of disturbing the peace of the country. Having fold their birth-right, not like Efau for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and neceffity, but in the wantonnefs of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the play-things of children than the serious purfuits of men, they became as infignificant as any fubftantial burgher or tradefman in a city. A regular government was established in the country as well as in the city, nobody having fufficient power to disturb its operations in the one, any more than in the other.

mon.

Ir does not, perhaps, relate to the present fubject, but I cannot help remarking it, that very old families, fuch as have poffeffed fome confiderable eftate from father to fon for many fucceffive generations, are very rare in commercial countries. In countries which have little commerce, on the contrary, fuch as Wales or the highlands of Scotland, they are very comThe Arabian hiftories feem to be all full of genealogies, and there is a history written by a Tartar Khan, which has been tranflated into feveral European languages, and which contains fcarce any thing else; a proof that ancient families are very common among thofe nations. In countries where a rich man can spend his revenue in no other way than by maintaining as many people as it can maintain, he is not apt to run out, and his benevolence it feems is feldom fo violent as to attempt to maintain more than he can afford. But where he can spend the greatest revenue upon his own perfon, he frequently has VOL. II.

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CHA P.

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BOOK no bounds to his expence, because he frequently III. has no bounds to his vanity, or to his affection

for his own perfon. In commercial countries, therefore, riches, in fpite of the most violent regulations of law to prevent their diffipation, very feldom remain long in the fame family. Among fimple nations, on the contrary, they frequently do without any regulations of law; for among nations of fhepherds, fuch as the Tartars and Arabs, the confumable nature of their property neceffarily renders all fuch regulations impoffible.

A REVOLUTION of the greatest importance to the public happiness, was in this manner 'brought about by two different orders of people, who had not the leaft intention to serve the public. To gratify the moft childish vanity was the fole motive of the great proprietors. The merchants and artificers, much less ridiculous, acted merely from a view to their own intereft, and in pursuit of their own pedlar principle of turning a penny wherever a penny was to be got. Neither of them had either knowledge or forefight of that great revolution which the folly of the one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringing about.

Ir is thus that through the greater part of Europe the commerce and manufactures of cities, inftead of being the effect, have been the cause and occafion of the improvement and cultivation of the country.

THIS order, however, being contrary to the natural course of things, is neceffarily both flow and uncertain. Compare the flow progress of

those

IV.

thofe European countries of which the wealth CHAP. depends very much upon their commerce and manufactures, with the rapid advances of our North American colonies, of which the wealth is founded altogether in agriculture. Through the greater part of Europe, the number of inhabitants is not fuppofed to double in less than five hundred years. In feveral of our North American colonies, it is found to double in twenty or five-and-twenty years. In Europe, the law of primogeniture, and perpetuities of different kinds, prevent the division of great estates, and thereby hinder the multiplication of small proprietors. A fmall proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, who views it with all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally infpires, and who upon that account takes pleasure not only in cultivating but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most induftrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful. The fame regulations, befides, keep fo much land out of the market, that there are always more capitals to buy than there is land to fell, fo that what is fold always fells at a monopoly price. The rent never pays the intereft of the purchase-money, and is befides burdened with repairs and other occafional charges, to which the intereft of money is not liable. To purchase land is every-where in Europe a most unprofitable employment of a fmall capital. For the fake of the fuperior fecurity, indeed, a man of moderate circumstances, when he retires from bufinefs, will fometimes chufe

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BOOK chufe to lay out his little capital in land. A man of profeffion too, whofe revenue is derived from another fource, often loves to fecure his favings in the fame way. But a young man, who, inftead of applying to trade or to fome profeffion, fhould employ a capital of two or three thousand pounds in the purchase and cultivation of a small piece of land, might indeed expect to live very happily, and very independently, but must bid adieu, for ever, to all hope of either great fortune or great illuftration, which by a different employment of his stock he might have had the fame chance of acquiring with other people. Such a perfon too, though he cannot aspire at being a proprietor, will often difdain to be a farmer. The fmall quantity of land, therefore, which is brought to market, and the high price of what is brought thither, prevents a great number of capitals from being employed in its cultivation and improvement which would otherwife have taken that direction. In North America, on the contrary, fifty or fixty pounds is often found a fufficient ftock to begin a plantation with. The purchase and improvement of uncultivated land, is there the moft profitable employment of the fmalleft as well as of the greateft capitals, and the moft direct road to all the fortune and illuftration which can be acquired in that country. Such land, indeed, is in North America to be had almoft for nothing, or at a price much below the value of the natural produce; a thing impoffible in Europe, or, indeed, in any country where all lands have long been private

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IV.

private property. If landed eftates, however, CHA P. were divided equally among all the children, upon the death of any proprietor who left a numerous family, the eftate would generally be fold. So much land would come to market, that it could no longer fell at a monopoly price. The free rent of the land would go nearer to pay the intereft of the purchase-money, and a small capital might be employed in purchafing land as profitably as in any other way.

ENGLAND, on account of the natural fertility of the foil, of the great extent of the fea-coaft in proportion to that of the whole country, and of the many navigable rivers which run through it, and afford the conveniency of water carriage to some of the most inland parts of it, is perhaps as well fitted by nature as any large country in Europe, to be the feat of foreign commerce, of manufactures for diftant fale, and of all the im provements which thefe can occafion. From the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth too, the English legislature has been peculiarly attentive to the interefts of commerce and manufactures, and in reality there is no country in Europe, Holland itself not excepted, of which the law is, upon the whole, more favourable to this fort of industry. Commerce and manufactures have accordingly been continually advancing during all this period. The cultivation and improvement of the country has, no doubt, been gradually advancing too: But it feems to have followed flowly, and at a distance, the more rapid progrefs of commerce and manufactures. The greater

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part