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mentioned were fit for foreign fale. The extenfion and improvement of thefe last could not take place but in confequence of the extension and improvement of agriculture, the laft and greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it, and which I fhall now proceed to explain.

CHAP.
III.

CHA P. IV.

How the Commerce of the Towns contributed to the
Improvement of the Country.

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HE increase and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns, contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the countries to which they belonged, in three different ways.

FIRST, 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.

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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 diftant countries.

SECONDLY, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of cities was frequently employed in pur chafing 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 accuftomed 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 business. 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 raifing 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 employ 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, must have frequently obferved how much more fpirited

the

IV.

the operations of merchants were in this way, CHAP. than thofe of mere country gentlemen. The habits, befides, of order, œconomy and attention, to which mercantile business naturally forms a merchant, render him much fitter to execute, with profit and fuccefs, any project of improvement.

THIRDLY, and laftly, commerce and manufactures 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 almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of fervile dependency upon their superiors. This, though it has been the least observed, 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 thousand men, he can make use of it in no other way than by maintaining a hundred or a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore, surrounded 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, must obey him, for the fame reason that folI 4 diers

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BOOK diers must obey the prince who pays them. Before the extenfion of commerce and manufactures in Europe, the hofpitality of the rich and the great, from the fovereign down to the finalleft baron, exceeded every thing which in the prefent times we can easily form a notion of. Weftminster hall was the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps, not be too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas Becket, that he ftrowed the floor of his hall with clean hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and fquires, who could not get feats, might not spoil their fine cloths when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great earl of Warwick is faid to have entertained every day at his different manors, thirty thousand people; and though the number here may have been exaggerated, it muft, however, have been very great to admit of fuch exaggeration. A hofpitality nearly of the fame kind was exercifed not many years ago in many different parts of the highlands of Scotland. It feems to be common in ali nations to whom commerce and manufactures are little known. I have feen, fays Doctor Pocock, an Arabian chief dine in the ftreets of a town where. he had come to fell his cattle, and invite all paffengers, even common beggars, to fit down with him and partake of his banquet.

THE Occupiers of land were in every respect as dependent upon the great proprietor as his retainers. Even fuch of them as were not in a ftate of villanage, were tenants at will, who paid

a rent

IV.

a rent in no respect equivalent to the fubfiftence CHAP. which the land afforded them. A crown, half a crown, a fheep, a lamb, was fome years ago in the highlands of Scotland a common rent for lands which maintained a family. In fome places it is fo at this day; nor will money at prefent. purchase a greater quantity of commodities there than in other places. In a country where the furplus produce of a large eftate must be confumed upon the estate itself, it will frequently be more convenient for the proprietor, that part of it be confumed at a diftance from his own house, provided they who confume it are as dependent upon him as either his retainers or his menial, fervants. He is thereby faved from the embarraffment of either too large a company or too large a family. A tenant at will, who poffeffes land fufficient to maintain his family for little more than a quit-rent, is as dependent upon the proprietor as any fervant or retainer whatever, and must obey him with as little referve. Such a proprietor, as he feeds his fervants and retainers at his own houfe, fo he feeds his tenants at their houses. The fubfiftence of both is derived from his bounty, and its continuance depends upon his good pleasure.

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UPON the authority which the great proprietors neceffarily had in such a state of things over their tenants and retainers, was founded the power of the ancient barons. They neceffarily became the judges in peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their eftates. They could maintain order and execute the law within their

respective

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