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withal to buy tobacco will never be long in want CHA P. of it, fo neither will one be long in want of gold and filver which has wherewithal to purchase thofe metals.

It is a lofing trade, it is faid, which a workman carries on with the alehouse; and the trade which a manufacturing nation would naturally carry on with a wine country, may be confidered as a trade of the fame nature. I anfwer, that the trade with the alehoufe is not neceffarily a lofing trade. In its own nature it is juft as advantageous as any other, though, perhaps, fomewhat more liable to be abufed. The employment of a brewer, and even that of a retailer of fermented liquors, are as neceffary divifions of labour as any other. It will generally be more advantageous for a workman to buy of the brewer the quantity he has occafion for, than to brew it himself, and if he is a poor workman, it will generally be more advantageous for him to buy it, by little and little, of the retailer, than a large quantity of the brewer. He may no doubt buy too much of either, as he may of any other dealers in his neighbourhood, of the butcher, if he is a glutton, or of the draper, if he affects to be a beau among his companions. It is advantageous to the great body of workmen, notwithftanding, that all these trades fhould be free, though this freedom may be abused in all of them, and is more likely to be fo, perhaps, in fome than in others. Though individuals, befides, may fometimes ruin their fortunes by an exceffive confumption of fermented liquors, there feems

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BOOK feems to be no risk that a nation fhould do fo Though in every country there are many people who spend upon fuch liquors more than they can afford, there are always many more who spend lefs. It deferves to be remarked too, that, if we confult experience, the cheapnefs of wine feems to be a caufe, not of drunkennefs, but of fobriety. The inhabitants of the wine countries are in general the fobereft people in Europe; witnefs the Spaniards, the Italians, and the inhabitants of the fouthern provinces of France. People are feldom guilty of excefs in what is their daily fare. Nobody affects the character of liberality and good fellowship, by being profufe of a liquor which is as cheap as finall beer. On the contrary, in the countries which, either from exceffive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine confequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice, as among the northern nations, and all thofe who live between the tropics, the negroes, for example, on the coaft of Guinea. When a French regiment comes from fome of the northern provinces of France, where wine is fomewhat dear, to be quartered in the fouthern, where it is very cheap, the foldiers, I have frequently heard it observed, are at firft debauched by the cheapness and novelty of good wine; but after a few months refidence, the greater part of them become as fober as the reft of the inhabitants. Were the duties upon foreign wines, and the excifes upon malt, beer, and ale, to be taken away all at once, it might, in the fame manner, occafion in Great Britain

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Britain a pretty general and temporary drunk- CHA P. ennefs among the middling and inferior ranks of people, which would probably be foon followed by a permanent and almost universal fobriety. At prefent drunkenness is by no means the vice of people of fashion, or of those who can eafily afford the most expenfive liquors. A gentleman drunk with ale, has fcarce ever been seen among us. The restraints upon the wine trade in Great Britain, befides, do not fo much feem calculated to hinder the people from going, if I may fay fo, to the alehoufe, as from going where they can buy the best and cheapest liquor. They favour the wine trade of Portugal, and difcourage that of France. The Portuguefe, it is faid, indeed, are better customers for our manufactures than the French, and fhould therefore be encouraged in preference to them. As they give us their custom, it is pretended, we should give them ours. The fneaking arts of underling tradefmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the moft underling tradefmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his goods always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little intereft of this kind.

By fuch maxims as thefe, however, nations have been taught that their interest confifted in beggaring all their neighbours. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to confider their gain as its own lofs.

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BOOK lofs. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the moft fertile fource of difcord and animofity. The capricious ambition of kings and minifters has not, during the present and the preceding century, been more fatal to the repofe of Europe, than the impertinent jealoufy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injuftice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can fcarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very eafily be prevented from difturbing the tranquillity of any body but themselves.

That it was the spirit of monopoly which originally both invented and propagated this doctrine, cannot be doubted; and they who firft taught it were by no means fuch fools as they who believed it. In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who fell it cheapest. The propofition is fo very manifeft, that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question, had not the interested fophiftry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common fenfe of mankind. Their intereft is, in this refpect, directly oppofite to that of the great body of the people. As it is the intereft of the freemen

of

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of a corporation to hinder the reft of the inha- CHAP. bitants from employing any workmen but themfelves, fo it is the intereft of the merchants and manufacturers of every country to secure to themselves the monopoly of the home market. Hence in Great Britain, and in moft other European countries, the extraordinary duties upon almost all goods imported by alien merchants. Hence the high duties and prohibitions upon all those foreign manufactures which can come into competition with our own. Hence too the extraordinary restraints upon the importation of almost all forts of goods from those countries with which the balance of trade is fuppofed to be disadvantageous; that is, from thofe against whom national animofity happens to be most violently inflamed.

The wealth of a neighbouring nation, howver, though dangerous in war and politics, is certainly advantageous in trade. In a ftate of hoftility it may enable our enemies to maintain fleets and armies fuperior to our own; but in a ftate of peace and commerce it muft likewife enable them to exchange with us to a greater value, and to afford a better market, either for the immediate produce of our own induftry, or for whatever is purchased with that produce. As a rich man is likely to be a better customer to the induftrious people in his neighbourhood, than a poor, fo is likewife a rich nation. A rich man, indeed, who is himself a manufacturer, is a very dangerous neighbour to all those who deal in the fame way. All the reft of the neighbourhood,

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