II. BOOK country, that private perfons frequently find it more for their advantage to employ their capitals in the most distant carrying trades of Afia and America, than in the improvement and cultivation of the moft fertile fields in their own neighbourhood, I fhall endeavour to explain at full length in the two following books. III. CHAP. THE great commerce of every civilized fo- BOOK ciety, is that carried on between the inhabitants of the town and thofe of the country. It I. confifts in the exchange of rude for manufactured produce, either immediately, or by the intervention of money, or of fome fort of paper which reprefents money. The country fupplies the town with the means of fubfiftence, and the materials of manufacture. The town repays this fupply by fending back a part of the manufactured produce to the inhabitants of the country. The town, in which there neither is nor can be any reproduction of fubftances, may very properly be faid to gain its whole wealth and fubfiftence from the country. We must not, however, upon this account, imagine that the gain of the town is the lofs of the country. The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the divifion of labour is in this, as in all other cafes, advanta geous to all the different perfons employed in the various occupations into which it is BOOK tutions had never thwarted thofe natural inclina. III. tions, the towns could no where have increased beyond what the improvement and cultivation of the territory in which they were fituated could fupport; till fuch time at leaft, as the whole of that territory was completely cultivated and improved. Upon equal, or nearly equal profits, moft men will chufe to employ their capitals rather in the improvement and cultivation of land, than either in manufactures or in foreign trade. The man who employs his capital in land, has it more under his view and command, and his fortune is much lefs liable to accidents than that of the trader, who is obliged frequently to commit it, not only to the winds and the waves, but to the more uncertain elements of human folly and injustice, by giving great credits in diftant countries to men, with whofe character and fituation he can feldom be thoroughly acquainted. The capital of the landlord, on the contrary, which is fixed in the improvement of his land, feems to be as well fecured as the nature of human affairs can admit of. The beauty of the country befides, the pleasures of a country life, the tranquillity of mind which it promises, and wherever the injuftice of human laws does not disturb it, the independency which it really affords, have charms that more or less attract every body; and as to cultivate the ground was the original deftination of man, fo in every stage of his existence he feems to retain a predilection for this primitive employment. Without I. Without the affiftance of fome artificers, in- CHAP. deed, the cultivation of land cannot be carried on, but with great inconveniency and continual interruption. Smiths, carpenters, wheel-wrights, and plough-wrights, mafons, and bricklayers, tanners, fhoemakers, and taylors, are people whofe fervice the farmer has frequent occafion for. Such artificers, too, ftand occafionally in need of the affiftance of one another; and as their refidence is not, like that of the farmer, neceffarily tied down to a precise spot, they naturally fettle in the neighbourhood of one another, and thus form a fmall town or village. The butcher, the brewer, and the baker, foon join them, together with many other artificers and retailers, neceffary or useful for fupplying their occafional wants, and who contribute still further to augment the town. The inhabitants of the town and those of the country are mutually the fervants of one another. The town is a continual fair or market, to which the inhabitants of the country refort, in order to exchange their rude for manufactured produce. It is this commerce which fupplies the inhabitants of the town both with the materials of their work, and the means of their fubfiftence. The quantity of the finished work which they fell to the inhabitants of the country, neceffarily regulates the quantity of the materials and provifions which they buy. Neither their employment nor fubfiftence, therefore, can augment, but in proportion to the augmentation of the demand from the country for finished work; and this demand can augment only III. BOOK only in proportion to the extenfion of improvement and cultivation. Had human inftitutions, therefore, never disturbed the natural courfe of things, the progreffive wealth and increafe 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 still to be had upon eafy terms, no manufacturers for diftant fale have ever yet been established in any of their towns. When an artificer has acquired a little more flock than is 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 distant fale, but employs it in the purchafe and improvement of uncultivated land. From artificer he becomes planter, and neither the large wages nor the eafy 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 cuftomers, from whom he derives his fubfiftence; but that a planter who cultivates his own land, and derives his neceffary fubfiftence from the labour of his own family, is really a mafter, 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 flock than he can employ in the occafional jobs of the neighbourhood, endeavours to prepare |