries where the public revenues

are in farm, the farmers are generally the most opulent people. Their wealth would alone excite the public

indignation, and the vanity which almost always accompanies such upstart fortunes, the foolish ostentation

with which they commonly display that wealth, excites that indignation still more.

The farmers of the public revenue never find the laws too severe which punish any attempt to evade the

payment of a tax. They have no bowels for the contributors, who are not their subjects, and whose universal

bankruptcy, if it should happen the day after their farm is expired, would not much affect their interest. In the

greatest exigencies of the state, when the anxiety of the sovereign for the exact payment of his revenue is

necessarily the greatest, they seldom fail to complain that without laws more rigorous than those which

actually take place, it will be impossible for them to pay even the usual rent. In those moments of public

distress their demands cannot be disputed. The revenue laws, therefore, become gradually more and more

severe. The most sanguinary are always to be found in countries where the greater part of the public revenue

is in farm; the mildest, in countries where it is levied under the immediate inspection of the sovereign. Even a

bad sovereign feels more compassion for his people than can ever be expected from the farmers of his

revenue. He knows that the permanent grandeur of his family depends upon the prosperity of his people, and

he will never knowingly ruin that prosperity for the sake of any momentary interest of his own. It is otherwise

with the farmers of his revenue, whose grandeur may frequently be the effect of the ruin, and not of the

A tax is sometimes not only farmed for a certain rent, but the farmer has, besides, the monopoly of the

commodity taxed. In France, the duties upon tobacco and salt are levied in this manner. In such cases the

farmer, instead of one, levies two exorbitant profits upon the people; the profit of the farmer, and the still

more exorbitant one of the monopolist. Tobacco being a luxury, every man is allowed to buy or not to buy as

he chooses. But salt being a necessary, every man is obliged to buy of the farmer a certain quantity of it;

because, if he did not buy this quantity of the farmer, he would, it is presumed, buy it of some smuggler. The

taxes upon both commodities are exorbitant. The temptation to smuggle consequently is to many people

irresistible, while at the same time the rigour of the law, and the vigilance of the farmer's officers, render the

yielding to that temptation almost certainly ruinous. The smuggling of salt and tobacco sends every year

several hundred people to the galleys, besides a very considerable number whom it sends to the gibbet. Those

taxes levied in this manner yield a very considerable revenue to government. In 1767, the farm of tobacco

was let for twentytwo millions five hundred and fortyone thousand two hundred and seventyeight livres a

year. That of salt, for thirtysix millions four hundred and ninetyfour thousand four hundred and four livres.

The farm in both cases was to commence in 1768, and to last for six years. Those who consider the blood of

the people as nothing in comparison with the revenue of the prince, may perhaps approve of this method of

levying taxes. Similar taxes and monopolies of salt and tobacco have been established in many other

countries; particularly in the Austrian and Prussian dominions, and in the greater part of the states of Italy.

In France, the greater part of the actual revenue of the crown is derived from eight different sources; the

taille, the capitation, the two vingtiemes, the gabelles, the aides, the traites, the domaine, and the farm of

tobacco. The five last are, in the greater part of the provinces, under farm. The three first are everywhere

levied by an administration under the immediate inspection and direction of government, and it is universally

acknowledged that, in proportion to what they take out of the pockets of the people, they bring more into the

treasury of the prince than the other five, of which the administration is much more wasteful and expensive.

The finances of France seem, in their present state, to admit of three very obvious reformations. First, by

abolishing the taille and the capitation, and by increasing the number of vingtiemes, so as to produce an

additional revenue equal to the amount of those other taxes, the revenue of the crown might be preserved; the

expense of collection might be much diminished; the vexation of the inferior ranks of people, which the taille

and capitation occasion, might be entirely prevented; and the superior ranks might not be more burdened than

the greater part of them are at present. The vingtieme, I have already observed, is a tax very nearly of the

same kind with what is called the landtax of England. The burden of the taille, it is acknowledged, falls

finally upon the proprietors of land; and as the greater part of the capitation is assessed upon those who are

subject to the taille at so much a pound of that other tax, the final payment of the greater part of it must

likewise fall upon the same order of people. Though the number of the vingtiemes, therefore, was increased

so as to produce an additional revenue equal to the amount of both those taxes, the superior ranks of people

might not be more burdened than they are at present. Many individuals no doubt would, on account of the

great inequalities with which the taille is commonly assessed upon the estates and tenants of different

individuals. The interest and opposition of such favoured subjects are the obstacles most likely to prevent this

or any other reformation of the same kind. Secondly, by rendering the gabelle, the aides, the traites, the taxes

upon tobacco, all the different customs and excises, uniform in all the different parts of the kingdom, those

taxes might be levied at much less expense, and the interior commerce of the kingdom might be rendered as

free as that of England. Thirdly, and lastly, by subjecting all those taxes to an administration under the

immediate inspection and direction of government, the exorbitant profits of the farmersgeneral might be

added to the revenue of the state. The opposition arising from the private interest of individuals is likely to be

as effectual for preventing the two last as the firstmentioned scheme of reformation.

The French system of taxation seems, in every respect, inferior to the British. In Great Britain ten millions

sterling are annually levied upon less than eight millions of people without its being possible to say that any

particular order is oppressed. From the collections of the Abbe Expilly, and the observations of the author of

the Essay upon legislation and commerce of corn, it appears probable that France, including the provinces of

Lorraine and Bar, contains about twentythree or twentyfour millions of people three times the number

perhaps contained in Great Britain. The soil and climate of France are better than those of Great Britain. The

country has been much longer in a state of improvement and cultivation, and is, upon that account, better

stocked with all those things which it requires a long time to raise up and accumulate, such as great towns,

and convenient and wellbuilt houses, both in town and country. With these advantages it might be expected

that in France a revenue of thirty millions might be levied for the support of the state with as little

inconveniency as a revenue of ten millions is in Great Britain. In 1765 and 1766, the whole revenue paid into

the treasury of France, according to the best, though, I acknowledge, very imperfect, accounts which I could

get of it, usually run between 308 and 325 millions of livres; that is, it did not amount to fifteen millions

sterling; not the half of what might have been expected had the people contributed in the same proportion to

their numbers as the people of Great Britain. The people of France, however, it is generally acknowledged,

are much more oppressed by taxes than the people of Great Britain. France, however, is certainly the great

empire in Europe which, after that of Great Britain, enjoys the mildest and most indulgent government.

In Holland the heavy taxes upon the necessaries of life have ruined, it is said, their principal manufactures,

and are likely to discourage gradually even their fisheries and their trade in shipbuilding. The taxes upon the

necessaries of life are inconsiderable in Great Britain, and no manufacture has hitherto been ruined by them.

The British taxes which bear hardest on manufactures are some duties upon the importation of raw materials,

particularly upon that of raw silk. The revenue of the statesgeneral and of the different cities, however, is

said to amount to more than five millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling; and as the

inhabitants of the United Provinces cannot well be supposed to amount to more than a third part of those of

Great Britain, they must, in proportion to their number, be much more heavily taxed.

After all the proper subjects of taxation have been exhausted, if the exigencies of the state still continue to

require new taxes, they must be imposed upon improper ones. The taxes upon the necessaries of life,

therefore, the wisdom of that republic which, in order to acquire and to maintain its independency, has, in

spite of its great frugality, been involved in such expensive wars as have obliged it to contract great debts.

The singular countries of Holland and Zeeland, besides, require a considerable expense even to preserve their

existence, or to prevent their being swallowed up by the sea, which must have contributed to increase

considerably the load of taxes in those two provinces. The republican form of government seems to be the

principal support of the present grandeur of Holland. The owners of great capitals, the great mercantile

families, have generally either some direct share or some indirect influence in the administration of that

government. For the sake of the respect and authority which they derive from this situation, they are willing

to live in a country where their capital, if they employ it themselves, will bring them less profit, and if they

lend it to another, less interest; and where the very moderate revenue which they can draw from it will

purchase less of the necessaries and conveniences of life than in any other part of Europe. The residence of

such wealthy people necessarily keeps alive, in spite of all disadvantages, a certain degree of industry in the

country. Any public calamity which should destroy the republican form of government, which should throw

the whole administration into the hands of nobles and of soldiers, which should annihilate altogether the

importance of those wealthy merchants, would soon render it disagreeable to them to live in a country where

they were no longer likely to be much respected. They would remove both their residences and their capitals

to some other country, and the industry and commerce of Holland would soon follow the capitals which

IN that rude state of society which precedes the extension of commerce and the improvement of

manufactures, when those expensive luxuries which commerce and manufactures can alone introduce are

altogether unknown, the person who possesses a large revenue, I have endeavoured to show in the third book

of this Inquiry, can spend or enjoy that revenue in no other way than by maintaining nearly as many people as

it can maintain. A large revenue may at all times be said to consist in the command of a large quantity of the

necessaries of life. In that rude state of things it is commonly paid in a large quantity of those necessaries, in

the materials of plain food and coarse clothing, in corn and cattle, in wool and raw hides. When neither

commerce nor manufactures furnish anything for which the owner can exchange the greater part of those

materials which are over and above his own consumption, he can do nothing with the surplus but feed and

clothe nearly as many people as it will feed and clothe. A hospitality in which there is no luxury, and a

liberality in which there is no ostentation, occasion, in this situation of things, the principal expenses of the

rich and the great. But these, I have likewise endeavoured to show in the same book, are expenses by which

people are not very apt to ruin themselves. There is not, perhaps, any selfish pleasure so frivolous of which

the pursuit has not sometimes ruined even sensible men. A passion for cockfighting has ruined many. But

the instances, I believe, are not very numerous of people who have been ruined by a hospitality or liberality

of this kind, though the hospitality of luxury and the liberality of ostentation have ruined many. Among our

feudal ancestors, the long time during which estates used to continue in the same family sufficiently

demonstrates the general disposition of people to live within their income. Though the rustic hospitality

constantly exercised by the great landholders may not, to us in the present times, seem consistent with that

order which we are apt to consider as inseparably connected with good economy, yet we must certainly allow

them to have been at least so far frugal as not commonly to have spent their whole income. A part of their

wool and raw hides they had generally an opportunity of selling for money. Some part of this money,

perhaps, they spent in purchasing the few objects of vanity and luxury with which the circumstances of the

times could furnish them; but some part of it they seem commonly to have hoarded. They could not well,

indeed, do anything else but hoard whatever money they saved. To trade was disgraceful to a gentleman, and

to lend money at interest, which at that time was considered as usury and prohibited by law, would have been

still more so. In those times of violence and disorder, besides, it was convenient to have a hoard of money at

hand, that in case they should be driven from their own home they might have something of known value to

carry with them to some place of safety. The same violence which made it convenient to hoard made it

equally convenient to conceal the hoard. The frequency of treasuretrove, or of treasure found of which no

owner was known, sufficiently demonstrates the frequency in those times both of hoarding and of concealing

the board. Treasuretrove was then considered as an important branch of the revenue of the sovereign. All

the treasuretrove of the kingdom would scarce perhaps in the present times make an important branch of the

The same disposition to save and to hoard prevailed in the sovereign as well as in the subjects. Among

nations to whom commerce and manufactures are little known, the sovereign, it has already been observed in

the fourth book, is in a situation which naturally disposes him to the parsimony requisite for accumulation. In

that situation the expense even of a sovereign cannot be directed by that vanity which delights in the gaudy

finery of a court. The ignorance of the times affords but few of the trinkets in which that finery consists.

Standing armies are not then necessary, so that the expense even of a sovereign, like that of any other great

lord, can be employed in scarce anything but bounty to his tenants and hospitality to his retainers. But bounty

and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does. All the ancient

sovereigns of Europe accordingly, it has already been observed, had treasures. Every Tartar chief in the

In a commercial country abounding with every sort of expensive luxury, the sovereign, in the same manner as

almost all the great proprietors in his dominions, naturally spends a great part of his revenue in purchasing

those luxuries. His own and the neighbouring countries supply him abundantly with all the costly trinkets

which compose the splendid but insignificant pageantry of a court. For the sake of an inferior pageantry of

the same kind, his nobles dismiss their retainers, make their tenants independent, and become gradually

themselves as insignificant as the greater part of the wealthy burghers in his dominions. The same frivolous

passions which influence their conduct influence his. How can it be supposed that he should be the only rich

man in his dominions who is insensible to pleasures of this kind? If he does not, what he is very likely to do,

spend upon those pleasures so great a part of his revenue as to debilitate very much the defensive power of

the state, it cannot well be expected that he should not spend upon them all that part of it which is over and

above what is necessary for supporting that defensive power. His ordinary expense becomes equal to his

ordinary revenue, and it is well if it does not frequently exceed it. The amassing of treasure can no longer be

expected, and when extraordinary exigencies require extraordinary expenses, he must necessarily call upon

his subjects for an extraordinary aid. The present and the late king of Prussia are the only great princes of

Europe who, since the death of Henry IV of France in 1610, are supposed to have amassed any considerable

treasure. The parsimony which leads to accumulation has become almost as rare in republican as in

monarchical governments. The Italian republics, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, are all in debt. The

canton of Berne is the single republic in Europe which has amassed any considerable treasure. The other

Swiss republics have not. The taste for some sort of pageantry, for splendid buildings, at least, and other

public ornaments, frequently prevails as much in the apparently sober senatehouse of a little republic as in

The want of parsimony in time of peace imposes the necessity of contracting debt in time of war. When war

comes, there is no money in the treasury but what is necessary for carrying on the ordinary expense of the

peace establishment. In war an establishment of three of four times that expense becomes necessary for the

defence of the state, and consequently a revenue three or four times greater than the peace revenue.

Supposing that the sovereign should have, what he scarce ever has, the immediate means of augmenting his

revenue in proportion to the augmentation of his expense, yet still the produce of the taxes, from which this

increase of revenue must be drawn, will not begin to come into the treasury till perhaps ten or twelve months

after they are imposed. But the moment in which war begins, or rather the moment in which it appears likely

to begin, the army must be augmented, the fleet must be fitted out, the garrisoned towns must be put into a

posture of defence; that army, that fleet, those garrisoned towns must be furnished with arms, ammunition,

and provisions. An immediate and great expense must be incurred in that moment of immediate danger,

which will not wait for the gradual and slow returns of the new taxes. In this exigency government can have

The same commercial state of society which, by the operation of moral causes, brings government in this

manner into the necessity of borrowing, produces in the subjects both an ability and an inclination to lend. If

it commonly brings along with it the necessity of borrowing, it likewise brings along with it the facility of

A country abounding with merchants and manufacturers necessarily abounds with a set of people through

whose hands not only their own capitals, but the capitals of all those who either lend them money, or trust

them with goods, pass as frequently, or more frequently, than the revenue of a private man, who, without

trade or business, lives upon his income, passes through his hands. The revenue of such a man can regularly

pass through his hands only once in a year. But the whole amount of the capital and credit of a merchant, who

deals in a trade of which the returns are very quick, may sometimes pass through his hands two, three, or four

times a year. A country abounding with merchants and manufacturers, therefore, necessarily abounds with a

set of people who have it at all times in their power to advance, if they choose to do so, a very large sum of

money to government. Hence the ability in the subjects of a commercial state to lend.

Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular

administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their

property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law, and in which the authority of the state is not

supposed to be regularly employed in enforcing the payment of debts from all those who are able to pay.

Commerce and manufactures, in short, can seldom flourish in any state in which there is not a certain degree

of confidence in the justice of government. The same confidence which disposes great merchants and

manufacturers, upon ordinary occasions, to trust their property to the protection of a particular government,

disposes them, upon extraordinary occasions, to trust that government with the use of their property. By

lending money to government, they do not even for a moment diminish their ability to carry on their trade

and manufactures. On the contrary, they commonly augment it. The necessities of the state render

government upon most occasions willing to borrow upon terms extremely advantageous to the lender. The

security which it grants to the original creditor is made transferable to any other creditor, and, from the

universal confidence in the justice of the state, generally sells in the market for more than was originally paid

for it. The merchant or monied man makes money by lending money to government, and instead of

diminishing, increases his trading capital. He generally considers it as a favour, therefore, when the

administration admits him to a share in the first subscription for a new loan. Hence the inclination or

The government of such a state is very apt to repose itself upon this ability and willingness of its subjects to

lend it their money on extraordinary occasions. It foresees the facility of borrowing, and therefore dispenses

In a rude state of society there are no great mercantile or manufacturing capitals. The individuals who hoard

whatever money they can save, and who conceal their hoard, do so from a distrust of the justice of

government, from a fear that if it was known that they had a hoard, and where that hoard was to be found,

they would quickly be plundered. In such a state of things few people would be able, and nobody would be

willing, to lend their money to government on extraordinary exigencies. The sovereign feels that he must

provide for such exigencies by saving because he foresees the absolute impossibility of borrowing. This

The progress of the enormous debts which at present oppress, and will in the longrun probably ruin, all the

great nations of Europe has been pretty uniform. Nations, like private men, have generally begun to borrow

upon what may be called personal credit, without assigning or mortgaging any particular fund for the

payment of the debt; and when this resource has failed them, they have gone on to borrow upon assignments

What is called the unfunded debt of Great Britain is contracted in the former of those two ways. It consists

partly in a debt which bears, or is supposed to bear, no interest, and which resembles the debts that a private

man contracts upon account, and partly in a debt which bears interest, and which resembles what a private

man contracts upon his bill or promissory note. The debts which are due either for extraordinary services, or

for services either not provided for, or not paid at the time when they are performed, part of the extrordinaries

of the army, navy, and ordnance, the arrears of subsidies to foreign princes, those of seamen's wages, etc.,

usually constitute a debt of the first kind, sometimes in payment of a part of such Navy and exchequer bills,

which are issued sometimes in payment of a part of such debts and sometimes for other purposes, constitute a

debt of the second kind exchequer bills bearing interest from the day on which they are issued, and navy

bills six months after they are issued. The Bank of England, either by voluntarily discounting those bills at

their current value, or by agreeing with government for certain considerations to circulate exchequer bills,

that is, to receive them at par, paying the interest which happens to be due upon them, keeps up their value

and facilitates their circulation, and thereby frequently enables government to contract a very large debt of

this kind. In France, where there is no bank, the state bills (billets d'etat) have sometimes sold at sixty and

seventy per cent discount. During the great recoinage in King William's time, when the Bank of England

thought proper to put a stop to its usual transactions, exchequer bills and tallies are said to have sold from

twentyfive to sixty per cent discount; owing partly, no doubt, to the supposed instability of the new

government established by the Revolution, but partly, too, to the want of the support of the Bank of England.

When this resource is exhausted, and it becomes necessary, in order to raise money, to assign or mortgage

some particular branch of the public revenue for the payment of the debt, government has upon different

occasions done this in two different ways. Sometimes it has made this assignment or mortgage for a short

period of time only, a year, or a few years, for example; and sometimes for perpetuity. In the one case the

fund was supposed sufficient to pay, within the limited time, both principal and interest of the money

borrowed. In the other it was supposed sufficient to pay the interest only, or a perpetual annuity equivalent to

the interest, government being at liberty to redeem at any time this annuity upon paying back the principal

sum borrowed. When money was raised in the one way, it was said to be raised by anticipation; when in the

In Great Britain the land and malt taxes are regularly anticipated every year, by virtue of a borrowing clause

constantly inserted into the acts which impose them. The Bank of England generally advances at an interest,

which since the Revolution has varied from eight to three per cent, the sums for which those taxes are

granted, and receives payment as their produce gradually comes in. If there is a deficiency, which there

always is, it is provided for in the supplies of the ensuing year. The only considerable branch of the public

revenue which yet remains unmortgaged is thus regularly spent before it comes in. Like an improvident

spendthrift, whose pressing occasions will not allow him to wait for the regular payment of his revenue, the

state is in the constant practice of borrowing of its own factors and agents, and of paying interest for the use

In the reign of King William, and during a great part of that of Queen Anne, before we had become so

familiar as we are now with the practice of perpetual funding, the greater part of the new taxes were imposed

but for a short period of time (for four, five, six, or seven years only), and a great part of the grants of every

year consisted in loans upon anticipations of the produce of those taxes. The produce being frequently

insufficient for paying within the limited term the principal and interest of the money borrowed, deficiencies

In 1697, by the 8th of William III, c. 20, the deficiencies of several taxes were charged upon what was then

called the first general mortgage or fund, consisting of a prolongation to the first of August 1706 of several

different taxes which would have expired within a shorter term, and of which the produce was accumulated

into one general fund. The deficiencies charged upon this prolonged term amounted to L5,160,459 14s. 9

In 1701, those duties, with some others, were still further prolonged for the like purposes till the first of

August 1710, and were called the second general mortgage or fund. The deficiencies charged upon it

In 1707, those duties were still further prolonged, as a fund for new loans, to the first of August 1712, and

were called the third general mortgage or fund. The sum borrowed upon it was L983,254 11s. 9 1/4d.

In 1708, those duties were all (except the Old Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage, of which one moiety only

was made a part of this fund, and a duty upon the importation of Scotch linen, which had been taken off by

the Articles of Union) still further continued, as a fund for new loans, to the first of August 1714, and were

called the fourth general mortgage or fund. The sum borrowed upon it was L925,176 9s. 2 1/4d.

In 1709, those cities were all (except the Old Subsidy of Tonnage and Poundage, which was now left out of

this fund altogether) still further continued for the same purpose to the first of August 1716, and were called

In 1710, those duties were again prolonged to the first of August 1720, and were called the sixth general

In 1711, the same duties (which at this time were thus subject to four different anticipations) together with

several others were continued for ever, and made a fund for paying the interest of the capital of the South Sea

Company, which had that year advanced to government, for paying debts and making good deficiencies, the

sum of L9,177,967 15s. 4d.; the greatest loan which at that time had ever been made.

Before this period, the principal, so far as I have been able to observe, the only taxes which in order to pay

the interest of a debt had been imposed for perpetuity, were those for paying the interest of the money which

had been advanced to government by the Bank and the East India Company, and of what it was expected

would be advanced, but which was never advanced, by a projected land bank. The bank fund at this time

amounted to L3,375,027 17s. 10 1/2d., for which was paid an annuity or interest of L206,501 13s. 5d. The

East India fund amounted to L3,200,000, for which was paid an annuity or interest of L160,000 the bank

In 1715, by the 1st of George I, c. 12, the different taxes which had been mortgaged for paying the bank

annuity, together with several others which by this act were likewise rendered perpetual, were accumulated

into one common fund called The Aggregate Fund, which was charged not only with the payments of the

bank annuity, but with several other annuities and burdens of different kinds. This fund was afterwards

augmented by the 3rd of George I, c. 8, and by the 5th of George I, c. 3, and the different duties which were

In 1717, by the 3rd of George I, c. 7, several other taxes were rendered perpetual, and accumulated into

another common fund, called The General Fund, for the payment of certain annuities, amounting in the whole

In consequence of those different acts, the greater part of the taxes which before had been anticipated only for

a short term of years were rendered perpetual as a fund for paying, not the capital, but the interest only, of the

Had money never been raised but by anticipation, the course of a few years would have liberated the public

revenue without any other attention of government besides that of not overloading the fund by charging it

with more debt than it could pay within the limited term, and of not anticipating a second time before the

expiration of the first anticipation. But the greater part of European governments have been incapable of

those attentions. They have frequently overloaded the fund even upon the first anticipation, and when this

happened not to be the case, they have generally taken care to overload it by anticipating a second and a third

time before the expiration of the first anticipation. The fund becoming in this manner altogether insufficient

for paying both principal and interest of the money borrowed upon it, it became necessary to charge it with

the interest only, or a perpetual annuity equal to the interest, and such unprovident anticipations necessarily

gave birth to the more ruinous practice of perpetual funding. But though this practice necessarily puts off the

liberation of the public revenue from a fixed period to one so indefinite that it is not very likely ever to arrive,

yet as a greater sum can in all cases be raised by this new practice than by the old one of anticipations, the

former, when men have once become familiar with it, has in the great exigencies of the state been universally

preferred to the latter. To relieve the present exigency is always the object which principally interests those

immediately concerned in the administration of public affairs. The future liberation of the public revenue they

During the reign of Queen Anne, the market rate of interest had fallen from six to five per cent, and in the

twelfth year of her reign five per cent was declared to be the highest rate which could lawfully be taken for

money borrowed upon private security. Soon after the greater part of the temporary taxes of Great Britain had

been rendered perpetual, and distributed into the Aggregate, South Sea, and General Funds, the creditors of

the public, like those of private persons, were induced to accept of five per cent for the interest of their

money, which occasioned a saving of one per cent upon the capital of the greater part of the debts which had

been thus funded for perpetuity, or of onesixth of the greater part of the annuities which were paid out of the

three great funds above mentioned. This saving left a considerable surplus in the produce of the different

taxes which had been accumulated into those funds over and above what was necessary for paying the

annuities which were now charged upon them, and laid the foundation of what has since been called the

Sinking Fund. In 1717, it amounted to L323,434 7s. 7 1/2d. In 1727, the interest of the greater part of the

public debts was still further reduced to four per cent; and in 1753 and 1757, to three and a half and three per

A sinking fund, though instituted for the payment of old, facilitates very much the contracting of new debts.

It is a subsidiary fund always at hand to be mortgaged in aid of any other doubtful fund upon which money is

proposed to be raised in an exigency of the state. Whether the sinking fund of Great Britain has been more

frequently applied to the one or to the other of those two purposes will sufficiently appear by and by.

Besides those two methods of borrowing, by anticipations and by perpetual funding, there are two other

methods which hold a sort of middle place between them. These are, that of borrowing upon annuities for

During the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, large sums were frequently borrowed upon annuities for

terms of years, which were sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. In 1693, an act was passed for

borrowing one million upon an annuity of fourteen per cent, or of L140,000 a year for sixteen years. In 1691,

an act was passed for borrowing a million upon annuities for lives, upon terms which in the present times

would appear very advantageous. But the subscription was not filled up. In the following year the deficiency

was made good by borrowing upon annuities for lives at fourteen per cent, or at little more than seven years'

purchase. In 1695, the persons who had purchased those annuities were allowed to exchange them for others

of ninetysix years upon paying into the Exchequer sixtythree pounds in the hundred; that is, the difference

between fourteen per cent for life, and fourteen per cent for ninetysix years, was sold for sixtythree

pounds, or for four and a half years' purchase. Such was the supposed instability of government that even

these terms procured few purchasers. In the reign of Queen Anne money was upon different occasions

borrowed both upon annuities for lives, and upon annuities for terms of thirtytwo, of eightynine, of

ninetyeight, and of ninetynine years. In 1719, the proprietors of the annuities for thirtytwo years were

induced to accept in lieu of them South Sea stock to the amount of eleven and a half years' purchase of the

annuities, together with an additional quantity of stock equal to the arrears which happened then to be due

upon them. In 1720, the greater part of the other annuities for terms of years both long and short were

subscribed into the same fund. The long annuities at that time amounted to L666,821 8s. 3 1/2d. a year. On

the 5th of January 1775, the remainder of them, or what was not subscribed at that time, amounted only to

During the two wars which began in 1739 and in 1755, little money was borrowed either upon annuities for

terms of years, or upon those for lives. An annuity for ninetyeight or ninetynine years, however, is worth

nearly as much money as a perpetuity, and should, therefore, one might think, be a fund for borrowing nearly

as much. But those who, in order to make family settlements, and to provide for remote futurity, buy into the

public stocks, would not care to purchase into one of which the value was continually diminishing; and such

people make a very considerable proportion both of the proprietors and purchasers of stock. An annuity for a

long term of years, therefore, though its intrinsic value may be very nearly the same with that of a perpetual

annuity, will not find nearly the same number of purchasers. The subscribers to a new loan, who mean

generally to sell their subscriptions as soon as possible, prefer greatly a perpetual annuity redeemable by

Parliament to an irredeemable annuity for a long term of years of only equal amount. The value of the former

may be supposed always the same, or very nearly the same, and it makes, therefore, a more convenient

During the two lastmentioned wars, annuities, either for terms of years or for lives, were seldom granted but

as premiums to the subscribers to a new loan over and above the redeemable annuity or interest upon the

credit of which the loan was supposed to be made. They were granted, not as the proper fund upon which the

Annuities for lives have occasionally been granted in two different ways; either upon separate lives, or upon

lots of lives, which in French are called Tontines, from the name of their inventor. When annuities are

granted upon separate lives, the death of every individual annuitant disburthens the public revenue so far as it

was affected by his annuity. When annuities are granted upon tontines, the liberation of the public revenue

does not commence till the death of all annuitants comprehended in one lot, which may sometimes consist of

twenty or thirty persons, of whom the survivors succeed to the annuities of all those who die before them, the

last survivor succeeding to the annuities of the whole lot. Upon the same revenue more money can always be

raised by tontines than by annuities for separate lives. An annuity, with a right of survivorship, is really worth

more than an equal annuity for a separate life, and from the confidence which every man naturally has in his

own good fortune, the principle upon which is founded the success of all lotteries, such an annuity generally

sells for something more than it is worth. In countries where it is usual for government to raise money by

granting annuities, tontines are upon this account generally preferred to annuities for separate lives. The

expedient which will raise most money is almost always preferred to that which is likely to bring about in the

In France a much greater proportion of the public debts consists in annuities for lives than in England.

According to a memoir presented by the Parliament of Bordeaux to the king in 1764, the whole public debt of

France is estimated at twentyfour hundred millions of livres, of which the capital for which annuities for

lives had been granted is supposed to amount to three hundred millions, the eighth part of the whole public

debt. The annuities themselves are computed to amount to thirty millions a year, the fourth part of one

hundred and twenty millions, the supposed interest of that whole debt. These estimations, I know very well,

are not exact, but having been presented by so very respectable a body as approximations to the truth, they

may, I apprehend, be considered as such. It is not the different degrees of anxiety in the two governments of

France and England for the liberation of the public revenue which occasions this difference in their respective

modes of borrowing. It arises altogether from the different views and interests of the lenders.

In England, the seat of government being in the greatest mercantile city in the world, the merchants are

generally the people who advance money to government. By advancing it they do not mean to diminish, but,

on the contrary, to increase their mercantile capitals, and unless they expected to sell with some profit their

share in the subscription for a new loan, they never would subscribe. But if by advancing their money they

were to purchase, instead of perpetual annuities, annuities for lives only, whether their own or those of other

people, they would not always be so likely to sell them with a profit. Annuities upon their own lives they

would always sell with loss, because no man will give for an annuity upon the life of another, whose age and

state of health are nearly the same with his own, the same price which he would give for one upon his own.

An annuity upon the life of a third person, indeed, is, no doubt, of equal value to the buyer and the seller; but

its real value begins to diminish from the moment it is granted, and continues to do so more and more as long

as it subsists. It can never, therefore, make so convenient a transferable stock as a perpetual annuity, of which

In France, the seat of government not being in a great mercantile city, merchants do not make so great a

proportion of the people who advance money to government. The people concerned in the finances, the

farmers general, the receivers of the taxes which are not in farm, the court bankers, etc., make the greater part

of those who advance their money in all public exigencies. Such people are commonly men of mean birth,

but of great wealth, and frequently of great pride. They are too proud to marry their equals, and women of

quality disdain to marry them. They frequently resolve, therefore, to live bachelors, and having neither any

families of their own, nor much regard for those of their relations, whom they are not always very fond of

acknowledging, they desire only to live in splendour during their own time, and are not unwilling that their

fortune should end with themselves. The number of rich people, besides, who are either averse to marry, or

whose condition of life renders it either improper or inconvenient for them to do so, is much greater in France

than in England. To such people, who have little or no care for posterity, nothing can be more convenient

than to exchange their capital for a revenue which is to last just as long, and no longer, than they wish it to

The ordinary expense of the greater part of modern governments in time of peace being equal or nearly equal

to their ordinary revenue, when war comes they are both unwilling and unable to increase their revenue in

proportion to the increase of their expense. They are unwilling for fear of offending the people, who, by so

great and so sudden an increase of taxes, would soon be disgusted with the war; and they are unable from not

well knowing what taxes would be sufficient to produce the revenue wanted. The facility of borrowing

delivers them from the embarrassment which this fear and inability would otherwise occasion. By means of

borrowing they are enabled, with a very moderate increase of taxes, to raise, from year to year, money

sufficient for carrying on the war, and by the practice of perpetually funding they are enabled, with the

smallest possible increase of taxes, to raise annually the largest possible sum of money. In great empires the

people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them,

scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers

the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference

between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in

time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their

amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of

The return of peace, indeed, seldom relieves them from the greater part of the taxes imposed during the war.

These are mortgaged for the interest of the debt contracted in order to carry it on. If, over and above paying

the interest of this debt, and defraying the ordinary expense of government, the old revenue, together with the

new taxes, produce some surplus revenue, it may perhaps be converted into a sinking fund for paying off the

debt. But, in the first place, this sinking fund, even supposing it should be applied to no other purpose, is

generally altogether inadequate for paying, in the course of any period during which it can reasonably be

expected that peace should continue, the whole debt contracted during the war; and, in the second place, this

The new taxes were imposed for the sole purpose of paying the interest of the money borrowed upon them. If

they produce more, it is generally something which was neither intended nor expected, and is therefore

seldom very considerable. Sinking funds have generally arisen not so much from any surplus of the taxes

which was over and above what was necessary for paying the interest or annuity originally charged upon

them, as from a subsequent reduction of that interest. That of Holland in 1655, and that of the ecclesiastical

state in 1685, were both formed in this manner. Hence the usual insufficiency of such funds.

During the most profound peace various events occur which require an extraordinary expense, and

government finds it always more convenient to defray this expense by misapplying the sinking fund than by

imposing a new tax. Every new tax is immediately felt more or less by the people. It occasions always some

murmur, and meets with some opposition. The more taxes may have been multiplied, the higher they may

have been raised upon every different subject of taxation; the more loudly the people complain of every new

tax, the more difficult it becomes, too, either to find out new subjects of taxation, or to raise much higher the

taxes already imposed upon the old. A momentary suspension of the payment of debt is not immediately felt

by the people, and occasions neither murmur nor complaint. To borrow of the sinking fund is always an

obvious and easy expedient for getting out of the present difficulty. The more the public debts may have been

accumulated, the more necessary it may have become to study to reduce them, the more dangerous, the more

ruinous it may be to misapply any part of the sinking fund; the less likely is the public debt to be reduced to

any considerable degree, the more likely, the more certainly is the sinking fund to be misapplied towards

defraying all the extraordinary expenses which occur in time of peace. When a nation is already

overburdened with taxes, nothing but the necessities of a new war, nothing but either the animosity of

national vengeance, or the anxiety for national security, can induce the people to submit, with tolerable

In Great Britain, from the time that we had first recourse to the ruinous expedient of perpetual funding, the

reduction of the public debt in time of peace has never borne any proportion to its accumulation in time of

war. It was in the war which began in 1688, and was concluded by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, that the

On the 31st of December 1697, the public debts of Great Britain, funded and unfunded, amounted to

L21,515,742 13s. 8 1/2d. A great part of those debts had been contracted upon short anticipations, and some

part upon annuities for lives, so that before the 31st of December 1701, in less than four years, there had

partly been paid off, and partly reverted to the public, the sum of L5,121,041 12s. 0 3/4d.; a greater reduction

of the public debt than has ever since been brought about in so short a period of time. The remaining debt,

In the war which began in 1709., and which was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht, the public debts were

still more accumulated. On the 31st of December 1714, they amounted to L53,681,076 5s. 6 1/2d. The

subscription into the South Sea fund of the short and long annuities increased the capital of the public debts,

so that on the 31st of December 1722 it amounted to L55,282,978 1s. 3 5/6d. The reduction of the debt began

in 1723, and went on so slowly that, on the 31st of December 1739, during seventeen years of profound

peace, the whole sum paid off was no more than L8,328,354 17s. 11 3/12d., the capital of the public debt at

The Spanish war, which began in 1739, and the French war which soon followed it occasioned further

increase of the debt, which, on the 31st of December 1748, after the war had been concluded by the Treaty of

AixlaChapelle, amounted to L78,293,313 1s. 10 3/4d. The most profound peace of seventeen years

continuance had taken no more than L8,328,354 17s. 11 3/12d. from it. A war of less than nine years'

During the administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest of the public debt was reduced, or at least measures

were taken for reducing it, from four to three per cent; the sinking fund was increased, and some part of the

public debt was paid off. In 1755, before the breaking out of the late war, the funded debt of Great Britain

amounted to L72,289,673. On the 5th of January 1763, at the conclusion of the peace, the funded debt

amounted to L122,603,336 8s. 2 1/4d. The unfunded debt has been stated at L13,927,589 2s. 2d. But the

expense occasioned by the war did not end with the conclusion of the peace, so that though, on the 5th of

January 1764, the funded debt was increased (partly by a new loan, and partly by funding a part of the

unfunded debt) to L129,586,789 10s. 1 3/4d., there still remained (according to the very well informed author

of the Considerations on the Trade and Finances of Great Britain) an unfunded debt which was brought to

account in that and the following year of L9,975,017 12s. 2 15/44d. In 1764, therefore, the public debt of

Great Britain, funded and unfunded together, amounted, according to this author, to L139,516,807 2s. 4d. The

annuities for lives, too, which had been granted as premiums to the subscribers to the new loans in 1757,

estimated at fourteen years' purchase, were valued at L472,500; and the annuities for long terms of years,

granted as premiums likewise in 1761 and 1762, estimated at twentyseven and a half years' purchase, were

valued at L6,826,875. During a peace of about seven years' continuance, the prudent and truly patriot

administration of Mr. Pelham was not able to pay off an old debt of six millions. During a war of nearly the

On the 5th of January 1775, the funded debt of Great Britain amounted to L124,996,086 1s. 6 1/4d. The

unfunded, exclusive of a large civil list debt, to L4,150,263 3s. 11 7/8d. Both together, to L129,146,322 5s.

6d. According to this account the whole debt paid off during eleven years' profound peace amounted only to

L10,415,474 16s. 9 7/8d. Even this small reduction of debt, however, has not been all made from the savings

out of the ordinary revenue of the state. Several extraneous sums, altogether independent of that ordinary

revenue, have contributed towards it. Amongst these we may reckon an additional shilling in the pound

landtax for three years; the two millions received from the East India Company as indemnification for their

territorial acquisitions; and the one hundred and ten thousand pounds received from the bank for the renewal

of their charter. To these must be added several other sums which, as they arose out of the late war, ought

perhaps to be considered as deductions from the expenses of it. The principal are,

L s. d. The produce of French prizes 690,449 18 9 Composition for French prisoners 670,000 0 0 What has

of the ceded islands 95,500 0 0 If we add to this sum the balance of the Earl of Chatham's and Mr. Calcraft's

accounts, and other army savings of the same kind, together with what has been received from the bank, the

East India Company, and the additional shilling in the pound landtax, the whole must be a good deal more

than five millions. The debt, therefore, which since the peace has been paid out of the savings the ordinary

revenue of the state, has not, one year with another, amounted to half a million a year. The sinking fund has,

no doubt, been considerably augmented since the peace, by the debt which has been paid off, by the reduction

of the redeemable four per cents to three per cents, and by the annuities for lives which have fallen in, and, if

peace were to continue, a million, perhaps, might now be annually spared out of it towards the discharge of

the debt. Another million, accordingly, was paid in the course of last year; but, at the same time, a new civil

list debt was left unpaid, and we are now involved in a new war which, in its progress, may prove as

expensive as any of our former wars.* The new debt which will probably be contracted before the end of the

next campaign may perhaps be nearly equal to all the old debt which has been paid off from the savings out

of the ordinary revenue of the state. It would be altogether chimerical, therefore, to expect that the public debt

should ever be completely discharged by any savings which are likely to be made from that ordinary revenue

as it stands at present. * It has proved more expensive than all of our former wars; and has involved us in an

additional debt of more than one hundred millions. During a profound peace of eleven years, little more than

ten millions of debt was paid; during a war of seven years, more than one hundred millions was contracted.

The public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe, particularly those of England, have by one

author been represented as the accumulation of a great capital superadded to the other capital of the country,

by means of which its trade is extended, its manufactures multiplied, and its lands cultivated and improved

much beyond what they could have been by means of that other capital only. He does not consider that the

capital which the first creditors of the public advanced to government was, from the moment in which they

advanced it, a certain portion of the annual produce turned away from serving in the function of a capital to

serve in that of a revenue; from maintaining productive labourers to maintain unproductive ones, and to be

spent and wasted, generally in the course of the year, without even the hope of any future reproduction. In

return for the capital which they advanced they obtained, indeed, an annuity in the public funds in most cases

of more than equal value. This annuity, no doubt, replaced to them their capital, and enabled them to carry on

their trade and business to the same or perhaps to a greater extent than before; that is, they were enabled

either to borrow of other people a new capital upon the credit of this annuity, or by selling it to get from other

people a new capital of their own equal or superior to that which they had advanced to government. This new

capital, however, which they in this manner either bought or borrowed of other people, must have existed in

the country before, and must have been employed, as all capitals are, in maintaining productive labour. When

it came into the hands of those who had advanced their money to government, though it was in some respects

a new capital to them, it was not so to the country, but was only a capital withdrawn from certain

employments in or to be turned towards others. Though it replaced to them what they had advanced to

government, it did not replace it to the country. Had they not advanced this capital to government, there

would have been in the country two capitals, two portions of the annual produce, instead of one, employed in

When for defraying the expense of government a revenue is raised within the year from the produce of free or

unmortgaged taxes, a certain portion of the revenue of private people is only turned away from maintaining

one species of unproductive labour towards maintaining another. Some part of what they pay in those taxes

might no doubt have been accumulated into capital, and consequently employed in maintaining productive

labour; but the greater part would probably have been spent and consequently employed in maintaining

unproductive labour. The public expense, however, when defrayed in this manner, no doubt hinders more or

less the further accumulation of new capital; but it does not necessarily occasion the destruction of any

When the public expense is defrayed by funding, it is defrayed by the annual destruction of some capital

which had before existed in the country; by the perversion of some portion of the annual produce which had

before been destined for the maintenance of productive labour towards that of unproductive labour. As in this

case, however, the taxes are lighter than they would have been had a revenue sufficient for defraying the

same expense been raised within the year, the private revenue of individuals is necessarily less burdened, and

consequently their ability to save and accumulate some part of that revenue into capital is a good deal less

impaired. If the method of funding destroys more old capital, it at the same time hinders less the

accumulation or acquisition of new capital than that of defraying the public expense by a revenue raised

within the year. Under the system of funding, the frugality and industry of private people can more easily

repair the breaches which the waste and extravagance of government may occasionally make in the general

It is only during the continuance of war, however, that the system of funding has this advantage over the

other system. Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by a revenue raised within the year, the taxes

from which that extraordinary revenue was drawn would last no longer than the war. The ability of private

people to accumulate, though less during the war, would have been greater during the peace than under the

system of funding. War would not necessarily have occasioned the destruction of any old capitals, and peace

would have occasioned the accumulation of many more new. Wars would in general be more speedily

concluded, and less wantonly undertaken. The people feeling, during the continuance of the war, the

complete burden of it, would soon grow weary of it, and government, in order to humour them, would not be

under the necessity of carrying it on longer than it was necessary to do so. The foresight of the heavy and

unavoidable burdens of war would hinder the people from wantonly calling for it when there was no real or

solid interest to fight for. The seasons during which the ability of private people to accumulate was somewhat

impaired would occur more rarely, and be of shorter continuance. Those, on the contrary, during which the

ability was in the highest vigour would be of much longer duration than they can well be under the system of

When funding, besides, has made a certain progress, the multiplication of taxes which it brings along with it

sometimes impairs as much the ability of private people to accumulate even in time of peace as the other

system would in time of war. The peace revenue of Great Britain amounts at present to more than ten

millions a year. If free and unmortgaged, it might be sufficient, with proper management and without

contracting a shilling of new debt, to carry on the most vigorous war. The private revenue of the inhabitants

of Great Britain is at present as much encumbered in time of peace, their ability to accumulate is as much

impaired as it would have been in the time of the most expensive war had the pernicious system of funding

In the payment of the interest of the public debt, it has been said, it is the right hand which pays the left. The

money does not go out of the country. It is only a part of the revenue of one set of the inhabitants which is

transferred to another, and the nation is not a farthing the poorer. This apology is founded altogether in the

sophistry of the mercantile system, and after the long examination which I have already bestowed upon that

system, it may perhaps be unnecessary to say anything further about it. It supposes, besides, that the whole

public debt is owing to the inhabitants of the country, which happens not to be true; the Dutch, as well as

several other foreign nations, having a very considerable share in our public funds. But though the whole debt

were owing to the inhabitants of the country, it would not upon that account be less pernicious.

Land and capital stock are the two original sources of all revenue both private and public. Capital stock pays

the wages of productive labour, whether employed in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce. The

management of those two original sources of revenue belong to two different sets of people; the proprietors

The proprietor of land is interested for the sake of his own revenue to keep his estate in as good condition as

he can, by building and repairing his tenants' houses, by making and maintaining the necessary drains and

enclosures, and all those other expensive improvements which it properly belongs to the landlord to make and

maintain. But by different landtaxes the revenue of the landlord may be so much diminished, and by

different duties upon the necessaries and conveniences of life that diminished revenue may be rendered of so

little real value, that he may find himself altogether unable to make or maintain those expensive

improvements. When the landlord, however, ceases to do his part, it is altogether impossible that the tenant

should continue to do his. As the distress of the landlord increases, the agriculture of the country must

When, by different taxes upon the necessaries and conveniences of life, the owners and employers of capital

stock find that whatever revenue they derive from it will not, in a particular country, purchase the same

quantity of those necessaries and conveniences which an equal revenue would in almost any other, they will

be disposed to remove to some other. And when, in order to raise those taxes, all or the greater part of

merchants and manufacturers, that is, all or the greater part of the employers of great capitals, come to be

continually exposed to the mortifying and vexatious visits of the taxgatherers, the disposition to remove will

soon be changed into an actual removal. The industry of the country will necessarily fall with the removal of

the capital which supported it, and the ruin of trade and manufactures will follow the declension of

To transfer from the owners of those two great sources of revenue, land and capital stock, from the persons

immediately interested in the good condition of every particular portion of land, and in the good management

of every particular portion of capital stock, to another set of persons (the creditors of the public, who have no

such particular interest), the greater part of the revenue arising from either must, in the longrun, occasion

both the neglect of land, and the waste or removal of capital stock. A creditor of the public has no doubt a

general interest in the prosperity of the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of the country, and

consequently in the good condition of its lands, and in the good management of its capital stock. Should there

be any general failure or declension in any of these things, the produce of the different taxes might no longer

be sufficient to pay him the annuity or interest which is due to him. But a creditor of the public, considered

merely as such, has no interest in the good condition of any particular portion of land, or in the good

management of any particular portion of capital stock. As a creditor of the public he has no knowledge of any

such particular portion. He has no inspection of it. He can have no care about it. Its ruin may in some cases be

The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it. The Italian republics seem

to have begun it. Genoa and Venice, the only two remaining which can pretend to an independent existence,

have both been enfeebled by it. Spain seems to have learned the practice from the Italian republics, and (its

taxes being probably less judicious than theirs) it has, in proportion to its natural strength, been still more

enfeebled. The debts of Spain are of very old standing. It was deeply in debt before the end of the sixteenth

century, about a hundred years before England owed a shilling. France, notwithstanding all its natural

resources, languishes under an oppressive load of the same kind. The republic of the United Provinces is as

much enfeebled by its debts as either Genoa or Venice. Is it likely that in Great Britain alone a practice which

has brought either weakness or desolation into every other country should prove altogether innocent?

The system of taxation established in those different countries, it may be said, is inferior to that of England. I

believe it is so. But it ought to be remembered that, when the wisest government has exhausted all the proper

subjects of taxation, it must, in cases of urgent necessity, have recourse to improper ones. The wise republic

of Holland has upon some occasions been obliged to have recourse to taxes as inconvenient as the greater

part of those of Spain. Another war begun before any considerable liberation of the public revenue had been

brought about, and growing in its progress as expensive as the last war, may, from irresistible necessity,

render the British system of taxation as oppressive as that of Holland, or even as that of Spain. To the honour

of our present system of taxation, indeed, it has hitherto given so little embarrassment to industry that, during

the course even of the most expensive wars, the frugality and good conduct of individuals seem to have been

able, by saving and accumulation, to repair all the breaches which the waste and extravagance of government

had made in the general capital of the society. At the conclusion of the late war, the most expensive that

Great Britain ever waged, her agriculture was as flourishing, her manufacturers as numerous and as fully

employed, and her commerce as extensive as they had ever been before. The capital, therefore, which

supported all those different branches of industry must have been equal to what it had ever been before. Since

the peace, agriculture has been still further improved, the rents of houses have risen in every town and village

of the country a proof of the increasing wealth and revenue of the people; and the annual amount the greater

part of the old taxes, of the principal branches of the excise and customs in particular, has been continually

increasing an equally clear proof of an increasing consumption, and consequently of an increasing produce

which could alone support that consumption. Great Britain seems to support with ease a burden which, half a

century ago, nobody believed her capable of supporting. Let us not, however, upon this account rashly

conclude that she is capable of supporting any burden, nor even be too confident that she could support,

without great distress, a burden a little greater than what has already been laid upon her.

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single

instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has ever

been brought about by bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently

The raising of the denomination of the coin has been the most usual expedient by which a real public

bankruptcy has been disguised under the appearance of a pretended payment. If a sixpence, for example,

should either by Act of Parliament or Royal Proclamation be raised to the denomination of a shilling, and

twenty sixpences to that of a pound sterling, the person who under the old denomination had borrowed

twenty shillings, or near four ounces of silver, would, under the new, pay with twenty sixpences, or with

something less than two ounces. A national debt of about a hundred and twentyeight millions, nearly the

capital of the funded and unfunded debt of Great Britain, might in this manner be paid with about sixtyfour

millions of our present money. It would indeed be a pretended payment only, and the creditors of the public

would really be defrauded of ten shillings in the pound of what was due to them. The calamity, too, would

extend much further than to the creditors of the public, and those of every private person would suffer a

proportionable loss; and this without any advantage, but in most cases with a great additional loss, to the

creditors of the public. If the creditors of the public, indeed, were generally much in debt to other people, they

might in some measure compensate their loss by paying their creditors in the same coin in which the public

had paid them. But in most countries the creditors of the public are, the greater part of them, wealthy people,

who stand more in the relation of creditors than in that of debtors towards the rest of their fellowcitizens. A

pretended payment of this kind, therefore, instead of alleviating, aggravates in most cases the loss of the

creditors of the public, and without any advantage to the public, extends the calamity to a great number of

other innocent people. It occasions a general and most pernicious subversion of the fortunes of private

people, enriching in most cases the idle and profuse debtor at the expense of the industrious and frugal

creditor, and transporting a great part of the national capital from the hands which were likely to increase and

improve it to those which are likely to dissipate and destroy it. When it becomes necessary for a state to

declare itself bankrupt, in the same manner as when it becomes necessary for an individual to do so, a fair,

open, and avowed bankruptcy is always the measure which is both least dishonourable to the debtor and least

hurtful to the creditor. The honour of a state is surely very poorly provided for when, in order to cover the

disgrace of a real bankruptcy, it has recourse to a juggling trick of this kind, so easily seen through, and at the

Almost all states, however, ancient as well as modern, when reduced to this necessity have, upon some

occasions, played this very juggling trick. The Romans, at the end of the first Punic war, reduced the As, the

coin or denomination by which they computed the value of all their other coins, from containing twelve

ounces of copper to contain only two ounces; that is, they raised two ounces of copper to a denomination

which had always before expressed the value of twelve ounces. The republic was, in this manner, enabled to

pay the great debts which it had contracted with the sixth part of what it really owed. So sudden and so great

a bankruptcy, we should in the present times be apt to imagine, must have occasioned a very violent popular

clamour. It does not appear to have occasioned any. The law which enacted it was, like all other laws relating

to the coin, introduced and carried through the assembly of the people by a tribune, and was probably a very

popular law. In Rome, as in all the other ancient republics, the poor people were constantly in debt to the rich

and the great, who in order to secure their votes at the annual elections, used to lend them money at

exorbitant interest, which, being never paid, soon accumulated into a sum too great either for the debtor to

pay, or for anybody else to pay for him. The debtor, for fear of a very severe execution, was obliged, without

any further gratuity, to vote for the candidate whom the creditor recommended. In spite of all the laws against

bribery and corruption, the bounty of the candidates, together with the occasional distributions of corn which

were ordered by the senate, were the principal funds from which, during the latter times of the Roman

republic, the poorer citizens derived their subsistence. To deliver themselves from this subjection to their

creditors, the poorer citizens were continually calling out either for an entire abolition of debts, or for what

they called New Tables; that is, for a law which should entitle them to a complete acquittance upon paying

only a certain proportion of their accumulated debts. The law which reduced the coin of all denominations to

a sixth part of its former value, as it enabled them to pay their debts with a sixth part of what they really

owed, was equivalent to the most advantageous New Tables. In order to satisfy the people, the rich and the

great were, upon several different occasions, obliged to consent to laws both for abolishing debts, and for

introducing New Tables; and they probably were induced to consent to this law partly for the same reason,

and partly that, by liberating the public revenue, they might restore vigour to that government of which they

themselves had the principal direction. An operation of this kind would at once reduce a debt of a hundred

and twentyeight millions to twentyone millions three hundred and thirtythree thousand three hundred and

thirtythree pounds six shillings and eightpence. In the course of the second Punic war the As was still

further reduced, first, from two ounces of copper to one ounce, and afterwards from one ounce to half an

ounce; that is, to the twentyfourth part of its original value. By combining the three Roman operations into

one, a debt of a hundred and twentyeight millions of our present money might in this manner be reduced all

at once to a debt of five millions three hundred and thirtythree thousand three hundred and thirtythree

pounds six shillings and eightpence. Even the enormous debts of Great Britain might in this manner soon be

By means of such expedients the coin of, I believe, all nations has been gradually reduced more and more

below its original value, and the same nominal sum has been gradually brought to contain a smaller and a

Nations have sometimes, for the same purpose, adulterated the standard of their coin; that is, have mixed a

greater quantity of alloy in it. If in the pound weight of our silver coin, for example, instead of eighteen

pennyweight, according to the present standard, there was mixed eight ounces of alloy, a pound sterling, or

twenty shillings of such coin, would be worth little more than six shillings and eightpence of our present

money. The quantity of silver contained in six shillings and eightpence of our present money would thus be

raised very nearly to the denomination of a pound sterling. The adulteration of the standard has exactly the

same effect with what the French call an augmentation, or a direct raising of the denomination of the coin.

An augmentation, or a direct raising of the coin, always is, and from its nature must be, an open and avowed

operation. By means of it pieces of a smaller weight and bulk are called by the same name which had before

been given to pieces of a greater weight and bulk. The adulteration of the standard, on the contrary, has

generally been a concealed operation. By means of it pieces were issued from the mint of the same

denominations, and, as nearly as could be contrived, of the same weight, bulk, and appearance with pieces

which had been current before of much greater value. When King John of France, in order to pay his debts,

adulterated his coin, all the officers of his mint were sworn to secrecy. Both operations are unjust. But a

simple augmentation is an injustice of open violence, whereas the adulteration is an injustice of treacherous

fraud. This latter operation, therefore, as soon as it has been discovered, and it could never be concealed very

long, has always excited much greater indignation than the former. The coin after any considerable

augmentation has very seldom been brought back to its former weight; but after the greater adulterations it

has almost always been brought back to its former fineness. It has scarce ever happened that the fury and

In the end of the reign of Henry VIII and in the beginning of that of Edward VI the English coin was not only

raised in its denomination, but adulterated in its standard. The like frauds were practised in Scotland during

the minority of James VI. They have occasionally been practised in most other countries.

That the public revenue of Great Britain can never be completely liberated, or even that any considerable

progress can ever be made towards that liberation, while the surplus of that revenue, or what is over and

above defraying the annual expense of the peace establishment, is so very small, it seems altogether in vain to

expect. That liberation, it is evident, can never be brought about without either some very considerable

augmentation of the public revenue, or some equally considerable reduction of the public expense.

A more equal landtax, a more equal tax upon the rent of houses, and such alterations in the present system

of customs and excise as those which have been mentioned in the foregoing chapter might, perhaps, without

increasing the burden of the greater part of the people, but only distributing the weight of it more equally

upon the whole, produce a considerable augmentation of revenue. The most sanguine projector, however,

could scarce flatter himself that any augmentation of this kind would be such as could give any reasonable

hopes either of liberating the public revenue altogether, or even of making such progress towards that

liberation in time of peace as either to prevent or to compensate the further accumulation of the public debt in

By extending the British system of taxation to all the different provinces of the empire inhabited by people of

either British or European extraction, a much greater augmentation of revenue might be expected. This,

however, could scarce, perhaps, be done, consistently with the principles of the British constitution, without

admitting into the British Parliament, or if you will into the states general of the British empire, a fair and

equal representation of all those different provinces, that of each province bearing the same proportion to the

produce of its taxes as the representation of Great Britain might bear to the produce of the taxes levied upon

Great Britain. The private interest of many powerful individuals, the confirmed prejudices of great bodies of

people seem, indeed, at present, to oppose to so great a change such obstacles as it may be very difficult,

perhaps altogether impossible, to surmount. Without, however, pretending to determine whether such a union

be practicable or impracticable, it may not, perhaps, be improper, in a speculative work of this kind, to

consider how far the British system of taxation might be applicable to all the different provinces of the

empire, what revenue might be expected from it if so applied, and in what manner a general union of this

kind might be likely to affect the happiness and prosperity of the different provinces comprehended within it.

Such a speculation can at worst be regarded but as a new Utopia, less amusing certainly, but not more useless

The landtax, the stampduties, and the different duties of customs and excise constitute the four principal

Ireland is certainly as able, and our American and West Indian plantations more able to pay a landtax than

Great Britain. Where the landlord is subject neither to tithe nor poorrate, he must certainly be more able to

pay such a tax than where he is subject to both those other burdens. The tithe, where there is no modus, and

where it is levied in kind, diminishes more what would otherwise be the rent of the landlord than a landtax

which really amounted to five shillings in the pound. Such a tithe will be found in most cases to amount to

more than a fourth part of the real rent of the land, or of what remains after replacing completely the capital

of the farmer, together with his reasonable profit. If all moduses and all impropriations were taken away, the

complete church tithe of Great Britain and Ireland could not well be estimated at less than six or seven

millions. If there was no tithe either in Great Britain or Ireland, the landlords could afford to pay six or seven

millions additional landtax without being more burdened than a very great part of them are at present.

America pays no tithe, and could therefore very well afford to pay a landtax. The lands in America and the

West Indies, indeed, are in general not tenanted nor leased out to farmers. They could not therefore be

assessed according to any rentroll. But neither were the lands of Great Britain, in the 4th of William and

Mary, assessed according to any rentroll, but according to a very loose and inaccurate estimation. The lands

in America might be assessed either in the same manner, or according to an equitable valuation in

consequence of an accurate survey like that which was lately made in the Milanese, and in the dominions of

Stampduties, it is evident, might be levied without any variation in all countries where the forms of law

process, and the deeds by which property both real and personal is transferred, are the same or nearly the

The extension of the customhouse laws of Great Britain to Ireland and the plantations, provided it was

accompanied, as in justice it ought to be, with an extension of the freedom of trade, would be in the highest

degree advantageous to both. All the invidious restraints which at present oppress the trade of Ireland, the

distinction between the enumerated and nonenumerated commodities of America, would be entirely at an

end. The countries north of Cape Finisterre would be as open to every part of the produce of America as those

south of that Cape are to some parts of that produce at present. The trade between all the different parts of the

British empire would, in consequence of this uniformity in the customhouse laws, be as free as the coasting

trade of Great Britain is at present. The British empire would thus afford within itself an immense internal

market for every part of the produce of all its different provinces. So great an extension of market would soon

compensate both to Ireland and the plantations all that they could suffer from the increase of the duties of

The excise is the only part of the British system of taxation which would require to be varied in any respect

according as it was applied to the different provinces of the empire. It might be applied to Ireland without any

variation, the produce and consumption of that kingdom being exactly of the same nature with those of Great

Britain. In its application to America and the West Indies, of which the produce and consumption are so very

different from those of Great Britain, some modification might be necessary in the same manner as in its

A fermented liquor, for example, which is called beer, but which, as it is made of molasses, bears very little

resemblance to our beer, makes a considerable part of the common drink of the people in America. This

liquor, as it can be kept only for a few days, cannot, like our beer, be prepared and stored up for sale in great

breweries; but every private family must brew it for their own use, in the same manner as they cook their

victuals. But to subject every private family to the odious visits and examination of the taxgatherers, in the

same manner as we subject the keepers of alehouses and the brewers for public sale, would be altogether

inconsistent with liberty. If for the sake of equality it was thought necessary to lay a tax upon this liquor, it

might be taxed by taxing the material of which it is made, either at the place of manufacture, or, if the

circumstances of the trade rendered such an excise improper, by laying a duty upon its importation into the

colony in which it was to be consumed. Besides the duty of one penny a gallon imposed by the British

Parliament upon the importation of molasses into America, there is a provincial tax of this kind upon their

importation into Massachusetts Bay, in ships belonging to any other colony, of eightpence the hogshead; and

another upon their importation, from the northern colonies into South Carolina, of fivepence the gallon. Or if

neither of these methods was found convenient, each family might compound for its consumption of this

liquor, either according to the number of persons of which it consisted, in the same manner as private families

compound for the malttax in England; or according to the different ages and sexes of those persons, in the

same manner as several different taxes are levied in Holland; or nearly as Sir Matthew Decker proposes that

all taxes upon consumable commodities should be levied in England. This mode of taxation, it has already

been observed, when applied to objects of a speedy consumption is not a very convenient one. It might be

Sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of

almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation. If a union with

the colonies were to take place, those commodities might be taxed either before they go out of the hands of

the manufacturer or grower, or if this mode of taxation did not suit the circumstances of those persons, they

might be deposited in public warehouses both at the place of manufacture, and at all the different ports of the

empire to which they might afterwards be transported, to remain there, under the joint custody of the owner

and the revenue officer, till such time as they should be delivered out either to the consumer, to the merchant

retailer for home consumption, or to the merchant exporter, the tax not to be advanced till such delivery.

When delivered out for exportation, to go duty free upon proper security being given that they should really

be exported out of the empire. These are perhaps the principal commodities with regard to which a union with

the colonies might require some considerable change in the present system of British taxation.

What might be the amount of the revenue which this system of taxation extended to all the different

provinces of the empire might produce, it must, no doubt, be altogether impossible to ascertain with tolerable

exactness. By means of this system there is annually levied in Great Britain, upon less than eight millions of

people, more than ten millions of revenue. Ireland contains more than two millions of people, and according

to the accounts laid before the congress, the twelve associated provinces of America contain more than three.

Those accounts, however, may have been exaggerated, in order, perhaps, either to encourage their own

people, or to intimidate those of this country, and we shall suppose, therefore, that our North American and

West Indian colonies taken together contain no more than three millions; or that the whole British empire, in

Europe and America, contains no more than thirteen millions of inhabitants. If upon less than eight millions

of inhabitants this system of taxation raises a revenue of more than ten millions sterling, it ought upon

thirteen millions of inhabitants to raise a revenue of more than sixteen millions two hundred and fifty

thousand pounds sterling. From this revenue, supposing that this system could produce it, must be deducted

the revenue usually raised in Ireland and the plantations for defraying the expense of their respective civil

governments. The expense of the civil and military establishment of Ireland, together with the interest of the

public debt, amounts, at a medium of the two years which ended March 1775, to something less than seven

hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year. By a very exact account of the revenue of the principal colonies of

America and the West Indies, it amounted, before the commencement of the present disturbances, to a

hundred and fortyone thousand eight hundred pounds. In this account, however, the revenue of Maryland, of

North Carolina, and of all our late acquisitions both upon the continent and in the islands is omitted, which

may perhaps make a difference of thirty or forty thousand pounds. For the sake of even numbers, therefore,

let us suppose that the revenue necessary for supporting the civil government of Ireland and the plantations

may amount to a million. There would remain consequently a revenue of fifteen millions two hundred and

fifty thousand pounds to be applied towards defraying the general expense of the empire, and towards paying

the public debt. But if from the present revenue of Great Britain a million could in peaceable times be spared

towards the payment of that debt, six millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds could very well be

spared from this improved revenue. This great sinking fund, too, might be augmented every year by the

interest of the debt which had been discharged the year before, and might in this manner increase so very

rapidly as to be sufficient in a few years to discharge the whole debt, and thus to restore completely the at

present debilitated and languishing vigour of the empire. In the meantime the people might be relieved from

some of the most burdensome taxes; from those which are imposed either upon the necessaries of life, or

upon the materials of manufacture. The labouring poor would thus be enabled to live better, to work cheaper,

and to send their goods cheaper to market. The cheapness of their goods would increase the demand for them,

and consequently for the labour of those who produced them. This increase in the demand for labour would

both increase the numbers and improve the circumstances of the labouring poor. Their consumption would

increase, and together with it the revenue arising from all those articles of their consumption upon which the

The revenue arising from this system of taxation, however, might not immediately increase in proportion to

the number of people who were subjected to it. Great indulgence would for some time be due to those

provinces of the empire which were thus subjected to burdens to which they had not before been accustomed,

and even when the same taxes came to be levied everywhere as exactly as possible, they would not

everywhere produce a revenue proportioned to the numbers of the people. In a poor country the consumption

of the principal commodities subject to the duties of customs and excise is very small, and in a thinly

inhabited country the opportunities of smuggling are very great. The consumption of malt liquors among the

inferior ranks of people in Scotland is very small, and the excise upon malt, beer, and ale produces less there

than in England in proportion to the numbers of the people and the rate of the duties, which upon malt is

different on account of a supposed difference of quality. In these particular branches of the excise there is not,

I apprehend, much more smuggling in the one country than in the other. The duties upon the distillery, and

the greater part of the duties of customs, in proportion to the numbers of people in the respective countries,

produce less in Scotland than in England, not only on account of the smaller consumption of the taxed

commodities, but of the much greater facility of smuggling. In Ireland the inferior ranks of people are still

poorer than in Scotland, and many parts of the country are almost as thinly inhabited. In Ireland, therefore,

the consumption of the taxed commodities might, in proportion to the number of the people, be still less than

Scotland, and the facility of smuggling nearly the same. In America and the West Indies the white people

even of the lowest rank are in much better circumstances than those of the same rank in England, and their

consumption of all the luxuries in which they usually indulge themselves is probably much greater. The

blacks, indeed, who make the greater part of the inhabitants both of the southern colonies upon the continent

and of the West India islands, as they are in a state of slavery, are, no doubt, in a worse condition than the

poorest people either in Scotland or Ireland. We must not, however, upon that account, imagine that they are

worse fed, or that their consumption of articles which might be subjected to moderate duties is less than that

even of the lower ranks of people in England. In order that they may work well, it is the interest of their

master that they should be fed well and kept in good heart in the same manner as it is his interest that his

working cattle should be so. The blacks accordingly have almost everywhere their allowance of rum and

molasses or spruce beer in the same manner as the white servants, and this allowance would not probably be

withdrawn though those articles should be subjected to moderate duties. The consumption of the taxed

commodities, therefore, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, would probably be as great in America

and the West Indies as in any part of the British empire. The opportunities of smuggling, indeed, would be

much greater; America, in proportion to the extent of the country, being much more thinly inhabited than

either Scotland or Ireland. If the revenue, however, which is at present raised by the different duties upon

malt and malt liquors were to be levied by a single duty upon malt, the opportunity of smuggling in the most

important branch of the excise would be almost entirely taken away: and if the duties of customs, instead of

being imposed upon almost all the different articles of importation, were confined to a few of the most

general use and consumption, and if the levying of those duties were subjected to the excise laws, the

opportunity of smuggling, though not so entirely taken away, would be very much diminished. In

consequence of those two, apparently, very simple and easy alterations, the duties of customs and excise

might probably produce a revenue as great in proportion to the consumption of the most thinly inhabited

The Americans, it has been said, indeed, have no gold or silver money; the interior commerce of the country

being carried on by a paper currency, and the gold and silver which occasionally come among them being all

sent to Great Britain in return for the commodities which they receive from us. But without gold and silver, it

is added, there is no possibility of paying taxes. We already get all the gold and silver which they have. How

The present scarcity of gold and silver money in America is not the effect of the poverty of that country, or of

the inability of the people there to purchase those metals. In a country where the wages of labour are so much

higher, and the price of provisions so much lower than in England, the greater part of the people must surely

have wherewithal to purchase a greater quantity if it were either necessary or convenient for them to do so.

The scarcity of those metals, therefore, must be the effect of choice, and not of necessity.

It is for transacting either domestic or foreign business that gold and silver money is either necessary or

The domestic business of every country, it has been shown in the second book of this Inquiry, may, at least in

peaceable times, be transacted by means of a paper currency with nearly the same degree of conveniency as

by gold and silver money. It is convenient for the Americans, who could always employ with profit in the

improvement of their lands a greater stock than they can easily get, to save as much as possible the expense

of so costly an instrument of commerce as gold and silver, and rather to employ that part of their surplus

produce which would be necessary for purchasing those metals in purchasing the instruments of trade, the

materials of clothing, several parts of household furniture, and the ironwork necessary for building and

extending their settlements and plantations; in purchasing, not dead stock, but active and productive stock.

The colony governments find it for their interest to supply the people with such a quantity of papermoney as

is fully sufficient and generally more than sufficient for transacting their domestic business. Some of those

governments, that of Pennsylvania particularly, derive a revenue from lending this papermoney to their

subjects at an interest of so much per cent. Others, like that of Massachusetts Bay, advance upon

extraordinary emergencies a papermoney of this kind for defraying the public expense, and afterwards,

when it suits the conveniency of the colony, redeem it at the depreciated value to which it gradually falls. In

1747, that colony paid, in this manner, the greater part of its public debts with the tenth part of the money for

which its bills had been granted. It suits the conveniency of the planters to save the expense of employing

gold and silver money in their domestic transactions, and it suits the conveniency of the colony governments

to supply them with a medium which, though attended with some very considerable disadvantages, enables

them to save that expense. The redundancy of papermoney necessarily banishes gold and silver from the

domestic transactions of the colonies, for the same reason that it has banished those metals from the greater

part of the domestic transactions in Scotland; and in both countries it is not the poverty, but the enterprising

and projecting spirit of the people, their desire of employing all the stock which they can get as active and

productive stock, which has occasioned this redundancy of papermoney. In the exterior commerce which

the different colonies carry on with Great Britain, gold and silver are more or less employed exactly in

proportion as they are more or less necessary. Where those metals are not necessary they seldom appear.

In the commerce between Great Britain and the tobacco colonies the British goods are generally advanced to

the colonists at a pretty long credit, and are afterwards paid for in tobacco, rated at a certain price. It is more

convenient for the colonists to pay in tobacco than in gold and silver. It would be more convenient for any

merchant to pay for the goods which his correspondents had sold to him in some other sort of goods which he

might happen to deal in than in money. Such a merchant would have no occasion to keep any part of his stock

by him unemployed, and in ready money, for answering occasional demands. He could have, at all times, a

larger quantity of goods in his shop or warehouse, and he could deal to a greater extent. But it seldom

happens to be convenient for all the correspondents of a merchant to receive payment for the goods which

they sell to him in goods of some other kind which he happens to deal in. The British merchants who trade to

Virginia and Maryland happen to be a particular set of correspondents, to whom it is more convenient to

receive payment for the goods which they sell to those colonies in tobacco than in gold and silver. They

expect to make a profit by the sale of the tobacco. They could make none by that of the gold and silver. Gold

and silver, therefore, very seldom appear in the commerce between Great Britain and the tobacco colonies.

Maryland and Virginia have as little occasion for those metals in their foreign as in their domestic commerce.

They are said, accordingly, to have less gold and silver money than any other colonies in America. They are

reckoned, however, as thriving, and consequently as rich, as any of their neighbours.

In the northern colonies, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, the four governments of New England, etc.,

the value of their own produce which they export to Great Britain is not equal to that of the manufactures

which they import for their own use, and for that of some of the other colonies to which they are the carriers.

A balance, therefore, must be paid to the mother country in gold and silver, and this balance they generally

In the sugar colonies the value of the produce annually exported to Great Britain is much greater than that of

all the goods imported from thence. If the sugar and rum annually sent to the mother country were paid for in

those colonies, Great Britain would be obliged to send out every year a very large balance in money, and the

trade to the West Indies would, by a certain species of politicians, be considered as extremely

disadvantageous. But it so happens that many of the principal proprietors of the sugar plantations reside in

Great Britain. Their rents are remitted to them in sugar and rum, the produce of their estates. The sugar and

rum which the West India merchants purchase in those colonies upon their own account are not equal in

value to the goods which they annually sell there. A balance, therefore, must necessarily be paid to them in

The difficulty and irregularity of payment from the different colonies to Great Britain have not been at all in

proportion to the greatness or smallness of the balances which were respectively due from them. Payments

have in general been more regular from the northern than from the tobacco colonies, though the former have

generally paid a pretty large balance in money, while the latter have either paid no balance, or a much smaller

one. The difficulty of getting payment from our different sugar colonies has been greater or less in

proportion, not so much to the extent of the balances respectively due from them, as to the quantity of

uncultivated land which they contained; that is, to the greater or smaller temptation which the planters have

been under of overtrading, or of undertaking the settlement and plantation of greater quantities of waste land

than suited the extent of their capitals. The returns from the great island of Jamaica, where there is still much

uncultivated land, have, upon this account, been in general more irregular and uncertain than those from the

smaller islands of Barbadoes, Antigua, and St. Christophers, which have for these many years been

completely cultivated, and have, upon that account, afforded less field for the speculations of the planter. The

new acquisitions of Grenada, Tobago, St. Vincents, and Dominica have opened a new field for speculations

of this kind, and the returns from those islands have of late been as irregular and uncertain as those from the

It is not, therefore, the poverty of the colonies which occasions, in the greater part of them, the present

scarcity of gold and silver money. Their great demand for active and productive stock makes it convenient for

them to have as little dead stock as possible, and disposes them upon that account to content themselves with

a cheaper though less commodious instrument of commerce than gold and silver. They are thereby enabled to

convert the value of that gold and silver into the instruments of trade, into the materials of clothing, into

household furniture, and into the ironwork necessary for building and extending their settlements and

plantations. In those branches of business which cannot be transacted without gold and silver money, it

appears that they can always find the necessary quantity of those metals; and if they frequently do not find it,

their failure is generally the effect, not of their necessary poverty, but of their unnecessary and excessive

enterprise. It is not because they are poor that their payments are irregular and uncertain, but because they are

too eager to become excessively rich. Though all that part of the produce of the colony taxes which was over

and above what was necessary for defraying the expense of their own civil and military establishments were

to be remitted to Great Britain in gold and silver, the colonies have abundantly wherewithal to purchase the

requisite quantity of those metals. They would in this case be obliged, indeed, to exchange a part of their

surplus produce, with which they now purchase active and productive stock, for dead stock. In transacting

their domestic business they would be obliged to employ a costly instead of a cheap instrument of commerce,

and the expense of purchasing this costly instrument might damp somewhat the vivacity and ardour of their

excessive enterprise in the improvement of land. It might not, however, be necessary to remit any part of the

American revenue in gold and silver. It might be remitted in bills drawn upon and accepted by particular

merchants or companies in Great Britain to whom a part of the surplus produce of America had been

consigned, who would pay into the treasury the American revenue in money, after having themselves

received the value of it in goods; and the whole business might frequently be transacted without exporting a

It is not contrary to justice that both Ireland and America should contribute towards the discharge of the

public debt of Great Britain. That debt has been contracted in support of the government established by the

Revolution, a government to which the Protestants of Ireland owe, not only the whole authority which they at

present enjoy in their own country, but every security which they possess for their liberty, their property, and

their religion; a government to which several of the colonies of America owe their present charters, and

consequently their present constitution, and to which all the colonies of America owe the liberty, security,

and property which they have ever since enjoyed. That public debt has been contracted in the defence, not of

Great Britain alone, but of all the different provinces of the empire; the immense debt contracted in the late

war in particular, and a great part of that contracted in the war before, were both properly contracted in

By a union with Great Britain, Ireland would gain, besides the freedom of trade, other advantages much more

important, and which would much more than compensate any increase of taxes that might accompany that

union. By the union with England the middling and inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete

deliverance from the power of an aristocracy which had always before oppressed them. By a union with

Great Britain the greater part of the people of all ranks in Ireland would gain an equally complete deliverance

from a much more oppressive aristocracy; an aristocracy not founded, like that of Scotland, in the natural and

respectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all distinctions, those of religious and

political prejudices; distinctions which, more than any other, animate both the insolence of the oppressors and

the hatred and indignation of the oppressed, and which commonly render the inhabitants of the same country

more hostile to one another than those of different countries ever are. Without a union with Great Britain the

inhabitants of Ireland are not likely for many ages to consider themselves as one people.

No oppressive aristocracy has ever prevailed in the colonies. Even they, however, would, in point of

happiness and tranquility, gain considerably by a union with Great Britain. It would, at least, deliver them

from those rancorous and virulent factions which are inseparable from small democracies, and which have so

frequently divided the affections of their people, and disturbed the tranquillity of their governments, in their

form so nearly democratical. In the case of a total separation from Great Britain, which, unless prevented by a

union of this kind, seems very likely to take place, those factions would be ten times more virulent than ever.

Before the commencement of the present disturbances, the coercive power of the mother country had always

been able to restrain those factions from breaking out into anything worse than gross brutality and insult. If

that coercive power were entirely taken away, they would probably soon break out into open violence and

bloodshed. In all great countries which are united under one uniform government, the spirit of party

commonly prevails less in the remote provinces than in the centre of the empire. The distance of those

provinces from the capital, from the principal seat of the great scramble of faction and ambition, makes them

enter less into the views of any of the contending parties, and renders them more indifferent and impartial

spectators of the conduct of all. The spirit of party prevails less in Scotland than in England. In the case of a

union it would probably prevail less in Ireland than in Scotland, and the colonies would probably soon enjoy

a degree of concord and unanimity at present unknown in any part of the British empire. Both Ireland and the

colonies, indeed, would be subjected to heavier taxes than any which they at present pay. In consequence,

however, of a diligent and faithful application of the public revenue towards the discharge of the national

debt, the greater part of those taxes might not be of long continuance, and the public revenue of Great Britain

might soon be reduced to what was necessary for maintaining a moderate peace establishment.

The territorial acquisitions of the East India Company, the undoubted right of the crown, that is, of the state

and people of Great Britain, might be rendered another source of revenue more abundant, perhaps, than all

those already mentioned. Those countries are represented as more fertile, more extensive, and, in proportion

to their extent, much richer and more populous than Great Britain. In order to draw a great revenue from

them, it would not probably be necessary to introduce any new system of taxation into countries which are

already sufficiently and more than sufficiently taxed. It might, perhaps, be more proper to lighten than to

aggravate the burden of those unfortunate countries, and to endeavour to draw a revenue from them, not by

imposing new taxes, but by preventing the embezzlement and misapplication of the greater part of those

If it should be found impracticable for Great Britain to draw any considerable augmentation of revenue from

any of the resources above mentioned, the only resource which can remain to her is a diminution of her

expense. In the mode of collecting and in that of expending the public revenue, though in both there may be

still room for improvement, Great Britain seems to be at least as economical as any of her neighbours. The

military establishment which she maintains for her own defence in time of peace is more moderate than that

of any European state which can pretend to rival her either in wealth or in power. None of those articles,

therefore, seem to admit of any considerable reduction of expense. The expense of the peace establishment of

the colonies was, before the commencement of the present disturbances, very considerable, and is an expense

which may, and if no revenue can be drawn from them ought certainly to be saved altogether. This constant

expense in time of peace, though very great, is insignificant in comparison with what the defence of the

colonies has cost us in time of war. The last war, which was undertaken altogether on account of the colonies,

cost Great Britain, it has already been observed, upwards of ninety millions. The Spanish war of 1739 was

principally undertaken on their account, in which, and in the French war that was the consequence of it, Great

Britain spent upwards of forty millions, a great part of which ought justly to be charged to the colonies. In

those two wars the colonies cost Great Britain much more than double the sum which the national debt

amounted to before the commencement of the first of them. Had it not been for those wars that debt might,

and probably would by this time, have been completely paid; and had it not been for the colonies, the former

of those wars might not, and the latter certainly would not have been undertaken. It was because the colonies

were supposed to be provinces of the British empire that this expense was laid out upon them. But countries

which contribute neither revenue nor military force towards the support of the empire cannot be considered as

provinces. They may perhaps be considered as appendages, as a sort of splendid and showy equipage of the

empire. But if the empire can no longer support the expense of keeping up this equipage, it ought certainly to

lay it down; and if it cannot raise its revenue in proportion to its expense, it ought, at least, to accommodate

its expense to its revenue. If the colonies, notwithstanding their refusal to submit to British taxes, are still to

be considered as provinces of the British empire, their defence in some future war may cost Great Britain as

great an expense as it ever has done in any former war. The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a

century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of

the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only. It has hitherto been, not an

empire, but the project of an empire; not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine; a project which has cost,

which continues to cost, and which, if pursued in the same way as it has been hitherto, is likely to cost,

immense expense, without being likely to bring any profit; for the effects of the monopoly of the colony

trade, it has been shown, are, to the great body of the people, mere loss instead of profit. It is surely now time

that our rulers should either realize this golden dream, in which they have been indulging themselves,

perhaps, as well as the people, or that they should awake from it themselves, and endeavour to awaken the

people. If the project cannot be completed, it ought to be given up. If any of the provinces of the British

empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the whole empire, it is surely time that Great

Britain should free herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting

any part of their civil or military establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future

The two following accounts are subjoined in order to illustrate and confirm what is said in the fifth chapter of

the fourth book, concerning the tonnage bounty to the whiteherring fishery. The reader, I believe, may

An account of Busses fitted out in Scotland for Eleven Years, with the Number of Empty Barrels carried out,

and the Number of Barrels of Herrings caught; also the Bounty at a Medium on each Barrel of Seasteeks, and

It is to be observed that the Bushel of Foreign Salt weights 84 lb., that of British Salt 56 lb. only.