BOOK only in proportion to the extension of improveIII. ment and cultivation. Had human inftitutions, therefore, never disturbed the natural course of things, the progreffive wealth and increase of the towns would, in every political fociety, be confequential, and in proportion to the improvement and cultivation of the territory or country. IN our North American colonies, where uncultivated land is ftill to be had upon eafy terms, no manufactures for diftant fale have ever yet been established in any of their towns. When an artificer has acquired a little more ftock than s neceffary for carrying on his own business in fupplying the neighbouring country, he does not, in North America, attempt to establish with it a manufacture for more diftant fale, but employs it in the purchase and improvement of uncultivated land. From artificer he becomes planter, and neither the large wages nor the easy fubfiftence which that country affords to artificers, can bribe him rather to work for other people than for himself. He feels that an artificer is the fervant of his customers, from whom he derives his fubfiftence; but that a planter who cultivates his own land, and derives his necessary fubfiftence from the labour of his own family, is really a master, and independent of all the world. IN countries, on the contrary, where there is either no uncultivated land, or none that can be had upon eafy terms, every artificer who has acquired more stock than he can employ in the occafional jobs of the neighbourhood, endeavours to prepare I. prepare work for more diftant fale. The fmith CHA P. erects fome fort of iron, the weaver fome fort of linen or woollen manufactory. Thofe different manufactures come, in procefs of time, to be gradually fubdivided, and thereby improved and refined in a great variety of ways, which may easily be conceived, and which it is therefore unneceffary to explain any further. In feeking for employment to a capital, manufactures aie, upon equal or nearly equal profits, naturally preferred to foreign commerce, for the fame reason that agriculture is naturally preferred to manufactures. As the capital of the landlord or farmer is more fecure than that of the manufacturer, fo the capital of the manufacturer, being at all times more within his view and command, is more fecure than that of the foreign merchant. In every period, indeed, of every fociety, the furplus part both of the rude and manufactured produce, or that for which there is no demand at home, must be sent abroad in order to be exchanged for fomething for which there is fome demand at home. But whether the capital, which carries this furplus produce abroad, be a foreign or a domeftic one, is of very little importance. If the fociety has not acquired fufficient capital both to cultivate all its lands, and to manufacture in the completest manner the whole of its rude produce, there is even a confiderable advantage that that rude. produce fhould be exported by a foreign capital, in order that the whole ftock of the fociety may be employed in more useful purposes. The wealth BOOK wealth of ancient Egypt, that of China and InIII. doftan, fufficiently demonftrate that a nation may attain a very high degree of opulence, though the greater part of its exportation trade be carried on by foreigners. The progress of our North American and Weft Indian colonies would have been much less rapid, had no capital but what belonged to themselves been employed in exporting their furplus produce. ACCORDING to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing fociety is, firft, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and laft of all to foreign commerce. This order of things is fo very natural, that in every fociety that had any territory, it has always, I believe, been in fome degree observed. Some of their lands must have been cultivated before any confiderable towns could be eftablished, and fome fort of coarse induftry of the manufacturing kind must have been carried on in those towns, before they could well think of employing themselves in foreign com merce. BUT though this natural order of things must haye taken place in fome degree in every fuch fociety, it has, in all the modern ftates of Europe, been, in many refpects, entirely inverted. The foreign commerce of fome of their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or fuch as were fit for distant fale; and manufactures and foreign commerce together, have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of I. their original government introduced, and which c HA P. CHA P. II. Of the Difcouragement of Agriculture in the apcient WHEN the German and Scythian nations over-ran the western provinces of the Roman empire, the confufions which followed fo great a revolution lafted for feveral centuries. The rapine and violence which the barbarians exercifed against the ancient inhabitants, interrupted the commerce between the towns and the country. The towns were deferted, and the country was left uncultivated, and the western provinces of Europe, which had enjoyed a confiderable degree of opulence under the Roman empire, funk into the lowest state of poverty and barbarifm. During the continuance of thofe confufions, the chiefs and principal leaders of those nations, acquired or ufurped to themselves the greater part of the lands of thofe countries. A great part of them was uncultivated; but no part of them, whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without a proprietor. All of them were engroffed, VOL. IL G BOOK gróffed, and the greater part by a few great pro[lt. prietors. THIS original engroffing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might have been but a tranfitory evil. They might foon have been divided again, and broke into small parcels either by fucceffion or by alienation. The law of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by fucceffion the introduction of entails prevented their being broke into finall parcels by alienation. WHEN land, like moveables, is confidered as the means only of fubfiftence and enjoyment, the natural law of fucceffion divides it, like them, among all the children of the family; of all of whom the fubfiftence and enjoyment may be fuppofed equally dear to the father. This natural law of fucceffion accordingly took place among the Romans, who made no more diftinction between elder and younger, between male and female, in the inheritance of lands, than we do in the diftribution of moveables. But when land was confidered as the means, not of fubfiftence merely, but of power and protection, it was thought better that it fhould defcend undivided In thofe diforderly times, every great landlord was a fort of petty prince. His tenants were his fubjects. He was their judge, and in fome respects their legiflator in peace, and their leader in war. He made war according to his own difcretion, frequently against his neighbours, and fometimes againft his fovereign. The fecurity of a landed eftate, therefore, the protection to one. |