contribute, for some little time, to support its consumption in adversity. The exportation of gold and silver is, in this case, not the cause, but the effect of its declension, and may even, for some little time, alleviate the misery of that declension.

desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though generally calm and dispassion. ate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments, there is scarce, perhaps, a single inThe quantity of money, on the contrary, stance, in which any man is so perfectly and must in every country naturally increase as completely satisfied with his situation, as to be the value of the annual produce increases. without any wish of alteration or improve The value of the consumable goods annually ment of any kind. An augmentation of forcirculated within the society being greater, tune is the means by which the greater part will require a greater quantity of money to cir- of men propose and wish to better their conculate them. A part of the increased produce, dition. It is the means the most vulgar and therefore, will naturally be employed in pur- the most obvious; and the most likely way of chasing, wherever it is to be had, the additional | augmenting their fortune, is to save and accuquantity of gold and silver necessary for cir- mulate some part of what they acquire, either culating the rest. The increase of those me- regularly and annually, or upon some extratals will, in this case, be the effect, not the ordinary occasion. Though the principle of cause, of the public prosperity. Gold and sil- | expense, therefore, prevails in almost all men ver are purchased everywhere in the same upon some occasions, and in some men upon manner. The food, clothing, and lodging, the almost all occasions; yet in the greater part of revenue and maintenance, of all those whose men, taking the whole course of their life at labour or stock is employed in bringing them an average, the principle of frugality seems from the mine to the market, is the price paid not only to predominate, but to predominate for them in Peru as well as in England. The very greatly. country which has this price to pay, will never be long without the quantity of those metals which it has occasion for; and no country will ever long retain a quantity which it has no occasion for.

Whatever, therefore, we may imagine the real wealth and revenue of a country to consist in, whether in the value of the annual produce of its land and labour, as plain reason seems to dictate, or in the quantity of the precious metals which circulate within it, as vulgar prejudices suppose; in either view of the matter, every prodigal appears to be a public enemy, and every frugal man a public benefac

tor.

With regard to misconduct, the number of prudent and successful undertakings is everywhere much greater than that of injudicious and unsuccessful ones. After all our complaints of the frequency of bankruptcies, the unhappy men who fall into this misfortune, make but a very small part of the whole number engaged in trade, and all other sorts of business; not much more, perhaps, than one in a thousand. Bankruptcy is, perhaps, the greatest and most humiliating calamity which can befal an innocent man. The greater part of men, therefore, are sufficiently careful to avoid it. Some, indeed, do not avoid it; as some do not avoid the gallows.

The effects of misconduct are often the Great nations are never impoverished by same as those of prodigality. Every injudi- private, though they sometimes are by public cious and unsuccessful project in agriculture, prodigality and misconduct. The whole, or mines, fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends almost the whole public revenue is, in most in the same manner to diminish the funds des- countries, employed in maintaining unproductined for the maintenance of productive labour. tive hands. Such are the people who compose In every such project, though the capital is a numerous and splendid court, a great eccleconsumed by productive hands only, yet as, siastical establishment, great fleets and armies, by the injudicious manner in which they are who in time of peace produce nothing, and in employed, they do not reproduce the full va- time of war acquire nothing which can comlue of their consumption, there must always pensate the expense of maintaining them, even be some diminution in what would otherwise while the war lasts. Such people, as they have been the productive funds of the society. themselves produce nothing, are all maintainIt can seldom happen, indeed, that the cir-ed by the produce of other men's labour. cumstances of a great nation can be much af- When multiplied, therefore, to an unnecessary fected either by the prodigality or misconduct number, they may in a particular year conof individuals; the profusion or imprudence sume so great a share of this produce, as not of some being always more than compensated to leave a sufficiency for maintaining the proby the frugality and good conduct of others. ductive labourers, who should reproduce it With regard to profusion, the principle which prompts to expense is the passion for present enjoyment; which, though sometimes violent and very difficult to be restrained, is in general only momentary and occasional. But the principle which prompts to save, is the

next year. The next year's produce, therefore, will be less than that of the foregoing; and if the same disorder should coninue, that of the third year will be still less than that of the second. Those unproductive hands who should be maintained by a part only of the

spare revenue of the people, may consume so the private misconduct of others, or by the great a share of their whole revenue, and there- publie extravagance of government. But we by oblige so great a number to encroach upon shall find this to have been the case of almost their capitals, upon the funds destined for the all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peacemaintenance of productive labour, that all the able times, even of those who have not enjoyed frugality and good conduct of individuals may the most prudent and parsimonious govern not be able to compensate the waste and de-ments. To form a right judgment of it, ingradation of produce occasioned by this vio-deed, we must compare the state of the counlent and forced encroachment. try at periods somewhat distant from one ano

This frugality and good conduct, however, ther. The progress is frequently so gradual, is, upon most occasions, it appears from expe- that, at near periods, the improvement is not rience, sufficient to compensate, not only the only not sensible, but, from the declension eiprivate prodigality and misconduct of indivi- ther of certain branches of industry, or of cerduals, but the public extravagance of govern- tain districts of the country, things which ment. The uniform, constant, and uninter-sometimes happen, though the country in gerupted effort of every man to better his condi- neral is in great prosperity, there frequently tion, the principle from which public and na- arises a suspicion, that the riches and industry tional, as well as private opulence is original- of the whole are decaying.

ly derived, is frequently powerful enough to The annual produce of the land and labour maintain the natural progress of things to- of England, for example, is certainly much wards improvement, in spite both of the ex-greater than it was a little more than a centravagance of government, and of the greatest tury ago, at the restoration of Charles II. errors of administration. Like the unknown Though at present few people, I believe, principle of animal life, it frequently restores nealth and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the discase, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.

doubt of this, yet during this period five years have seldom passed away, in which some book or pamphlet has not been published, written, too, with such abilities as to gain some authority with the public, and pretending to demonstrate that the wealth of the nation was fast 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 falsehood 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 suppose it

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never De much increased, but in consequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence either of some addition and improvement to those machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labour, or of more proper division and distri- to have been about a hundred years before, at bution of employment. In either case, an ad- the accession of Elizabeth. At this period, ditional capital is almost always required. It too, we have all reason to believe, the country is by means of an additional capital only, that was much more advanced in improvement, the undertaker of any work can either provide than it had been about a century before, tohis workmen with better machinery, or make wards the close of the dissensions between the a more proper distribution of employment houses of York and Lancaster. Even then it among them. When the work to be done was, probably, in a better condition than it consists of a number of parts, to keep every had been at the Norman conquest; and at the man constantly employed in one way, requires Norman conquest, than during the confusion a much greater capital than where every man of the Saxon heptarchy. Even at this early is occasionally employed in every different period, it was certainly a more improved counpart of the work. When we compare, there- try than at the invasion of Julius Cæsar, when fore, the state of a nation at two different pe- its inhabitants were nearly in the same state riods, and find that the annual produce of its with the savages in North America. land and labour is evidently greater at the lat- In each of those periods, however, there ter than at the former, that its lands are better was not only much private and public profucultivated, its manufactures more numerous sion, many expensive and unnecessary wars, and more flourishing, and its trade more ex-great perversion of the annual produce from tensive; we may be assured that its capital maintaining productive to maintain unproducmust have increased during the interval be- tive hands; but sometimes, in the confusion tween those two periods, and that more must of civil discord, such absolute waste and dehave been added to it by the good conduct of struction of stock, as might be supposed, not some, than had been taken from it either by only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural

and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state. that of the subject never will.

As frugality increases, and prodigality diminishes, the public capital, so the conduct of those whose expense just equals their revenue, without either accumulating or encroaching, neither increases nor diminishes it. Some modes of expense, however, seem to contribute more to the growth of public opulence than others.

accumulation of riches, but to have left the | ment in almost all former times, and which, country, at the end of the period, poorer than it is to be hoped, will do so in all future at the beginning. Thus, in the happiest and times. England, however, as it has never most fortunate period of them all, that which been blessed with a very parsimonious gohas passed since the Restoration, how many vernment, so parsimony has at no time been disorders and misfortunes have occurred, the characteristic virtue of its inhabitants. It which, could they have been foreseen, not only is the highest impertinence and presumption, the impoverishment, but the total ruin of the therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to country would have been expected from them? | watch over the economy of private people, The fire and the plague of London, the two Dutch wars, the disorders of the revolution, the war in Ireland, the four expensive French wars of 1688, 1701, 1742, and 1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the course of the four French wars, the nation has contracted more than L. 145,000,000 of debt, over and above all the other extraordinary annual expense which they occasioned; so that the whole cannot be computed at less than L. 200,000,000. So great a share of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, has, since the Revolution, been employed upon different occasions, in maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive hands. But had not those wars given this particular direction to so large a capital, the greater part of it would naturally have been The revenue of an individual may be spent, employed in maintaining productive hands, either in things which are consumed immediwhose labour would have replaced, with a pro- ately, and in which one day's expense can nei fit, the whole value of their consumption. The ther alleviate nor support that of another; or it value of the annual produce of the land and may be spent in things more durable, which labour of the country would have been consi- can therefore be accumulated, and in which derably increased by it every year, and every every day's expense may, as he chooses, either years increase would have augmented still alleviate, or support and heighten, the effect more that of the following year. More houses of that of the following day. A man of forwould have been built, more lands would have tune, for example, may either spend his revebeen improved, and those which had been im- nue in a profuse and sumptuous table, and in proved before would have been better culti-maintaining a great number of menial ser vated; more manufactures would have been vants, and a multitude of dogs and horses; established, and those which had been estab-or, contenting himself with a frugal table, lished before would have been more extended; and few attendants, he may lay out the greatand to what height the real wealth and revenue of the country might by this time have been raised, it is not perhaps very easy even to imagine.

er part of it in adorning his house or his country villa, in useful or ornamental buildings, in useful or ornamental furniture, in collecting books, statues, pictures; or in things more But though the profusion of government frivolous, jewels, baubles, ingenious trinkets must undoubtedly have retarded the natural of different kinds; or, what is most trifling progress of England towards wealth and im- of all, in amassing a great wardrobe of fine provement, it has not been able to stop it. clothes, like the favourite and minister of a The annual produce of its land and labour is great prince who died a few years ago. Were undoubtedly much greater at present than it two men of equal fortune to spend their revewas either at the Restoratica or at the Revo-nue, the one chiefly in the one way, the other lution. The capital, therefore, annually em- in the other, the magnificence of the person ployed in cultivating this land, and in main- whose expense had been chiefly in durable taining this labour, must likewise be much commodities, would be continually increasing, greater. In the midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their universal, 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 progress of England towards opulence and improve

every day's expense contributing something to support and heighten the effect of that of the following day; that of the other, on the contrary, would be no greater at the end of the period than at the beginning. The former too would, at the end of the period, be the richer man of the two. He would have a stock of goods of some kind or other, which, though it might not be worth all that it cost, would always be worth something. No trace

or vestige of the expense of the latter would posed to imply some acknowledgment of preremain, and the effects of ten or twenty years' profusion would be as completely annihilated as if they had never existed.

ceding bad conduct. Few, therefore, of those who have once been so unfortunate as to launch out too far into this sort of expense, have afterwards the courage to reform, till ruin and bankruptcy oblige them. But if a person has, at any time, been at too great an expense in building, in furniture, in books, or pictures, no imprudence can be inferred from his changing his conduct. These are things in which further expense is frequently rendered unnecessary by former expense; and when a person stops short, he appears to do so, not because he has exceeded his fortune, but because he has satisfied his fancy.

As the one mode of expense is more favour. able than the other to the opulence of an individual, so is it likewise to that of a nation. The houses, the furniture, the clothing of the rich, in a little time, become useful to the inferior and middling ranks of people. They are able to purchase them when their superiors grow weary of them; and the general accommodation of the whole people is thus gradually improved, when this mode of expense becomes universal among men of fortune. In countries which have long been rich, you will The expense, besides, that is laid out in frequently find the inferior ranks of people in durable commodities, gives maintenance, compossession both of houses and furniture per-monly, to a greater number of people than fectly good and entire, but of which neither that which is employed in the most profuse the one could have been built, nor the other hospitality. Of two or three hundred weight have been made for their use. What was for- of provisions, which may sometimes be served merly a seat of the family of Seymour, is now up at a great festival, one half, perhaps, is an inn upon the Bath road. The marriage-thrown to the dunghill, and there is always a bed of James I. of Great Britain, which his great deal wasted and abused. But if the exqueen brought with her from Denmark, as a pense of this entertainment had been employed present fit for a sovereign to make to a sove-in setting to work masons, carpenters, upholreign, was, a few years ago, the ornament of sterers, mechanics, &c. a quantity of provisions an alehouse at Dunfermline. In some an- of equal value would have been distributed cient cities, which either have been long sta-among a still greater number of people, who tionary, or have gone somewhat to decay, you will sometimes scarce find a single house which could have been built for its present inhabitants. If you go into those houses, too, you will frequently find many excellent, though antiquated pieces of furniture, which are still very fit for use, and which could as little have been made for them. Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collections of books, statues, pictures, and other curiosities, I would not, however, by all this, be unare frequently both an ornament and an hon-derstood to mean, that the one species of exour, not only to the neighbourhood, but to pense always betokens a more liberal or genethe whole country to which they belong. Ver-rous spirit than the other. When a man of sailles is an ornament and an honour to France, fortune spends his revenue chiefly in hospitaStowe and Wilton to England. Italy still continues to command some sort of veneration, by the number of monuments of this kind which it possesses, though the wealth which produced them has decayed, and though the genius which planned them seems to be extinguished, perhaps from not having the same employment.

would have bought them in pennyworths and pound weights, and not have lost or thrown away a single ounce of them. In the one way, besides, this expense maintains productive, in the other unproductive hands. In the one way, therefore, it increases, in the other it does not increase the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country.

lity, he shares the greater part of it with his friends and companions; but when he employs it in purchasing such durable commo dities, he often spends the whole upon his own person, and gives nothing to any body without an equivalent. The latter species of expense, therefore, especially when directed towards frivolous objects, the little ornaments The expense, too, which is laid out in dur- of dress and furniture, jewels, trinkets, gewable commodities, is favourable not only to gaws, frequently indicates, not only a trifling, accumulation, but to frugality. If a person but a base and selfish disposition. All that I should at any time exceed in it, he can easily mean is, that the one sort of expense, as it reform without exposing himself to the cen- always occasions some accumulation of valusure of the public. To reduce very much the able commodities, as it is more favourable to number of his servants, to reform his table private frugality, and, consequently, to the infrom great profusion to great frugality, to lay crease of the public capital, and as it maindown his equipage after he has once set it up, tains productive rather than unproductive are changes which cannot escape the observa- hands, conduces more than the other to the tion of his neighbours, and which are sup-growth of public opulence.

CHAP. IV.

OF STOCK LENT AT INTEREST.

borrow at interest, in order to pay the debt. The capital borrowed replaces the capitals of those shop-keepers and tradesmen which the country gentlemen could not have replaced from the rents of their estates. It is not properly borrowed in order to be spent, but in order to replace a capital which had been spent before.

THE stock which is lent at interest is always considered as a capital by the lender. He expects that in due time it is to be restored to Almost all loans at interest are made in him, and that, in the mean time, the borrower money, either of paper, or of gold and silver; is to pay him a certain annual rent for the use but what the borrower really wants, and what of it. The borrower may use it either as a the lender readily supplies him with, is not capital, or as a stock reserved for immediate the money, but the money's worth, or the consumption. If he uses it as a capital, he goods which it can purchase. If he wants it employs it in the maintenance of productive as a stock for immediate consumption, it is labourers, who reproduce the value, with a those goods only which he can place in that profit. He can, in this case, both restore the stock. If he wants it as a capital for employcapital, and pay the interest, without alienat- ing industry, it is from those goods only that ing or encroaching upon any other source of the industrious can be furnished with the tools, revenue. If he uses it as a stock reserved for materials, and maintenance necessary for carimmediate consumption, he acts the part of a rying on their work. By means of the loan, prodigal, and dissipates, in the maintenance the lender, as it were, assigns to the borrower of the idle, what was destined for the support his right to a certain portion of the annual of the industrious. He can, in this case, nei-produce of the land and labour of the counther restore the capital nor pay the interest, try, to be employed as the borrower pleases. without either alienating or encroaching upon some other source of revenue, such as the property or the rent of land.

The quantity of stock, therefore, or, as it is commonly expressed, of money, which can be lent at interest in any country, is not reguThe stock which is lent at interest is, no lated by the value of the money, whether padoubt, occasionally employed in both these per or coin, which serves as the instrument ways, but in the former much more frequently of the different loans made in that country, than in the latter. The man who borrows in but by the value of that part of the annual order to spend will soon be ruined, and he produce, which, as soon as it comes either from who lends to him will generally have occasion the ground, or from the hands of the producto repent of his folly. To borrow or to lend tive labourers, is destined, not only for refor such a purpose, therefore, is, in all cases, placing a capital, but such a capital as the where gross usury is out of the question, con- owner does not care to be at the trouble of trary to the interest of both parties; and employing himself. As such capitals are comthough it no doubt happens sometimes, that monly lent out and paid back in money, they people do both the one and the other, yet, constitute what is called the monied interest. from the regard that all men have for their It is distinct, not only from the landed, but own interest, we may be assured, that it cannot from the trading and manufacturing interests, happen so very frequently as we are sometimes as in these last the owners themselves employ apt to imagine. Ask any rich man of com- their own capitals. Even in the monied inmon prudence, to which of the two sorts of terest, however, the money is, as it were, but people he has lent the greater part of his stock, the deed of assignment, which conveys from to those who he thinks will employ it profit one hand to another those capitals which the ably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he owners do not care to employ themselves. will laugh at you for proposing the question. Those capitals may be greater, in almost any Even among borrowers, therefore, not the proportion, than the amount of the money people in the world most famous for fruga- which serves as the instrument of their conlity, the number of the frugal and industrious veyance; the same pieces of money successurpasses considerably that of the prodigal sively serving for many different loans, as well and idle. as for many different purchases. A, for exThe only people to whom stock is commonly ample, lends to W L. 1000, with which W lent, without their being expected to make any immediately purchases of B L. 1000 worth of very profitable use of it, are country gentle-goods. B having no occasion for the money men, who borrow upon mortgage. Even they himself, lends the identical pieces to X, with scarce ever borrow merely to spend. What which X immediately purchases of C another they borrow, one may say, is commonly spent L. 1000 worth of goods. C, in the same manbefore they borrow it. They have generally ner, and for the same reason, lends them to consumed so great a quantity of goods, ad- Y, who again purchases goods with them of vanced to them upon credit by shop-keepers D. In this manner, the same pieces, either and tradesmen, that they find it necessary to of coin or of paper, may, in the course of a