III.

make a more proper diftribution of employment C HAP. among them. When the work to be done confifts of a number of parts, to keep every man conftantly employed in one way, requires a much greater capital than where every man is occafionally employed in every different part of the work. When we compare, therefore, the ftate of a nation at two different periods, and find, that the annual produce of its land and labour is evidently greater at the latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactures more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade. more extensive, we may be affired that its capital must have increafed during the interval between those two periods, and that more muft have been added to it by the good conduct of fome, than had been taken from it either by the private mifconduct of others, or by the public extravagance of government. But we fhall find this to have been the cafe of almost all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of thofe who have not enjoyed the moft prudent and parfimonious governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the ftate of the country at periods fomewhat diftant from one another. The progrefs is frequently fo gradual, that, at near periods, the improvement is not only not fenfible, but from the declenfion either of certain branches of industry, or of certain diftricts of the country, things which fometimes happen though the country in general be in great profperity, there frequently arifes a fufpicion

BOOK fufpicion, that the riches and industry of the whole are decaying.

II.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, for example, is certainly much greater than it was, a little more than a century ago, at the restoration of Charles II. Though, at prefent, few people, I believe, doubt of this, yet during this period, five years have feldom paffed away in which fome book or pamphlet has not been published, written too with fuch abilities as to gain fome authority with the public, and pretending to demonftrate that the wealth of the nation was faft declining, that the country was depopulated, agriculture neglected, manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have these publications been all party pamphlets, the wretched offspring of falfehood and venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very intelligent people; who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no other reason but because they believed it.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England again, was certainly much greater at the restoration, than we can fuppofe it to have been about an hundred years before, at the acceffion of Elizabeth. At this period too, we have all reafon to believe, the country was much more advanced in improvement, than it had been about a century berore, towards the clofe of the diffenfions between the houfes of York and Lancaster. Even then it was, probably, in a better condition than it had been at the Norman conqueft, and at the Norman conqueft, than during the confufion

of

III.

of the Saxon Heptarchy. Even at this early CHA P. period, it was certainly a more improved country than at the invafion of Julius Cæfar, when its inhabitants were nearly in the fame ftate with the favages in North America.

In each of thofe periods, however, there was, not only much private and public profufion, many expenfive and unneceffary wars, great perverfion of the annual produce from maintaining productive to maintain unproductive hands; but fometimes, in the confufion of civil difcord, fuch · abfolute waste and deftruction of flock, as might be fuppofed, not only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural accumulation of riches, but to have left the country, at the end of the period, poorer than at the beginning. Thus, in the happieft and moft fortunate period of them all, that which has paffed fince the restoration, how many diforders and misfortunes have occurred, which, could they have been foreseen, not only the impoverishment, but the total ruin of the country would have been expected from them? The fire and the plague of London, the two Dutch wars, the disorders of the revolution, the war in Ireland, the four expenfive French wars of 1688, 1702, 1742, and 1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the courfe of the four French wars, the nation has contracted more than a hundred and forty-five millions of debt, over and above all the other extraordinary annual expence which they occafioned, fo that the whole cannot be computed at lefs than two hundred millions. So great a fhare of the annual

produce

BOOK produce of the land and labour of the country, II. has, fince the revolution, been employed upon

different occafions, in maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive hands. But had not those wars given this particular direction to fo large a capital, the greater part of it would naturally have been employed in maintaining productive hands, whofe labour would have replaced, with a profit, the whole value of their confumption. The value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, would have been confiderably increased by it every year, and every year's increafe would have augmented ftill more that of the following year. More houfes would have been built, more lands would have been improved, and those which had been improved before would have been better cultivated, more manufactures would have been established, and thofe which had been established before would have been more extended; and to what height the real wealth and revenue of the country might, by this time, have been raifed, it is not perhaps very eafy even to imagine.

But though the profufion of government muft, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progrefs of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to ftop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is, undoubtedly, much greater at prefent than it was either at the restoration or at the revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewife be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions

III.

exactions of government, this capital has been c H À P. filently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their univerfal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progrefs of England towards opulence and improvement in almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do fo in all future times. England, however, as it has never been bleffed with a very parfimonious government, fo parfimony has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the higheft impertinence and prefumption, therefore, in kings and minifters, to pretend to watch over the œconomy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by fumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest fpendthrifts in the fociety. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may fafely truft private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the ftate, that of their fubjects never will.

As frugality increases, and prodigality diminishes the public capital, fo the conduct of thofe whofe expence juft equals their revenue, without either accumulating or encroaching, neither increafes nor diminishes it. Some modes of expence, however, feem to contribute more to the growth of public opulence than others.

The