III.

countries employed in maintaining unproductive C H AP. hands. Such are the people who compofe a numerous and splendid court, a great ecclefiaftical establishment, great fleets and armies, who in time of peace produce nothing, and in time of war acquire nothing which can compenfate the expence of maintaining them, even while the war lafts. Such people, as they themselves produce nothing, are all maintained by the produce of other men's labour. When multiplied, therefore, to an unneceffary number, they may in a particular year confume fo great a fhare of this produce, as not to leave a fufficiency for maintaining the productive labourers, who fhould reproduce it next year. The next year's produce, therefore, will be lefs than that of the foregoing, and if the fame diforder fhould continue, that of the third year will be ftill lefs than that of the fecond. Thofe unproductive hands, who fhould be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of the people, may confume fo great a share of their whole revenue, and thereby oblige fo great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon the funds deftined for the maintenance of productive labour, that all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be able to compenfate the waste and degradation of produce occafioned by this violent and forced encroachment.

This frugality and good conduct, however, is upon moft occafions, it appears from experience, fufficient to compenfate, not only the private prodigality and mifconduct of indivi

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duals,

BOOK duals, but the public extravagance of governII. ment. The uniform, conftant, and uninter

rupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in fpite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the conftitution, in fpite, not only of the disease, but of the abfurd prescriptions of the doctor,

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increafing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of thofe labourers who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never be much increased, but in confequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds deftined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the fame number of labourers cannot be increased, but in confequence either of fome addition and improvement to thofe machines and inftruments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a more proper divifion and diftribution of employment. In either cafe an additional capital is almost always required. It is by means of an additional capital only, that the undertaker of any work can either provide his workmen with better machinery, or

make

III.

make a more proper diftribution of employment CHA P. among them. When the work to be done confifts of a number of parts, to keep every man conftantly employed in one way, requires a much greater capital than where every man is occafionally employed in every different part of the work. When we compare, therefore, the state of a nation at two different periods, and find, that the annual produce of its land and labour is evidently greater at the latter than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactures more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade more extensive, we may be affured that its capital must have increased during the interval between those two periods, and that more must have been added to it by the good conduct of fome, than had been taken from it either by the private misconduct of others, or by the public extravagance of government. But we fhall find this to have been the cafe of almost all nations, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of those who have not enjoyed the moft prudent and parfimonious governments. To form a right judgment of it, indeed, we must compare the ftate of the country at periods fomewhat diftant from one another. The progrefs is frequently fo gradual, that, at near periods, the improvemént is not only not fenfible, but from the declenfion either of certain branches of industry, or of certain districts of the country, things which fometimes happen though the country in general be in great profperity, there frequently arifes a fufpicion,

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BOOK fufpicion, that the riches and industry of the whole are decaying.

II.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England, for example, is certainly much greater than it was, a little more than a century ago, at the restoration of Charles II. Though, at prefent, few people, I believe, doubt of this, yet during this period, five years have feldom paffed away in which fome book or pamphlet has not been published, written too with fuch abilities as to gain fome authority with the public, and pretending to demonftrate that the wealth of the nation was faft declining, that the country was depopulated, agriculture neglected, manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have thefe publications been all party pamphlets, the wretched offspring of falfehood and venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very intelligent people; who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no other reason but because they believed it.

The annual produce of the land and labour of England again, was certainly much greater at the restoration, than we can suppose it to have been about an hundred years before, at the acceffion of Elizabeth. At this period too, we have all reafon to believe, the country was much more advanced in improvement, than it had been about a century before, towards the close of the diffenfions between the houses of York and Lancaster. Even then it was, probably, in a better condition than it had been at the Norman conqueft, and at the Norman conqueft, than during the confufion

of

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of the Saxon Heptarchy. Even at this early CHAP. period, it was certainly a more improved country than at the invafion of Julius Cæfar, when its inhabitants were nearly in the fame ftate with the favages in North America.

In each of thofe periods, however, there was, not only much private and public profufion, many expensive and unneceffary wars, great perverfion of the annual produce from maintaining productive to maintain unproductive hands; but fometimes, in the confufion of civil difcord, fuch abfolute waste and deftruction of stock, as might be fuppofed, not only to retard, as it certainly did, the natural accumulation of riches, but to have left the country, at the end of the period, poorer than at the beginning. Thus, in the happiest and most fortunate period of them all, that which has paffed fince the reftoration, how many diforders and misfortunes have occurred, which, could they have been foreseen, not only the im poverishment, but the total ruin of the country would have been expected from them? The fire and the plague of London, the two Dutch wars, the diforders of the revolution, the war in Ireland, the four expenfive French wars of 1688, 1702, 1742, and 1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the courfe of the four French wars, the nation has contracted more than a hundred and forty-five millions of debt, over and above all the other extraordinary annual expence which they occafioned, fo that the whole cannot be computed at lefs than two hundred millions. So great a fhare of the annual

produce