BOOK to beggar himself, but to impoverish his coun Though the expence of the prodigal fhould be altogether in home-made, and no part of it in foreign commodities, its effect upon the productive funds of the fociety would ftill be the fame. Every year, there would still be a certain quantity of food and clothing, which ought to have maintained productive, employed in maintaining unproductive hands. Every year, therefore, there would ftill be fome diminution in what would otherwife have been the value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country. This expence, it may be faid indeed, not be ing in foreign goods, and not occafioning any exportation of gold and filver, the fame quantity of money would remain in the country as before. But if the quantity of food and clothing, which were thus confumed by unproductive, had been diftributed among productive hands, they would have re-produced, together with a profit, the full value of their confumption. The fame quantity of money would in this cafe equally have remained in the country, and there would befides have been a reproduction of an equal value of confumable goods. There would have been two values instead of one. The fame quantity of money, befides, cannot long remain in any country in which the value of the annual produce diminishes. The fole ufe of money is to circulate confumable goods. By means of it, provifions, materials, and finifhed work, III. work, are bought and fold, and diftributed to CHA P. their proper confumers. The quantity of money, therefore, which can be annually employed in any country, must be determined by the value of the confumable goods annually circulated within it. Thefe muft confift either in the immediate produce of the land and labour of the country itself, or in fomething which had been purchased with fome part of that produce. Their value, therefore, must diminish as the value of that produce diminishes, and along with it the quantity of money which can be employed in circulating them. But the money which by this annual diminution of produce is annually thrown out of domeftic circulation, will not be allowed to lie idle. The intereft of whoever poffeffes it, requires that it should be employed. But having no employment at home, it will, in fpite of all laws and prohibitions, be fent abroad, and em ployed in purchafing confumable goods which may be of some ufe at home. Its annual exportation will in this manner continue for fome time to add fomething to the annual confumption of the country beyond the value of its own annual produce. What in the days of its profperity had been faved from that annual produce, and employed in purchafing gold and filver, will contribute for fome little time to fupport its confumption in adverfity. The exportation of gold and filver is, in this cafe, not the caufe, but the effect of its declenfion, and may even, for fome little time, alleviate the mifery of that declenfion. VOL. III. C The BOOK II. The quantity of money, on the contrary, must in every country naturally increase as the value of the annual produce increases. The value of the confumable goods annually circulated within the fociety being greater, will require a greater quantity of money to circulate them. A part of the increased produce, therefore, will naturally be employed in purchafing, wherever it is to be had, the additional quantity of gold and filver neceffary for circulating the reft. The increase of thofe metals will in this cafe be the effect, not the cause, of the public profperity. Gold and filver are purchased every where in the fame The food, clothing, and lodging, the revenue and maintenance of all thofe whofe labour or stock is employed in bringing them from the mine to the market, is the price paid for them in Peru as well as in England. The country which has this price to pay, will never be long without the quantity of those metals which it has occafion for; and no country will ever long retain a quantity which it has no occafion for. manner. 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 feems 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 benefactor. III. The effects of mifconduct are often the fame C HA P. as thofe of prodigality. Every injudicious and unfuccessful project in agriculture, mines, fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends in the fame manner to diminish the funds deftined for the maintenance of productive labour. In every fuch project, though the capital is confumed by productive hands only, yet, as by the injudicious manner in which they are employed, they do not reproduce the full value of their confumption, there must always be fome diminution in what would otherwife have been the productive funds of the fociety. It can feldom happen, indeed, that the circumftances of a great nation can be much affected either by the prodigality or misconduct of individuals; the profufion or imprudence of fome, being always more than compenfated by the frugality and good conduct of others. With regard to profufion, the principle which prompts to expence, is the paffion for prefent enjoyment; which, though fometimes violent and very difficult to be restrained, is in general only momentary and occafional. But the principle which prompts to fave, is the defire of bettering our condition, a defire which, though generally calm and difpaffionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which feparates those two moments, there is scarce perhaps a fingle instance in which any man is fo perfectly and completely fatisfied with his fituation, as to be without any wifh of alteration or improvement C 2 II. BOOK provement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propofe and wish to better their condition. It is the means the moft vulgar and the moft obvious; and the most likely way of augmenting their fortune, is to fave and accumulate fome part of what they acquire, either regularly and annually, or upon fome extraordinary occafions. Though the principle of expence, therefore, prevails in almost all men upon fome occafions, and in fome men upon almost all occafions, yet in the greater part of men, taking the whole course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality feems not only to predominate, but to predominate very greatly. With regard to mifconduct, the number of prudent and fuccessful undertakings is everywhere much greater than that of injudicious and unfuccefsful ones. After all our complaints of the frequency of bankruptcies, the unhappy men who fall into this misfortune make but a very fmall part of the whole number engaged in trade, and all other forts of bufinefs; 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 fufficiently careful to avoid it. Some, indeed, do not avoid it; as fome do not avoid the gallows. Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they fometimes are by public prodigality and mifconduct. The whole, or almost the whole, public revenue, is in moft countries |