ΠΙ. BOOK part of the country must probably have been cultivated before the reign of Elizabeth; and a very great part of it still remains uncultivated, and the cultivation of the far greater part, much inferior to what it might be. The law of England, however, favours agriculture not only indirectly by the protection of commerce, but by several direct encouragements. Except in times of scarcity, the exportation of corn is not only free, but encouraged by a bounty. In times of moderate plenty, the importation of foreign corn is loaded with duties that amount to a prohibition. The importation of live cattle, except from Ireland, is prohibited at all times, and it is but of late that it was permitted from thence. Those who cultivate the land, therefore, have a monopoly against their countrymen for the two greatest and most important articles of land pro. duce, bread and butcher's-meat. These en. couragements, though at bottom, perhaps, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter, altogether il. lusory, sufficiently demonstrate at least the good intention of the legislature to favour agriculture. But what is of much more importance than all of them, the yeomanry of England are rendered as secure, as independent, and as respectable as law can make them. No country, therefore, in which the right of primogeniture takes place, which pays tithes, and where perpetuities, though contrary to the spirit of the law, are admitted in some cafes, can give more encouragement to agriculture than England. Such, however, notwithstanding, is the state of its cultivation. What What would it have been, had the law given nocHAP. direct encouragement to agriculture besides what arifes indirectly from the progress of commerce, and had left the yeomanry in the same condition as in most other countries of Europe ? It is now more than two hundred years fince the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a period as long as the course of human profperity usually endures. IV. France feems to have had a confiderable share of foreign commerce near a century before England was distinguished as a commercial country. The marine of France was confiderable, according to the notions of the times, before the expedition of Charles the VIIIth to Naples. The cul. tivation and improvement of France, however, is upon the whole, inferior to that of England. The law of the country has never given the fame direct encouragement to agriculture. The foreign commerce of Spain and Portugal to the other parts of Europe, though chiefly carried on in foreign ships, is very confiderable. That to their colonies is carried on in their own, and is much greater, on account of the great riches and extent of those colonies. But it has never introduced any confiderable manufactures for distant fale into either of those countries, and the greater part of both still remains uncultivated. The foreign commerce of Portugal is of older standing that that of any great country in Europe, except Italy. Italy is the only great country of Europe which feems to have been cultivated and im воок proved in every part, by means of foreign com. III. merce and manufactures for distant fale. Before the invasion of Charles the VIIIth, Italy, according to Guicciardin, was cultivated not less in the most mountainous and barren parts of the country, than in the plainest and most fertile. The advantageous fituation of the country, and the great number of independent states which at that time subsisted in it, probably contributed not a little to this general cultivation. It is not impoffible too, notwithstanding this general expreffion of one of the most judicious and reserved of modern historians, that Italy was not at that time better cultivated than England is at present. The capital, however, that is acquired to any country by commerce and manufactures, is all a very precarious and uncertain poffeffion, till fome part of it has been fecured and realized in the cultivation and improvement of its lands. A merchant, it has been faid very properly, is not neceffarily the citizen of any particular country, It is in a great measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove his capital, and together with it all the industry which it fupports, from one country to another. No part of it can be faid to belong to any particular country, till it has been spread as it were over the face of that country, either in buildings, or in the lasting improvement of lands. No vestige now remains of the great wealth, faid to have been possessed by the greater part of the Hans towns, except in the obfcure histories of the thirteenth CHAP. and fourteenth centuries. It is even uncertain where fome of them were situated, or to what towns in Europe the Latin names given to some of them belong. But though the misfortunes of Italy in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the fixteenth centuries greatly diminished the commerce and manufactures of the cities of IV. Lombardy and Tuscany, those countries still continue to be among the most populous and best cultivated in Europe. The civil wars of Flanders, and the Spanish government which fucceeded them, chased away the great com. merce of Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges, But Flanders still continues to be one of the richest, beft cultivated, and most populous provinces of Europe. The ordinary revolutions of war and government easily dry up the fources of that wealth which arifes from commerce only. That which arifes from the more folid improvements of agriculture, is much more durable, and cannot be destroyed but by those more violent convulfions, occafioned by the depredations of hoftile and barbarous nations, continued for a century or two together; such as those that happened for fome time before and after the fall of the Roman empire in the western provinces of Europe. BOOK IV. OF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. IV. INTRODUCTION. BOOK POLITICAL economy, confidered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legif Introduct. lator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide fuch a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue fufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the fovereign. The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations, has given occafion to two different systems of political economy, with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the other that of agri. culture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in our own times. |