The essential principles of the wealth of nations : illustrated, in opposition to some false doctrines of Adam Smith, and others ..

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7

THE

ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES

df the

Wealth of nations,

ItLUSTRATtbi

.7 O

IN OPPOSITION TO SOME f ALSJS rJt)CTiilNE§

OF

DR. JVJM SMITH', Jf\'D OTH'ERS-,

Aratro,

DIgnus Honos. virgiL'.

To labour diligently, and be content:, is a fweet life.

BCCLESIA3T.

LONDON:

HlNtED FOR T. B£CKET, PALL-MAl-t.

1797.

-%k:^^Ttl^>

THE

ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES

OF THE

WEALTH OF NATIONS,

ILLUSTRATED, cSY.

X HE caufes of the wealth of nations are various,
naj' even infinite ; for it is out of the power of any ^
man, or of any number of men to enumerate every
minute circumftance that may ferve to promote the
profperity of a ftate. He that employs his time in
colleding finen rags for the ufe of the paper maker,
contributes to the wealth of his country. He that
in making planks fubfbituted the faw for the hatchet,
and he that fubftituted carts and waggons for fledges
and pack-horfes, were great benefaftors to mankind,
and in this view were entitled to as much praife and
as much recompence as the moft fuccefsful general,
In fliort, every perfon in fociety, who prefers honefl
induftiy to idlenefs, promotes in fome degree the
wealth of the nation.

The prudent ftatefman, fenfible that it would be

a prcfumptuous and vain attempt to trace out the

million of fmall caufes that contribute to the wealth

of nations, applies his attention chiefly to the prin-

A 2 cipal

( 4 )

tipal and mofl eflential caufes; and aflidiiouflj^'
brideavours to render thefe caufes as efficient as'
pdffible:

The principal and mofl eflential caufe of the
profperity of a flate is the ingenuity and labour of
its inKabitants exercifed upon the fertility of its
foil. All other caufes of the profperity of a ftate,^
united, are not equivalent to this; and it alone
affords that revenue upon which a flate is to fubfifl
and accumulate wealth. This truth, Mr. Locke
tontented himfelf with flightly touching upon ; and
fmce his time Variderlint,' and fome other Englifli
political writers^ have bellowed fome notice upon it:
Biit of late years it has been very fyflematically,
though not correftly, illullrated by many celebrated
French writers, who on that account are diflin-
guifhed by the riarrie of Political Economifls. Dr.
Adam Smith in his work, entitled an Enquiry' into
the Nature and Caufes of the Wealth of Nations,
has in my opinion givcii, (except in one point) a
fair and accurate view of the great outlines of that
fyflem, according to the French writers, with the
purpofe of objeifling to fome material parts of it.
As I mean iii liiy prefent difcourfe to eftablifli that
lyftem, and to correct the errors of the French Eco4
iiomifts, and of Dr. Adam Smith, it becomes ne-
cefrai"y for me to lay before my readers, its leading
doftrines according to the French writers, which t
fhall endeavour to do, vv'ith as much brevity as is
confiflent with diflinftnefs.

According to the French Economifls, the different
orders of people who contribute in any refped to-
wards

( s >

^vards the annual revenue of a country are, fir.ft, the
proprietors of land; feconulyj the cultivators, whom
fhey honour with the peculiar appellation of the
produd.ive clalsj and thirdly, artificers, manufac-
turers, and merchants, whom they degrade, by the
humiliating appellation of the barren or unproduftive
.clafs.

The proprietors contribute to the a|iniial revenue,
by what they may occafionally lay out upon the im7
provement of the land, by which the cultivators are
enabled with the fame capital to raife a greater pro-
.duce. The cultivators or farmers, who form the
iecond clafs, contribute to the annual produce, firft
by their flock, and fecondly by their annual labouf
and expenditure ; for without ftock, and without
daily labour and expence, the flirm would not pro-
duce. The farm ought to produce to the farmer a
reafonable profit upon both thole capitals, and over
and above a furplus produce, \yhich goes to the
landlord under the name of rent ; and on account
of both thefe profits, this clafs is diflinguifhed by
the appellation of the productive clafs. 'Till the
landlord receives a reafonable profit upon the
primar}'^ expences, and the farmer likewife a reafon-
able profit upon his ftock and expence, neither the
church nor the king can take any thing without oc-
cafionjng a diminution of the produce of fucceeding
years.

The .original and the annual expences laid out
in cultivating the foil, arc confidered as the only
productive expences. All other expences are iii
their eftimation barren or unprodudive ; confe-

( 6 )

quently attlficers, manufafturers, and merchants, thd
third order of men, whofe labour only replaces the
revenue which they confume, are called barren or
iinproduclive. The expence laid out in employing
and maintaining them does no more than continue the
exillence of its own value, and is therefore unpro-
ductive. The wealth of fociety can never in the
fmallefl degree be augmented by artificers, manufac-
turers, or merchants, otherwife than by their faving
and accumulating part of what is intended for their
daily fubfiftence ; confequently it is by privation ot
parfimony alone, that they can add any thing to the
general ftock. Cultivators, on the contrary, may
live up to the whole of their income, and yet at
the fame time greatly enrich the ftate ; for their
induftry affords a furplus produce called rent.
Nations therefore that like France and England
confifb in a great meafure of proprietors and culti-
vators, can be enriched by induftry and enjoyment.
But nations which, like Holland and Hamburg, are
compofed chiefly of merchants, manufafturers, and
artificers, can grow rich only through parfimony and
privation.

The unproduftive clafs however is greatly ufeful
to the clafles of proprietors and cultivators, for by
means of the induftry of that clafs the latter can
purchafe manufactures, either foreign or domeftic^
with a much fmaller quantity of their own labour^
than if they were to flacken in their attention to
cultivation, and to attempt either to manufacture
or to import them themfelves. The induftry of
merchants, artificers, and manufadurers, though ia

its

( 7 )

Us own nature altogether unprodue^ivc, yet contri-
butes in this manner indiredly to increafc the pro-
duce of the land. It will always be the intereft of
the cultivators and proprietors to encourage the in-
duflry of the unprociudive clafs, becaufe from that
encouragement, competition will arife, and confe-
quently more induftry will be procured with lefs
recompence; that is, things will become cheaper.
It will likewife always be the intereft of the unpro-
duftive clafs to encourage cultivatorsj becaufe the
greater the produce which they draw from the
ground, the greater will be the employment of
that clafs. The efhablifliment of perfect juflice,
of penecl liberty, and of a perfect equilibrium^ is the
very fihiple fecret^ which moil effedlually fecures the
highefl: degree of profperity to all the three elafles.

Should a nation oT proprietors and cultivators
have in the beginning neither artificers, manufac-
turers, nor merchants, within its own territory, yet
it would be found poHcy in that nation to admit
foreign manufactures free of all duties whatever,
becaufe it would thereby purchafe them with a lefs
quantity of its own produce, and confcquently
would have a greater furplus produce, which in
progrefs of time, when its lands were all brought
into cultivation, would ferve as a capital for the
employment of artificers and manufafturers at home.
Thefe manufadturers though at firfl probably un-
fkilful, yet by having it in their power to fell their
manufactures cheaper than foreigners could, who
brought them from a great diftance, would in time
be able not only to fupply their own nation, without

A 4 any

any foreign importation, but to carry their cx^ix
rnanufciAured goods abroad at a cheaper rate than aj
mere mercantile nation could afford them. But till
its lands be all cultivated, it gains more by employ-
ing its capital in the cultivation of its landsj than in-
promoting manufafturing induftry ; for the former
gives a real increafe, or renewal of revenue, which
the lafl does not.

This fyflem has truth and nature for its foundar
tlon ; but the French writers not having gone quite
to the foundation, have confequently not given iuch
an explanation of it as is altogether juft and accurate.
Had the French writers traced the Economical fyf-
tem to its foundation, they could not have deemed
Receivers of land rents, as mere Receivers of rents, a
produ(flive clafs in fociety. What made, t:hem flop
Ihort in their Inveftigrvtioiis, I fliall not pretend to fay;
but they have in lome degree compenfated for their
error by intimating that the Church and King ar^
to be ferved out of thofe rents. Dr. Smith, however,
not perceiving the error of the French writers ; but
on the contrary, fuffering it (feemingly as an engraft-
ment from them) to pervade the whole of his own
enquiry, diredts his refutation to the found part of
the Economical fyflem.

Let us now examine in what ;Ttann,eir he combats
this fyflem. His introdu6lory remark is as follows.
• The capital error of this fyflem feems to lie in its
' reprefenting the clafs of Artificers, Manufadlurers^
^ and Merchante^y as altogether barren and unpro;
' dudlive. The following obfervations may ferv.c
' to fliew the impropriety of this obfervation.'

Now

( 9 )
How what Dr. Smith apprehends to be the ca^
pital error of this fyftcm, I hope to be able mofl
iatisfadorily to prove to be no error, but a well-
founded truth of great political importance. The
Economifts we have feen affirrp, that no part of the
revenue of fociety arifes from rpanufadures ; and
as the difcuffing the validity of D.c. Sniith's obferva-
tions affords me an opportunity nq|: qnly of eftab-
lilhing this truth, but at the fame time of (hewing that
the revenue qf fociety arifes fojely frort; the jnduftry
of the inhabitants, beftowed upon the fertility of the
foil, I fliall therefore proceed to the confideration of
the Docflor's obfervations. The firfl obfervation i5
in the following words :— '. Firft, this clafs (mean:
' ing the cbfs qf manufadVurqrs) it is acknowlgclged

* reproduces^ annually, the value of its own annual

* confumption, and continues at lead the exiftence

* qf tiie ftock or capital whi^h maintains and em-
' ploys it. But upon this account alone the denq-

* mination of barren or unproductive, fhould feem

* to be very improperly applied to it: We fhould
' not call a marriage barren or unprodu<^ive, though
,J it produced only a fon and a daughter, to replace
f the father and mother, and though it did not in-
f creafe the number of the human fpecies ; but
f only CQntini:ted it as before. Farmers and country

* labourers, indeed, over and above the f|:ock which

* maintains and employs thern, reproduce annually

* a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord. As a

* marriage which affords three children is certainly
' more productive than one which affords only two,
{ fo the labour of farmers and country labourers js

* certainly

( 10 )

* certainty more produiftivc than that of merdidnts^
' artificers^ and manufafturers. The fuperior pro-

* duce of the one clafs, however, does not render"

* the other barren or unproduflive.'

The whole of this obfcrvation of Dr. Smith is no-
thing but an evalive quibble about the accurate mean-
ing of the word barren j and the comparifon he has in-
troduced of a marriage, fliews moil appofitely the fal-
lacy of his conclufion, and eflablilhes the great pro^
priety and juftnefs of the fenfe given by the Eco-
nomiflis to the word barren, that is, not yielding
any increafe. The "rridther of two children certainly
could not be called barren ; but a marriage that pro-
duced only two children may with the utmoft pro-
priety be called barren. If for every child that was
born, an adult perfon died, would a defart country
ever become populous ? Were this to be the cafe
in Botany Bay, and were no new inhabitants to be
imported thither, would New Holland ever become
a peopled country ? Were I to fow 20 bufliels of
wheat in a field, and at harveft it fliould only pro--
duce 20 buibels, might it notj with the greateft pro-
priety, be called a barren field ? I fufpect it would
be deemed fo by every one, and be defertcd accord-
ingly. If this field has produced 20 bufhels, fome
Vegetation has appeared in it, hut no increafe ; for
20 bufliels were thrown into it. Therefore a clafs
of men whofe labour (though it produces fome-
thing) produces no more than what was beflowed,
in order to effect that labour, may with the greateft
propriety be called an unproductix:e cldfs. It would
be wafting my readers time, to beftovv more words
3 upon

( , I )

upon this firft obfervation. I fliall proceed to the ic-
cond.

* Second!}', it (eems upon this account altogether
improper to confider artificers, manufa6lurers,^nd
merchants, in the fame light as menial fcrvants.
The labour of menial lervants does not continue
the exiftence of the fund which maintains and
employs them. Their maintenance and employ-
ment are altogether at the expence of their mafters,
and the work which they perform is not of a na-
ture to repay that expence. That work confifts
in fervices which perifli generally in the very in-
ftant of their performance, and does not fix or re-
alize itfelf in any vendible commodity which can
replace the value of their wages or maintenance.
The labour, on the contrary, of artificers, manu-
fafturers, and merchants, naturally does fix and
realize itfelf in ibme fuch vendible commodity.
It is upon this account that, in the chapter in
which I treat of produclive and unprodu6tive la-
bour, I have clafled artificers, manufacturers, and
merchants, among the produ6live labourers, and
menial fervants among the barren or unproduftive/
I muft begin with remarking, that Dr. Smith, In
putting the labour of menial fervants upon the fame
footing with the labour of artificers and manufafturers,
has aftually misftated the dodrine of the Econo-
mifus ; and in this point only, as I have before no-
ticed. The Economllls make a diftinclion between
the labour that yields an equivalent for expen-
diture, and the labour that yields no equivalent.
This lad is the labour of menial fervants, and

the

|:he firft that of artificers and manufadtuFecs ^
but ftill they both are with the greateft propriety
termed unproductive ; though the one be much more
fo than the other. I fliall explain the difference
in a few words. It will be allowed, that a field
which returns only the feed fown intq it, is a barren
field. But fomje ground, fuch as the fea beach, may
poflefs no vegetative power at all, and may not even
return the feed fown into it^ confequently would be
much more barren than the other. The labour of
menial fervants is aptly compared to this very fbe-
rile ground. But will the greater fterility of one
fpot entitle ground to be called prqdudlive, that
actually returns only the (ctd, but gives no increafe ?
This difference is only a greater or lefs degree of a
minus ; but will never give a plus. The Econo-
mifts moji readily allow that the labour of artificers
and majiufafturers fixes itfelf > which the labour of
meaial fervants does npt. But from thence does it
follow, with any fliadow of logick, that the former
yields the fmalleft increafe, and confequently can be
called produclive. Upon this falfe induftion, how-
ever. Dr. Smith fays, * It is upon this account that,
.* in the ciiapter ip which I treat of produftive and
.* unprodudive labour, I have clafled artificers, ma-

* nufafturers, and merchants, among the produc-
.* tive labourers, and menial fervants among the

* barren and unproductive.' Has he done fo on this
account ? Then, I fay, having no other account,
he has ac:l:ually by thefe words declared a very large
portion of his own treatife fallacious i for the error
of decn^ing that produclive \yh':ch is thus plainly

pro^"e(|

t ^1 )

prdVe'd to be uiiprodudive, pervades liitich niorc thKli
one chapter of his work.

In his third obfervfitioh Di*. Sniith pufli^s the
point a little further, and attempts to lllew that the
labour of artificers and manufadurers does not only
give an equivalent for the confumptlorl it occafions,
but even yields an increafe. * Thirdly,' he fays,
it ieenis Upon every fuppofitiori improper {'o fay,
that the labour of artificers, manufafturers; dhd
merchants, does not increafe the real revenue of the
fociety: Though we Ihould fiippofe, for example,
as it feerhs to be fuppofed irt this fyllem, that the
value of the daily, rrionthly; and yearly confump-
tion of this clafs was exaftly equal to that of its
daily, monthly, and }'early production; yfet it
would not from thence follow thtlt its labdtir added
nothing to the real revenue, to the real value of
the annual produte of the land and labour of the
fociety. An artificer, for example, who in the
firft fix months after harveft, executes ten pounds
worth of work, though he Ihould, in the fame
time, confume ten pounds worth of corn and
other heceflaries, yet really adds the value of ten
pounds to the annual produce of the land arid la-
bour of the fociety. While he has been con-
luming a half yearly revenue of ten pounds worth
of com and other lieceiTliries, he has produced an
equal value of work, capable of purchafing either
to himfelf, or to fome other perfon, an equal half
yearly revenue. The value therefore of what has
been confumed and produced, during thefe fix
monthsj is equal not to tenj but to twenty pounds.

• It

( H )

* It is pofTible, indeed, that no more than ten
pounds worth of this value, may ever have exifted
at any one moment of time. But if the ten
pounds worth of {:orn and other neceffaries, which
were cofxfumed by the artificer, had been con-
fumed by a foldier, or by a menial fervant, the
value of that part of the annual produce w4iich
exifted at the end of fix months, would have
been ten pounds lefs than it adually is, in confe-
quence of the labour of the artificer. Though
the value of what the artificer produces therefore,
ihould not, at any one moment of time, be fup-
pofed greater than the value he confumes, yet at
every moment of time the aftua|ly exifting value
of goods in the market is, in confequence of what
he produces, greater than it otherwife would be.'
* When the patrons of this fyftem aflert that the
confumption of artificers, manvifafturers, and
m-erchants, is equal to the value of what they pro-
duce, they probably mean no more than that
their revenue, or the fund deflined for their con-
fumption is equal to it. But if they had ex-
prefled themfelves more accurately, and only al-
lerted that the revenue of this clafs was equal to
the value of what they produced, it might readily
have occurred to the reader, that what would na-
turally have been faved out of this revenue, muft
neceflarily increafe more or lefs the real wealth of
the fociety. In order therefore to make out fome-
thing like an argument, it was neceffary that they
(hould exprefs themfelves as they have done ; and
this argument, even fuppofing things adually

< were

( 15 )

< were as it feems to pr^fume them to be, turns out
* to be a very inconcUifive one.'

I choofe to give Dr. Smith's arguments without
any abridgment, thougli they would lofe nothing in
being exprelied in fewer words. ■ His; verbofenefs
and ambiguity clearly fliew how a man of ability,
when overlooking fundcimental principles, may fpe-
jculate upon the iurface of things, without ever get-^
ting at the kernel. In this third obfervaticn we
have what, in mercantile accounts, is called a fecond
entr}% that is, the fame articles flated twice in th?
{lime account, which muft necefiarily occafiqn a
falfe aggregate, or falfe cOnclufion. ' While an ar-

* tificer,' he fays, * has been confuming a half yearly
^ revenue of ten pounds worth of corn, and other
^ neceffaries, he has produced an equal value ot

* work capable of purchaiing either to himfelf, or

* to fome other ^perfon, an equal half yearly, reve-

* nue. . The value therefore of what has been con-
^ fumed and produced, during th^fe fix months, is

* equal not to ten, but to twenty pounds.' Were
this true, artificers and manufatflurers would cer-
tainly be a productive clals. But in fitting the cafe
with precifion, which the Do<^or has not done, it will
appear that this hocus pocus manner of turning ten
into twenty, is like legerdemain tricks in general, a
mere deception. The artificer, he means to fay,
who produces a piece of manufadlure, after half a
year's work, may fell it for as much as will maintain
hini a lecond.ihaif yeai;; contcquently,; though he

-has confumed -only what fed him {ix, ^months, he
t^ay. get, by hjs manuffvdure, vyiiat will feed him

twelve

( '6 )

twelve months. It has totally efcaped Dr. Smith;'
that the artificer had no right to fell his manufac-
ture, as it Was pf'evioully mortgaged to pay for his
firfl fix months provifions ; for it cannot be pre--
fumed that h\i firfl fix months provifions were given
to him gratis; He that furniflied thofe provifions
to him mufl be reimburfed ; and how is he to be
reimburfed ? By the piece of manufa6lure: Con-
fequently the ten pounds flill remain ten pounds. I
will ftate a cafe analogous, and fimilar to that men-
lioned by Dr. Sniith; which will render his falfe
conclufion flill clearer to my reader. Suppofe a far-
mer has a defire for a good clockj and meeting with
a fkilful dock-maker^ jufl come out of prifon,
without d farthing in his pocket, agrees with him
on the following terms, namely, to furniOi him with
provifions, materials and tools, till he finifli thd
clock, and to have the clock in return. Would
not the clock-maker be deemed a dlQionefl perfon,
or a fool, if he attempted to difpofe of the clock
to any other perfon but the farmer who furnilhed
him with provifions.

it is, I think; unhecefTary to enlarge further ifi
the refutation of the third obfervation. I fliall only
remark, that the fecond argument, that the artificer
by his labour mufl create an increafe of valuej becailfe
the menial fervant does not, is equtiUy in'eonclufivfe
as the firfl, and has already been anfwered.

I proceed to his fourth obfervation, which is ill
the following words : ' Fourthl}^, farmers and coun-

* try labourers can no more augment, without parfi-

* mony, the real revenue, the annual produce of the

land

( 17 )

land and labour of their fociety, than artificers,
manufaclurers, and merchants. The annual pro-
duce of the land and labour of any fociety can
be augmented only in two ways ; either, firft, by
fome improvement in the produilive powers of
the ufeful labour adlually maintained within it;
or, fecondly, by fome increafe in the quantity of
that labour.'

* The improvement in the productive powers of
ufeful labour depends, firft, upon the improve-
ment in the ability of the workman ; and, fe-
condly, upon that of the machinery wdth which
he works. But the labour of artificers and ma-
nufadlurers, as it is capable of being more fubdi-
vided, and the labour of each workman reduced
to a greater fimpliclty of operation, than that ot
farjiiers and country labourers, fo it is likewife
capable of both thefe forts of improvement in a
much higher degree. _ In this refpect, therefore,
the clafs of cultivators can have no fort of advan-
tage over that of artificers and manufafturers..'
' The increafe in the quantity of ufeful labour
adiually employed within any fociety, muft depend
altogether upon the increafe of the capital which
employs it ; and the increafe of that capital again
muft be exaftly equal to the amount of the fa-
vings trom the revenue ; either of the particular
perfons who manage and direft the employment of
that capital, or of fome other perfons who lend it
to them. If merchants, artificers, and manufac-
turers are, as this fyftem feems to fuppofe, natu-
rally more inclined to parfimony and faving than
B * pro-

( i8 )

* proprietors and cultivators, they are To fiir, more

* likely to augment the quantity of ufeful labour

* employed within their fociety, and, confequently,
' to increafe its real revenue, the annual produce of
' its land and labour.'

Here we have another mifconception of the doc-
trine of the Economifts. The augmentation of re-
venue is not, but indirectly, the obje<5t of the Eco-
nomifts, though that would be a confequence of
their fyftem. Their objed is the production and
reproduction of a re'\"enue, which, they affirm, folely
arifes from the ingenuity and labour of man exer-
cifed upon the fertility of the foil. The people of
Great Britain, for example, are fuch great fpenders,
that they aftually wafte and confume to the amount
of more than eighty millions fterling annually,
and the Britifli farmers are io kind to them as an- -.
nually to reproduce the value of the millions fpent.
Were the farmers to negloft their annual labour,
and no fupplies were to come from abroad, there
would not be a living foul in Great Britain in
fifteen or fixteen months after. A hard frofl of
three or four weeks continuance, we fee, fills the
ftreets of London with the poor gardeners begging for
a fubliftence, as their revenue is then cut off. From
this we may dravv' a conclufion what would be the
national mifery on the fuppofition of a twelve-
months froft. The cattle of the farmers would
foon be Slaughtered ot perifli. Every horfe would
die. The landlords receivine; no rents would difmifs
ail their domeilics, who finding none to employ
them, mufl ftarve or quit the kingdom. The far-
mers

\ 19 )

rtiefS and landlords having no income could not
pay taxes; would alio" cleafe being cuftomers to the
Ihop-keepers, and could not give employment to
carpenters, matbnsj painters, fculptors, gilders,
Hioemakers, taylors, Sec. all of whom would gra-
dually ceale being buyers, and thus the mifery
would defcend from the firfl ranks to the laft, till
the means of fubliflence ceafed to all. The fup-
pofition of a twelvemonths froft, I acknowledge,
feems rather an improbable fuppofition. But hif-*
tory gives us what may be reckoned nearly equiva-
lent to it, and records alfo the confequence, name-
jy, extreme mifery* We are told that in Judea no
rain fell for above three years, and that the people,
in confequence of it, were perifliing with famine.
Mr. Thunberg, a late Swcdifh traveller, informs
us likewife, that in one of the Cape de Verd Iflands,
it had not rained for three years, and that it was
impoffible to defcribe the mifery of the inhabitants.
It is not worth while to unravel the inconclufive
obfcurities of the reft of this obfervation, which is
brought in as fubfidiary to the firft mifconception,
as they fland and fall together.

Dr. Smith's fifth and lafl obfervation is in the
following words : ' Though the revenue of the in-
" habitants of every country was fuppofed to confift
' altogether, as this fyftem feems to fuppofc, in
' the quantity of fubfiftence which their induftry
■^ could procure to them ; yet even upon this fup-
' pofition, the revenue of a trading and manufac-

* turing country muft, other things being equal,

* always be much greater than that of one without

B 2 * trade

( 20 }

* trade and manufaftures. By means of trade ant!
manufadures, a greater quantity of fubfiftence
can be annually imported into a particular coun-
try than what its own lands, in the aftual ftate
of their cultivation, could aiford. The inhabi-
tants of a town, though they frequently polTefs
no lands of their own, yet draw to themfelves by
their induftry fuch a quantity of the rude produce
of the lands of other people, as fupplies them not
only with the materials of their work, but with
the fund of their fubfiftence. What a town al-
ways is with regard to the country and its neigh--
bourhood, one independent ftate or country may
frequently be with regard to other independent
flates or countries. It is thus that Holland draws
a great part of its fubfiftence from other countries;
live cattle from Holftein and Jutland, and corn
from almoft all the different countries of Europe.
A fmall quantity of manufaftured produce pur-
chafes a great quantity of rude produce. A tra-
ding and manufadturing country, therefore, natu-
rally purchafes with a fmall part of its manufadlured
produce a great part of the rude produce of other
countries j while, on the contrary, a country with-
out trade and manufadlures is generally obliged to
purchafe at the expence of a great part of its
rude produce, a very fmall part of the manufac-
tured produce of other countries. The one ex-
ports what can ^ fubfift and accommodate but a^
very few, and imports the fubfiftence and accom-
modation, of a great number. The other exports
the accommodation and fubfiftence of a great
4 * number.

( 21 )

* number, and imports that of a \ery few only.
• '• The inhabitants of the one muft always enjoy a

* much greater quantity of fubfiftence than what

* their own lands, in the adtual ftate of their culti-
' vation, could afford. The inhabitants of the
' other muft always enjoy a much fmaller quantity.'

The fame mifconception and inconclufivenefs run
through this obfervation as through the preceding.
Were the nature of men the fame as that of foreft
horfes, who require neither clothing nor houfes, ar^:
tihcers and manufafturers would have no place
among them, and cultivators of the ground would
be alone required. But as the nature of man dif-
fers from that of foreft horfes, artificers and m.anu-
fadiurers are altogether necelfary to him ^ and who
can doubt but that it is better for any fociety
which has brought its lands to a high degree of
cultivation, to have thofe artificers and manufac-'
lurers refiding within its own territory than without
that territory. A nafcent ftate has juft as much
need of manufactures as an adult ftate ; but while
it can with little labour draw a great revenue from
its lands, and while foreign commerce exifts among
men, it will draw thofe manufactures to itfelf from
the diftance of a thoufand miles at a cheaper rate
than if they were to be made at home. In an adult
ftate lands not yielding fuch a furplus of revenue
after the cxpence of cultivation is deducted, the,
profit from handicrafts and the allurements of fo-
ciety attract in a greater degree the attention of
men i and confequently artificers increafe, and vil»
Ifiges commence, which by degrees fvv'ell into towns,

B 3 A na-»

( 22 )

A nation then may be faid to become more robuft,
when it abounds with manufacturers as well as cul-
tivators ; for manufafturers are in fad a military
corps de referve, and, if I may be -allowed the ex-
preffion, a granary of foldiers. This enables an
adult ftate to be powerful in defending itfelf ; but
a nafcent ftate having no fuch corps de referve is
feeble in felf defence, without foreign aid j but to
counterbalance this, it, like man in an infant ftate,
grows fafter, is not fo quarrelfome, and hufbands its
ftrength. While the artificers and manufatturers
continue their peaceable employments they are fed
by the cultivators, and wdiile they are foldiers they
are likewife fed by the cultivators ; in the former-
cafe they return clothing, and the fupply of the
other neceffary wants of man ; and in the latter
they return defence ; but in cither cafe their labour
is only an equivalent for their feeding, and no in-
creafe of revenue.

If the produce of their labour is to be exported,
and their feeding imported, the former, Dr. Smith
alleges, may more than purchafe the latter, confe-
quently may yield a revenue. Dr. Smith has here
broke bounds, and, contrary to his ovv'n plan, has
ftepped out of the agricultural fyftem into the
commercial fyftem. But when the queftion is
about the produiflion of a revenue, it is altogether
illogical to fubilitute for that the transfer of a revenue,
which all comm^ercial dealings are merely refolvable
into. Whatever be the advantage accruing from
exports and imports, that advantage is not an in-
creafe of revenue, but a transfer of revenue from

A to

( 23 )

A to B. Should a Jew fell a crown-piece for teti
fhillings, or a Queen Anne's farthing for a guinea,
he would augment his own income, no doubt, but
he would not thereby augment the quantity of the
precious metals ; and the nature of the traffic would.
be the fame, whether his virtuofo cufhomer refided
in the fame ftreet with himfelf, or in France, or
in China. What does the word commerce implyj
but coynmutatio merciiwi, an interchange of reve-
nues already created, which mod frequently is for
^he mutual benefit of both dealers, though fome-
timcs more beneficial to the one than the other ;
but flill what the one gains the other lofcs, and
their traffic really produces no increafe.

But fetting afide the great impropriety of thus
changing the ftate of the queftion, the Economift
is ready to meet Dr. Smith upon his new ground*
If we are to take into confideration the profits
■from foreign commerce, it will be generally acknow-
ledged, that when any two nations interchange their
fuperfiuity, or merchandize with each other, that
nation which produces its fuperfiuity with the leaft
expence, will, other things being equal, draw the
greateft profit from the fale of that fuperfiuity.
Now in a nation polTeffing a fertile territory, the
produflion of corn, including in that word the
other neceflary articles of fubliflence, is lefs expen-
five than the fabrication of manufactures, confe-
quently the exportation of corn is of all other ex-
portations the mofh profitable to fuch a nation.

The comparifon of the profit arifmg from culti-
vation with the profit arifmg from fabrication, is of

B 4 fo

( 24 )

(o great importance, and To little attended to by
thofe whofe minds are wholly intent upon manu-
factures and foreign commerce, that it merits a par-
ticular illuftration.

Suppofe a gentleman has four favourite fervants, a
man and his wife, with their two fons, all capable of
labour, and places them in one of his old manfions,
with an allowance of ten pounds a year to each for
fubfiftence, 'tis plain they would be an annual charge
of 40 pounds to that gentleman. But fuppofe thofe
fame four perfons to get pofTeffion of 30 acres of
good foil, which they wifh to cultivate, but having
no capital are obliged to borrow every thing. The
lame friendly gentleman, inftead o{ giving them this
year 40I. lends them 40I. and alio lends them 90
bufliels of feed, a plough, harrows, fickles, &c. and
the ufe of two horfes. Of the fifty acres they fow
thirty, and being exceedingly induftrious, from hav-
ing the full affurance that all they (hall earn will be
their own, they in harveft reap 630 bufhels, or feven
grains for one. Now computing thofe bulhels at 630
crowns, or 157 pounds 10 fliillings, and allowing the
profits arifmg from the twenty acres in grafs to pay
for the implements, and the hire and keep of the
horfes, they are thus by their crop enabled to acquit
alt^ their debts. They reimburfe the 40 pounds for
their fubfiftence, and the value of the feed, amount-
ing to 22I. I OS. and allow five per cent interefl for
the loan, making in all 65I. 12s. which leaves them
a reierve, or neat profit of 91I. i8s. In this new
fituation, therefore, inftead of being a charge to the
gentleman, they are a charge to nobody, have by

their

( ==5 )

their own labour fubfifted themfelves, and realized
91I. i8s.

They are now in the fecond year not under the
neceflity of borrowing ; but have a capital of their
own fully fufficient for the fame enterprizc ; there-
fore fuppoiing the fame increafe in their arable
fields as before, they will in this fecond year have^
raifed a fecond income of 157I. los. to which (as
their farm was this year flocked at their own ex-
pence) twenty pounds at leaft muft be added for the
twenty acres in meadow and pafture, making in all
177I. I OS. Deducing from this the expence of the
third year's enterprize, or about 62 pounds, and
fuppofmg their farm to be as productive, as in the
two preceding years, they will at their third harveft
have realized a fecond 177I. los. to which muil be
added the referved capital of their fecond year, or
112I. I OS. making in all 290 pounds.

Should the corn the cultivators have produced
each year, which amounted to the marketable value
of 157I. I OS. be fold abroad, the nation by their
induftry will be a gainer of 91 1. ]8s. annually.
Should it be confumed at home, four perfons will
have thereby fubfifted themfelves at nobody's ex-
pence, and added to the national capital 91I. 18 s.
annually.

My reader will doubtlefs have obferved, that I
have omitted mentioning the payment of any rent
for the fifty acres. This is a defigned omilTion, (for
in the above ftated cafe no payment of any rent is
required) as the fifty acres are fuppofed to be given
by the Supreme Benef^or, who expe<5ls no rent

for

( ^6 )
for them, but thankfulnefs and obedience to his
laws. In fad thefe fifty acres reprefent the feventy-
three millions of acres poffeiTed by the inhabitants
of Great Britainj who pay no rent to any one for
the territory they occupy ; and my cultivators, if
there had not been room for them in Great Britain,
might have fat down in Kentucky, where they
might have had not fifty acres, but one hundred
acres, without pa3ang for them any rent whatever.
But of the nature of rent I iLail treat by and by.

Let us now examine the profits accruing to the
nation from the exportation of manufadures. It
has already been fhewn that no man, as a manufac-
turer, however he may gain himfelf, adds any thing
to the national revenue, if his commodity is fold
and confumed at home ; for the buyer precifely
lofes not only what the manufacturer gains, but the
amount of the wages, and of the price of the raw
materials befides. There is an interchange between
the feller and the buyer, but no increafe. Mr. Ed-
wards, in his judicious and elegant hiflory of the
Wefl Indies, ftates, that annually 22,000,000
pounds weight of cotton is imported into Great
Britain, and manufactured into a value of feven
millions and a half fterling, by the full employ-
ment of 600,000 people. Suppofe this ftatement
accurate, then dedu6t one million for the prime
coft of the cotton, and the labouring manufacturers
will be found to earn lol. i6s. each, which is not
the half of a ploughman's earnings. From the fta-
tiilical account of Scotland, vol. vii. publifhed by
the very refpeClable Prefident of the Board of Agri-
2. culture,

( ^7 )

culture, it appears that in 1784 the manufaiflures of
the town of Paiflcy amounted to the value of
579,185!. and gave employment to 26,484 perfons.
If from the value of the manufaftured commodi-
ties, we deduvft one-fifth for the price of the raw
materials, we ihall have the fum of 463,350!^
which divided among the above mentioned manufac-
turers, makes the wages of each amount to 17I. los.
From Mr. Durnford's Hiftory of the Town of Ti-
verton, in DevonPnire, it appears that the total
value of the manufaftures flibricated there, deduc-
ing the price of the raw material, ^nd divided
among all the manufacturers , allows to each hardly
loL a year.

The firft refiecflion that arifes from thefe ftate-
ments is the fmallnefs of the earnings of the mznu-
facturers, which are not much more than thofe ex
a com^mon foot foklier. The fecond reflexion is
that there appears to be no furpius ; for fmall as the-
earnings are, yet the aggregate of them all makers
up the full value of the fabrications. To fupply the
want of a furpius, I fhall fuppofe that the mailer
employer takes a profit of 50 per cent upon what
he expends in wages, or fixpence in the {hilling on
each manufafturer's pay ; and allowing the average
income of each manufafturer to be 1 61. a year, that
v/ould make the m.after's annual gains upon each
four manufa(flurers 32 pounds; and if the manufac-
ture is fold abroad, thefe 32 pounds would be the
national profit from four aitificcrs. Even in this
light the exportation of the labour of four cultiva-
tors appears to be 38 per cent more profitable to

the

( 28 )

the nation than the exportation of the labour of
four artificers.

This conclufion however is doing but half juftice
to the cultivator ; for upon a more narrow and ac--
curate infpeftion it v/ill be found, that the 32
pounds which the mafter employer is enabled to
draw from abroad by the fale of his manufacture,
is not owing folely to the four manufadlurers, but
in part to the cultivators, who fed thofe manufac-
turers. Had there been no fubfiftence provided,
(here would have been no work done j and the value
of the work done, wq have feen above, does no
more t'lan compenlate for the value of the fubfift-
ence. Therefore to fend abroad fuch a value in ma-
nufactures as (hould yield a profit of 32 pounds to
the exporter, requires not the labour of four men
only, but of fix men, ahowing the furplus produce'
of two cultivators fufficient to feed four manufac-
turers. Now if fix men are neceffary to the pro-
curing a profit of 32 pounds by the exportation of
manufactures, and four men can procure a profit
of ^i pounds by the exportation of corn, the na-
tional profit from the exportation of the latter ex-
ceeds that from the exportation of the former nearly
in the proportion of 2:| to i . Mr. Jefferfon of Vir-
ginia therefore fpeaks the language of an enlight-
ened politician when he fays, ' 'Tis for the interefl
of the American States, that for a long time to
come their manufacturers fhould refide in Europe.'

The preceding refleftions, I think, fuffice to
fliew the falfenefs of Dr. Smith's pofition, that the
exportation of manufaclures m,ay create a revenue

to

{ 29 )

to a ftatc in preference to the exportation of mdc
produce. His reafoning in the reft of this obfer-
Viition, if obfcure fophiflry deferves tl^e name of
reafoning, is equally inconckifive with what has
been refuted. What has great quaniitij and fmali
quantify to do in the comparifon of one value with
another value. A fmall bundle of lace will pur-
chafe many fackfuls of corn ; but the queilion is,
if food be wanted, or^even if gold be wanted, whe-
ther the manufadurers of that lace would not have
drawn more profit to themfelves and to their coun-
try, if they had employed themfelves as cultivators,
than as manufafturcrs ; and that queftion having al-
ready been refolved, fliew^s the nomeaning of the
words great quantity and fmall quantity.

Dr. Smith further fays, * The inhabitants of a

* town, though they frequently poiTefs no lands of

* their own, yet draw to themfelves by their induf-
' try iuch a quantity of the rude produce of the

* lands of other people as fupplies them not only

* with the materials of their work, but with the

* fund of their fubfiflence.' The very terms of
this fentence difprove what Dr. Smith willies to
prove by it. The inhabitants of a town, he fays,
dj^aiv to themfelves the rude produce of other peo-
ple. By thus drawiijg it is evident tiiey do not
create a revenue, but transfer the revenue created
by others. Who ever doubted that in traffic one
may gain and another may lofe ? But where the in-
quiry is not concerning the fource of the wealth of
individuals, but of the Wealth of Nations, it is rather
illogical to fubftitute the one for the other. Dr.

Smith

{ p )

Smitii not adverting to this paralogifm goes or\<

* It is thus,' he fays, ' that Holland draws a great
' part of its fubfiftence from other countries ; live

* cattle from Holftein and Jutland, and corn from

* almofl all the different ftates of Europe.' Now
before any thing can be inferred from thisj in fa-
vour of his fuppofition, Dr. Smith ought to have
proved, that Denmark and Poland are lofers in fup-
plying Holland with beef and corn in return for
inanufaftures. But from what is above written the
prefumption is., that the gain is on the fide of Den-
mark and Poland, and that thefe kingdoms, while
any lands remain in them uncultivated, may adopt
the language of Mr. JefFerfon, and fay, ' It is for the

* intcreft of Denmark and Poland, that for a long

* time to come their manufacturers lliould relide in
' Holland.*

That the pecuniary wealth of Holland exceeds
that of any other European nation has been noticed
hy many writers; but he muft not have perufed
hiftory with much attention whp attributes that
wealth to the manufacliures carried on by the Hol-
landers. . The enquiring Economift will find three
much more copious fources of that wealth than ma-
nufactures ; and two of them that are aftually
fources of the natural and real revenue, to which
wife nations will ever give the preference, nam.el]',
territorial improvement and hlhing. V/hen the
Economift favs that the chief ibvirce of the wealth
of nations confifts in the labour of man exercifed
upon the fertility of the foil, he by no means ex-
cludes the fertility of the feas, as the ocean, when

*■ •• ploughed

( 3' )

ploughed by fifliermen, yields an increafe frequently
as abundant as the land when ploughed by huf-^
bandmen. By this natural fource of wealth the
Dutch were formerly, and ftill afe great gainers.
The famous De Witt reckoned that one-fourth of
his countr}'men were maintained by fifliing; and
the diftinguiflied engineer, Thomas Digges, in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, who fpent a conliderable time in
Holland, fays, * Filliinge onlye being none of the leafle

* foundations of all their proude townes, built in our

* age.' (See his plan for improving Dover Haven,
written about the j'-ear 1582, and printed in the Ar-
chcEologia, vol. II.) Now if the Dutch territory hardly
fufFiCcs to maintain one-half of its inhabitants, and
one-fourth of them draw their fubfiftence from fifli-
ing, this is nearly the fame thing as if their land ter-
ritory were enlarged one-half, and to be productive
of a revenue.

Another fource of Dutch revenue is likewife
equivalent to an enlargement of land territory j I
mean the monopoly of the fpices of the Eaft. Were
Great Britain to poffefs a monopoly of the growth
of potatoes, and finding a great demand for them
in other countries, fhould fell them at five fhlUings
a pound, inftead of a penny a pound, 'tis plain
that one acre of potatoes in that cafe would, in
point of mercantile profit, be equal to 60 acres.
But fuch for thefe two hundred years pail has nearly
been the cafe in refpecft to Dutch trafHc in nut-
megs, cloves, mace, qinnamon, which are at the
tables of the luxurious, Vv^hat gin is at the meals of
the indigent. Were the expence of the produ(5lion
or purciiafe of thofe fpices in the Eaft, and the

European

( sO

European market prices of them to be compared
together, they would be found to differ as widely
as the pound of potatoes produced at the expence
of one penny, and fold for five fliillings, differ
from each other ; and all that diff<?rence is fo m.uch
gain to, the monopolizing Dutch, and renders every
acre of nutmegs nearly equivalent to 60 acres of
corn. Were this monopoly to be permanent, it
would be a permanent advantage to the Dutch, an
advantage which my readers will perceive is in ref-
peft to produftion a natural revenue, but in refped:
to mercantile value, only a revenue transferred, dif-
tind however from, that arifmg from manufadlures.
The third great fource of the opulence of the
Dutch, of which likewife they long poffeffed a
kind of monopoly, and which in its nature is dif-
tind: from manufaflures, is the carrying trade.
Their fliips were fo many floating warehoufes and
retail fliops, appearing in every quarter of the globe,
buying cheap in one nation, and feUing dear in an-
other, and carrying the wealth thus acquired by
transfers of revenue home to their narrow hive at
the mouths of the Rhine. Of thefe three fources
of Dutch income; the firfl, namely, the fifliing,
is a real new produdion , the fecond, arilmg from
the fale of fpices, is in part a new produftion, and
in part only a transfer of revenue ; and the third is
wholly a transfer of a revenue already created, but no
new production. Out of thefe three revenues the
parfimony of the Dutch has formed a fourth re-
venue, which however is no new production, but a-
revenue drawn to themfelves from the. revenue of

their

( 33 )

their Icfs thrifty neighbours. Thus the whole of the
prefent land-tax of Kent and Suflex, and perhaps of
Eflex, belongs to the Dutch, and goes to maintain
Dutchmen in Holland, in confequencc of fums lent
by them to the Government ^..of Great Britain.
The Dutch having long perfevered in this money
lending fyftcm, which they fuperadded to their
other iources of income, it is not at all furprifmg
that, in length of time, they fliould have accumu-
lated much pecuniary wealth, the precarioufnefs of
which however will not impofe upon the real politi-
cal Economift. During the lad century the Dutch
made fuch a rapid progrefs towards opulence, that
their artificial fyftem was regarded by political wri-
ters of that age, of no fmall difcernment, as flir
preferable for fecuring the profperity of nations, to
the pofleffion of an extenfive and well cultivated ter-
ritory. Among thofe who were dazzled and mifled
by the profperity of the Dutch were Sir William
Temple and Sir William Petty, the latter of whom
not perceiving upon what a w^eak and infecure
foundation that profperity relied, went fo far as to
wifli it to be a model for England, faying that Eng-
land w'ould be more rich and more i')owerful, if
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were funk in the
lea, provided their inhabitants were firft transferred
within the bounds of England. Such are the wild
and dangerous conclufions that lenfible men are led
into, when the true and fundamental principle of
the wealth of nations is not attended to by them,
and when in their plans of policy they fubftitiite

C the

( 34 ]

the unftabie and tvanfient reveiuie arifing from coni-
mercCj for the perilianeht and feciire revenue arifing
from the cultivation of territory.

How widely different are the; maxims of the Ame-
rican States from thpfe of Sir- WiUiam Petty 1 Were
tlte Americans to adopt his, commercial fyftem of
getting rich,, they might. ail find. room in the penin-
fula bounded by the Delaware and the Chefapeak,
udaich, with very little labour, might be made a
complete, iilatid ; and tliere, bounded by the fea,
they might direct their views to commerce and na-
vigation, and by hving penurioufly might acquire,
in progrefs of tin>e, a monied capital. They have
however wifely cholen to accumulate men rather
than to accumulate ducats ; and by giving their chief
attention to tlie moft valuable of all capitals, an
extenfive territory, and by the improvement of that
capital, they have acquired more .power and more
wealth in four years tlian the Dutch acquired in an
liundred vears. The increale of population in the
American States from the year 1790 ta 1794, is
found by a late cenfus to be 1,321,364 perfons, whO:
eilimated in. a pecuniary light, at the price only 'of
negroes, is an augmentation of national capital of
near 1 00 millions fterling.

If the fourccs of opulisnce ot tlie Dutch above
enumerated: (which, as we have, feen, are not de-
pendent upon.. inanufatftures, and: which fafcinated
the politicians of the laft century), are inferior, ip
point of abundance, to the feurce arifing from the
cultivation of an exteniive, a fertile, and connedled.
territory, they are no lefs inferior in point of {labi-
lity. Their fifning trade docs not now produce

on(^

( 35 )

one -half of what it formerly produced, bccaufe the
Swedes, the Britons, the French, the Americans
have all interfered in that branch of induftry.
Their Eall India monopoly of fpicesis on the point
of being terminated, becaufe the cnmates iri the
^Vefl will foon furnllh thofe fjoices ; and their car-
rying trade has alfo declined from the fame caufe
that has occafioned the decline of their fiihing trade.
Now^ fu}:>poring, what is but too likely, that thefe
three fources of the opulence of the Dutch fliould
ilill fuffer a greater wane, and likewife that their
neighbours, to whom they at prefent ftand in the
light of abfentees, ihould be wife enough to pay
them back the money borrowed from them, they
would foon have the fad experience, that poverty
and tenantlefs houfes w^ould overfDread their whole
country, notwithftandins; their greatcft ilciU' and
greateft induftry in manufa«5lures.

Are then manufa(flures of no value to a nation'?
Very far otherwife. What would man in his pre-
fent ilate be, were he to be without houfes, with-
out clothes, and without furniture. Thefe and a
great variety of other kinds of manufaftures, are,
according to the prefent condition of m.en, juftly
termed neccllaries of life ; and confequently manu-
fadurers are moft defervedly to be deemed a necef-
fary clafs in fociety. That however does not make
them a productive c/^/Tv, that is, a clafs which re-
news the revenue of fociety, or gives any augmen-
tation or increafe to that revenue. The maniifac-
lurer bccaule he produces, fomething of value, has
been moil erroneouily fuppofed to- augment the

C 2 mafs

( 36 )

mafs of national opulence, to double or triple the
value of what is put into his hands, and confe-
quently to increafc in the fame proportion the in-
come of Ibcieiy. Hardly is there any political or
commercial writer who has not in fonie degree
adopted this error j and among thofe who have been
formerly thus milled, I mud include myfelf But
clofe and frequent meditation on the fubjeft has
given me the cleared convidion that no augmenta-
tion of the revenue of fociety arifes from the labour
of a manufacturer, except in the cafe of its being
fold abroad. In that cafe indeed the profit ci* the
exporter becomes the profit of the nation where he
lives. That nation however would, as has been be-
fore proved, be a greater gainer, were the labour of
the cultivator to' be exported rather than the labour
of the manufacturer. The manufaAurer, almoft
in all cafes, produces fomcthing of value to fociety -,
but he produces that value only by the extindioii
of another value, previoufly provided for him by
the cultivator. The merit of the manufadurer is,
that he gives a fixed and permanent value to the
more perifhable riches procured by the cultivator,
or rather beflowed by nature on the labour of the
cultivator ; but he does not augment that primary
and Ible iburce of riches. Thus the beef and bread
furnillied by the cultivator to certain mafons and car-
penters have given us Weflminfler Bridge. The beef
and bread are gone, but the bridge we have in ex-
change. Thus the onions produced by the culti-
vators in Egypt, and expended by fome manufac-
turers there, have given us one of the great pyra-
mids.

( .^7 )

nilcls. Thus the linen manutlidurcr, a? the expcncc
of the iiibllftence of his workmen, furniniecl by
the cuhivator, will turn the flax, furniflicd allb by
the cultivator, into a commodity which is tranf-
mitted by careful houfewivcs from one generation
to another. Thus the leaves of one mulberry-tree
will, through the intervention of fome filk-worms,
yield perhaps a guinea's-vvorth of filk ; but the in-
crca{.% or revenue, does not originate from the filk-
worms, but from the mulberry-tree; that is, from
the cultivator, aHifted by the bounty of nature.
The filk-worm, in this view, is the exad: type of
all manufadlurers whatever. Having his fubfiftence
furnilhed to him, he gives in return a permanent
commodity, equal in value to that fubfiftence.

But do not we fee many manufadlurers get rich ?
Yes, certainly : and this very circumftance of their
acquiring a capital, has led political and commercial
writers into the falfe conclufion, that manufacturers
created a capital. In a profefled enquiry into the
nature and caufes of the Wealth of Nations, one
would have expecfted to have found this error clearly
refuted j but fo fiir otherwife. Dr. Smith has inter-
woven it into the whole of his performance, which
renders that performance worfe than ufelefs as a
political treatife, a mere caftle of cards, eredied
without a fcundation, and affording no habitation
for the politician. If a manufadurer gets rich, or,
in Dr. Smith's phrafe, acquires a great capital by
the profits of a manufadure, the refolution of fuch
manufadlure into its conftituent parts, will prove to
ever)' perfon open to onvidion, that no manufac-

C 3 ture

\ ^^ )

ture vv'hcn fold at home, irjcreales tlie uicome.of a
nation, however it may add greatly to the conveni-.
ences ©f that nation. Whatever value is put upon
any manufadure, it is refolvable into three other
values J namely, the value of the raw material of
which it is made, the value of the v/ages expended"
in its fabrication, and thirdly, the value or profit
whicii the m-anufafturer fuperadds to the other two
values, as a rccompence to himfelf. Now none of
thefe three values comprehends, in it any increale of
general revenue, confecjuently- the three together
cannot form any increaie of general revenue. They
only occafion a commutation or transfer of the re-
venue previoufiy provided by the cultivator, by
giving a penmanency to that revenue under a ijew
form. Nay, in fome cafes (which, indeed, rarely
happen) they do not even do that ; for we have in-
ftances wherein the labour of the manufafturer is
quite unprofitable both to himfelf and to fociety.
Thus the editor of the poflhumous edition of Lord
Bolingbroke's works, w^ould have much better have
been doing nothing, tlian employing himfelf in that
publication, by which he lofh feveral hundred
pounds, becauie the work did' not fell. Thus the
maker of a time-piece which nobody will buy, be^
caufe it is inaccurate, has adlually produced nOr
tiling of , value, though he, piay have employed feve-
ral years ia the.conftruclion of it. Thus the calicQ
printer, w'ho unluckily lo^s ufed a pattern that; fuits
noboby's , tafte, finds by the refult, tha,t his labour
Jias added no value to the calico. Such cafes, in-
deed are very rare 3 but ther plainly prove, that a

manu-

( 39 )

nuniiraclLircr only cnriclics himfclf by being a feller,
and that when he ceales to be a leller, his profits
are iiranediiitel)' at a Hand, becauie they are not
natural profits, but artificial. The cultivator, on
the other hand (luppofing a little domeflic tluift),
may exi'ft, and thrive, and multiply, vviLhout telling
any thing : consequently, a nation of" cultivators
may be a moft-prolpen-ous nation without much
exterior traffic.

• In the lame manner as an individual manufacturer
gets rich, lb a manufa<fcuring diftrict gets rich. It
.abounds in lellers, who draw profits to tliemlelves
from the revenues of thole to whom they fell theu"
manufaftures. Were the populous manufacturing
cities of Great Britain not to be great fellers (I
mean within the limits of Great Britain), they would
foon dwindle down to the fize of moderate villages ;
but as by means of their riders and correfpondents
they dilperlb their fabrics through every corner of
the illand, they confequently concentre profits from
every corner of the ifland to their own diftrid:.
But all thefe profits, whatever their amount may
be, are precifely fo much deducted out of the pro-
fits of the buyers of thofe manufactures, confe-
quently no national income, or augmentation of
national revenue. Let it be farther obferved, that
one half of tile nation do not fupply their own
wants. Now it is the great praife of manufacturers,
that they fupply their own wants ^ they return a
full equivalent for their own fubfiftence, which is a
moft material point in their favour, and conftitutes
them one of the eflential claffes of focicty. The
C 4 returning

( 40 )

returning this equivalent for their fubfiflence, though
it does not increafe any revenue, yet, by rendering
the revenue permanent, while half the nation are
diffipating theirs without any return, mufl confe-
quently fix eafe and opulence in a manufafturing
quarter in a greater degree than in a quarter where
neither cultivation nor manual induflry is much
attended to. Suppofe twenty-four poor females
were to have their fubfiflence furniflied to them^
and twelve of thofe females, imitating the praftice
in Guernfey, fliould after dinner affemble alternately
in each other's houfes with their knitting-needles,
and fpend the evenings in converfation and knitting
of flockings j while the twelve other females after
dinner fit down to cards, and fpend the evenings in
play. The^fe laft, it is plain, would ever remain in
indigence; but the former would in procefs of
time have fomething to fell. Neverthelefs, the va-
lue of what they offered to market would only be
a retribution of the value of their fubfiftence,
which by their induflry they had fixed, while the
card-players had difTipated theirs without any re-
turn. Thefe twelve induftrious females reprefent
the whole clafs of manufadlurers, who by yielding
a return of a permanent nature, equal in value to
the fubfiftence they confume, give, by this tranf-
formation, a certain ftability to what was before of
a more perilbable nature. Thus a cart-load of ma-^
nufiidlured cloth may be equivalent to five cart-
loads of corn, becaufe it has cofl five cart-loads of
corn to pay for the wool and for the wages of the
workmen. An additional value it cannot produce,

without

( 41 • )

uiihoiit drawing that adtlitional value from fome
other revenue betore created, and therefore yields
no increafe. But ftill it is a circumftance extremely
in favour of manufadurcrs, that they do not, like
half the nation, eat their bread for nothing, or for
an old long ; but give in return what all nations
both civilized and uncivilized hav'e ever deemed
neceflary not only to their well being, but to their
very being ; confequently manufadturers have a
moll ju(l right to be called an eflential clafs in fo-
ciety, next after the cultivators. Add to the
above, that working manufadurers in towns and
villages being accuftomed to confider the value of
time, are often led to employ their fparc hours in
cultivating a potatoe fpot, or a fmall garden, which
is a labour that yields an increafe ; and in the po-
pulous towns the rich manufacflurers, inftead of a
large eftablifliment of fervants, hounds, and horfes,
difpofe of their furplus wealth in building and or-
namenting villas, or improving of farms, v/hich
places them in the productive clafs of cultivators,
and confequently adds to the w^ealth of their diftrid.
Laftly, though manufacturers, by their labour,
do not increafe the revenue or income of a ftate,
3'et the demand for their fubfiftence encourages the
farmers in their neighbourhood to produce that
fubfiftence, confequently the lands in fuch fituations
are generally better cultivated than they would
otherwife be; and this better cultivation, adds both
to the wealth of the diftrid, and the wealth of the
nation. All thefe confiderations united ferve to
explain how wealth and opulence may be concen-
tered

:( 42 )

'tti'cd in a manufaduring diilrid, and how niafter
manufaflurers may acquire great capitals, though,
at the fame time, manufafturers themlelves do nei-
ther orisiinate nor increafe the income of a nation.

As manufadlurers, however, in general, prevent
that part of the national income which goes to
their fubfiftence from being diffip^tted, but return
it in fome vendible fabrick, that may be either ufed
or fold, it \\ill be a great objeft with every wife
ftatefman to give every encouragement to increafe
the number of manufacturers, at the expence of
fuch other claffes in fociety as are by no means
■eilential claffes. A nation cannot give too much
into manufactures, provided it draws its manufac-
turers from the fupernumeraries in other claffes,
v/hofe fubfiilence is in reality a tax upon fociety.
■Every one acknowledges that the indigent poor at
.pre.fent on the parifli rolls in Great Britain, who
may perhaps exceed 400,000 in number, and who
.'Coiitribyte nothing to their own iubfiftence, are a
.lax:ar\d burthen upon fociety ; and in lb far as they
..--.re really helplefs, their fubfiilence is a moft necef-
iary and a mofl humane tax. But were one-fourt'h
, of their number, or 100,000 of them, to be found
capable of manual labour, the eftabiiiliing fuch re-
gulations as would transfer that fourth into the dais
01 manufacturers, w'ould probably fave a million
annually to the nation. The manufa<fcuring clafs in
: Great. Britain might alio be profitably reinforced
from the fupernumerary and ufelefs individuals in
■many otlier clailes of' fociety. Were the many fu-
pernumerary thoufands that could be fpared from

•amonec

( 43 )

among retuiiing (liop-keepers, from air.ong alc-
houlc-jkeepers, inn-kecpen, apothecaries, attornlcs,
jiicnial Icrvants, ^c. &c. who arc now a much
heavier tax upon i'ociety than the parocliial poor,
to be transferred into the clafs of manufafturers, we
IhoLild foon find manufaftiires more abundant, and
<it much cheaper prices ; tliat is, the profperity of
the nation would be thereby greatly increaicd, be-
caufe probably half a million of people, who at
prelent are fubfifted by the community, widiout
returning to it any equivalent, would in that caf&
return the full value of their fubliftence.

A nation, however, would be extremely blind to
its own interefts, who lliould au9;ment tlie clafs of
manutaclurers at the expcnce of the clais of culti-
vators. That v/ould be, in a manner, to neglect
the' working of a rich gold mine, for the fake of
working a filver mine, that did no more than pay the
wages ot the workmen. The labour of the manu-
fadfurer, we have feen, is profitable in fo f:ir as
it returns the value of his iublifcence ; but the
labour of the cultivator not' only returns the value
of his own fubfiftence, but, when flcilfully applied,
and aided by the bounty of nature, yields a furplus
fufficient to feed four or five other perfons ; confe-
quently the more numerous the, clafs of iliilful cul-
tivators is in any riation, and the greater the fertility
of its foil, the greater will be the refourges of that
nation. It is the mats of furplufles occafioned by
tbe w^hole of the cultivators, that forms the revenue
of every other clafs in fociety. It is that which fets
the carpenter and mafon to work 3 it is that which

pays

( 44 )

pays the foldier and failor ; it is that whicli enriches
the fliop-keeper ^ it is that which pays the fees of
the lawyer and phyfician. In fliort, the only fource
of even' payment in a date is the produce of its
lands and its feas, exclufive of the fmall income it-
may acquire by foreign commerce, Imall in compa-
rifon of the immenfity of the other, and often im-
poHtically procured at the expence of that other.
What clafs in fociety fo much claims the encourage-
ment and fupport of a wife legiHature as that clafs,
which alone originates and increafes the wealth of
fociety, by furnilliing a furplus much beyond its
own fubfiftence. Thirty hay-makers will in five or
fix days make an hundred pounds worth of hay ; a
value exceeding their own fubfiftence five or fix
fold. Twenty negroes in Carolina will produce as
much rice as will purchafe the labour of an hundred
manufai^turers in Great Britain. The patriarch
Haac, we are told, lowed and reaped an hundred
fold, which, allowing even one-half for expence,
leaves a neat profit of 5000 per cent. The culti-
vators of rice in China, it is laid, often reap an
hundred fold, and have two crops in one yearj
which, fuppofing the fame degree of expei?te as
before, will give a neat profit of 10,000 per cent.
But were the profit of the cultivator, as in lefs
fertile climates, to amount only to 400 per cent, or
even to 100 per cent, or even but to 50 per cent,
it has this advantage over the profits of every other
clals in fociety that it is- all incrcafcy not being
formed by the diminution of the revenue of any
other clafs. Nature yields the profit to him, and

throusli

( 45 )

through him, to the whole community, ivho have.
iKithing elfe to lubtft upor, excepting perhaps, as
above-mentioned, bme fiiall gains from foreign
commerce ; which commerce, however, would foon
-ceale to exift, if it were not for the fupport of the
cultivator.

Since, then, tb clals of cultivators is that alone
which originates aid increafes the revenue of a (late,
a wiie nation wil zealoufly purfue every meaiure
that may tend toincreafe the numbers in that clafs,
not only from th: many uneflential dalles in locicty,
but even from the clafs of manufafturers itfeif.
Inftead of maiing manufacrures the attradive
principle of cuhivation, fuch a nation will follow
the much more latural and more profitable fyflcm
of making cultivation the attractive principle of
manufactures. While there is in any corner of its
territory lands unimproved, it will advance its prof-
perity much more rapidly, and eftablifh it much
more folidly, by directing the induftry of its inha-
bitants, not to manufaftures, but to the cultiva-
tion of thofe lands. The labour of the manufac-
turer we have feen is flerile or unfruitful in compa-
riibn of that of the cultivator. This lafl, by origi-
nating fubfiftence, originates and fupports popula-
tion ; and by originating more than his own fubfift-
ence, creates annually a new fund for purchafmg
all the conveniencies that it is in the power of the
manufacturer to produce, whether that manufac-
turer refides in his own parifh or ten thoufand miles
oif, provided the communication, or mutual ijiter-
courfe between them, be unobftruCed.

1 ^Trom

( 46 )

From not mveftigalng in what tlie Wealth of
Nations confifts, and whcvc it originates, the want
ot manufaftures has bcm by nany writers alleged
as an apology for neglefted ani deficient agricul-
ture. The great cry has been, even a,mong legif-
lators ihemfelves, let us have butmanufaclures, and
then we fhall have well-cultivatec lands. The falfe
principle of Dr. Smith, that mamfactnres produce a
revenue, has given fupport to thi; very miHeading
and pernicious doftrine — a doccine, indeed, ol
much older date than that of Dr, Smith's Enquiry.
It is, however, with great pleafure ] obferve, that fc-
veral of the authors of the ftatiftical account of Scot-
land, particularly the Rev. Mr. Olirer, in the judi-
cious account of his parifli of Corftcrphine, view the
fubject in a very different liglit. Like faithful paftors,
as well as fkilful politicians, they plainly fliew, by
many judicious arguments, that from motives of
religion and morality, as well as from motives of
worldly advantage, the cultivation of the territory
ought to have the preference to the eftablifliment ot
manufadures, more efpecially as manufadlures are
at prefent eftabliilied in many parts of Great Bri-
tain. Agriculture, I hope, will foon be viewed by
the whole Britilh nation, and by the whole Irifli
nation, in the fame light as it is viewed by thofc
reverend writers; and that it {liould be fo viewed,
is the great puipofe of my prefent difcourfe.

If no national revenue proceeds from manufac-
tures, and if all national revenue proceeds from
■agiicjalture,.. which truths I pre fume the preceding
pages have made very manifeft, it may then, I
2 think

( 47 ) ,

think, be expected, that the land owners in boflx
illauds, zealouf]y .concuiring witli their rcfpeclive.
legislatures, will without delay adopt fuch meai'ures as
may fpread Cultivation over every mountain and
over every valley in Great Britain and Ireland.
AVhile a iield admitting cultivation can be found
for every idler, let no idler be without a field.
Houfes of induftry are good things; but fields of
induflry are much better; and were Great Britain
and Ireland to be wholly overfpread with fuch fields,
the annual revenue of thefe illands would thereby
foon acquire a real augmentation of twenty millions
flerling. I fay a real augmentation, and not a
nominal. A nominal augmentation only ferves to
heighten prices, to the prejudice of foreign com-
merce; but a real augmentation would adliially:
lower them, and increafe both the numbers and the
eafe of the people.

Great Britain and Ireland have the means of this
augmentation within themfelves. It may be effefted
without treaties of commerce ; without any acquiil-
tion of new territory, and without any increafe of
the balance of trade. But it cannot be effeded
unlefs the pofiefibrs of land give every encourage-
ment to thofe who are willing to undergo the
fatigue of cultivating them. From the falfe notion
that manufactures are a fource of wealth, land
owners are extrem^ely ready to give perpetual leafes
to manufafturers,. But what an overflow of wealth
would they not procure to themfelves, and to the
nation, v»ould they but ihew an equal readinefs to,
give perpetual leafes to cultivators, horn whole,

labours

( 4S )

labours k has been Hiewn, and not from the labours
of manufadturcrs, the Wealth of Nations originates.

Let cultivators have the fame fecurity given to
them that is lavilhed upon manufacturers, and
thoufands and ten thoufands would quickly appear
as ready to contract an alliance with their native foil,
as the vine is to contrad: an alliance with the lofty
poplar. We fliould then hear of hundreds of
thoufands of new marriages between farmers and
their farms, no matter whether of great or of fmall
extent, for what is great to the capacity and meanS'
of one farmer, may be fmall to the capacity and
means of another. The giving fecurity to the
labourer would give adivity to the fpade and the
plough, on every wafte and on every heath in Great
Britain. Innumerable buildings would be raifed by
new cultivators, not only along our rivers, our
canals, and public roads ; but in fequeRered places,
now inhabited by moor fowl and wild deer. And
intermixed with the buildings of thofe new cultiva-
tors, would be the houfes of new manufafturers ; fo
that a traveller journeying from fouth to north, or
from eaft to weft, would find every where over the
whole iiland, a neat habitation within a mile, or
within half a mile of another.

A decided preference to cultivation, by no means
implies a negleft of manufactures. On the con-
trary, like natural genius aflifted by erudition, con-
jurant amice; they in moft cafes mutually promote
each others profperity ; and would more efpecially
do fo, if manufadurers, inftead of being impoli-
tically crowded together in great towns, were every

where

( 49 )

where intermixed with the cultivators. By this
fyllem the unprofitable wafte of expence in tranf-
porting goods forwards and backwards would be
avoided. Manufadurers would every where be near
to their fubliftencc j and cultivators would no where
be obliged to go far from their habitations for the
common fabrics they wanted to purchafe. Above*
all a virtuous fimplicity of manners would be prc-
ferved among the people ; and while induftry and
content would be every where diftufed, the land
would overflow literally with milk and honey, and
the population, the wealth and power of the flate
refting on their natural foundation, would gradually
rife to the utmofl: degree of profperity that the ifland
was fufceptible of. Such would be the happy con-
fequences of adopting the fyftem of the Economifls,
in confidering the produce of the foil as the fource
of all revenue, and giving the preference to that
branch of induflry, which has for its obje^fl the
augmentation of that produce.

Having, I think, clearly proved that the revenue
of a flate arifes folely from the produce of its lands,
and that Dr. Smith's argum^ents in fupport of the
produ6tivenefs of manufadlures are altogether il-
lufive, I fliall now proceed to confider the funda-
mental error of the French Economifts in rankins
the proprietors of lands as a produftive clafs in
focicty ; and fliall explain the principle founded in
nature, which when aded upon, renders the pro-
prietors of land, not indeed a productive clafs, but
an e/Zhdial clafs, and the mofl honourable clafs in
fociety.

P la

( 50 )

In lb far as a proprietor of land cultivates his oWn
poireiHon, or a part of his own pofleffion, he cer-
tainly ranks among cultivators, and confequcntly is
one in the productive clafs in fociety. But when he
does not aftually interfere with the cultivation of
liis land, and merely lets it out to be cultivated by
others for a certain rent, (which in Europe is the
cafe with ninety-nine proprietors in an hundred) it
is evident he from that moment ceafcs to be of the
productive clafs, and becomes one in the many un-
productive clafles of the community.

Every clafs of men in a ftate, except the clafs of
cultivators, is properly an unproductive clafs. But
among the indefinite number of unproductive
claiTes fome are effential to the being of a ftate,
while others are wholly unefiential, though they may
be convenient for its v.cll being. What is effential
to the being of a thing, is that without which the
thing itfelf could not exift. Thus it is effential to
gold to be incorruptible, to be yellow, to be very
weighty, very mailable, &:c. but it is not effential to
gold to be round or fquare* To a globe or circle it
is effential to be round. To a muiket it feems ef-
fential to have a barrel, a lock, a flock, and a ram-
rod ; but it is not effential to it to have inlaid work
or gold or lilver ornaments. Thus in examining the
clalfes in civil fociety that are effential to its veiy
exiftence, we ihall find that they may be all reduced
to the four following j firil of all the productive
clafs of cultivators ; I'econdly, the clafs of manufac-
turers ; thirdly, the clafs of defenders j and fourthly,

the

( 5^ )

the clais of inftmclors ; for every civil fociety muft
be feci, mud be clothed, defended, and inftmded.

On the fuppofition of the Abbe de St. Pierre of
unc paix j)crpctuellc, or a perpetual peace^ the clals
of. defenders would ceafe to be an eflential clafs in
fociety; and in a flate that chofe to be as illiterate
as the Romans were before they became acquainted
with Grecian literature, or as the Grecians them-
fclves were till long after the Trojan war, the clafs
of inftruftors would alfo ceafe to be an effential
clafs. But as the corrupt nature of man renders
defence abfolutely neceflaryj and as his mental im-
provement ought no lefs to be an objedt with him
than his corporeal conveniences and enjoyments, the
clafies of defenders and inftru6tors are as juftly en-
titled to be deemed eflential as the clafles of culti-
vators and manuflifturers, and I have therefore men-
tioned them as fuch, though the clafs of cultivators
be the only produ6tive clafs.

The proprietors of land as mere receivers of land
rents are not an eflential clafs in fociety, any more
than engravers, ftatuaries, &c. It is by the confti-
tutional appropriation of the rents of land to the
defence of the flate, that the receivers of thofe rents
become an efl^ential clafs in fociety. By feparating
the rents of lands from the conftitutional purpofe of
the defence of the ftate, the receivers of thofe rents
inftead of being an eflential clafs, render themfelves
one of the mofl: uneflential and molt burdenfome
claflTcs in fociety. This fundamental maxim is
applicable to all ftates ; but I Ihall conlider it chiefly
in rvjgard to Great Britain. In Great Britain the

D 2 rents

( 52 )

fents of the lands may be ftated at twenty-five
millions, making a burden upon agricultures
amounting to one third,, and iri fome cafes to
near one half of all that the ifland produces, which^
as has been fliewn, is our only revenue.

The cultivation of the ground is abfolutely
necelTary for the fubfiftence of man, but the pay-
ment of a rent is not abfolutely neceffary for the
cultivaf!on of the groimd. The farmer cotild culti-
vate it as well without paying a tax of fifty per centy
or thirty per cent for leave to cultivate it j arid wc
have the experience before otir eyes, that young
ftates thrive exceedingly, by being exempt from
that unneceffary tax. What has drawn fo many
Icttlers from Europe over to the late Britifh Colonies
in America, but the happy circumftance of having,
lands without paying any rent, and formerly with
the impolitic indulgence of paying hardly any
public burdens. The circuraftance of paying no"
rent has- been the attracting loadftone to thoufands
and ten tlioufands ta the American fliores. Now
can it be faid that the lands of America yield the'
lefs, becaufe the cultivators of them are alfo the
poffeffors ? Certainly not. On the contrary, the
cultivators of the lands in America being at the fame
■time the polTeflbrs of thofe lands, are thereby ex-'
empted from a tax of 33 per cent, which the--
cultivators in 'Great Britain and Ireland are fabjeft
- to, which circumftancd has been the very animating;
foul of the agriculture of the Americans, enabiingT
them, in the commerce of grain, to imderfel their'
mother country in foreign markets. Nay, it has

even

( 53 )

even fervcd them as a bounty of thirty-three per
cent, to pour their corn in upon us, , which was the
lame thing in point of policy on our fide, as if a
duty of thirty-three i:>er cent had been impofed
upon Newcaftle coals, and American coals had been
admitted duty free.

If the praiflical example of the late Britifh
American Colonies proves to a demonftration, that
ftates may not only exift, but flourilli with the
greatefl profperity, without paying any rents for the
lands that yield them their fubriftence, the plain
conclufion is, that land rents abflra6ledly confidered
are unneceflary burdens, and that land renters in
that fenfe are not an eflential clafs in fociety.

How then will a wife government, ading in con^
formity to the principles of nature, render the re-
ceivers of land rents an effcntial clafs in fociety ?
The political Economift anfwers by affigning them an
appropriate occupation j for it is contrary to all
reafon, and to all policy, to allow mere idlers in a
{late, or to fulFcr thofe v/ho receive one third, or
even but one fourth of the whole income of the
kingdom, to do nothing for it in return. We are
by the law of our nature condemned to earn our
bread by the'fv/eat of our brow; but no law can
juftly exift, by which one man (hall earn his bread
by the fweat of another man's brow, without render-
ing for it fome equivalent.

The fum of twenty-five millions flerling, making

between one third, and one fourth of the whole m-

come of Great Britain, being paid by the cultivators

to the proprietors of land, and being, as appears, an

D 3 a<^ual

( 54 )

adual burden upon the communky, reafon and
fjund policy point it out as the natural fund for
the defence of the community. When thus applied
by the iegiHature, the pofleffors of thofe rents in-
ftantly become not only an elTential clafs in fociety ;
but an honourable clafs likewife ; for honour will
ever be freely allowed to thofe, v;hofe profeffion it is
to be ready to rif^ their lives in the defence of the
community.

A cafe of danger to this kingdom, can hardly be
fuppofcd, that would require the military exertions
of every fourth perfon in it, that is, that would
ablorb the fourth part of its yearly income, or in
other words, the iwholc of the land rents. A pai't of
thofe rents therefore may, without the rifk. of any
deficiency in point of defence, be appropriated to
the annual maintenance of the fourth elfentiai clafs
in fociety, namely, the eflential and honourable clafs
of inftru'ftors.

A full fourth, or, perhaps, near a third of the
annual national income being thus applied, or ap-
plicable to the llipport of the defenders and inftruc-
tors, the people ought to be exempted from everv
fpecies of taxation for the purpofes of defence and
inftru(5lion, that is, government ought to draw the
whole of the national fupplies in all cafes, from the
rents of lands, as thofe rents afford an ample fund
for every fuppofed cafe of emergency.

Such is the natural confequence of the principles
of the political Economills, in refpecl to countries
where the Cultivators pay rents for the lands they
cultivate i, and in, thofe countrie.'^' v/!iere tlie cultiva-

■1 tors

( S5 )

tors pay no rents for the lands they occupy, but .arc
the mafters of their own furpkifes, tlje defence of
their lands, in cafe of an attack from an enemy,
iiiuft come out of thofe furplufes, or what is worfe,
muft come out of the capital pofleflion itfclf, upon
the principle that half a loaf is better than no

bread. ^

Thofe whofe minds have been preoccupied with
the expediency and reditude of the prefent mod
chaotic fyftem of taxation, ajid with the notion of
the vaft income arifmg to the ftate from manufac-
tures, have exprefled great furprize and aftoniiliment
at the conclufion of the Economifls, that the public
fupplies ought to be drawn wholly and direaiy
from the rents of lands, or from the furplus produce
of lands, that is, that there Oiould be no tax but a
land tax. To the fuperficial it has been matter of
drollery ; to the ferious a {fumbling block j and to
the half-knowing an inexplicable riddle. In France,
Germany, and Holland, it has had a great variety of
oppofers, as v/ell as of approvers. The witty Vol.
taire attacked it in one of his moft flimfy pro.
duaions, L'homme a Quarante Ecus. The ferious
Necker expreffes his doubts of it ; and argues upon
its impraclicability ; but his arguments are fuch as
moft clearly prove, that the lubjedf had not been
juftly conceived by him.

In Britain, Dr. Adam Smith viev/s it aflcance, and
cautiouily fhoves off the difcuffion of its merits, in
the following evafive words. ' Without entering,'
* he fays, into the difogreeable difcuflion of the
^ jnetaphyfical arguments, by which the Economi(ls
D 4 ' fupport

( s6 r

* fupport tlieir veiy ingenious theory, it will fuf-

* ficiently appear from the following review what

* are the taxes that fall finally on the rent of land,

* and what are thofe that fall finally upon fomg
' other fund.' The perufal and reperufal of that
very long and dcfultory review, to which hp refers,
has not to me difcovered that difference of funds,
from whence taxes originate, which he was to make
fo evident. The Economifts found their fyftem of
policy an^ finance ypon the three principles of
number, zveighf, and meofur^ y and if we are to
reckon with Dr. Smith, number, weight, and mea-
jure., to be metaphyfics, I fliould be' glad to know
what w'e are to confider as phyfics.

Though Dr. Smith thus glides over in a moH;
curforily manner, a fubjed of enquiry of the greateft
importance to the Wealth of Nations j yet another
Britifli political writer, Mr. Arthur Young, thinks it
deferving of a very particular difcuflTion. Mr.
Young declares himfelf a warm antagonift to the
idea of the Economills, of drawing the whole of the
public fupplies from the rents of lands, or from th^
furplus produce of land, and endeavours to combat
it by fair reafor.ing ; but reafoning that is not fub?
flantial. Great Britain and Ireland are mych in-
debted to him, for the perfevering and patriotic.
zeal with which he has iiluftrated and enforced
many truths, iinportant to their profperity. He
every where appears to me a candid fearcher after
truth, difclaiming any hypothefis, though inadver-
tently adopted by himfelf, that has not truth for its
bans. Therefore in living a full refutation to his

very

( 57 )

very erroneous doarlncs on this point, and others
conneaed witl> it, and dependent upon it, I do'ubt
not but he will think ,ne entitled to his warmeft
thanks. My aj.peal fliall be from Mr. Young ill
mformed, to Mr. Young better informed, and I
flatter myfelf that I Ihall have him amonP th,; fi.-ft
and moft zealous of my profelytes. "^

Having in the precevling pages explained th,
fundamental principle of the Economic, namely
that a ftate poffefling a large territory has no other
revenue than th^t arifmg from the produce of its
lands, (exclufive of fome fmall income from forei<.„
commerce) and as one third of that produce is w
Oreat Bntam given by thofe who raife it, to a clafs
ot men, who if they were not to defend the ftate
would m a political fenfe have nothing to do the
defence of the ftate therefore naturally and .politi-
cally devolves upon that clafs of men, as every other
dafs of men m a ftate has its refpedive employl
ment. i-rom the fundamental principle above
mentioned and above explained, it follows, that
face there ought to be no other tax for the defence
of the ftate than a land tax, that tax ought to be
moft carefully collefted, in a juft proportion according
to tne exigencies of the ftate, a^d that it is highly
criminal m any receiver of land rents, to withhold
from Government his due proportion of thofe rents
A crowd of new ideas, in regard to finance, will
i^mmediately fucfeed in the minds of thofe who are
fu. y convinced of th.e truth of the preceding prin-
^n.k, and Its corollary; and their eyes will be
opened to the infignificance of almoft all that Hume,
<^ Montef-

{ 5S )

Montefquieu, Neckar, Dr. Smith, and many others
have faid upon the lubjed. The wild deviation
from the true principle of taxation, which is now,
and for near two hundred j^ears has been, the pracilice
of every European flate, has ferved as an unfurmount-
able barrier to the acumen and fpirit of enquiry of
thofe writers. They have fliewn themfelves as httle
acquainted w^ith the nature of pubHc fupply and
national defence, as we were with New Holland
before the difcoveries of Captain Cook. Among
the few nothings mentioned by Montefquieu on the
fubjed: of taxation, he moll decidedly, but abfurdly
fays, the natural tax of moderate governments is
the duty laid on merchandize, which is really paid
by the confumer. Wonderful ! we have not how-
ever one word from him, why fuch a tax is more
natural than a tax upon dogs, or upon hackney
coaches. The complaints of the excels of taxes in
France, had made an impreflion upon him ; and he
makes the following remark upon that fubjed in
general, which greatly fupports the fyfiem of the
Economifts, and might have opened to him the
right tra(5l, if his mind had not been completely
hood -winked as to that point. ' It. was the excefs
*• of taxes, he fays, that occaiioned the prodigious

* facility, with which the Mahomedans carried on

* their conquefls. Inftead of a continual feries of

* extortions devifed by the fubtle avarice of the
' Greek Emperors, the people were fubjecled to a

* Jingle tribute, which was paid and collected with

* eafe. Thus they were far happier in obeying a
' barbarous nation^ than a corrupt government, '\\\

* whici;

( 59 )

' which they fuffercd every inconvenience of loll
* liberty, witli all the horrors of prefent flavery.*
This fnglc tribute, paid with cafe by the Greeks to
the conquering Turks, was probably the produce of
the foil at prime coft, that is, unenhanced by no-
minal money, by cxcifes, &c. The plain under-
ftandings of the Turks pointed out to them that
the produce of the foil was the natural fource of
income, and that it was true policy to apply to that
fource dircflly, and to ufe ever}'' means to make it
more abundant. And that fyftem they feem,
through fuccceding ages, to have perfevered in; fn-;
the eleganr Bufbequius, the Imperial ambaflador, in
his letters from Turkey, written near two hundred
years ago, mentions u'ith admiration the great fer-
tility and well-cultivated fields of Afia Minor ; and
we have it alfo upon good authority, that not half
a centviry ago the bufhel of wheat was fold at
Smyrna for lefs than feventeen-pence *.

Mr. Young, in his treatife entitled Political
Arithmetic^ oppoles with much zeal the idea of a
fmgle tribute, or, in other words, a land-tax, ade-
quate to the defence of the ftate in every emer-
gency ; but his arguments, when examined upon
the principles of the Economifts, will be found to
be rnere deiufions, though of a very dangerous ten-
dency to the pubhc welfare, while they remain un-
refuted. It v;ould be a very tedious buhnefs to
expofe all the errors in that performance, which are
thick fcattcred in the midfl of many ufeful truths j

• Vide Trai^.s on the Corn Trade, p. 33.

and

( 6o )

and it would likewife be an unneceffary tafk, as the
refutation of the eflential errors will lead to tlie
jdeteftion of the others, and take from the whole
the power of further miileading.

It is an idea "of Mr. Youi)g, arid of many others
befides him, that near one-half of the income of
the nation arifes from manufadiiures j and upon this
idea he fays, page 239, * The income of our foil

* is very confiderable, but does not make much

* above half the total income of the flate. The
' profits and labour ja commerce, manufaftures, and

* arts, are of a vaft amount, confequently to ex-

* empt them all from taxation, and throw the

* whole burden on land, would be unequal and op-^

* preflive iri the higheft degree.* This reafbning
would be juft, were any revenue in reality to arife
to the ftate from manufactures made and fold at
home ; but as I have above fhewn in my remarks
on Dr. Smith's fifth obfervation, that manu-
faiftures, though greatly beneficial to the commu-
nity, really produce no revenue, that is, no aftual
augrnentation or renovation ot wealth, it confe-
quently follows, that no public fupply can be
drawn from them. There is not, therefore, the
fmallefl neccffity for further enlarging on this point,
^s what is before faid is a futhcient explanation
of it.

I iliall proceed to confider another fundamental
error of Mr. Young, which pervades the whole of
bis performance, He has, hke Dr. Adam Smith,
tiever once confidered the political nature of rent
paid by a cultivator for leave to cultivate the

srround ,

( 6i )

grounc!. With him the rent of land is lomething
llicrcd, indcfeafibly appropriated to the landlords,
who have a right to incrcafe it as much as poflible,
and to difpole of it as they pleafc. It is no burden
upon the cultivators, that is, upon the community
at large; for the cultivators^ he fays, in this coun-
try, feel very little the burden of taxation, which
he attempts to prove by feveral curfoiy obfervations
on the excifes, cuftoms, window-lights, poor rates,
and other taxes, totally overlooking the payment of
rent, that is, the payment of fix fliillings and eight
pence in the pound, or even but five (hillings irt
the pound, by the farmer, of all his earnings and
profits. Sentiments fomewhat fimilar I remember
to have read feveral years aa|i>, apologifmg for the
conduft of fome knd owners in the Highlands of
Scotland, who ftating that they had a. right to do
as they pleafed with their own, upon that principle
taifed their rents exorbita;ntly, and thereby com-
pelled their tenants to emigrate to America. The
tenants pra6lically replied to this falfe principle of
their unfeeling landlords, by fliewing them that
they had a right to inhabit v/here they pleafed.
Now, according to the principle of the Economiftr,
every man in a ftate ought to hav*e fome occupa-
tion ; and the rents of lands being a furplus income
falling into the lap of the land owners, without
their contributing to the production of tliat furplus,
and tending to enhance the price of things one-
third or one-fourth, reafon requires that the land
owners fhould do fometliing for the community in
return for the privilege of having this furplus fecured

to

( 6z )

to them by the community. The u^ords of Cicero
to this purpofe are very appofite, * Major hereditas

* venit unicuique veftrum in iifdem bonis a jure &
' a legibus, quam ab iis, a quibus ilia ipfa bona

* relicta funt ;' that is, You are not fo much in-
debted to your rich father or rich grand-father for
the great landed income you pofTefs, as to the laws
and government which protect you in the poffeffion
of that income. Government having thus a natural
claim upon thofe whom it protects in the enjoy-
ment of great incomes, to the production of which
they contribute no labour of their own, has a right
to afk for a part of this furplus for the defence of
the ftate, as being the only difpofable revenue in
the ftate. For the cultivator, it is evident, cannot
both fight and at the fame time provide fubfiflence
for the community ; the fifherman when filliing
cannot be fighting ; the manufacturer, if any thing-
be taken from his wages, mufl either ilarve or raife
his wages, which lafl tends to load commodities
with an artificial value. The ftate, however, mufi:
be defended j and thus, by placing the defence
upon the furplus revenue, every landlord in the
kingdom becomes politically as much a tenant to
the ftate, as any of his farmers is a tenant to him.

Another very capital error which Mr. Young en-
deavours to eftabiilh is, that an equal land tax
raifed in proportion to the value' of the rents,
would be a moll pernicious fyftem. .His fiiort ar-
gument in fupport of this error is, that the im-
prover would thereby be taxed according to his
improvements. Now if we examine this herculean

ary:u-

{ (-i )

argiinient, printed by him in capital letters, we
IhciU find that it is wholly unfubflantial, and that
Mr. Young himleif will affift us in refuting his own
talfe dodlrine. In the firft place, his conclufion
does not follow from his premifes ; for a real four
Ihillings in the pound, though not now paid, may
be demanded from lands that have received no im-
provement for thefe hundred years. But waving
this overfight, the Economift affirms, that the ar-
gument of Mr. Young againft a valuation of the,
land tax according to the real amount of the rents,
is the (Irongeft argument in favour of fuch a valu-
ation. When does a creditor mofh naturally look
for the payment of a debt, but when his debtor is
in cafli ? When ought government lb properly to
a/k more of a landlord, as when that landlord aiks
more of his tenant .'' Does not a landlord who
raife; his rent upon a new leafe, tax the improver
according to his improvement } Does he not, in
eifc^l, argue to the following purpofe with his
farmer — Your farm twenty years ago was worth
only 50I. a year, but in confequence of your good
management it is now worth yol. a year ; therefore
I fhall require that rent from you during the prefent
leafe. Every one will readily acknowledge that
within this half-centur}' the rents of lands are rifen
ver)' confiderably over the whole ifland. What can
this rife be owing to but to real improvement, or
the prefumption of future improvement, if upon
die prefumption of future improvement, which I
am afraid is too often the cafe, then the improver
i:^ not taxed in proportion to the improvement he

has

{ «4 )

iias made ; which is j\ift and equitable, becaufe thd
property is really become more valuable j but ac-
cording to an improvement hi futuroy which may
never take place at all, confequently he may bo
forced to pay a new taxation without any new fund to
fupport that taxation. But hear what may be con-
cluded from Mr. Young himielf. From his in-
formation, the rents in Norfolk are now four timqs
higher than t]>ey were forty years agOj and the
tenants in that county are in a very thriving ftate.
It may be prefumied, that this fourfold rife of rent
in Norfolk is founded upon improvement of fom©
kind or other ; for to found it upon no improve-
ment would not be juft and equiJiable. If, then^
improvement has enabled the land owners in Nor-
folk to quadruple their rents within the fpace of
forty years, and at the fame time to enrich their
tenants, it plainly follows, that to tax the improver
in proportion to his improvements, has not been a
pernicious fyflem in the county of Norfolk, and
therefore v/ould not be a pernicious fyftcm if ex-
tended to the whole kingdom. Government, it
muft ever be kept in mind, in requiring a land tax-
in proportion to the real value of the rents, is only
the fecondary taxer > for the land owner precedes in
raifing his rent according to the improvements made
by his tenant 5 if, therefore^ the land owner, who'
is the primary taxer, has afted equitably and judr-
cioufly in demanding a higher rent, in confequencer
of a real improvement of the foil, government
cannot ad wrong in dem-anding the ufual propor-
tion upon that new rent.— That is to fay> An equal

land

( 65 )

land tar, ralfcd in proportioti to the real value of
the rents, is ajuji and truly politic fijjiem.

A fourth erroneous dodrine, fondly embraced by-
Mr. Young, is the importance of high price to the
profperity of agriculture, and even to the profperity
of the nation. But this doftrine, inculcated by
him in a variety of places, he leaves unfupported
by any folid argument. It is, indeed, an excellent
dodlrine for thofe who could poflefs an exclufive
monopoly of felling, and were never to be buyers ;
but as no clafs of men in a community, nor indeed
any nation upon earth, can poflefs fuch a monopoly;
and as all buyers run naturally to the cheap market,
it is the heighth of political imprudence in a nation
wilhing to extend its foreign commerce, to give an
artificial rife to prices by a needlefs augmentation of
tlieir pecuniary value. Will a bufhel of wheat feed
more people when fold for ten iliiliings than when
fold for half-a-crown ? Will a pound of gunpowder
fend a ball farther if fold for five fhillings inftead
of one {hilling ? Similar queftions may be extended
to the whole circle of commerce, both internal and
external, which would plainly prove that high price
is not favourable to the extenfion either of manu-
facture or of agriculture.

Already it is affirmed that high price has deprived
us of one branch of manufacture, the printing of
Englilh books for foreign lale, fuch books being
now printed in France for the American market ;
and if high price be in like manner annexed to the
productions of the plough, we Ihall thereby aflur-

E edly

( 66 )

-edly be deprived of the profitable trade of the ex-
portation of corn.

Were we to have no connection at all with fo-
reign nations, high price or low price in all our in-
ternal dealings, fuppofing -thofe prices fixed and
ilable, would not affect our national profperity, as
the price of the fubfiftence of the labourer would
ftill regulate all other prices. In the one cafe, high
price would permanently meet high price, as in the
other, low price vvould permanently meet low price.
But while that clafs in fociety, from whom the re-
venue originates, are from year to year pufhing the
nominal value of that revenue higher and higher,
the balance between fellers and buyers is kept in
perpetual uncertainty, and the peaceful order of
fociety is thereby greatly difcurbed. Thofe whofe
yearly falaries were adequate to their yearly wants,
find that they have only a full fupply for nine
months ; and thofe whofc weekly wages were ade-
quate to feven days fupply, find that they have
only a full fubfiflence for four days, and to make
them hold out, they muft go upon (hort allowance
during the whole week. As this augmentation of
the nominal value of the produce of land -confe-
quently augments the nominal value of every thing
eife, the refult is, that the landed gentleman is not
thereby enriched, nor are fellers in general enriched
by it, fince Vv'hat they gain as fellers, they precifely
expend in quality of buyers. Thus George Faul-.
kener having cccafion to expend but little, probably
gained as much by his Dublin Journal when fold

for

( 6; )

for a farthing, as many of thofe who in Londoa
now fell their nevvfpaper for eighteen farthings j and
he furniflied for his farthing as many advertifements
and as much news as they do for their eighteen
farthings.

Another inftance of the unavaiHng power of high
price to make rich, may be gathered from what was
lately declared in the Houfe of Commons by Mr.
Whitbread. Mr. Young, in his Political Arith-
metic, gave it as a fign of national proiperity, that
the land rents of Norfolk had within forty years
cncreafed four-fold, not diftinguifliing what was
nominal and what was real in that increafe, and
now by Mr. Whitbread we are informed, that the
Norfolk Barley, though not of a very good kind,
is fo extravagantly dear, that brewers can hardly
afford to purchafe it ; that barley in general is fo
high priced, that they have been obliged to brew
porter of an inferior quality, and are doubtful
whether they fliall be able to Continue the trade.

The trade, however, might be continued with-
out lofs to the brewer, were the price of porter and
other malt liquor to be doubled, were falaries and
wages to be doubled, and the price of home manu-
faftures to be doubled. But in what refped: would
the nation be a gainer by thefe new nominal va-
lues, taking into view either its connexion with
foreign ilates, or confidering it independantly of any
relation to thofe dates. In the former cafe it would
infallibly oblige our foreign cuftomers to leave off
trading with us ; and in the latter, fuppofmg u^
not to be in need of foreign trade, it would only

E 2 make

( 68 )

make us pay with fliillings what we now pay with
fixpences.

There are few people, I beheve, that would not
confefs that this duplication of prices, inftead of
being beneficial to the nation, would not be ex-
tremely prejudicial to it. Neverthelefs, from the
prevalence of a falfe principle in regard to taxation
and the national utility of high price, we are mofl
improvidently haftening towards it, by raifmg year
after year, without neceffity, the prices of the ne-
ccffaries of life, and, as a corredtive to that malady,
forming plans for raifmg proportionally the rate of
wages and the hire of labourers. True policy
would rather recommend to keep wages and the
hire of labourers ftec^dily at their prefent rate, or at
the rates at which they were forty year^ ago, and at
the fame time to uie fuch means as to bring the
neceilary articles of living to correfpond to thofe
rates. If fuch had been our policy, national abun-
dance with us would have been greater and more
general, and volumes of laborious and patriotic dif-
quifitions about meliorating the prefent ftate of la-
bourers would have been rendered altogethe|: unne-.
ceiTary.

In a well-governed flate, the price of labour may
remain nearly unalterable for many centuries; and
in the Eall Indies, before European modes of tax-
ation were there introduced, the prices of things, it
may be prefumed, had remained nearly flationary
for 2000 years. What more can the fucceffive
generations of men require, during their temporary
life here, than to have fulnefs of bread 3 and, fup-

pofmg

• ( 69 )

pofing the population of one age equal to that of
another, the fertiHty and cultivation of the ground
the fame, and the medium of circulation not aug-
mented or diminilhed, each fucceeding race of men
may have that fulnefs of bread in the fame degree
as the preceding, and at the fame price.

Were the permanent augmentation of the quan-
tity of gold and fdver to be alleged as a reafon for
the rife in the prices of things, it will on that
ground perhaps be found, that prices ought to be
very little higher now than they were an hundred
years ago ; for fuppofing the quantity of fpecie to
be doubled in this ifland iince the revolution, which
may jufhly be doubted, that ought not to double
the prices; for if population in that time be in-
creafed, fuppofe in the proportion of two to three,
fifteen millions of coin would not now be a greater
abundance of money than ten millions were at the
revolution ; confequently, if the quantity of circulat-
ing money was at the revolution ten millions, the
nation ought now to polTefs confiderably more than
thirty millions in fpecie, to occafion the prices of
things to be twice as high as they were then ; for,
fmce the revolution, the great improvements in the
cultivation of the lands of the kingdom would
otherwife have lowered prices, inftead of railing
them.

Though the real augmentation of the quantity of

gold and filver affords no ground for the rife of

prices, yet the mofl extravagant augmentation of

the expletive medium of circulation called paper-

' money (often the reprefentative of nothing) has

E 3 con-

( 70 )

contributed to overfpread the land with high price*
in every diredion, all ranks being now reciprocally
complainers or complained of. As the great aug-
mentation of this imaginary wealth has been a prin-
cipal caufe of introducing this epidemical malady
into the kingdom, the true remedy for the illnefs
will be found in rem.oving that caufe of it ; namely,
in fuppreffing this inefficient wealth, and ftudying
without delay to augment the fubflantial wealth of
the coimtry by means of the plough. To the dif-
grace of our policy, it may lately have been faid
of us, Nummis Chartaceis locuples eget panis Bri-
tannorum gensj Britons, though wanting bread,
:ibound in paper riches. The legiflature that will
feduloufly endeavour to increafe the phyfical wealth
of the country, by encouraging the cultivation of
its lands, may, without hefitation, fliy to every one
of the coiners of imaginary money, Tolle tuas
precor imagines et cum tota farragine migra; take
yourfeif and your imaginary riches out of the
country : it is fubftantial riches that are wanted ;
and this our lands will furni fn us abundantly and
cheaply, if you will but withdraw your interference.
So far, however, from withdrawing their inter-
ference, they have lately moft infidioufly preached
up the necefTity of augmenting the prefent medium
of circulation, and a newly-efiabliflied bank in
Norfolk-fireet upon that principle offers its fervices
to the public. If a fpirit of re-a6tion do not oc-
cupy the country gentlem.en, there is no knowing
how far the mifchief may lead. They, however,
have a good precedent and example in the gentle-
men

■{ 7' )

men of Brecknockililre ; who, four or five years
ao;o, in a countv meeting;, came to the refolution
of not accepting in payments any notes of country
banks. This example oug-ht to be followed bv
ever}'" land owner in Great Britain; and the moment
that peace returns, the land proprietors throughout
the kingdom ought to declare to their tenants, that,
except when the rent is to be paid in kind, they
will not receive in payment of it any thing but gold
and filver.

But it is not only neceflary to abolifh, or nearly to
abolilh*, this artificial wealth, which, by heighten-
ing all prices, tends aftually to impoverifli the ftate,
and confequently to weaken government, it is alio
necellary, without delay, to augment the fubftan-
tial wealth of the nation, and thereby to bring the
prices of neceffaries to correfpond to the exifting
rate of wages. At prefent, and for many ye-a^s
back, the attention to augment the nominal wealth
of the nation, feems to have greatly exceeded the
attention to augment the fubftantial and phyfical
wealth of the nation. A little, at a high price,
has moft impoliticaily been preferred to much at a
low price. Now the very objed of true policy is,
to have the fubftantial and phyfical wealth perma-
nently abundant, becaufe, in proportion as that
wealth is abundant or fcanty, fo will be the natural
jlrength or weaknefs of a ftate.

The abundance of phyfical wealth, and the rate

* I fay nearly to abolifh; for there is, I think, a pofiibility.
6f inftitiuing country banks fo as not to be prejudicial to the
nation.

E 4 Of

( 7^ )

or market value of that wealth, ought ever to be
Gonfidered diflinftly. If the land proprietor, from
whom this wealth originates, and the flatefman will
confider thefe two things feparately, they will both
readily acknowledge that the former ought to be
the firft obje(fl of purfuit, as much as abundance
of water ought to be a firfl object of purfuit to the
proprietor of a water-mill. This phyiical wealth,
whatever be its rate, is the power that regulates the
whole of the induftry of fociety. It cannot effedt
more by being rated high, nor will it effed lefs by
being rated low ; but if its quantity be increafed,
the power thence arifmg will be proportionally in-
creafed.

A garrifon, fupplied with 20,000 facks of flour,
may be expeifled to hold out a fiege twice as long
as if it were fupplied with only 10,000 facks of
flour ; but it would be juflly deemed a moft abfurd
and extravagant idea to think of ftrengthening the
garrifon, not by fupplying it with 20,000 facks of
flour, but by doubling the price of the 10,000 facks.
If it be wife and prudent to flirengthen a garriibn,
not by increafing the price of the fupply which it
pofleflTes, but by increafing the quantity of that
fupply, it will be no lefs wife and prudent to
ftrengthen a nation in the fame manner; that is,
not by increafing the price of the fubftantial wealth,
which it produces, but by increafing the quantity

of that wealth*.

There

* Prcfuming that it will not be unacceptable to my learned
readers, I (hall here remark, that Longinus, not being an

Ecoao-

( 73 )

There is not, at prefent, a complaint more gene-
ral among all claffes of men than that there is hardly
any living, becaufe all things are become fo extra vd,-
gantly dear. There is, however, a poflibility that
all things might become extremely plentiful, and
confequently extremely cheap, and the fyflem of
the Economifts leads to that. A common comr
plaint, even among the rich, is, that the keeping
of a horfe is at prefent extremely expenfive, oats
and fodder are become fo immoderately dear. Now
the fa(5t is, that the keep of a horfe is in reality
not dearer at prefent than it was 500 years ago;
nay, perhaps is even cheaper; for 500 years ago
it might have required the produce of three acres,
but, trom the improvements in agriculture, the
produce of two acres may perhaps now fuffice.
In like manner, the maintenance of a regiment
of foldiers is probably not more in reality

Economic, has, in CeCt. 29 of his Efiay on the Sublime, mif-
underllood Plato, and cenfured him improperly. After having
praifed the rhetorical figure of circumlocution, and obferved
that in the ufe of it Plato was ^hio?, or very eminent, he
fays he was accufed by fome of ufing it fometimes very im-
properly, as in the following exprefTion, In a llfite, no gold
wealth or lilver wealth ought to be admitted. The mockerj,
who thought the word wealth might have fufRced, alleged,
that he might jafl as well, in prohibiting cattle to be purchaied,
ha\'e faid, A'o Jhecp aveahl, slw^. no oxen nxealth. Plato's circum-
locution, however, is here mofl; appofite and emphatic. lis
placed the riches of a ftate in fomething ell'e than gold and
filver; and though he baniflicd them from his common-wealth,
he by no means excluded the phyfical wealth flowing from
agriculture; and therefore he particularly diftinguilhes the
kind of wealth which he would have to be excluded.

■\ 74 )

now than it was 150 years ago, but the parliamen-
tary • eftimates, and exceedings of eftimates, prove
that tlie pecuniary expence of prefent days is far
beyond what it was 150 years agoj that government
accompliflies not fa much •with 20 milHons as it for-
merly did with 5 millions, and that it is now actually
experiencing the impotence of pecuniary wealth.

Other political . writers, befides Mr. Young, have
been deluded by the notion of the great importance
of high" price. The following falle compufation of
Davenant lias been repeated, with eulogiums, by
fubfequent v/rilers. * In the year .1600,' fays Da-
venant, ' the whole rental of England did not exceed
' 6 millions, and the price of land was 1 2 years pur-
' chafe ; in i683 the rental was 14 millions, and the

* price of land 18 years purchafe, fo that uathin

* this period, the land rofe from 72, to 252
' millions.' A modern author, by the fame way "of
computing, reckoned the value of tlie lands of Eng-
land a few years ago at 700 millions, that is, accord-
ing to him, the lands of England are near ten times
as valuable now as they were in the end of Queen
Elizabeth's reign. This the Economift affirms to be
a moftgrofs mifcalculation, fimilar to that of doubling
the price of the fupply of a garrifon, inftead of
doubling the fupply ; for, in the tim.e of Elizabeth,
England fed and clothed 4 millions of people ; and
at the prefent day can hardly feed and clothe 8 mil-
lions of people; confequently the real rife of value
of its lands is barely double. But, if iftftead of mul-
tiplying money, and thereby needleisly raifmg prices,
we had been lludious for thefe 200 years paft to have

z multiplied

( 75 )

multiplied iubllantlal and phyfical wealth by an un-
remitting encouragement of agriculture, the lands of'
England at this moment might perhaps have been'
near four times as valuable as in the time of Elizabeth,
that is, they might now be feeding and clothing 15
or 16 millions of inhabitants.

Mr. Young's ill-groundecF fondnefs for high price
leads him to undervalue or decry low price or cheap-
nefs, without, however, explaining by any kind oi
illultration, the prejudice that low price would bring
upon a community. He makes aflertion fupply the
place of argument, and fays, p. 82, * Cheapnefs of
* proviiions is fuch an encoiirager of idlehefs, that
' no manufactures can ftand under it.' Now, {o
far from this aflertion being confident with faft,
cheapnefs of provifions is the very thing that enter-
prifmg mafter manufacturers above till things wifli for.
It i^the load-ftone that draws manufactures to itfelf.
It has drawn the woollen manufactures even away
from the woollen counties into the North ; it has
removed the gauze manufa<5ture from London to
Paifley ; and the blanket manufacture from London
to Dundee. What cheapnefs of provifions is in fome
places, cheapnefs of coals is to Briftol, Newcallle,
Birmingham, and Carron. Were coals to be as dear
in thofe places, as in fome parts of the kingdom, can
it be doubted but their glafs works and iron works
would quickly decline. Were a manufafturer of
Birmingham to be afked whether he would willi
coals and provifions to be dear there, he would pro-
bably anfv/er by the following queftion: Sir, would
you willi to ruin our town ?

Ths

( 76 )

»

The fame that cheapnefs or low price effefts within
the ifland, it effects throughout the whole com-'
mercial world. What turned the channel of the
fugar trade from the Britifli to the French Colonifls,
but becaufe thefe lad fold for 50 iivres, what the
Britifli Colonifts alked 50 fliiUings for. What elfe
but cheapnefs brings rice and fugar to Britain
trom the Eaft Indies, by a voyage of near 10,000
miles ? What has brought American wheat, pro-
duced 300 miles from the fea, to Europe, but its
cheapnefs? What but cheapnefs brings Rufllan iron
to Britain, loaded with an inland carriage of 1000
miles ? With thefe, and twenty other examples
of the fame kind before our eyes, fliall we
expedt to invite foreign cuftomers by high prices ?
We wifh greatly to extend our foreign com-
merce, and at the fame time we have many com-
mercial rivals. Now internal higli price has aftually
the effedt of a bounty beftowed by us on thofe fo-
reign rivals againfl ourfelves. By our high prices
we thus in effe6l fay to the Swedes, We lliall pro-
mote the fale of your herrings in foreign markets,
in preference to our own, by keeping our own her-
rings 3 fhillings a barrel dearer than yours.

In all things, a medium is beft ; therefore I doubt
not but the following obfervation, made roo years
ago by the judicious Mr. Car}', of Briflol, will meet
with approbation. ' The price of vvheat,' he fays,
' arifes from the price of land ; and the price of

* labour from the price of provifions ; you cannot

* fall wages unlefs you fall product ; but no good

* in running it down too low.' Suppofing that at
prefent we have raifed a barrier againft many foreign

cuftomers,

( 77 )

cuflomcrs, by our high prices, which they find 5 or
6 per cent higher than thofe of our commercial ri-
vals, it would be no detriment to the nation to re-
move that obilacle, not only by lowering our prices
that 5 or 6 per cent, which would bring them to a
par with thole of our commercial rivals, but to lower
them likewile 5 on 6 per cent even below that par.
This would rtill be confiftcnt with Mr. Gary's rule,
and would give to foreigners a moil decided prefer-
ence to the Britifli market. Mr. Young fees no-
thing but national perdition in lowering of prices ;
but from his own reafoning on the fubjecfh of the price
of wheat it may be concluded, that previous to
the late fcarcity, that price w^as in eftecfl one third
lower than in the end of the laft century. And fincc
the invention of fpinning mills, the price of cotton
goods is fallen 50 per cent. As neither of thefe cir-
cumftances has brought any inconvenience upon the
public, it mp-y be prefumed that the extenfion of
the fame fyftem to other articles would not be ac-
comp^med with any detriment to the community.-
The encouragement of agriculture, and the induce-
ment to reprodudion, is not high price, byt great
confumption, which arifes from general induftry;
for with high price, there may be little confumption
and great want.

Thofe who meafure the value of things by high
price, are but too much inclined to run in fearch
of that high price, in preference to the promoting
of phyfical abundance, which is the very prop of
fociety. Becaufe in Covent-Garden-market green
figs are about 40 times dearer than they are at Na-
ples,

( 78 )

pies, would it be juft from thence to concludcf
that London is 40 times richer in that article than
Naples. Thofe who make high price the ftandard
of national opulence, naturally drop into fuch an
erroneous eonclufion, and, by their way of reckoning,
an acre of garden -ground in the north parts of Scot-
land is twice as valuable as in the neisihbourhood
of London j for by the ftatiftical ftate of Scotland,
it appears, that in the north fome garden-ground
is rented at the rate of 81. per acre. This rent,
however, is more likely to be the flandard of the op-
preffion of that part of the country, than of its prof-
perity ; for it may well be prefumed that an acre of*
garden-ground in the vicinity of London, rented at
no more than 4I. would yield a greater quantity of
produce than could be procured from an acre of gar-
den-ground in the north. A great part of the enor-
mity of this oppreffive rent would be done away,
if, according to the natural fyftem of taxation for
government fupply, one fifth, or one fixth of it,
were appropriated to the defence of the ftate, as thofc
that are now heavily taxed by that high rent, would
then be relieved from other taxes.

1 fnail conclude this point, at prefent, with the
foilowing remark. Mr. Young fays, p. 245, That high
price enables landlords to raife their rents, and there-
by to relmburfe themfeives for their taxes. But it
may be alked of Mr. Young, why fnould landlords
be reimburfed their taxes, any more than their te*
nants are reimburfed the 33 per cent, or the 25 per
cent, which they pay to them for leave to culti-
vate the ground. The indemnification of every man

for

( 79 )

for the taxes paid by him, is internal peace arid ex-'
ternal defence. Can any man reafonably expect to
enjoy thole two great blelfings for nothing ?

Another of Mr. Young's erroneous dovftrines, or
rrither ignorant pofitions, which I fliall now proceed
to examine, is the following ; that taxes on con-
fumption ought to have the preference to other
taxesi for this moft fuperficial reafon (alleged alfo,
as ^'e have {ecu before, by Montefquieu), * That
' they are paid by the confumers.' There he and
Montefquieu reft, having fatisfied themfelves, that
they have explained the nature of taxes on confump-
tion. The,' confumers pay them. Neither he nor
Montefquieu condefcend to inform their readers
what it is that enables the confumer to be a ccn-
lumer, though upon that very point refts the dlftindt
explanation of the whole of the expenditure of the
kingdom. What fhould vv'e think of a guide to the
caftle of truth, v/ho fhould fay to the enquiring
traveller, this road leads diredlly to it through that
dark and pathlefs wood. When you enter the wood,
you muft find your way to the caftle in the befl: man-^
ner you can. Exactly fuch guides are Montefquieu
and Mr. Young. They ceafe giving information
precifely v>'here it is moll wanted. Who doubts, that
taxes upon confum.ption are in the firft inftance paid
by the confumer j but does that lead to any final poli*
tical refult in re2;ard to the real fund for fuch taxes ?
Not in the finaiieft degree. When a fchool-boy pur-
chafes a folding knife, or a cricket bat, he is certainly
the confumer in the firft inftance. The Econcmlft,
however, not only alks who furnilhed him with mo-
ney

( 8o )

ney ta be a confumer ; but who furniflied the mo-
ney to the perfon who fuppHed the fchool-boy, and
who furniftied the money to that third perfon, and
who to the fourth, the fifth, the fixth perfon, &c.
and by fuch a reiterated invefhigation, he will in the
end trace the money to the fale of fome of the agri-
cultural produce of the earth. And he defies Mr.
Young, or any other perfon, to draw the moneys
difburfed by the fchool-boy from any other fund,
befides that fund (the mines of the precious metals
alone excepted), a fund which was not in exiflence
lafl year, that will perhaps be wholly confumed this
year, but will be reproduced next year, by the fer^
tility of the foil, ii\ conjundion with the labo'irs of
the cultivator. In like manner, it will be found,
that the money difburfed by the blackfmith, the
mafon, the carpenter, and every other artilan, as
confumers, may be traced to the fame fund ; and if
in confequence of taxes on confumption, that mo-
ney is twice as much as it othenvife would have
been, that twice as ntuch will occafion the ori-
ginal fund to be rated double in commercial value ^
but will not increafe the fund.

Were a modern financier to fay to a carpenter,
your wages of two fhillings a day allows you to be a
confumer j I mean, therefore, by laying taxes on con-
fumption, to draw four-pence or fix-pence a day from
you, the carpenter might very juflly reply. You will
in that be much deceived ; for when I find articles of
confumption taxed, I and all my fellow workmen
will infifl upon half-a-crown a day as wages ; and
that new demand will bemofl reafonable, for when we

had

( ^l }

iiad two fli-illings a day, we had not, at the end oi
the year, one Ihiiling of Uirplus, neiilicr lliall we
have more, out of our half crown. The whole body
of artifans throughout the kingdom is repr-efented
by that carpenter, as are all others who give their
labour for wages j for thofe wages in a populous
country adually mcafure themfelves by the daily or
annual fubnRence of the receivers, without any re-
gard to the pecuniary valtie of that lubfiilence.

Were Mr. Young upon his idea, that there is
no need of enquiring what enables the confumers
to become confumers, to propofe to the French
loyalifts, now refugees in England, to become
greater confuniers, in order that government might
be more benefited by them, they might, perhaps,
reply in the following manner. Alas, Sir, it is not
in our power to be greater confumers ; the blood-
thirfty tyrants at Paris have treated us as Hercules
treated the giant Antaeus 5 they have removed us
from our Parent Earth ; and inftead of being con-
fumers, we are ready to perifli. Let tis but touch
again our Mother Earth, and we fliall revive, and
become confumers. There is no other means but
that.

In order to avoid needlefsly enlarging my pre-
fent difcourfe, I fliall on>it taking rK)tice of fe-
veral of Mr. Young's fmaller errors, the rnere,
offspring of his falfe principles in elfenti-al points,
and I fhall conclude my remarks upon his Poli-
tical Arithmetic with expofmg the futility of what
he deems the unfurmountable objedVion to the
/ingle tribute or fmgle tax propofed by the Eco-

F noaiiits.

•( S2 )

nomiils. Like Mr. Neckar, he falls iiito' the blind
miftake of making the general amount of the pre-
fent taxes the ftandard or meafure of the fum total
to be required by government, if all the taxes were
to be confolidated into a fingle land tax. . Beeaufe
the taxes at prefent raifed by Government, added to
the annual loans, required during a war, exceed the
amount of the land rents of Great Britain, he con-
cludes, the fmgle tribute propofed by the Econo-
mifts would abforb the whole of thofe rents, and not
leave one farthing of income to the land proprie-
tors, nay, would even occafion an annual deficit to
government. Mr.- Necker is more moderate in his
computation- j and upon a comparifon of the income
of the land rents of France with the amount of its
taxes, concludes, that the fingle tribute would run
away with only 1 7 ;Iliillings in the pound of the rents.
But neither of thefe authors advert to circumftances
which totally overturn their conclufions. The fingle
tribute of the Economifts arifing from the furplus
produce of the foil has nothing at all to do with the
amount , of modern taxes, become cumberfome by
artificial price, accumulated; upon artificial price, in
confequence of a Public Debt of near 400
millions, which, according to the fyftem, of the
Economifts, would not at this mbment have had any
exifbence. The queftion with Mr. Neckar and Mr.
Young ought to have been. Will four 'ftiiliings in
the pound of - the rents rof ,land fufiice for tlic do-.
fence of the ftate- in ail,, preiumable emergencies' j
and for Great Britain, at ieaft, the following com-
pjitation, I think, will jQiew, that the anfwer may

by

( S3 )

te in the afFirmatlve, and will prove not only the
great moderation, but the great efficacy of this tax.
The rent of the land owners I fliall ftate at only i -4th
of the general produce; and four fhillings in the pound
bf that rent demanded by Government, is one i-5th of
it. Now I -5th of* I -4th is eqiial to one i-20thi that
is, a land tax of four lliillings in the pound would be
equivalent to one fliilling in the pound of the whole
national income. In Great Britain are reckoned 72
millions of acres, and upwards. Now, of thofe 72
millions of acres, fuppofe 1 6 millions to be of. little
or no value, and that 16 millions more are required
for horfes, this will leave 40 millions for the filfte-
nance of man. Of thofe 40 millions of productive
acres, one twentieth, or two millions of acres are
demanded by government for defence. This go-
vernment fhare, therefore, allowing eight acres for
the fufcenance of one man, would enable Great Bri-
tain to maintain 250,000 men. But it may be faid
that a war eftablifhment vwould require more than
250,000 men. I allow it. But would not a peace
eftablifliment require much fewer j therefore joining
the two together, and taking the average, that ave-
rage would be found not to exceed a land tax of
four fhillings in the pound ; nay, would probably
not exceed three fhillings in the pound.

The following computation, 1 think, will prove,
that if fmce the revolution a true afleffment of the
land tax had taken place, and a real four fliillings in
the pound had been raifed on the rents of land in
Great Britam, we fhould, previous to the commence-
ment of the pvcfent war, have been entirely free from

Fa any

{ S4 )

any national debt. From Sir John Sinclair's valua-
ble Hiflory of the Publick Revenue, part 2d. page
63, it appears that the national debt, on the 31ft
of December, 1701, was 16,394,702 pounds, that
is about eleven years after the fyflem of borrov/ing
began. But fuppofing the land tax, from its firft
eftablifhment, to have been not a nominal but a
real four fliillings in the pound, and confequently
to have amounted to one million a year more than it
actually produced, this new national debt would
thereby have been diminifh'ed eleven mihions, and
would have been, in December, 1701, only 5,394,702!.
The war of the fuccefiion, in Queen Anne's time,
occafioned a further augmentation of the publick
debt, which Is ftatcd in the above mentioned hiflory
at 54,145,363!. on the 3 1 ft of December, I7i4,but
from this muft be dedudled, firft:, the preceding
eleven millions, and fecondly, thirteen millions more,
which the land tax, at a real four fhillings, would
have produced from 1701 to 17 14. Thefe deduc-
tions, then, would have left tlie publick debt, at
Queen Anne's death, at no more than 30,145,363!.
Soon after the death of King George I. that is, in
1727, the national debt, by the fame hiftorian, is
ftatcd at 52,092,235!. but from the preceding obfer-
Vations, frcm this fum of 52,092,235L the 24
millions before paid off are to be dedu6lcd, and
likewife a million per annum, for 14 years, furnillied
by the land tax at a real four fhillings in fhe pound,
confequently in December, 1727, the amount of the
national debt would liavd t>een only 14,092,235!.
Twelve years afterwards, when the Spanifh war broke

out

{ Ss )

dutin I 739, the national debt is dated at 46,954,623!.
but the redudions in the preceding periods would
have taken from this debt 38 milhons, and reduced
it to 8,954,623!. white in the fame period, the an-
nual rtiillion arihng from the land tax at a real four
lliillings would have given a fupply of i 2 millions,
which would have extinguillied the whole debt, and
left above the fum of 3 millions as a furplus in the
Exchequer. By the fame computation, the national
debt in December, 1790, which is ftatcd at
247,833,2361. would have been really only
170,719,683!. This, it may be faid, is far fhort
of a complete extinction of the national debt in
1790. But the following cofifiderations will ferve to
prove, that on this point the means would have been
iidequate to the end. Mr. Brifcoe, who exadly 100
years ago publifhed feveral judicious remarks upon the
new funds, proves by arithmetical tables, thq-t for the
loans of 1, 000,000!, in 1692, and 1,200,0001. in
1693, Government a<5lually bound itfelf to pay back
32 millions. Now, if the land tax had produced
one million more each of thofe years, thole two
loans would not have taken place, and 32 millions
of tlie national debt would have been thus pre-
vented. Again, I have taken the land tax at a real
four Hiillings, as producing only one million more
than it now produces ; but for thefc laft fifty years it
fnight juftly have been taken as producing annually
two additional millions ; confequently, thefe addi-
tional fifty millions, joined to the annual favings
upon the interefh operating at compound intereft,
which I have not reckoned upon, would have donq
F 3 much

( S6 )

mudi more than liquidate the above 1-70,719,6851.
qt]; national debt.

Should the heavy expences of a v/ar oblige go-
vermnent in future to have reeourfe to a loan, that
loan, like thgfe in King William's time, would be
inconfiderable, and whatever debt was contradled
purine the war, it is plain from the preceding rea-
fpnin^ ought in time of peace to be liquidated by
the^ land tax, by keeping that tax at fuch a rate
above the peace eftabliflTment, as might afford a con-
lider^ble annual reimburfement, till the whole new
debt were paid off. This the land owners would, find,
the cheapeft expedient for themfelyes ; fqr by avoidr
ing the repetitiori of taxes on confumption, they
\youid avoid the artificial price, thereby added to
commodities, a heavier burden upon them than a
ciirecl land tax.

jj. -Having thus .^ftabfiflied, by reafoning which ap-
pears, to me conclufive, the fundamental principle,
Th^t the primary and eflential fource of the Wealth of
a Natioi) is the, produce of its foil procured by the
iabpur of the hulbandmani and having alfo illuftrated
the ppnfeqvience arifing from that principle. That the
fuptplyibr the deferjpe of the flate ought naturally
to be drawn from the furplus of that produce, as
being theonly difpqfeable revenue in the community,
i ihall now, for the further fatisfaftion of my readers,
proceed to confirm what I have faid relative to thq
national fupply by an appeal to fafts.

The fyflem of the Economifls, as appears from the

preceding pages, tends to fweep away the whole of

<'''■- - .

the taxcH ciuimeratecl in Kearfley's Tax Tables, to

abohil^

( 87 )

abolifli all Excifes,- all Stamps, in fTiort, 'tb -extin-
guifli all taxes but ^he Land Tax and tlKr'Cuftoms,
nay, evenif pofllble not'to'fpare the Cuftoms: To this,
fome who make modern ufages the mcarure of poffi-
bilitics, will be apt to objed> ^s a new and unheard
of theory, which 'Wo ^j)i'a(ftice gouM ever realize.
No; the Economift-Teplte?,- fo far ftoth beiriga new
theoiy, it is only a'revival of the fyftem of aricieni
da^'s, with all the iraprbvemerits' that modern times
render that fyftcm fufceptible of. "The French wri-
ters who have treated bf this fitbjeft^, have not^done
juftice to it, iri confidering it as the new difcovcry
of modern times. It is no rftbre a ii'ew difcoVery thaii
the difcovery of Copernicus j iri'regard to the plane-
tar}^ fyftem, which was known' to fliePythagoreari^
two thoufand years before, The-d6<ftrine'of the Eco-
nomifts may now have been explained' more fully
than heretofore ; yet 'imperfe^lfy-^s^lf'^might hav6
been formerly underftood, it was, neverthelefs, the
rule of pra6tice not only of this nation, but of mojiy
other civilized nations of Europe and Alia. - -).: -■.
The fyftem of the Economifts, I have:faid-, l^ads
to fweep away the whole of the taxes enumerated
in Kearfley's Tax Tables, and to abolifli the Excifes
and Stamps, Now, 1 would afk xiij- readers, if any.
of thofe taxes were known to Queen Elizabeth.
Did either the Excifes ' or Stamps then. exift; and
yet that Queen during her long rei^n^'flvcwed no
fmall vigour both in defence and. ppence^ Let the
military efforts, exerted by Queen Elizabeth, at the
head of 4 millions of fubjeds, with Scotland and Ire-
lind fo far from aiding her, hanging as heavy bur-

( S8 )

dens upon her, arid without an}^ Weft Indian or
Eafl Indian refources, be cempared with the mih-^
taiy efibrts of Great Britain and Ireland during
^he prefent war, enjoying both Weft Indian and
Eaft Indiaa refources, an4^ population exceeding
J5 millions of people, and. it will be hard to decide,
-vy'h^tlier the former were any. way inferior to the lat-
ter, in proportion to. their refpedive funds, and th^.
duration of the efforts. Tlie-fpf^ign enemy of Queen
Elizabeth was arnpng tlie, ,m:o,ft for^riiviable powers
jj^ E,u,rope ; butXo far w^re the people of England
^henfrom being panic . ftruck, witty the Grand Ar-
ipada, they encountered, it with an undaunted fpirit
at lea, and prepared, wi;th an eqg.q.1 fpirit to encounter
it at, 1^11^4- The ILnglilJv, nobility aj:;id gentry came
forvi'iard bothr-wicth theif pm'fes and perfpns, on the
principle, that their, own .fafety and the fafety of the
fl^t^ vvpre.^^ii^ieparalijk*. ,.§0 far was her revenue

^^fcim16t^efb^^'i'k\r takift^ tio^lcW of tfie iioblenefs of fpirit
cfLord Romney,- ^yho in the Hwvfe of Lords, on the 27th of
latV March, propofed, inftead of a Public Lpan, tcyfdpport go-
ff,rniiieH.t by a general fubfcription,, to which he offered to con^
tri}>iUe 5^oca!. In Ireland, likewife, we lately have inflances
of an equal public fpirit. On the debate on a loan for this year.
in thcHoufe of CoiTimoris of that kingdorfr, Mr. Bagwell faid,
that rather tha-n agree to a loan, he would give for the fupport
of governrnent the four-th of what htJ w^-s worth, as long as thfe
Oate fhould need it. Mr. Brown, another member likewife op-
pcfing the Ipan, faid, that he would not lend^ but give to go-
vernment a fum without debenture, without treafury bill, or any
other fecuritv. Thefe gentlemen, whether from the knowledge
of the true principle of fupplyy or from a momentary and very
laudable zeal, have precifely hie tJie right nail on the h«ad»
There needs nothing mqre to prevent all future public loans, but

that

( 89 )

■irom being exhauflcd by her perpetual flruggies for
forty years, that her trealury frequently overllowed,
and flie even declined accepting fubfidies that were
offered to her by Parliament. Upon enquiring into
the chief fources of that revenue, we find that they
iconfifted in the monied value of the produce of the
foil, paid eltlier by the dire6t tenants of the Crown,
or by the land ovvners, in Parliamentary iubfidies or
feudal fervices. No Excifes, no Stamps, nor any
of the taxes enumerated by Kearfley, made part of
that feyenue. The poflibility of defending the king-
dom in great emergencies, by means of a land tax,
without any of thole taxes, and without hurdenfome
loans, mull therefore be admitted, ' '

Th^ Saxons, it appears from the Hiflory of Eng-
land, by ^heir trinoda neceffitas, or three-fold obli-
gation, laid the charge of defending the ftate on
the polleiibrs of land. It w'as a fundamental law
among them, that all the lands of the kingdom, even
thofe that were held by ecclefiaftics and women were
fubjccl: to three public duties, the building and re^
pairing of forts and caftles, the building and repair-
ing of bridges, and the military expedition, which
three duties, or trinoda neceflitas judli 2inqiiam
relarcu'i pQttJl, can be forgiven to no man.

From the conflitution eilabliOied by William the
Conqueror, which in its fundamentals remained un-
altered till the i2th year of Charles the Second's reign,

that every proprietor pf land in GreatBritaln and Ireland fhonld
adopt the fpirit of Lord Romney, of Mr. Bagwell, and of Mr.
Brown, and aft accordingly. When the land proprietors Ihall
conneft themfelves more with govcrniricnt, and government
fnall difconncft itfelf more from the moneylenders, the athletic
vigour of the nation v/ill incrcaf-, .ind ^1 apprchenfion of a fi-
nancial convulsion will vanifli.

the

■( 9° )

the defence of the kingdom was plaeed'vvholly upon
the revenue of land, excluiive of 'the trifling fupply
which ^the Ciiftoms yielded. But was England then
•in a.ftate of weakneis, beCaufe it had no Excifes, no
Stamps, nor any of that tariety of taxes mentioned
in Kearfley's Tables. -Far other^?ifev The "con ft i-
tutional defence of England was then" very great, arid
its King one of the richeft and mdft powerful Mo-
narchs in Europe. A. contemporary author mentiohs,
that the daily receipt 0^ his ' Exchequer exceeded
joool. flerling of that agfe, or above 3ood-L'-bf-'the
prefent money*. Another author,^ ^nceflor -of- the
prefent Ea?l Fortefcue, and conternporary with Ed-
ward the Fourth, fpeaking of -the- revenues of that
King after he had' made a refilmption-df-'the'Crfewn
lands that had been fraudulently- alienated, fays,
' The King our fdvereyng -Lord- had by^ ty«ies fithing

* he reigned upon -us live-loodein Lordfliippis land's,

* tenements, and rents, nere hand to the value of

* the fifth part of his realm, above the poffeffions of

* the chirche.' What, then, fhould hinder Great
Britain from being rich and powerful, were it now to
abolilli all the prefent chaos of taxes, and revert to
the fame fource of fupply, which formerly fufficed
for all its exigencies, and which probably in thofe
times, -from the unimproved flate of the lands, was
a fource not half fo abundant -as it would now prove!
By the'conftitution of England eftablifhed at thecoh-
qucft, . which remained its cpnftitutiojn, till it was
;nofc impoUtically overturned in the 12th year of

.' * See the Hill;, of the Pub. Rev. of the Bnt. Empire, vol. L
|). 44, 45.

Charle

( 9' )

Cliarles the 2d. by the ad for the abolition of tenures,
every poffciror of lands was bound to give a regulated-
part of his income for the defence of the ftate; and-
if he negleded to give that regulated part, he in con*
lequencc forfeited his lands. Baron Gilbert, in his
treatifc on the Exchequer, fays, in conformity to
many authorities, ' Whoever held lands by Knights

* fervice, and failed coming to attend the King io,!

* arms, according to the array that was made on-

* every expedition, or failed to render his quota of
' men according to his tenure, his l^ds were origi-
' nally liable to be feized into the King's hands for
'not doing his duty.' The pofTeffion of land, and
the duty were infeparably connefted together ; and
notwithflanding the duty, which fometimes exceed-
ed four fliillings and five fliillings in the pound, _^the.
grant of the lan4 was called Beneficium^iOT^.^^
Kindnefs,

It is then moft evident that this fingle tribute or
fingle land-tax did not appear an abfurd thing ei-
ther to the Anglo-faxon monar.chs, or to thofe who
immediately fucceeded them, fmce they placed the
whole of the defence of the kingdom upon it. The
feudal fyftem, which confirmed that mode of taxa-
tion, was in its very nature a fyflem of union, call-
ing upon all land poffeflbrs, wherever iituated within
the dominions of the Sovereign, to affift him in de-
fending the {late in proportion to the landed property
they poflefled. Thus Henry the 2d, when he ob-
tianed pofTeffion of Ireland, firmly and irrevocably
united that ifland to England by the fiefs and bene-
fices which he there eftablilhed, holdnig of the Crorvn

of

( 9^ )

of England * . That is to fay, he conferred the famcr
rights and the fame privileges iipOn his new fubje6ts
in Ireland as thofe of England polfeiTed, and predifely
tile fame burdens, Hkevvife,' upon the knd Ownerl of
both countries. The taxes placed by the feudjtilyf-'
tern upon the produce of land were'^precifeiy the'
fame in both iflands, and the tenants iri capite, whofe
lands lay in Ireland, were bound by their tenures to
give their fixed fuppHes to the Crown of England,
In point of taxation, there was not one law for the
land poffeflbrs in England, and another for thofe of
Ireland, but both paid proportionably uporl the' fame
fcale 'f-. This

* The grants of Iqnds in Ireland by tho fucceflbrs of Henry
II. were held by the fame tenure. The Butlers received the
county of Orraond from Edward III. as a Jief of the Cronvn ofktig-
letfid. Fitz Euftace received the Barony of Caftfe-martifi, in the
county of Kildare, from Edward IV. as a fief of the Cro^'ti cfEng.'
land. Donald M* Arty More, in 1565^ ac^e-pt^d of his lands
from Queen Elizabeth, to hold them^i a fief of England. Queen
Elizabeth ajfo gave to Sur le Boy, four eftates in the county of
Antrim, with the caftle of Dunlute; as a fief of the Kings of
England, &c. &c. See Sir John I)avis.

•f The fubjeft of the American difpute always appeared tome
to be moft completely mifunderftood- by both parties in Gj-eat
Britain, as well as by the revolters in America, from the true
principle of government fupply bei'j.g mifunderftood or gone
into oblivion. Had chat principle been khown aftd attendfcd to
by thofe who drew up the Colony Charters, .1 permanent con-
nexion might have been formed betweerx the mother country
and the colonies, profitable yet unvexatious- to both. About the-
commencement of the difpute, it was vecommendcKl to Lord
North, as a means of reftoring quiet and contentment, and a5
a permanent bond of union between the mother country and the
colonies, to grant to the latter ^n entire liberty of foreign com-
merce, and an affurance of perpetual exemption of all taxation
from the mother country, on condition that they fhould triple

theit

( 93 )

Tliis lolves the hitherto unlblvablc riddle of the
iriih peers fitting in the pariiaments of England.
As thofe peers held their fiefs of the crown of l^ng-
land, they took their feats in the parliament of
England as poifeflbrs of thofe fiefs ; and to have
talked of a peer of one country being a com-
moner in the other, would then have been deemed
the moll abfurd of all political folecifms. The kbg
of the Iriili ever fmcc the time of Henry 11. is he
who wears the crown of England ; and fo fcnfible
were the Irifli of this fundamental truth, tliat they
even efUblifiied it when they were efpouling thij
caufe of an impoftor; for Lambert Simnel, vv'hen
he met with little countenance eifewhere, went to
Dublin, where he was, with much foiemnity,
crowned king, not of Ireland, but of England-
The Iriih were then fenlible of their relation t0
England, which {liU remains unaltered, and is fled-
faftly fupported by thofe who underftand the con-
llitution of both countries.

But it was not in England and Ireland alone that
the fyftem of the Economiits, in regard to taxation*
was anciently eflabliflied. In Scotland, when the
Queen Regent, in 1555, propofed to raife a tax

ihe'lr quit rents for the general defence of the einpire. Henrv
the Second, if America had been fettled in his time, v.ou1(i
probably have colonized it, as he conne«Sed Ireland with Eng-
land. But the legal ignorance of the conllitational nature of te^
nures that prevailed thvoughoot the lall century, added to the
felfifli fpirit of mercantile monopoly, led government into the
abfurdity of eftablilhing the colonies by foccage tenures, enl
limiting their foreign tride..

4 UDQa

( 94 ) '

ilpon property in general, the gentry with mucK
fpirit obliged her to drop the defign, faying, that ii?
for ages paft the defence of the country had lainr
upon tliem, there was no occafion for art)^ altefatioft.
Did not the fame fyflem in. former times prevail irr
France, in Germant^ irt Italy, and indeed overall'
Europe. Does not China at this moment adopt it !
Has it not exifted for ages in the empire of the'
Mogul. Do not at this day two-thirds of the re-
Venue of Bengal arife from a tax upon the produce
of the foil ? Was any other tax known in that pro-
vince, when it came under the power of Great
Britain ? And did not the firft introdtiftion of the
tax upon fait occafion much murmuring and much
dillrefs among the inhabitants, when according to
the principles of the Economifts, and the eftaWiflied
mode of that countr)'^, the whole of the fupplies
ought to have been drawn from the zemindai*s, the
receivers of rents, though not the proprietors of
lands, the fovereign being the only proprietor'.
Even among ourfelves, about the period of the Re-
volution, a difeft land-tax formed one-half of thd
taxes of England, though now making fo fmall i
proportion of the general amount of thofe taxes'.
And in Scotland, at the time of the Union, about
one-third of its public revenue confifled in a land-tax'.
The preceding hiftorical obfervations I thiiik
moft clearly evince that the fyflem of the Econo-
mifts, in regard to taxation, is no new impradiicabk
theory. It is at this moment praftifed in countries
of great extent, and in England, both before and
after the Conqueft, it was the fyftem by which the

national

( 9< )

national iuppllcs were regulated. The prlncipk of
that fyllem has fonnerly in England been fupportcd
Avith great flrictnefsjfot it has been tlie repeated
dec i lion of iavv}'crs, that Ihould the king grant a
tenure in the exprefs words, ahfqiie alujuid inde
reddendo ; yet the law would imply a militaiy duty;
and in the Abbot of St. Bartholomew's cafe, in the
14th of Henry VI. upon a grant made in the words,
ti^nendum Ji frankement come le Roy eji en fon co-
rone, it was decreed, that the patentee was not ex-
empt from military fervice. '
This fervice was commonly termed, /t'n'///?^??? con-
fuetiim et debiliwi, the accuftomed and bounden
krvice, or duty incumbent upon thofe who were the
poffeffors of land. How this bounden duty came
not to bindy during the four or five fucceeding cen-
turies, is a lubjetft worthy of being amply dif-
cufled by fome philofophical hiftorian, as it has
never yet been treated of with fuch attention as it
delerves*. How came William the Cor^queror,

who

* Sir John Dalrympk, not many years ago, publilhed an
EtTay on Feudal Property, in which his claim of having treated
the fubjefl like a fcholar and a gentleman will be moft readily
iidmitted. But ought he not likewLfe to have treated it as a
politician? His fefearahes feem c6nfin,ed to the invcftigation
of the ever changing rights of the feudal tenants, whoj aided
by the fubtlety of lawyers, were continually endeavouring ta
evade their obligations to the crown, and, at the fame time,
to rivet their opprefiive claims upon thciir inferior valTalS;, m.any
of which claims they retain to this very hour. In the, coniir
deration of feudal property, tlie firfi: point to have been in-
veftigated Avas, what property belonged inalienably,, tp. th?
cj-own, next, the nature of the property belonging to the fub-

( 96 )

wlio had about five niillions a year, and Edward
IV. who had near four* millions a year, to be fuc-
ceeded by a King James and a King Charles, who
had not much above half a million a year, though
there was no conflitutionat alteration in the finan-?
cical fyftem from the firfl of thefe mciiiardis to'
the laft, and the monied value of commodities was
rifen three fold.

The firft caufe of this depredation of royal re-
venue appears to have been the fupine negligence of
fome of our kings, who not confidering that by the
conflitution they really were but life poilefTors,-^
gave away with both hands what they had no right
to give away. What by Domefday Book was te?Ta
regisy or kings land to Edward the Confeflbr, be-
came kings land to Wilham the Conqueror, vvho-
is faid to have pofTefled in royal domain i,200'
manors, which fucceflively became the right of the
kings who reigneci after him. But of thofe 1,200
manors, Charles I. probably did not poflefs 100, all
the others having been alienated by the impolicy of
his predeceflbrs. A fecond caufe of the depreda-
tion of royal revenue was the fchool-boy notion of

}tR, and for what caufe, or for what expefled fervkes it was
beflowed'.- If Sir John had taken but half the pains to eluci-
date the Duties of the feudal tenants that he has taken in treat-
ing of their Rights, he would have rendered his ingenious eflay
much more valuable. What he unifarmly deems progrefs was
in reality a degradation of the cenftitulion then fubfiftin^.
The feudal fyftem was a Public Edifice whofe pins and mortifes
were daily weakening, and from whofe roof fome tiles were
every year moft knaviftJy ftelen, to cover eaftles of private
defpotifm.

eftimating.

( 97 )

cdlmating wealth not by its phyfical ule, but by its
prefent value in money, and upon that notion agree-
ing to a pcnuancnt commutation of revenue in
kind for revenue in prefent money to remain unal-
terable ; in confequence of which the king of Great
Britain now receives for fome lands one penny, in
lieu of what fells in the market at prefent for five
fliillings. A third caufe was the unwatchfulnefs of
thofe who ought to have guarded the king's reve-
nue, and thereby fuffering the mofl fraudulent en-
tries to be made by the feudal tenants. A fourth
caufe, and the lafl I Ihall mention, was the unre-
mitting endeavours of the feudal tenants to fmuggle
and conceal the number and value of their fees, fo
that in lefs than 300 years after the Conqueft, the
number of them was diminiflied above one-half;
and in Charles the Firfl*s time they hardly amounted
to one-fourth of what they had been in the time of
William the Conqueror, and thefe often rated at
lefs than one-tenth of their real income. Mr. Phi-
lips, in his very curious treatife, entitled, Tcnenda
noil Tollenda, written In 1660, againft the abolition
of the feudal tenures, and abounding wdth legal
knowledge, gives the following inftance of two ot
thofe fmuggled eftates : ' An eftate,' he fays, ' in

* the reign of Charles I. above loool. per annum,

* hath been found (by the Efcheators) to be but of
' the yearly value of twenty marks. Another cflatc,

* confiding of very few manors and as few copy-

* holders, but mofl in farms and demefnes, upon

* an improved and ahnoft racked rent, worth 6000I.

* per annum, found at no greater yeady value than

( 98 )

' 1S3I. IIS. which is lefs than the 30th part.' Had
the records of the Exchequer, for fucceffive reigns,-
been faithfully kept, and were they ftill preferved
unimpaired, who knows but among the land fmug-
glers of the reign of Charles L might be found
John Hampden, and others of the violent oppofi-
tionifls of thofe times^^ fo clamorous for a redrefs of
grievances, the chief of which they themfelves oc*
cafioned by unconftitutionally withholding their de-
hiia fervifia, or bounden fervices from government.
What fliould we think of the tenants of a Duke of
Bedford, who fliould combine to pay him only one-
tenth or one -thirtieth of v/hat was flipulated in
their Icafes, or fliould burn their le^fes, and deny ta
pay him any thing. But fueh tenants to the crown
of England, and to the crown of Scotland, were
the majority of the' land proprietors of Great Bri-
tain in the reign of Charles the Firft. They hac!
not only flripped the crown of almofl all the royal
domains, but had fliaken off their obligations to
defend the ftate, by which they had rendered them-
ielves from an ejcntial clafs^, one of the moft iin-
tl/feiitial clajjcs of fociety.

Thefe unconftitutional and difhoneft ppadlices of
the land proprietors, leaving King Charles the Firfl
with hardly any revenue, that ill advifed monarch
not having the political prudence and fortitude to
■ Withftand fuch fraudulent violations of tlie confbi-
tution, had recourfe to illegal means of fupply,
which were the fource of many calamities to the
nation. But no one acquainted with the Englifh
hiftcry v/ili aiiirm that the calamities that then over-
whelmed

( 99 )

whelmed the nntion had no other fource befides the
kui2;'s illeo;al condud. The conftitution was not
more viohited by Charles, than by the ads and
proceedings of thofe who with much bitternefs were
contending for rights, without faying one word
about (liifies. Would not Charles the Firfi, when
he granted the Petition of Rights, have been fup-
ported by the conftitution, if he had addreffed the
parliament to the following purpofe : * It gives me

* great pleafure to have eftabUfhed the rights of my

* people, but I muft reprefent to you that the

* crown alio has its rights, and I expert this par-

* liament to confirm thofe rights. The Doomfday

* Book llicws us that my predeceffor, William the

* Firrt, had in rcyBX domain twelve hundred man-

* ors ; now as there is by law no prefcription againfh

* the crown, it muft be allowed that all thofe man-

* ors belong to me. Befides, as many frauds have
' been committed by changing militaiy tenures for

* other holdings, and by great undervaluations of

* eftates upon the deaths of tenants in capite, I

* defire the parliament may appoint a committee to

* enquire into the defrauders of the public revenue,

* and to form a bill, to which I will give my aflent,

* for preventing fuch frauds in future, that the

* defence of the nation may be put upon its old

* conftitutional footing.' In fuch an addrefs the
king certainly would not have talked unconftitu-
tlonally ; but his defpotic and tyrannic temper, and
his overweening notion of the uncontrolable fupre-
macy of the kingly office, and perhaps a defire of
copying after the example of his brother-in-law in

G 2 France,

( 100 )

Frajice, who had been taxing his fubjeds for tweli-
ty-two years, without the authority of the flates of
liis kingdom, led Charles to purfiie other meafures.
The king's faults however by no means rendered the
land fuiugglers faultlcfs.

The mutual diilikes proceeding to animofitiesy
both parties had recourfe to arms, without either of
them being able clearly to define upon what grounds
tiiey xvere fighting. But had the principles of the
Eccnomifts been then underflood by king and peo-
ple, thofe bloody contentions needed not to havel
taken place ; for by thofe principles not only the'
nature and fource of the public fupply would have
been manifeft to the whole nation, but the bell
mode of collefting it likewife; and all the alteration
neceffary for obtaining a free conftitution would
have been to have made the grants annual, accord-
ing to the difcretion of parliament, and the aclual
circumftances of the time, and the executive power
accountable for the expenditure.

The iilue of the fatal conteft was the murder
of the king, by a fentence in direft violation of
law ; and a fucceffion of his chief min-derer a few
years afterwards to the defpotic rule of the nation.
Under the iron rod of this defpot the fupplies for
national defence were collected without rule or mea-
fure by military compulhon ; and, by various ex-
tortions, more money was railed by him in one
year than r.ad been raifed by the murdered fovereign
iaricthree ^^ears.

Upon the reftoration of Charles II. when it was
fupj-iofcd the ancient laws were reftored with him,

and

( 101 )

and llkewife the ancient mode of fupply, it mi-^ht
have been expecleil that the parliament, from the
experience of pad troubles, would have adopted
fuch means as might prevent land fmuggling in fu-
ture ; and while it renewed the obligation of the
land pofleflbrs to furnifh their debita fervitia, or
bounden fervices, in fome better mode than by feudal
tenures, would at the fame time have laid the exe-
cutive power under fome obligation to apply thofe
debita fervitia to the defence and honour of the na-
tion. Parliament however adopted a meafure alto-
gether different, and not more contrary to the fpirit
of the conditution than to the dictates of found
policy. Bv the moft abfurd and unconditutional
act for the abolition of tenures, it wholly exempted
the land p.ofleilbrs. from all direct fupplieS what-
ever; and in commutation for what ous;ht bv the
former conftitution, as well as by the dilates of
juft policy, to have been drawn direftly from the
produce of land, it annexed hereditarily to the crown
an excife duty on beer and ale, amounting not to
one-twentieth of what by the old conftitution was
required from the owners of land. This was a no
lefs violent than impolitic innovation *. By dillblv-

* Among tlie many unconftitutional and oppreffive expe-»
dients of fupply adopted by the long parliament, the excif?
had been introduced by them, in imitation of the praftice of
Holland, which in this point had attrafted the curioficy of
many in England in the time of James I. who is faid to have
fent over a perfon thither to enquire into the manner and ma-r
nagement of it. About that time it was by the Englifli ftiled
Heathen Greek, and was moft generally reprob rated by them.

G 3 ing

( I02 )

ing the nexus adictiffimus, or bond of moft flrift
obligation, it threw the land owners into the clafs of
mere idlers, a clafs ever to be avoided by a well
conllituted focicty •, and it introduced a new mode
of taxation^ rather prejudicial, in many cafes, to
the nation at large, and no lefs burdenfome to num -
bers of individuals, than the feudal fervices had been
to the feudal tenants, I may likewife add, as it has
fmce proved, no lefs intricate and perplexing in the
modes of raifms; it, than the incidents of the feudal
tenures ever had been. As a fupplemerit to this
firft excife duty, the parliament granted an afleff-
ment upon the lands in the different counties ; but
inftead of impofing it in a juft proportion to the
fund to be taxed, (which is the fundamental prin-
ciple of all equitable taxation) it was rated negli-
gently and inaccurately, in confequence of which
fome muft have been too much charged, while
others v/ere too much eafed.

At the era of the Revolution the parliament no-
bly-reverted to the fyllem of nature, in regard to
public fupplies, and eftabhfhcd a land-tax fufficient
not only for the peace eftabiifhment, but as has been
proved in pages 84 and 85, for the exigencies of an
expenfive war likewjfe ; had the tax been levied in
exaft proportion to the value of the rents upon
which it was impofed. The Economifts affirm that
the produce of the land is the only fund for na-
tional fapplies. The parliament at the Revolution
made a great ftep towards this important truth,
when by ef^ablifning a land-tax at four Ihillings in
the pound, they declared the produce of land to be

the

( -03 )

tlie chief fund for. taxation. Eil qiioddam prodire
tonus*. Why they omitted the principle of impo-
fing that tax in a juft proportion to the rcfpedive
rents, it may be now impofl'ible to determine j but
that fuch a principle Ihould at this moment be
ncgledled in the eftabliflmicnt of a land-tax, is a
great reproach to thefc enlightened times, and a
great injuftice to the majority of the land proprie-
tors of the kingdom. A deviation from this i)rin-
cipLe m otlier matters, with the pretence of ad-
hering to it, would be deemed no lefs ridiculous
than unjuft. In this refpcft the modern ads for the
land-tax may be confidered as political bulls of no
CmaW magnitude. They eftabliflied difproportion
almofb in the fame paragraphs, where they ena6f,
that juft proportion Ihali be obferved j as if a landed
gentleman ihould fay to his tenants, T mean that
you ihoiild pay me your rents in a juft proportion
to the fize of your farms, that is, I require a certain
quantity of wheat from each of your wheat fields,
whether the field be large or fmail, and a certain quan-
tity of apples from each of your orchards, whether the
orchard be large or fmall, or whether the crop be
fcanty or plentiful. It would be readily allowed
that this gentleman was not very accurate in his no^
tions of proportion. But nearly fimilar is the fpirit
of the prefent ads for raifmg a land-tax in Great

* From what 13 here remarked, as well as from what is above
written, it moll evidently appears, that Mr. Pitt, and thofe
who voted -with him, in the affair of the Legacy Bill, afted
more in conformity to the Revolution principles of taxatior^
than thofe who oppofed that bill.

G 4 Bi'Itain.

( 104 )

Britain. From fomc they require only four-pence,
and from fome four fliillings, by the fame rule of
proportion , nay, from fome not even four-pence ;
for I can declare, upon good information, that a
gentleman pofTefTrng an eftate of i;,oool. a year, in
one of the northern counties of England, pays in
land-tax, at four fhillings in the pound, only 75I.
The undervaluation from a real four (hillings in the
pound on this fmgle eftate, if it had been brought
to account in the Exchequer, fmce the Revolution,
with the compound intereft thence arifmg, would
have liquidated upwards of one million of the na-
tional debt. We may thence difcovcr the radical
caufe why the nation is at prcfent fo much involved,
for if the deficiency upon a fmgle eftate of 5,000!.
a year, would have fufiiced to have paid off one
million of the national debt ; it would not be a
ftrained conclulion to afhrm, without any farther
computation, that the fum total of the underva-
luations of the land-tax upon the eftates of the
whole kingdom, would have paid off the whole na-
tional debt.

As the number of landed gentleman that are ag-
grieved by the prefent very difproportionate affeff-
ment of the land-tax far exceeds the number of
thofe that are thereby unjuftly favoured, it is moft
reafonable that this unfair advantage of the minority
jfliould give way to that ot the majority. This ipa-
jority therefore have a right to prefs for an equ^l
valuation of the land-tax without delay, that the
minority, who are now exempt, may bear an equal
fliare of the public burdens v/ith tliemfelves. The

equal

( 105 )

equal valuaiion of the afleflrnent, and the rate of
the aHcirment, are two very different things, and
ought ever to be kept diflind. The latter depends
-upon the difcretion of parliament, but the former
is founded on a flronger authority than that of par-
liament, the immutable law of right and wrong, to
which law parliament ought ever fludioufly to con-
form.

Leaving the rate of the affeffment, as it ought to
he, indeterminate, unlefs by an annual law of par-
liiiment, I ihall here confine myillf to the means of
obtaining its equal valuation. For this purpofe
there is no need of a new Doomfday Book, or
any intricate mode of invefligation. As the know-
ledge of the value of the fund is the fine qua
non for obtaining a proportionate rate, and as the
Jeafes to tenants, v.'hether annual or for a term of
years, difcover that fund, let all leafes of whatever
kind be regillered in the refpedlive counties where
the lands are fituated ; and let the afleffments be
made for fuch county according to thofe regifters..
Whenever a leafe is renewed, let the value of fuch
new leafe be faithfully fpccified and regiftered withia
one month after its date, and publiihed three times
in the newfpaper of the county town, or in the
London Gazette ; and let the particular new afTefi-
ment be made thereupon, by which eafy and honefl
expedient, the income to government would rife or
fall in exacl proportion as the income of the land
proprietors rofe or fell ; or rather as the income of the
whole nation rofe or fell ; for it is to be prefumed that
the rents of lands will only rife or decline ^s this
iafl rifcs or declines.

The

( io6 )

The regidration above propofcd would effed the
fame thing in politics, that logarithms have effcded
in mathematics. The now intricate and perplexing
financial queftions would thereby be rendered eafy
of folution. The afleffment of the poor-rates fup-
pofes fuch a notoriety in every parifli in England j
and the fame notoriety is implied by the laws en-r
joining the payment of tythes ; for that law could
never have been put in effed with exaclitude, were
not every clergyman to be fully acquainted with
the whole of the produce of his own parifli. When.
England was divided into knights fees, and the
owners of them were bound in return to defend the
kingdom, the notoriety of thofe fees was implied in
the very inftitution ; and tiie corruption of that in-
ffcitution proceeded from the negledl of notoriety, or
the difficulty of obtaining it. The art of printing
was then unknown, nay even the art of writing
was almoft unknown ; tltere were no newfpapers, no
turnpike roads, no regular poftage of letters, confe-
quently, though notoriety was the principle of the
inftitution, deeds of darknefs eafily efcaped detec-^
tion, and defrauders annually increafed, even with
the conpivance of the efcheators, who were forne^
times only two for all England, The modern im-
provements in civil life, that have been juft men-
tioned, would not only preclude in thefe times any
fraudulent evafions of the land-tax-, but would ren-
der the levj'ing of it a matter of the greateft eafe
and correftnefs. Every county would have its re-
ceiver general refiding in the county town, corref-
ponding with the exchequer, and making his re-
mittances

( ^^7 )

mittances thither ; and the financial machine would
be kept at lefs expence, would move with more ac-
curacy, and would leldomer require repairs and
amendments, wlien thus compoicd only of a a few
wheels, than as it is at prefent, clumfily formed of
an hundred wheels.

. Having given an outline of the mode for eftablifh-
ing an equal valuation of the land-tax, I fliall pro-
ceed to confider a fuperficial objection often made
againfl fuch a proportionate valuation, which ob'
jection has ferved as a flumbling block to many
who hncerely wifli to fee fuch a proportionate va-
luation take place. Many landed eftates, it has
been faid, have been purehafed in counties where the
valuation of the land-tax is extremely low, upon the
prefumption that no alteration of that tax would
take place, and now to impofe a higher rate upon
fuch eftates would be an injuftice to their poifeflbrs.
But is it not an injuftice in thofe pofleflbrs, who
enjoy an equal protection of government with their
neighbours, not to contribute to the fupport of go-
vernment in an equal proportion with their neigh-
bours. The fa his populi\ or the obligation of de-
fence, is in its nature paramount to every other ob-
ligation. We have feen above, that in the feudal
times a grant of land made with the exprefs condi-
tion of no fervices, tenendum Ji frankement come le
roi eji en fon corone^ was neverthelefs judged in law
not to be exempt fram military fervice j and the
Saxons faid of their trinoda necejjltas., or threefold
obligation, nidli unqiiam relaxari pote/l, it can be
forgiven to no man. Among the Romaics likewife,

in

( io8 )

in the flounOiIng times of their republic, a free
man who fraudulently avoided being enrolled in the;
legions, when called upon by the conful, was made
a Have, and his property was confiieated to the flate.
Many purchafes of landed eftates were doubtlefs
made in England between the Reftoration and the
Revolution ; but when the aiieffment of the land-
tax, ioon after the Revolution, was raifed from
6oo,ocol. which it had been at the Reftoration, to
two millions, we do not find that thofe new pur-
chafers were exempted in the new valuation. It is
the protection pf Government that renders any
man's eftate valuable to him ; and if in confequence
of this protecfbion, an eftate bought at twenty-five
years purchafe fliould (without any improvement)
become faleable for thirty-five years purchafe, gOr
vernment is certainly entitled to a retribution for
fuch a benefit. The rife in value here fpecified
amounts to upwards of one-fourth ; but fliould an
eftate now paying only four-pence in the pound, be
required to pay a full four fliillings in the pound^
that would not be quite oncrfifth of augmentation,
confcquently the benefit beftowed by government
would exceed the retribution to government, which
(cxclufive of any rife in marketable value of an
eftate) would be entitled to four fliiilings in the
pound from it, if the other eftates of the king^
dom were rated at four ftiillings. But when gor
vernment by drawing the fuppiies from the direfl
fource lliall become independant of the monicd men,
whofe Hiackles it has v/orn thefe hundred years
paft, the rate of intereft will fink to fuch a degree

as

( 1^9 )■

;Js will raife the marketable value of land in a
greater proportion than I have abovq, mentioned^-
To the objed:ors among the nevtr purchafers of eftates
at undervaluations, adminifi:ration might then fa^^,
we will reimburse you the full money you paid for
your eilates, afid will refel them, burdened with
four (hillings in the pound, confident that the ex-»
chequer will be a gainer by luch commutations.
If the exchequer, as I think may be demonftrated*
would be a gainer by the commutations of fuch
eftates, it would then be the interefh of the prefent
pofTefTors of thofe eilates to avoid fuch commuta-
tions. This is confidering the fubje6t in the light
of the objeclors, as a mere money tranfaiftion, in,
which light it appears that fliould government
maintain the nation .in profperity, the impofition of
four (hillings in the pound, would really take no-
thing out of their pockets. But the neceffity of de-
fence, or in other words, of fupplies for defence,
places the fubjeft in another light, in which though
the objeAors have not chofen to confider it, the
conftitution mull. A perfon w^ho buys an eftatc
does not only lay out his money in the purchafe
of land, but actually enlifts himfelf as a defender
of the ftate. We have (hen above that government
has aiflually been carried on, and confequently may
ht carried on, without any of thofe taxes, that are
called taxes on confumption. Now ihould the
Britifh government revert to that natural fyflem.,
abolilh all taxes on confumption, and draw the
public fupplies from the dired: fource of fupply, the
produce of land, a land proprietor in fuch circurn-

ftances.

( IIG )

fiances, fitting exempt from a land-tax, would
affifl government no more than one of his owi-r
grooms. Upon what principle then could fuch a
land proprietor expedl the proteftion of goTcrn-
ment.

I lliall conclude, at prefent, with One reflecliion
more on this point. Were all our taxes on con-
fumptiori fupprefled, and the whole of the public
fupplies, as in former timesj to be raifed from land,
the land proprietors would, neverthelefs, ftlll remain
the moA opulent clafs in fociety, as pofielTors of
the only affured furplus revenue in the community.
Merchants and manufacturers, by many years affi-
duous attention, may become rich ; but they may
likewife, by many mifchances, become bankrupts.
Thofe who live upon ftipends and falaries, are pre-
fumed to have only a daily fubfiflence,- correfpondenfe
to their refpediive ranks. In the prefent ftate of
things, by the rife of prices and the fixednefs of
falaries, many of them have pot even that daily
fubfiftence j and by the extinftion of taxes on
confumption, they might be enabled to live in eafe,
but not in affluence. The great body of manual
labourers give their whole capital daily to the pub-
lic, without any referve of intereft ; confequently,-
when infirmity or old age overtakes them, inftead of
having made accumulations, they are often in a ftate of
defiitution ; and be the prices of things, or the rate'
of wages what they may, this will ever be the cafe
with the great majority of them. Mental labourers,
though by their ideas, not only individuals, but
4 nations

( III )

nations are often rendered rich, generally receive
themfelves but a fcanty retribution. Laudantur &
Algent. The Britllb hiftory furnilhes many exam-
ples of the great opulence of our nobility and
gentry, when no public taxes exifted in this ifland
but what wefe paid by themfelves ; which taxes, in
the eilimation of the payers,- were not even deemed
taxes, but filled by them fervitium hberum, that
is, the fervice of a freeman. If fuch was the cafd
in former times, when the marketable value of
eilates was low, in confequence of the rate of in-
tereft being ten per cent and upwards, it is reafon-
able to expccl, that upon a return to that fyfteiUy
the landed gentlemen would be more diftinguilhed
for their opulence,- from the marketable value of^
their eflates being high,- in confequence of the low
rate of interefl. Land, felling at thirty-fix years
purchafe, is a capital three times more valuable
than when fold at twelve years purchafe.

Having in the preceding part of this difcourle
fnewn that manufaftures made and fold at home^
though they may enrich individuals, do ^ot give
any augmentation of national revenue,. I fiiall here
make a few obfervations in refpecl: to the profit that
accrues to the nation from that idol of modern
times, foreign commerce. If our imports are of
equal value to our exports, the national gain will be
nothing; it will only be as if a crown-piece were
exchanged for five (hilling^s, or five fliiilings for a
crown. In this ftate of an equal balance between
-.IS and our foreign cufloniers, though the natioii

may

( II- )

fiiay be no gainer, yet our own tncrchant?, and
thofe of foreign countries who fell our merchandizey
may be great gainers, by putting 30, or 40, or ^o
per cent upon the retail of the nierchanciize im-
ported by therli, and fold to their fellow-fubjefts.
Thus the Eaft-India company may gain annually
800,000 1, upon the fale of their teas, though tlie
nation may thereby not gain a fingle farthing. This
private gain, and others of the like kind, are too
often maftakenly deemed national gains, though in
fome certain cafes (as in the cafe of tea fc»me j'ears ago)
the nation is actually a lof^r by them. The realr
national gain, therefore,- cannot be eftimated from
the moft accurate ftatements of the infpedlor ge-
neral of the cufloms, nor from the magnitude of
the exports, if the magnitude of the imports keeps
pace with it. To fettle this balance clearly, very
many circumftances are neceffary to be taken into
the account ; and till thofe circumftances be mi-
nutely, underftood, the decifions in regard to the
profit from foreign commercial dealings muft be
very inaKrcufate. Shouki this profit, in refpedt of
Great Britain, amount annually to five or fix mil-
lions, though it may be doubted whether it rifes lb
high, that profit, in comparrfon of the other part'
of the national revenue arifing from agriculture,
would not be fo confiderable as to juftify the great
importance annexed to it in the minds of the mul-
titude, and far lefs to juftify government in engaging
in war in compliance with the avaricious fpirit of
thofe who wifh to extend their gains by unlawful

and

( 113 )

and unjufl means *. From the continual cry in
the mouths of fome, IFe are a commaxial nation,
one would be inclined td think, that they believed
the chief fource of the riches and profperity of
Great. Britain wis her foreign trade; that without
foreign trade poverty and diftrefs would overfpread
the land, nothing but mifery Would be known, and
Great Britain would lofe her preponderance among
the nations of the earth ; therefore, every interefl
iliould give way to the intereft of foreign trade.
Whoever rightly underftands the principles of the
Economifts, will fee no neceffity for fuch gloomy
forebodings, eVert on the fuppofitidri of no foreign
trade. The Economifts, however, are far from
faying, Perilh our commerce ; or from wifliing to
adopt the fyftem of the antient Egyptian?, who
prohibited foreign trade ', or applying to Great Bri-

* What we tranflate GoDd--':iil to^xards fnen (Luke ii and 14)
inav, perhaps, be as juflly rendered Gocd-fiviU a??ioKg jncn. This
Chriftian good-will among men has but too often been inter-
rupted by a I'elfifh fpirit among dealers, of monopolizing fo-
reign markets to themfelves, at the hazard of prejudice to the
national welfare. The frequent captures of Englifh Ihips by
the Spanifh guarda colla's greatly irritated the Britifli nation,
and occafioned the war with Spain in 1739. ^^^ ^- ^^X ^^
doubted whether bdth nations were not betrayed into hoftilitiei
by the avarice and artifice of our Souch Sea Company. From
a perfon that refided feven years at Carthagena and other places
in Spanifh America, before the breaking-out of that war, I
have been told that the Spartiih guarda cofta's, that would
otherwife have remained inactive, were privately excited by
our S. S. Company to make feizurc of Englilh fliips, who, as
interlopers, fold goods to the Spanifh coloniils cheaper than the
Company fold them.

H tain

( 114 )

fain the late Bifhip Berkeley's maxim in tegarct to
Ireland, and faying, Great Britain might be happy
and profperous, though it were to be furrounded
by a wall of brafs 40 cubits high.

The Economiits fee not only national profit in
foreign commerce rightly, conduced, but a great
augmentation of the conveniencies and enjoyments
of human life. They, neverthelefs, coniider foreign
commerce as an objed: of very little regard as to
revenue, in compariion with that arifmg from the
cultivation of. territor)^ ; and deem a ftate pofTefling
an ample territory to be exceedingly milled and ill-
advifed, that beflows more of its attention upon
commerce than upon agriculture, fince this lafl is
a much more ample and more fubftantial fuppo^rt of
national opulence and power than the former.

Many fiilfe principles of writers on commerce
might here be quoted, but I fhall mention only
one. ' Great Britain, fays one of thofe writers feventy
years ago, could no more expeft to get rich without
the balance of trade in her favour, than a family
Gould get rich, the mafher of which had no other
occupation than winning the money of his wife and
children at play. In this writer's idea, then, which
has ferved as a milleading doArine to thoufands.
Great Britain could not increafe in opulence and
profperity without acquiring fomething from- her
neighbours more than (he gives them. Were this
.tlodrine true in regard to Great Britain, it would
likewife be true in regard to other nations that
have foreign traffic ; and they fhould all direft their
views to acquire fomething from their neighbours

^ mort2

■( «iJ )

more than they give them. As it is impoflible they,
fliould all fucceed in this, the confeqiience of com-
mercial dealings between different nations would
then be, according to that falib fyflem, that while
fome of them were thereby enriched, others of them
mufh thereby be impoverifhed. By that fyftem, all
the commercial nations of the earth are confidered
as fo many gamefters, each endeavouring to make
itfelf rich by making its neighbours poor; and what
can be expefted from this but continual jealoufies,
difiikes, and animofities, rendering nations un-
friendly, and but too frequently hoftile to each
other. The Economifts, on the other hand, whofe
leading principle is Good-zcill among meiij affirm,
that all the nations of the earth may traffic together
with mutual advantage, without acquiring from
each other more than they give to each other 5 and
that Great Britain may daily advance in w^ealth and
profperity, without gaining one farthing by her fo-
reign trade, how^ever extenlive that may be, pro-
vided Ihe gives her attention to acquire every year
additional wealth from her territory and her feas.

Do manufactures afford no revenue, and does fo-
reign commerce yield but a fmall income — and do
we poffefs what furnifhes the natural income of a
flate, an exteniive and fertile territory not much
more than half cultivated, are we not then called
upon by true policy to increafe the wealth and
power of the flate by rendering this territory more
produdive. It is to this new Potofi, this mine of
riches, that the Economifts wifli to dirccft the at-
tention of BritiQi patriots, and Britifh agriculturifts.

H 2 Here

■ ( ii6 )

Here permanent wealth may be acquired without
the fword, without the envy or moleftation of our
neighbours, accompanied with the increafe of peo-
pie, the leffening of taxes to individuals, but the
augmentation of them to the ftate, and with the
diminution of the number of poor, not by death,
but by transferring them into the clafs of thofe
living in cafy and comfortable circumftances.

As the. produce of the territory of a fiace is the
natural fupport of its government, it becomes,
therefore, the duty of government to cftablilh fuch
regulations as may contribute to render that terri-
tory as productive a:s poflible. The dominium utile
of the lands is (ecured to the polTelTors by govern-
ment; but the dominium regale, inherent in go-
vernment, is paramount to the other, and gives to
government a right of infpeClion and direction over
the whole. No land proprietor, in civil fociety, is
entitled to fay he may do with his eftate what he
pleafes ; becaufe, ihould he, from obPdnacy or
negligence, omit to render his lands produdive, the
fl.ate is thereby fo far endamaged, and confequcntiy
has a right to take fuch meafures as may prevent
that damage. This renders evident the great im-
portance and neceffity of the bill for the divifion
and improvement of the commons and walle lands
of Great Britain. By })afling that bill (the fruits
of the alTiduous labours of the Board of Agricul-
fure) into a law, the legiilature will direftly enlarge
its own revenues, as well as thofe of individuals,
aiid will thereby as much increafe the power and

opulence

( "7 )

©pulence of the nation, as if a fertile i-fland half as
Isrge as Ireland were united to its territory.

But it is not only negleded lands, but the neg-
jetted cultivators of thofe lands, that call for the
interpofition and protedtion of government. The
Jegiflature, by taking upon itfclf the noble occu-
pation of exempting from thraldom the poor and,
induflirious country labourers, would, in fadl, be
only looking more particularly after its own interefts,
for the latter muft futfer in proportion as the for-
mer are opprefled. The nation is very much
obliged to Sir John Sinclair, who, by his afliduous
and pratriotic labours, has been inftrumental irv
bringing to the knowledge of the pubHc the
grievances and oppreffions fuffered by many of thofe
cultivators in the northern parts of the ifland.
There is hardly one of the many judicious and hu-
mane writers ot the ftatiftical account of Scotland,
whofe parifh is in the northern and mountainous
parts, who does not enumerate among the difadvan-
tages that agriculture there labours under, the high
rents, and the want of fccurity to the farmers in the
poffeflion of their farms.

In- regard to high rents it may be obferved, that,
according to the fyftem of the Econom.ifts, govern-
ment ought always to feci an immediate benefit
from them, or from any rife of rent uhatever. In.
tiiat cafe, tlje malady and tlie remedy would go
together, and the people at large would more wil-
ingly pay double for their bread and their butchers-
meat, when they perceived the income of govern-
ment was thereby proportionably increafed, and

H 3 con-

( ii8 )

confequently the lefs would be demanded from them
through the means of other taxes. But when they
find the prices of their bread and butchers-meat
raifed upon them without any alleviation in other
taxes, the m.oderate natiirally conclude that there
is mifgovernment fomewhere, and the fadious that
government is to blame ; when, in iad, it is go-
vernment that is injured, as well as the community
at large. A landed proprietor, who raifes the rents
of his farms without any aftual improvement of
them, what elfe does he do but aflame the uncon-
ftitutional power of taxing his fellow-fubjedls with-
out confent of Parliament, and his farmers are his
tax-gatherers. When thefe aik ten-pence for a
pound of butter which they formerly fold for five-
pence, or demand fix-pence for a pound of cheefe
which they before fold for a groat, and fell their
corn and cattle proportionably dearer, what apology
cari they give for thefe new taxations but that they
are compelled to impofe them^, becaufe their land-
lord^ias afked fo much more of them.

The rife of rents from a real improvement of the
foil, and augmentation of its produce, is to be
viewed in a quite different light. This rife of
rents is a principal obje<5t of the Economifts. It
enlarges the powers of the main wheel, that moves
every other wheel in fociety, and is itfelf fet in mo-
tion by nature and the induftry of. man. As the
motion of that wheel is progrefiive or retrograde, fo,
proportionally, is the profperity of the Hate pro-
grefiive or retrograde. A rife of rents after this
manner ought as much to be encouraged by go-
vernment.

vernment, as the other manner of railing rents
ou2:ht to be condemned. How common is it to
find thofe two very different meanings of the word
improvement confounded together, not only by
fuperficial reafoners, but by men who might be
expecflcd never to lofe fight of the diftimflion be-
tween them. A man who has raifcd his eftate,
without any improvement of the foil, from 500].
^ year to loooL makes no difficulty of faying he
has improved his eftate. But has he thereby im-
proved the eftate of the nation ? By no means.
He has only taxed the manufacturers and labourers
in his neighbourhood, and rendered living more
hard to them, till they overtake him by raifing
their prices and wages upon him, which reftores all
of them to the relative fituation they were in before ;
when, fhould a new rife of rents in the former
manner take place, the ftrife between them is re-
commenced without any benefit accruing from
thence to the nation.

The increafe of produce, and not the increafe of
the price of produce, is what a wife agricultural
nation will chiefly aim at ; and when this becomes
the principal objedt of the land owners of Great
Britain, the increafe of their incomes will then be a
certain proof of the flourilhing ftate of tlie nation.
The more they raife their rents after this manner,
the more the people will have occafion to rejoice, as
eaiinefs of living and general abundance will be the
confequence.

The nation, in general, being greatly interefted

that the rents of lands fhould be raifed after this

H 4 manner

( 1^0 )

minrter, the legillature is therefore bound to pur-^
fue fuch meafures as may remove every obftru6tion
that prevents its taking place. And as one of the
chief obftructions to the increafe of national produce,
upon which the public profperity fo much depends,
is the want of leafes, that is, the want of fecurity
to the cultivator in his farm, the legillature, there-
fore, poflefTes the riglit of enforcing the granting of
leafes throughout the vyhole kingdom.

It was well obferved by a rnember of the laft
parliament, vyho has v.'ide eftates in that part of
the iflanci where the grievance of the want of
leafes is mod feverely felt, that agriculture ought to.
be under regulation as well as commerce. And
certainly nothing can bg a more djfgraceful and ab-
furd policy in an agricultural nation, than that
great nurnbers of owners of land fliould from neg-
ligence, miflaken avarice, or a luft of domination,
be fuffered fo to let their land as to prevent the
general yearly revenue of the fhate from augmenting
twenty or thirty millions, more efpecially when by
letting their lands yppn leafes thpfe very owners of
land would probably foon greatly augmept their
prefent incomes. The mofaical law forbad the ox
that treaded out the corn to be muzzled; but in
fome parts of Great Britain the cultivators them-
felyes are rnuzzled , their labour, though yielding
fpftenance to others, not yielding fuftenance to
themfelves and families. This impolicy and in-
humanity having long prevailed, has compelled
many of them to become cultivators in America,
ffpm whence perhaps they haye lately been inftru-

mental

( I^I )

mental In relieving our wants, thereby draining the
money out of the kingdom, when by a different
policy they might have bqen adding both to its
wealth and its Ilrength.

But the cultivators in that part of the ifland., it
it alleged, are lazy and indolent. To this it may
be anfwered, that they are lazy and indolent for the
iiime reafon that flaves are lazy and indolent, from
their daily experience that all their fweat and all
their hbour go only to fill another man's pocket,
and turn to no account to themfelves. Such a con-
fequence damps their exertions ; and fmce they
have no profpedt but of continuing poor, many of
them prefer, molles in gr amine fomnoSy foft llum-
bcrs on the grafs, to aftive induftry that would
yield them no profit. But that they are not, in
generaJ, naturally indolent, but of a charadler the
very reverfe, appears from the following circum-
ftance, recorded by feveral of the ftatiftical writers,
that great numbers of them annually undertake
temporary emigrations from home of loo or 200
miles in order to get employment. Can any thing
give a greater proof of the love of induftr\' of thefe
poor labourers, and of fome great mifgovernment
and oppreffion exifting at home on the part of their
landlords } If thofe landlords would but reflect
upon thole emigrations, they would perceive that
the difgrace of them recoils wholly upon themfelves.
Were hundreds of country labourers annually to
quit Kent and go into Devonfliire for employment,
cr it country labourers were to make fliort emigra-
tions from Connecticut to Virginia to get work,

would

( 122 5

would it not be concluded that the cultivation of
land met with fome particular difcouragement from
the land owners of Kent and Connefticut. For a
farm, under proper management and fkilfully cul-
tivated, ought to give employment to labourers the
whole 3xar round. Land owners, therefore, who
are inftrumental in the temporary emigration of
their ^country labourers, are, in faft, contributing
in lo far to the diminution of their own incomes.
But when they compel them by ungenerous treat-
ment to a perpetual emigration to a foreign country,
they contrad a high degree of culpability in refped
to the community at large. The flothful man
apologizes for his indolence by faying, there is a
Jion in the way ; but were many of the fanr.ers in
thofe parts to be reproached with the. miferable cul-
tivation of their fields, they would have a moft
folid excule in faying there is a landlord in the way.
They might juftly plead, we have no property in
cur farms ; v/c are in continual dread of being dif-
poiieffed 5 were w^e to attempt improvements, fome
avaricious neighbour, who offered a fmall rife of
rent, would be preferred to us. Thefe are dif-
couragements Which fmk us, and are flrong induce-
ments to us to quit our native country. But we
do not love to forfake our relations and friends, if
we could get land to cultivate upon terms that
would afford us a profpeft of enjoying the fruits of
our indufhry. As the Hate, by our oppreffion, is a
very great fufferer as wxll as ourfelves, government
is therefore, for its own fake as well as ours, bound
to eflabiifli a law founded on the principles of juf-

tice.

( ^23 )

tice, by which we may be fecured, that the more
we improve our fajms, where we were born, and
which we love to occupy, the more we (hall enrich
ourfelves. Give us but fuch lecurity, and the im-
provements of our farms, and the embellifliment of
the country will in a fhort time prove that we are
neither lazy nor unintelligent, We will then will-
ingly participate our gains with our landlords, which
will put it in their power to contribute much more
largely to the defence of the flate, while we our-
felves, by beitering our circumftances, will be en^
abled to rear up new families, and to become
greater cuftomers to the manufafturers ^nd mer-
chants.

As the procuring the greateft quantity of produce
from its lands will ever be a principal objed; witli
every wife government, and as that greateft quan-
tity of produce cannot be procured from the lands
of Great Britain, while the farmers are difcourao-ed
from iniprovements by want of leafes, a grievance,
not confined to one corner of the illand alone, but
peiTading almoft every county in the kingdom, it
becomes, therefore, the duty of the legiflature to
impofe a penalty upon thofe who thus obftrud: the
profperity of the jiation by not granting leafes to
their farmers j and that penalty would very properly
be an additional land-tax, of fix-pence in the pound,
upon all lands not cultivated, under a leafe of at
leall twenty years duration.

Should fuch a penalty have the happy effed
of abolifhing the great political evil, which now in-
flicts barrennefs upon our lands, it may be prefumed

the

( 1^4 ) •

tlie laiii-] owners would immediately from the change
feel a benefit in their rents of two millions fterling
annually, reckoning the cultivated acres in Great Bri-
tain at only 40 millions, and fuppofmg a rife of rent
of one fhiUing per acre, upon a general introduftion
of leafes. And if the land owners would be thereby
benefited two millions, the national benefit thence
refulting, may confequently be computed at four
times that fum. In point merely of profit, can the
revenues of a Bengal, naturally precarious, be com-
pared to fuch an eal'y and permanent acquifition
within the circuit of our own fcas. An expedient
fomcwhat fimilar to what is aboye propofed was
adopted by an anceftor of the prefent King of Sardi'
nia, who wilTiing to introduce a mod material agri-
cultural Improvement in his dominions in Italy,
impofed a particular tax upon the lands in Pied^-
mont ; but exempted from the tax all thofe land'-
lords who planted upon their eftates a certain num-
ber of mulberry trees. To this judicious law Picd^
mont is at prefent indebted for its annual rich rer
venue from the production of (ilk ; for the landlords,
in order to exempt themfelves from the additior^al
land tax, made hafle to plant the ftipulated number
of tiiulberry trees, by which, befides greatly benefit-
ing their country', they quickly added very confide^
rably to their own rents,

The great difficulty of forming a proper l^afe, where
the advantages arifing from improvements may be
fliared proportionately between the tenant and the land-
lord, has probably been one of the chief caufes why

li^afes have been fo negleded.-This difHculty, however,

b'-in;T

( >2i )

being now happily removed by the great uigenuity
of the late Lord Kaims, who has given a general
tbrm of a leafe, fuited to all poffible cafes, publiihcd
by Dr. Anderfon in his Agricultural Report for the
county of Aberdeen, and which I have added in an
Appendix to my prefent difcourfe, it may therefore
be expeded that landlords will at length advert to
the ajinual lofles they fuflain by not granting leafes
to their farmers, and will perceive the advantage<i
that would accrue to themfelves and the nation by
cultivating their eftates by farmers excited to indul^
try by equitable leafes.

As men by their nature are intended to be culti-
vators of the ground, the more equally, thereforf,
they are diftributed over its furface, the greater, in
all likelihood, will be their profperitv. On this ac-
count the Economifts exceedingly condemn the ag-
gregating or crowding of men, without neceffity, by
twenty thoulands, and thirty thoufands, in towns
and cities, and urge it as an indifpenfible duty of
government to take fuch meafures as may fpread
population in an equal degree over the whole terri-
tory it fuperintends, in order that men may never be
far feparated from the fource from whence, as has
been demonflrated, the chief of his fubfiflence and
of his wealth is to originate.

There is no territory on the globe where this prirr-
clple may with more [)ropriety be reduced to priidtice
than in this happy ifland of Great Britain ; and it is
a circumflance worth noting, that our anccilors two
thoufand years ago, feem to have adied upon this
principle from a convidion of its propriety and fust-

ablenefs

( 1^6 )

ablenefs to the territory which they occupied. Ju-
lius Ci^far, in his wars on the neighbouring conti*
nent of Gaul, was employed for fix or feven ycars^
not only in fighting many battles, but befieging
many populous cities, fo flrongly- fortified by art as
to feem to bid defiance to any aflfailant. But in
Great Britain, at the fame time, from his own ac-
count of it, neither walled town nor walled city feems
to have exifted, though in cortiparative populoufnefs
it appears not to have been deficient > for the infi-
nite number of men, homimun infinita mulfitudo,
which he met with in Britain, was particularly no-
ticed by him. Indeed, this hominum infinita mul-
titudo, or infinite number of men, is iiiore likely to
be met with in a country inhabited, without towns
and cities, than in a country abounding with them>
for, as in cities and towns, in general, more die
than are born, their multiplicity mufl, therefore,
rather retard population than forward it.

The dread of hoftility, and the hopes of fecurity
againfl blood-thirfty and vagrant plunderers, were
probably the motives that firft drove men into walled
towns, and while thefe motives were continually ope-
rating among the fmall fovereignties into which the
continent was then divided, a fpirit of good neigh^
bourhood and mutual kincJirefsTfeems to have pre--
vailed among the fmall fovereignties into which Bri-
tain was at that time divided, and happily rendered
walled towns to them unnecelTary. A fenfe of ge-
neral fecurity againfl a foreign invader feems to have
infpired the Britons with a fenfe of individual fecu-
rity, and with the natural concomitant of that, a

predominant

( 127 )

predominant paflion for rural habitation ; and this
pafllon lb confonant to nature, has deicended through
liicceffive generations to Britons of modern times,
even in fpite of the faUe policy of late years, which
has given too much countenance to the augmen-
tation of towns, from a notion that manufadures
could not be properly carried on elfewhere. On the
Continent, on the other hand, the natural paflion
for rural habitation has throu2;h fucceflive ao:es con-
tinued to be in a great meafure ftified from the want
of fecurity that has always prevailed ; and one meets
there not only w^ith walled cities and walled towns,
but even with walled villages.

Great Britain is now happily One and Indivifible,
confequently its inhabitants, who when they lived
in ditferent fovereignties did not find cities and towns
neceflary, are at prefent much lefs under any necef-
fity of crowding into cities and towns, from motives
of defence and fecurity. Bands of ravagers are here
unknown , and individual plunderers would proba-
bly he lefs frequent, were they to exchange the
wants and diftreffes of a town life for the eafily ac-
quired competence, which honeft induftry would pro-
cure by cultivating the ground.

If cities and towns in the inland parts of Great
Britain are not required for defence, a little coniide-
ration will ferve to (hew that they are not in general
required for manufaftures. We obferve manufac-
tures of great extent and great ingenuity at this day
carried on in villages. What, then, is to hinder all
manufadures of the fame kind from being carried on
the fame manner, and in many cafes, even in de-
tached

tsiched hamlets. Amid all the variety of curious
manufaflures now carried on in Birmingham, there'
is hardly any one kind, that is not as completely ma-
Tiufadured by Mr. Bolton, in his great manufadory,
at Soho, within two miles of that town, many of*
whofe workmen, when their day's work is finiflied,
retiring to detached hamlets on the adjoining com-
mon. If village workmen at Soho furriifli the moll:
curious hardware, we find vilhge workmen, like wife,
from the hamlets round Tunbridge Wells, furnilhing
the elegant cabinet work to much admired under the
name of Tunbridge Ware. It is village workmen
who fabricate the great variety of iron work at the
very extenfive manufadlory at Carron. Of the great
numbers of mills for fpinning cotton now exifting
in Great Britain, many have by preference been
erefted in villages. In the niceft part of the linen
branch, namely, damafk weaving, not a few of the
moft Ikilful manufa6lurers are to be found in villages.
Without fpecifying more particulars, thefe may fuf-
fice to fliew that the great mafs of manufactures may
be executed by workmen not refident in towns ;
and from hence it follows, that it would be a true
policy in Great Britain to check the augmentation
of inland towns, fince neither defence nor manufac-
tures require fuch towns.

It is taking but a half view of thing's, to fay, that
towns give employment to the farmers ; for if all
thofe who are now workers in towns were to become
workers in the country j and in general there is no
natural impediment to fuch a tranlition, they would
not be lefs confumers of the produce of the foil than at

prefent ;.

( 129 )

prefent ; and the dune may befaid of idlers in townBj
were they to prefer a refidence in the country. The
probabiUty rather is, that in fuch a ftate of popu-
lation, both the produce of the foil would be greater,
and the confumption greater j for in towns the fitua-
tion of many journeymen labourers is fuch as pre-
vents them from marrying, and leads them to fpend
many of their non-working hours in ifkittle-grounds
or in ale houfes ; whereas, if thofe journeymen were
to be fettled in the country, with a garden adjoin-
ing to their houfe, mdre of them would be induced
to marry, and would find delight in their hours of
relaxation, in cultivating their garden, or inftrufting
their children. Agriculture, the fountain of our
wealth, would thus get a recruit of two hundred
thoufand new cultivators, who were they to beftow
but one hour a day in field labour, would thereby
more benefit the nation, than by fix hours employed
by them in manufadlures. Were even great numbers
of them to quit manufadlures altogether, and to em-
ploy themfelves in agriculture, the greater ftill would
be the advantage to the nation ; for the prefent
overabundance of manufactures on one hand, and
over great fcarcity of products on the other, plainly
fhews that too many labourers are employed in the
manufacturing line, and too few labourers in the
agricultural line. For example, were all the cut-
lers in Great Britain to be idle for a couple of years,
the flock in the fhops gives reafon to prefume, that
the buyers of fcifTars, knives, razors, &c. would
during that time experience no deficiency of iupply;
and the fame may be concluded in regard to fome

I other

( 13° )

other articles of manufadure, which the makers are
frequently preffing upon the buyers at a twelve-
months credit,- or an eighteen months credit, a plain
proof that the market is overftocked with fuch com-
modities, fince the fellers of them are fain to give
a premium of 6 or 7 per cent to have them taken
off their hands.

Hov/ different is the flate of the produfts of agri-^
culture, particularly of the important article of corn !
The annual fupply of that article, in its greatefl
abundance, for thefe 50 years paft, has never yielded
a furplus of three months fubfiftence above the an-
nual confumption. Nay, within thefe two years,
the annual confumption in the article of grain has
experienced a deficiency of fupply of three months y
fo that if corn had not been brought from abroad,
the whole nation mufl have been put for twelve
months upon a fhort allowance of bread, with a
daily diminution of one fourth of the ufual quantity.
The evident confequence of this feems to be, that
the people of Great Britain for a long tim€ pafl have
gone too much into manufactures, which when fold
at home produce no national income ; and have be--
flowed too little attention upon agriculture, which
in fome cafes has yielded the vaft increafe of 10,50a
per cent and of which fome of the produfts are as
capable of being flored and preferved for years, sfes
fome articles of manufafture are.

The commons that require to be divided, and
the wafte lands that would admit of further im-
provement, are computed to amount in Great Bri-
tain to 22 millions of acres, which is more than one

fourth

( "31 )

fourth of the whole territory. Tlicfe to be properly
cultivated would give employment to 200,000 new
families, and fubfiftence to twice that number ; and
how can they be expefted to be properly cultivated
unlets inhabitants relide upon them. But befides
thefe commons and wade lands, the lands at -prefent
under cultivation would require many thoufands of
new cultivators, in order to advance them to their
highefh degree of improvement.

To accompli (li this high eft degree of improve-
ment of our foil, the Economifts affirm, that inland
towns are fo far from being necefTary, that they
even obftrud: it, and that the wealth and opulence of
the nation would be very quickly advanced, were the
hands that thofe towns have withdrawn from agricul-
ture to be diftributed as cultivators over the whole
ifland, wherever there was occalion for the fpade or
the plow.

The proportionate diftribution of the people over
the furface of the territory, while it greatly increafed
the real and fvibftantial revenue or wealth of the
kingdom, would neither prejudice manufa6turing in-
duftry, nor general morals. We have {^cn above,
that in this ifland moft extenfive branches of ma-
nufadlure are carried on in villages ; and as by this
diftribution of the cultivators, fubfiftence would be
rendered more abundant, and confequently cheaper,
manufacturers would thereby naturally be drawn to
intermix themfelves with them in every corner of the>
kingdom.

In regard to general morals it by no means fol-
lows, that if in the inland counties of Great Britain

I 2 ther^

( '3^ )

there were no towns befides the county town, that
either rufbicity or immoraUty would prevaiL In a
Chriftian country every pariili church is a centre of
civiHzation. Chriftianity, in regard to its practical
duties, is only the perfection of hufiianity ; and who-
ever will attend his church, and affiduoufly prac-
tice the precepts there recommended, will neither be
deficient in good morals nor in good manners. He
may not have the deceitful varnifli of the late Lord
Cheflerfield's whited fepulchre, but he will have
the polifh of the mind, which will infallibly give
him a civil demeanour.

The proportionate dlflribution of the people over
the territory would likewife be the means of pre-
venting innumerable expences that now detra(5t con-
fiderably from the nation's profperity, I mean the car-
riage of fubfiftence from the place where it is pro-
duced to the place where it is confumed, and of raw
materials from their place of produdion to the
place where they are manufadured ; and of manu-
factures from the places where they are fabricated
to the places where they are vended. In confequence
of the prefent impolitic fyftem of people's cluf-
tering without neceffity into large cities, or even into
particular counties (for Lancailiire, we are told, con-
tains more people than it can nourifh), cattle reared
in one place are driven 300 or 400 miles to be flaugh-
tered in another place ; wool that grows in a fouthern
county is carried 200 miles to be manufactured in a
northern county j and when manufaftured is carried
many hundred miles in order to be fold. Thefe and
fimilar inltances that might be produced, give em-
ployment

( '33 )

ployment to a great number of waggons upon our
public roads, and this tranlport bulincfs paffcs with
many for a lucrative commerce, when it is in faft a
diminution of the national profit, nearly to the
amount of what it cofts. If woollen manufadures,
by being fabricated where the wool is produced, were
to be exempted from this charge of double tranl-
port, they might be bought at lower prices both
by domeflic and foreign purchafers, which would pro-
mote the national profperity. If Lancafliire contains
more people than it can nourilli, we ought to con-
clude from thence, either that the cultivation of that
county is not brought to its higheft degree of im-
provement, or that the county is too populous, in
which lafl cafe, it would be a national advantage, if
the fupernumerary inhabitants were to remove to
fome other part of the ifland, where there is a defi-
ciency of population, and a fuperfluity of fybfift-
ence. The cattle that are now driven at a confide-
rable expence 300 or 400 miles to be llaughtered,
might more profitably to the nation be confumed
near the fpots where they are reared, were thofc
fpots to have their proportionate Ihare of cultivators
and manufafturers.

Although large cities and large towns in the Inland
parts of Great Britain may juftly be confidered as
detracting from the nations profperity, they would
however have a direct contrary effect when fituated
upon the coafts of the ifland. As much as villages
and detached hamlets ought to be preferred in the
interior of the ifland, fo much ought walled cities

I 3 and

( 134 )

and walled towns to be encouraged upon its coaflsj
and at the mouths of its navigable rivers. There,
and there only, walled cities and walled towns ought
to be as numerous as poffible, on many accounts,
but principally for the three following reafons.

Firft, numerous walled towns upon its coafts would
be the means of promoting aad extending foreign
commerce, which though no great fource of income,
compared with agriculture, yet when conduced with
prudence, may add fomething to the enjoyments ^s
well as to the riches of the inhabitants.

Secondly, numerous v/allcd towns upon the coafts
would contribute greatly to the increafe of the fifherj'-,
that golden mine to thofe who profecute it with ikill
and induftry. The Britifli feas are an undivided
common, remarkable for its great fertility, and they
who cultivate this common, namely, fifliermen, ought
naturally to have their habitations on the edge of it.
As it would be abfurd to expert a conftant refident
in a large town to be a farmer, fo it would be equally
abfurd to expect the inhabitant remote from the coaft
to be a fifherman. How many thoufands in this
ifland follow a marine life hardly for any other reafon
but becaufe they have been born and bred within
lic'ht of the fea. Were the number of thofe in Great

o

Britain born and bred within fight of the fea, to be
'then twenty times, as great as it is atprefent, it might
be expeded that thofe following a marine life would
aifo be twenty times as numerous. In proportion to
the harveft, fo iliouldbe the reapers. Since theBri-
tilh feas can fyrnilh twenty times the wealth orfub-

fiftence

fiilencc that is at prefent extradled frgm them, H
will therefore be a prudent policy i,a, the gov.em-'.
ment of Britain to adopt fuch meai^s-.as m^^y aug-
ment the number of thofe following a marine life
twenty fold. And what policy could fo much aug-
ment the number of thofe who follow a marine life,
as to induce a million more of inhabitants to relide
on the fea coafts, by giving every encouragement to
multiply maritime cities. The Penfionary De Witt,
m his Political Maxims, p, 25i computes the number
of the people in the United Provinces at 2,400,000,
and of the-fe he reckons 450,000 earn their livmg by
thejijhcries at fea-, and Jetting them vut with JliipSy
rigging, cajks, fait, and other materials or injlrui
ments, and the trajjlc that depends thereon. In
another place he fays, more than the one half of the.
trade of Holland would decay, in cafe the trade of
^fi^fJi were dejlroyed. In a population of 2,400,000
fouls, 450,000 make near a fifth part, and in that
proportion the number of people in Great Britain
depending for a fubfiftence upon the fiiliing bufinefs,
and what relates to it ousrht to amount to near two
millions, were the views of government, and the views
of individuals, turned as earneftly to that great ob-
jedt in Britain as they are in Holland, and that they
are not fo turned, is no fmall reproach to ithe policy
of this ifland; for what has maintained this fifth part
of the iiihabitants of Holland, has been drawri frorn
feas properly belonging to Great Britain ; or froni
leas fituated more conveniently forBritifli fifliermen,
han for Dutch fifhermen ; and capable of main-

I 4 taining

( '36 )

taining ten times more people than who now draw
their fubfiftence from them. Had Britain even
but a fmall Tea frontier to improve, the negleft of
improving it, though not of great confequence,
would ftill be a blameable policy. But Great Britain,
including Ireland, (which I mean to be included in
all that is faid, or Tnall be faid in this difcourfe) has
tht advantage of a fea frontier of upwards of 3000
miles, and of feas wafliing that frontier, affording
liibfiftence for millions of men, were thofe millions
to be induced by political regulations to cultivate
them. Should a rich proprietor poflefs an immenfe
plain of great fertility to the extent of 30,000 or
40,000 acres, where the herbage, as in fome places
of Hungary, rifes to the heigh th of five or fix feet,
and fhould he neverthelefs keep neither bullock nor
horfe upon it, nor any live flock whatever, it would
be concluded by the fenfible and judicious, that
fuch proprietor had not his eyes open to his own in-
tcrcft. But mufl: not the fame thing be concluded
of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, who
rcntinue to give fo little attention to the watery
plain with which they are furrounded, though an
hundred times more to be valued on account of the
wealth it would afford, than fuch a plain as is above
mentioned.

The firfl and mofl natural flep to the improve-
ment of this watery plain is by encouragements to
bring multitudes of men to live within view of it ;
for it is hardly pofiible for multitudes of men to live
fonftantly within view of it, without a great p-art

of

( 137 )

of tliem forming fuch a conne(5Vion with it, as may
procure them, if not opulence, at lead a fubfiflcnce.
Were the propofition of founding either a fecond
Birmingham or a fecond Liverpool to be deliberated/
upon, true policy would decidedly declare in fa-
vour of the new Liverpool, becaufc all the arts,
trades, and manufadures carried on in Birmingham,
or in any inland town whatever, might jufh as con-
veniently be carried on in the new maritime city,
with the addition of the trades that feafaring bufi-
nefs creates.

But inilead of one new Liverpool, the fea fron-
tier of Great Britain and Ireland would admit of
twenty new Liverpools, which (o far from diminilh-
ing the national population, would contribute
greatly to augment it. How many vacant and de-
fai't fpots are there at prefent on the fliores of thefe
iflands, where fuch new maritime cities might con-
veniently be founded, were Government to make
it an objedl of its attention to mark out fuch fpots,
and give encouragement to new fettlers to inhabit
them. The fituations for fuch new maritime cities
ought not to be haflily chofen, nor fixed upon en-
tirely upon the report of military engineers. Civil
engineers ought alfo to be confulted, and the re-
ports of both to be compared and weighed. The
great abundance of fifh ought to be a leading mo-
tive for fixing the fituation of many of the new
maritime cities in their viciuit}-, and fuch is that
abundance in our north-weftern feas, that a city of
8j000 or 1O3O00 inhabitants might be fupported by

fiiliing,

{ I3S )

firhlng, and • the commerce depending upon it, oa,
many of the now half inhabited illands on the well
coafl of Scotland*.

Building in thefe new maritime cities might pro-
bably foon become a profitable fpeculation, as go-
vernment, it may be hoped, will ere long have a
happy opportunity of colonizing them with 150,000
cr 200,000 men, who by changing their fwords and
cutlaffes for plows and fifliing nets, may add to the
wealth of the country, and at the fame time may
continue to add to its ftrength.

The public encouragements to thefe new fettlers
may be various. Were the tax upon bricks, ufed
in their buildings, to be remitted to them, the ge-
neral amount of that tax would probably thereby:
not be diminilhed. The fame might be faid of the
general amount of the houfe-tax, and of the win-

* In the northern counties and iflands of Scotland are reck-
oned 4,528,000, and the population in 1795 was computed to
l>e 137,754 fouls, which is near 38 acres to each individual, or
about 20 fouls to a fquare mile. In the kingdom of Naples
the general population is reckoned to give 203 fouls to a fquare
mile, fupported by the fertility of the territory. The land in
the north part of Scotland is grealy inferior to that of the
kingdom of Naples in point of fertility j but this inferiority is
fully compenfated by the fuperior fertility of the feas in fur-
nithing fabliftence to man ; therefore the improvement of the
fiftieries by the eftabliihment of large maritime towns may ren-
der the lands in thofe parts of the ifland capable of fupporting
a population equal to that of" the kingdom of Naples, that is,
would increafe the number of their inhabitants to near a mil-
lion and an half, and the value of the lands in a proportion-'
able degree.

clow-tax.

( ^39 )

dow-tax, were the new fet tiers to be exempted from
thofc taxes for ten years. Premiums might like-
wife be beftowed on thofc who built or navigated
boats or veflels of a certain tonnage, or fpun twine
to a certain quantity.

Thefe indulgencies, without being at all burden-
fome to government, or fenfibly diminilhing the ge-
neral fum total of the taxes, would be moil alluring
inducements to draw inhabitants to the new fet-
tlementSj who by diredting their induftry without
delay to fifliing, and the feafaring bufinefs depend-
ant upon it, would as affuredly acquire an income
as if they were to become farmers in any county of
Great Britain. They ought for the firfl years to
receive every prudential fupport, which, in the fuc-
ceflion of time, they would mofl amply repay to
the nation. Though an orchard does not yield any
fruit fufficient to defray the expence of forming it,
till feveral years after it is planted, yet that does
not deter the prudent hufbandman from incurring
that expence. In like manner though thefe new
fettlements fliould for fome years yield little return
in point of taxes, yet the prudent ftatefman will
not refufe to them his foftering care, knowing that,
with proper management, their natural advantages
will enable them not only to fubfifl, but to acquire
opulence, and confequently to be large contributors-
to the public fupply. There was a time when the
immenfe capitals poffeffed by the wealthy inhabi-
tants of Liverpool, Nevvxaflle, Glafgow, &;c. did
not exift ; but in the fame manner as thefe capitals
have been created, fo might capitals be formed in

4 the

( i4<5 )

the new maritime cities, fmce they would be equally
favoured by the ocean as Liverpool, Newcaflle, or
Glafgow. How have tlie capitals of our great Weft
Indian planters been formed but by producing with
great labour, and fending to market an article of
ver)^ general confumption ? Btit fifh is a commo-
dity not of more limited confumption than fugar,
with this fuperior advantage, that befides the fo-
reign fale, it adually makes great part of the fub-
fiftence of thofe who produce it and fend it to
market. As the market for both is daily increafmg,
colonizing on our own coafts may be found to be
as true policy as colonizing in the Weft Indies.

A third principal reafon for m.ultiplying cities and
towns upon our coafts is, that they would in fuch
fituations add much more efTentlally both to the
defenfive and offenfive ftrength of the nation. I'
have faid that Great Britain and Ireland have the
advantage of a fea frontier upwards of 3,000 miles
in extent ; but while this frontier iliall remain but
thinly occupied by inhabitants, it will be more con-
fonant to truth to fay. Great Britain and Ireland
have the difadvantage of a fea frontier upwards of
3,000 miles in extent, becaufe from this very ex-
tent a foreign invader may affail them in a greater
number of points. But were a foreign invader to
know, that he could no where land within 100 miles
of the feat of government of either iiland, without
having a populous and regularly fortified city to at-
tack, or without having within 20 miles of him
two fuch cities on the coaft, that could each fend
out a military force of 10,000 men, we may be al~

moft

( HI }

Jnoft fure, that a fleet could l-j^rdly be wanted for
the defence of fuch a coaft, or at lead it may be af-
firmed, that a coaft fo peopled and fo fortified,
would be twice as formidable to a foreign enemj',
as if left unpeopled and unfortified to the protec-
tion of a fleet alone.

Independent then of the extenfion of foreign
commerce, and of the extenfion of the fifiiciy, the
cheap defence of the kingdom calls loudly for the
multiplication of maritime cities of great populouf-
nefs and great flrength. It is hardly in the nature
of things that fuch cities fhould be filled with
idlers ; and the example of Holland fliews us that
where manufa<5luring and commercial induftry pre-
vails, one great and populous city does not prevent
another great and populous city from thriving
within twenty miles of it, nay fometimes within
ten miles. In this view it may be affirmed, that
two new Liverpools might arife on the coaft of Ei-
fex, between Harwich and South End, at the
mouth of the Thames, and twice as many on the
coafts of Kent and SufiTex. Thefe, when ftrongly
fortified, would be moft powerful outguards to the
metropolis ; and it may be prefumed that in the po-
licy of having fuch outguards originated the privi-
leges conferred upon the cmque ports, which in for-
mer ages, during the weak ftate of the naval force
of Europe, well acquitted themfelves by their fer^
vices to the public. But inftead of having only
cinque ports, or five fea ports, true policy in thefe
modern times demands that Great Britain and Ire-
land fhould have an hundred fea ports, or maritime
2 cities,

( 142- )

cities, fiouriniing in populoufnefs, and fo fortified
as to bid defiance to a fudden attack of an in-
vading enemy. In the new maritime cities, founded
oil the coaib of ElTex, Kent, and Suflex, might
be carried on to greater national advantage many
branches of manufacture and feafaring bufmefs, now
mofl unneceflarily eftabliflied in London and its vi-
cinity. As neither corn nor coals are ftaples of the
port of London, it is a heedlefs policy to fuffer dif-
tilleries, iron founderies, fire engines, and other
works and undertakings that require a great corr-
fumption of fuel to be coiKentered in the capital,
as though they could prolper no where but on the
banks of the Thames. All thefe, inftead of being
crowded into London, fhould ftudioufly be removed
from it, and might be carried on as profitably fof
the proprietors, if not more profitably, on the fliores
of Eflex, Kent, and Suflex. Thither like wife a
great part of the fhip building bufinefs, that may
now be faid td encumber the river Tham.es, might
with national advantage be transferred. And with
national advantage likewife the overgrown metropo-
lis with its neighbourhood could {pare thoufands
and ten thoufands for the peopling of thefe new ci-
ties, which might alfo attract great numbers of in-
habitants with large capitals from the oppofite con-
tinent, were the impolitic reflrictions againft Fo-
reigners to be removed, and fucceeded by invita-
tions. Men of m.ercantile enterprife are often of
more confequence to the aggrandifement and prof-
perity of a commercial city, than even a good fitua-
tion or a good harbour. What then miglit be ex-

peded

( '43 )

peAed were thefe three circumftances to be united j
and to all appearance it remains only with our le-
siilature to unite them. Nature has alrcadv given
US the two former, and were our legiflature to invite
foreigners to fettle in thofe cities, by the offer of
naturalization, thoufands of them would probably
prefer the fecurity and quiet to be obtained on the
Ihores of Great Britain, to the infecurity and op-
preflion to, which they are but too often expofed on
tlie continent.

But without enlarging further, my readers may
eafily figure to themfelves, from the preceding il-
luftrations, what would be the natural and happy
confcquence of the eftabliihment of the fyftem of
the Economills, in refpect to Great Britain and
Ireland. The lands of both iHands would be culti-
vated under leafes upon the model of that of Lord
Kaimes, by which the formers would be excited to
increafe the national produce in the full fecurity
of augmenting, their own incomes. Manufad:urers,
without expediing any income from them, would
be cheriflied on account of the multiplied conve-
niences ariling from them. Taxes upon confump-
tion would in general be abolillied ; and the fupply
f3r national defence would, as formerly, be drawn
directly from the national income by a Cngle tax
upon the furplus of that income, pofleffed by the
land proprietors. What alone fuftains the whole of
the people would be allowed to fuffice for fuftaining
the defenders of the people, who, when defenders,
do not ceafe to niak-e part of that whole. The real
rcfcurces of the nation would be underftood by the

■ ( 144 )

generality of the people to confifl in the produc-
tions of the foil, and not in flampt paper, wliich
would animate their zeal to favour the increafe of
thofe produdions. Abundance would be attended
with its natural confequence cheapnefs, and cheap-
nefs would greatly extend the circle of our foreign
commerce. Gold and filver would become the ge-
neral medium of circulation, and few families be
without fome referve of them, either in coin or in
plate. The hamlets and villages would be fo mul-
tiplied in the interior parts, that in every county a
traveller would never lofe fight of one habitation
before he might fee another, each the feat of in-
duftry, and many of them the nurferies of numer-
ous and healthy children ; and the fea frontier would
be every where fpiked, or, in the French idiom,
hrijlkd with large and populous cities, abounding
with filhermen, failors, and artifts of every kind,
and fo fortified with rampart and ditch, as to bid
defiance to the fudden attack of a foreign invader.

APPENDIX*

APPENDIX.

A GENERAL PLAN OF A LEASE

8V

LORD KAIMS,

WITH

SO^iE REMARKS UPON IT BY DR. ANDERSON,

AGRICULTURAL REPORT FOR THE COUNTV OF ABERDEEN.

1 AM extremely happy to have it in my power on
this occafion to lay before the pubhc at large,
tlirough means of the Honourabk Board, to whom
this report is addrefled, a plan of a leafe which is
perfedly adapted to fecure alike the intereft of the
tenant, and the legitimate rights of the landlord ;
by which the rights of humanity can never be vio-
lated, and which can apply to all poffible cafes, fo
that neither of the parties can 6Ver acquire an undue
advantage over the other in any fituation of things.
To effed all thefe things appeared to me, for a
great many years, to exceed the powers of human
ingenuity to devife. It has been done ; and the
public are obliged to the late Lord Kaims for this

excellent device.

K His

z APPENDIX.

His lordlhip propofcd that the leafe fhould ex-
tend to an indefinite number of years confifling of
fixed periods, at the end of each of which a
rife of rent lliould take place, with permiffion for
thC' tenant, at the period of each of thefe rifes of
rent, to give up his farm, if he fliall fee proper, and
granting a fimilar power to the landlord, upon pro-
per terms, to refume his land if he fliall think fit.
The particulars of this contract, and the grounds
on which they reft, are as under :

He aflumes it as a poflulatum that a landlord and
tenant are capable of forming a tolerably juft eili-
inat« of the value of land in queftion for a fliort
period of years, fuch as it is cuflomary to grant
leafes for in Scotland: fay 21 years. And having
agreed upon thefe terms, which for the prefent we
fiiall call I ool. rent, the tenant exprefles a wilb to have
his leafe extended io a longer period. To this the
proprietor objeft?, on this ground, that it is not
poffiblc to form a precife cftimate of what the value
of the ground may be at the end of that period.'
He has already (<itn that ground, for the laft 21
years, has increafcd much more in value than any,
perfon at the beginning of that period could eafily
have conceived it would have done, and therefore
he cannot think of giving it off juft now^ for a lon-
ger period, as a fimilar rife in value may be expedled
to take place in future. This realbning appears to-
be well founded, and therefore to give the landlord
a reafonable gratification, he propoies that it fhould
be ftipulated that if the tenant Ihould agree to
cive a certain rife of rent, a*: the end of that pe-

3 riod^

APPENDIX. 5

riod, iuppofe 2cl. the landlord fliould confent tliat
the leal'e fhould run on for another period of 21
years ; unlets in the cafes to be after mentioned.

But as it may happen that this 20I, now ftipu-
lated to be paid at fo difiant a period, may be more
than the farmer will find he is able to pay, an op-
tion Ihali be given to him to refign his leafe, if hd
fliould find that is the cafe, by giving the landlord
legal notice, one year at leafl, before the expiration
of the leafe ; but if that notice be omitted thus to be
given, it ihall be underftood that the tenant i? bound
to hold the leafe for the fecond 21 years, at the rent
fpecified in the contrad. And if the landlord does
not give the tenant warning within one month after
the period, it fliall be underftood that he too is
bound to accept of the flipulated additional rent
for the 21 years that are to fuccced.

It may however alfo happen that the fum fpeci-
fied in the leafe may be a rent confiderably below
the then prefent value of the farm; or the pro-
prietor may have very flrong reafbns for wifhing to
refume the pofleffujn of that land, or to obtain an
adequate rent for it : a power therefore fhould be
given to iiim, in either cafe, to refume the lands,
if he fhould fo incline. But as a great part of that
prefent value may be owing to the exertions of tlie
farmer, who has laid out money upon the farm, in
hopes to enjoy it for a fecond period of 21 years, it
would be iinji.ill to deprive him of this benefit,
without giving him a valuable confideration for that
improved value. On this account it fhould be fti-
pulated, that in cafe the proprietor at this time

K ?. refume

'4 APPENDIX.

refume the farm, he fliall become bound to pay to the
tenant ten years purchafe of the additional rent he
had agreed to payj which in the example above
ftated would be 200I.

But the land may be worth ftill more than the 20I.
of rife mentioned in the Ieafe,and the tenant may
be content to pay more, fay lol. rather than remove,
and he makes offer accordingly to do fo. In that cafe
the landlord fhould be bound either to accept that
additional offer, or to pay ten years purchafe for
that alfo ; and fo on for every other offer the
tenant fhall make, before he agrees to move from
the farm.

In this way the landlord is always certain that he
can never be precluded from obtaining the full
value for his land, whatever circumftances may
arife. And if the tenant fliall prove difagreeable,
fo that he would wifli rather to put another in his
place upon the fame terms, it never can be any
hardlhip upon the landlord to pay the ftipulated
fum ; becaufe it would be the fame thing to him as
if he bought a new eftate at ten years purchafe, free
of taxes : a thing he can never expect to do. It
is indeed true that it would be more advantageous
for hi'm to allow the prefent tenant to continue;
and therefore this alternative will be always, unlefs
in very extraordinary cafes, accepted of, as it ever
ought to be ; and thus the tenant's mind is im-
preffed with a conviction that he will continue in
hi^i poffeffion : a convi(I:l:ion that ought ever to pre-
vail, becaufe it Simulates to induftry in the higheft
deirree. And as the tenant is thus certain th^t»
at the very worft, his family nriifc be entitled to

draw

AITENDIX. 5 .

Jiaw a icufonablc remuneration for the exertions of
his iudiiilry, he can never find the fmallcfl tendency
to flack en his endeavouis in any way.

Bv fiipiilating in the original leafc in the fame
maimer, that at the end of the fecond 21 years,
the leale lliall be continued for 21 years more, and
fo on at the end of the third, and fourth, and any
farther numbers of periods of 21 years, on agree-
ing to pay a fpeciried rife of rent ; refcrving to
each party the fame privileges as above defcribed,
the leafe might be continued to perpetuity, without
cither party ever being in danger of having an un-
due advantage over the other. The tenant will
always be certain- of having a preference given him
over every other perfon, and will of courfe go 011
with unceafing exertions to better his land, which
will of necefTity tend to augment the income cf r};c
proprietor much more than could have happened
under any other fyftem-of management.

Such are the outlines of that plan of a leafe his
Lordlliip has propol^d. By this plan the tenant's
liands are not tied up by refhictive claulcs
dictated by ignorance, under the pretext of fc-
curing the intereft of the landlord. His intcrefl h
fecured in a much more effedual manner, while tlie
tenant is left at full liberty to avail himfelf of his
knowledge, his ikill, and his induflry. Inflead of
ceafing to begin any arduous undertaking, as he
ever muft do where he has no leafe, or of besinnins
to improve for a few years only at the commence-
ment of his leafe, but flopping in a Ihort while in
ihe midil of his career, and then running it down

to

6 APPENDIX.

to the fame exhaiifted ftate as it was at its com-
mencement, he continues to pufli forward without '
ever flopping, and advances even with an accele-
rated progrefs for an endlefs period of years. No
perfon but an experienced farmer can conceive the
difference that would be between the produdive-
nefs of the fame land under this management, at
the end of an hundred years, from what it would
have been if let even for detaclied periods of 21
years each. In unimproved wafte lands, the difference
would approach to infinity. In lands which were
originally very rich, the difference would be lefs
confiderable ; but in all cafes where cultivation
could take place the difference would be very great.
It is worth remarking here alfo, that if this arrange-
ment were adopted, a new order of men in civil
fociety would be created, different from any that
at prefent exifts. They would be inferior in point
of rank to that clafs of men who are called gen-
tlemen ; and fuperior in point of wealth and energy,
not only to the prefent order oi farmer.<^, but even
to that clafs of men who are called i/eomcn. The
peculiar political advantage attached to this order
of fociety would be, that while their exertions
would always infure affluence, that affluence never
would become fuch as to permit them, by imita-
ting the life of the higher orders, to negled: their
own proper concerns j for the moment they did fo,
their exertions in bufinefs would become flackened^
in confequence of which they could not afford fuch
a rent as others around them would be willing to:,
give, and fo they muft quit their leafe.

Here

APPENDIX. 7

Here we arc led to perceive the moll eflential dif-
ference between thus granting what may almofl be
called a perpetual leafe, and every other lojig leale
that ever yet has been tried j for in all other long
leafes, if the rent ftipulated at firft fhall prove to
be at laft inadequate, and the holder of the leaie
be reduced to poverty, by diflipation or otherwife,
he may neither himfelf be able to cultivate the
ground properly, nor can another be permitted to
do fo ; and by this means the proprietor may not
only be for a long period of years deprived of an
adequate value for his land, but that land alfo being-
locked up from improvement, may be doomed long
to remain in a degree of comparative flerility. No-
thing of that kind could here happen.

It differs alfo very much from that fort of tenure
which is called yeomanry, in which the fmall ca-
pital, if properly applied, would have been juft fuf-
ficient to give fcope for agricultural exertions, but
by being locked up on the original purchafe of the
land, it deprives the poffefTor of the only funds he
had in his power to apply for improving his land. In-
llead of adlive exertions, and chearful affluence
through life, he is thus flinted in every exertion,
and is doomed to a perpetual hard ftruggle againft:
the harralTments of poverty.

In fhort, were I either a proprietor or a tenant, I
fhould either let or take land upon thefe terms, in
preference to any other I have ever heard of. Se-
veral little claufes have been overlooked by his
Lordfliip, which it would be neceffary to advert to.
Some provifion ought to be made refpcding trees on

a Icafe

S APPENDIX.

a leafe of this kind, as it is probable the tcnailt
might find it convenient to plant, which by the
common law of Scotland he cannot do at prefent
•with a view to profit. Perhaps the wood, if any
was on the farm at the time oi his entry, ought to
be valued, and he fliould be bound to leave at leafb
an equal value upon it, or pay the balance. What-
ever timber trees he himfelf had planted, he fliould
be at liberty to cut at pleafure, for the ufe of the
farm, unleis it W'erc fuch individual trees as the
landlord, from fituation or other caufcs, fhould
think proper to mark for refet'vation. He (hould
alfo have permiffion to fell fuch trees as he inclined,
unlefs as above referved, or during the laft fix
3'ears of any of the 21 years of the leafe. But in
cafe of his removal, the proprietor fliall either permit
him the whole of the trees that was over the value of
the ftock at his entry, or take the whole, or fuch
part as he chofe to referve, at an appreciated value.
In cafe of his removal alfo the tenant fhould be
bound not to outlabour the ground, during the laft
fix years of the leafe, or to crop it improperly, or
to carry off any ftraw or dung : otherwife to pay
the damages that Ihould thus accrue to the land-
lord, at the eilimate of two boncft men,' to be mu-
tually chofenj and to leave the boufes in a -habit-
able condition, a'Hti the fences in good repair.
There feems to be no other claule neccirary in fuch
a I cafe.

i' I N I