II. COUNTRY gentlemen and farmers are, to their CHAP. great honour, of all people, the leaft fubject to the wretched fpirit of monopoly. The undertaker of a great manufactory is fometimes alarmed if another work of the fame kind is established within twenty miles of him. The Dutch undertaker of the woollen manufacture at Abbeville ftipulated, that no work of the fame kind fhould be established within thirty leagues of that city. Farmers and country gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally difpofed rather to promote than to obftruct the cultivation and improvement of their neighbours farms and eftates. They have no fecrets, fuch as thofe of the greater part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of communicating to their neighbours, and of extending as far as poffible any new practice which they have found to be advantageous. Pius Queftus, fays old Cato, ftabiliffimufque, minimeque invidiofus ; minimeque male cogitantes funt, qui in eo ftudio occupati funt. Country gentlemen and farmers, difperfed in different parts of the country, cannot fo eafily combine as merchants and manufacturers, who being collected into towns, and accustomed to that exclufive corporation fpirit which prevails in them, naturally endeavour to obtain against all their countrymen, the fame exclufive privilege which they generally poffefs against the inhabitants of their respective towns. They accordingly feem to have been the original inventors of those restraints upon the importation of foreign goods, which fecure to them the monopoly of the home-market. It was IV. BOOK was probably in imitation of them, and to put themselves upon a level with those who, they found, were difpofed to opprefs them, that the country gentlemen and farmers of Great Britain fo far forgot the generofity which is natural to their ftation, as to demand the exclufive privilege of fupplying their countrymen with corn and butcher's-meat. They did not perhaps take time to confider, how much lefs their interest could be affected by the freedom of trade, than that of the people whofe example they followed. To prohibit by a perpetual law the importation of foreign corn and cattle, is in reality to enact, that the population and industry of the country fhall at no time exceed what the rude produce of its own foil can maintain. THERE feem, however, to be two cafes in which it will generally be advantageous to lay fome burden upon foreign, for the encouragement of domestic industry. THE firft is, when fome particular fort of induftry is neceffary for the defence of the country. The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its failors and fhipping. The act of navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the failors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in fome cafes, by abfolute prohibitions, and in others by heavy burdens upon the fhipping of foreign countries. The following are the principal difpofitions of this act. II. FIRST, all fhips, of which the owners, ma- CHA P. fters, and three-fourths of the mariners are not British fubjects, are prohibited, upon pain of forfeiting ship and cargo, from trading to the British fettlements and plantations, or from being employed in the coafting trade of Great Britain. SECONDLY, a great variety of the moft bulky articles of importation can be brought into Great Britain only, either in fuch fhips as are above described, or in fhips of the country where those goods are produced, and of which the owners, mafters, and three-fourths of the mariners, are of that particular country; and when imported even in ships of this latter kind, they are fubject to double aliens duty. If imported in fhips of any other country, the penalty is forfeiture of ship and goods. When this act was made, the Dutch were, what they still are, the great carriers of Europe, and by this regulation they were entirely excluded from being the carriers to Great Britain, or from importing to us the goods of any other European country. THIRDLY, a great variety of the most bulky articles of importation are prohibited from being imported, even in British fhips, from any country but that in which they are produced; under pain of forfeiting fhip and cargo. This regulation too was probably intended against the Dutch. Holland was then, as now, the great emporium for all European goods, and by this regulation, Britifh fhips were hindered from VOL. II. O loading BOOK loading in Holland the goods of any other Euro IV. pean country. FOURTHLY, falt fish of all kinds, whale-fins, whale-bone, oil, and blubber, not caught by and cured on board British veffels, when imported into Great Britain, are fubjected to double aliens duty. The Dutch, as they are ftill the principal, were then the only fishers in Europe that attempted to fupply foreign nations with fish. By this regulation, a very heavy burden was laid upon their fupplying Great Britain. WHEN the act of navigation was made, though England and Holland were not actually at war, the most violent animofity fubfifted between the two nations. It had begun during the government of the long parliament, which first framed this act, and it broke out foon after in the Dutch wars during that of the Protector and of Charles the Second. It is not impoffible, therefore, that fome of the regulations of this famous act may have proceeded from national animofity. They are as wife, however, as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom. National animofity at that particular time aimed at the very fame object which the most deliberate wifdom would have recommended, the diminution of the naval power of Holland, the only naval power which could endanger the fecurity of England. THE act of navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can arife from it. The intereft of a nation in its commercial relations to foreign nations II. nations is, like that of a merchant with regard CHA P. to the different people with whom he deals, to buy as cheap and to fell as dear as poffible. But it will be most likely to buy cheap, when by the most perfect freedom of trade it encourages all nations to bring to it the goods which it has occafion to purchase; and, for the same reason, it will be most likely to fell dear, when its markets are thus filled with the greatest number of buyers. The act of navigation, it is true, lays no burden upon foreign fhips that come to export the produce of British industry. Even the ancient aliens duty, which used to be paid upon all goods exported as well as imported, has, by feveral fubfequent acts, been taken off from the greater part of the articles of exportation. But if foreigners, either by prohibitions or high duties, are hindered from coming to fell, they cannot always afford to come to buy; because coming without a cargo, they muft lofe the freight from their own country to Great Britain. By diminishing the number of fellers, therefore, we neceffarily diminish that of buyers, and are thus likely not only to buy foreign goods dearer, but to fell our own cheaper, than if there was a more perfect freedom of trade. As defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wifeft of all the commercial regulations of England. THE fecond cafe, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay fome burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domeftic induftry, is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the proO 2 duce, |