III. have been firft refined and improved in fuch in- CHÁ P. land countries as were, not indeed at a very great, but at a confiderable distance from the fea coaft, and fometimes even from all water car riage. An inland country naturally fertile and eafily cultivated, produces a great furplus of provifions beyond what is neceffary for maintaining the cultivators, and on account of the expence of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may frequently be difficult to fend this furplus abroad. Abundance, therefore, renders provifions cheap, and encourages a great number of workmen to fettle in the neighbourhood, who find that their induftry can there procure them more of the neceffaries and conveniences of life than in other places. They work up the materials of manufacture which the land produces, and exchange their finifhed work, or what is the fame thing the price of it, for more materials and provifions. They give a new value to the furplus part of the rude produce, by faving the expence of carrying it to the water fide, or to fome distant market; and they furnish the cultivators with fomething in exchange for it that is either ufeful or agreeable to them, upon easier terms than they could have obtained it before. The cultivators get a better price for their furplus produce, and can purchase cheaper other conveniences which they have occafion for. They are thus both encouraged and ena bled to increase this furplus produce by a further improvement and better cultivation of the land; and as the fertility of the land had given birth III. BOOK to the manufacture, fo the progress of the manufacture re-acts upon the land, and increases ftill further its fertility. The manufactures first fupply the neighbourhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and refines, more diftant markets. For though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarfe manufacture, could, without the greatest difficulty, fupport the expence of a confiderable land carriage, the refined and improved manufacture easily may. In a fmall bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quantity of rude produce. A piece of fine cloth, for example, which weighs only eighty pounds, contains in it, the price, not only of eighty pounds weight of wool, but fometimes of feveral thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the different working people, and of their immediate employers. The corn, which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in its own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may eafily be fent to the remoteft corners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. Such manufactures are the offspring of agriculture. In the modern hiftory of Europe, their extenfion and improvement have generally been pofterior to thofe which were the offspring of foreign commerce, England was noted for the manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool, more than a century before any of thofe which now flourish in the places above mentioned IH. mentioned were fit for foreign fale. The exten- CHAP. fion and improvement of thefe läft could not take place but in confequence of the extenfion and improvement of agriculture, the laft and greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it, and which I shall now proceed to explain. CHAP. IV. How the Commerce of the Towns contributed to the IV. THE increase and riches of commercial and CHA P. manufacturing towns, contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the countries to which they belonged, in three different ways. Firft, by affording a great and ready market for the rude produce of the country, they gave encouragement to its cultivation and further improvement. This benefit was not even confined to the countries in which they were fituated, but extended more or lefs to all thofe with which they had any dealings. To all of them they afforded a market for fome part either of their rude or manufactured produce, and confequently gave fome encouragement to the industry and improvement of all. Their own country, however, on account of its neighbourhood, neceffarily derived the greatest benefit from this market. III. BOOK Its rude produce being charged with lefs carriage, the traders could pay the growers a better price for it, and yet afford it as cheap to the confumers as that of more distant countries. Secondly, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of cities was frequently employed in purchafing fuch lands as were to be fold, of which a great part would frequently be uncultivated. Merchants are commonly ambitious of becoming country gentlemen, and when they do, they are generally the best of all improvers. A merchant is accustomed to employ his money chiefly in profitable projects; whereas a mere country gentleman is accustomed to employ it chiefly in expence. The one often fees his money go from him and return to him again with a profit: the other, when once he parts with it, very feldom expects to fee any more of it. Thofe different habits naturally affect their temper and difpofition in every fort of bufinefs. A merchant is commonly a bold; a country gentleman, a timid undertaker. The one is not afraid to lay out at once a large capital upon the improvement of his land, when he has a probable profpect of raising the value of it in proportion to the expence. The other, if he has any capital, which is not always the cafe, feldom ventures to em. ploy it in this manner. If he improves at all, it is commonly not with a capital, but with what he can fave out of his annual revenue, Whoever has had the fortune to live in a mercantile town fituated in an unimproved country, muft have frequently obferved how much more fpirited the IV. the operations of merchants were in this way, CHA P. than thofe of mere country gentlemen. The habits, befides, of order, œconomy and atten. tion, to which mercantile bufinefs naturally forms a merchant, render him much fitter to execute, with profit and fuccefs, any project of improvement. Thirdly, and lastly, commerce and manu-. factures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and fecurity of individuals, among the inhabitants of the. country, who had before lived almoft in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of fervile dependency upon their fuperiors. This, though it has been the leaft obferved, is by far the most important of all their effects. Mr. Hume is the only writer who, fo far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it. In a country which has neither foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a great proprietor, having nothing for which he can exchange the greater part of the produce of his lands which is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, confumes the whole in ruftic hospitality at home. If this furplus produce is. fufficient to maintain a hundred or a thoufand men, he can make ufe of it in no other way than by maintaining a hundred or a thousand men, He is at all times, therefore, furrounded with a multitude of retainers and dependants, who having no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being fed entirely by his bounty, muft obey him, for the fame reafon that fol |