OF THE DIFFERENT PROGRESS
OF OPULENCE
IN DIFFERENT NATIONS.
OF THE NATURAL PROGRESS
OF OPULENCE.
The great commerce
of every civilized society
is
that carried on
between the inhabitants
of the town and those
of the country.
It consists
in the exchange
of rude for manufactured produce,
either immediately,
or by the intervention
of money,
or of some sort of paper
which represents money.
The country
supplies the town
with the means
of subsistence
and
the materials of manufacture.
The town
repays this supply,
by sending back a part
of the manufactured produce
to the inhabitants
of the country.
The town,
in which there neither
is nor can be
any reproduction
of substances,
may very properly be said
to gain its whole wealth
and subsistence
from the country.
We must not,
however,
upon this account,
imagine
that the gain of the town
is the loss of the country.
The gains of both
are mutual and reciprocal,
and the division of labour
is in this,
as in all other cases,
advantageous
to all the different persons
employed
in the various occupations
into which
it is subdivided.
The inhabitants
of the country purchase
of the town a greater
quantity
of manufactured goods
with the produce
of a much smaller quantity
of their own labour,
than they
must have employed
had
they attempted
to prepare them themselves.
The town
affords a market
for the surplus produce
of the country,
or what
is over and above
the maintenance
of the cultivators;
and it is there that
the inhabitants
of the country exchange
it for something else which
is in demand among them.
The greater the number
and revenue
of the inhabitants
of the town,
the more extensive
is the market which
it affords to those
of the country;
and the more extensive
that market,
it is always
the more advantageous
to a great number.
The corn
which grows
within a mile
of the town,
sells there
for the same price with
that which
comes
from twenty miles distance.
But the price
of the latter must,
generally,
not only pay the expense
of raising it
and bringing it to market,
but afford, too,
the ordinary profits
of agriculture to the farmer.
The proprietors and cultivators
of the country,
therefore,
which lies in
the neighbourhood of the town,
over and above
the ordinary profits
of agriculture,
gain,
in the price
of what they sell,
the whole value
of the carriage
of the like produce
that is brought
from more distant parts;
and they save,
besides,
the whole value
of this carriage
in the price
of what they buy.
Compare the cultivation
of the lands
in the neighbourhood
of any considerable town,
with that of those
which
lie at some distance from it,
and you
will easily satisfy yourself bow
much
the country
is benefited
by the commerce
of the town.
Among all
the absurd speculations
that have been propagated
concerning the balance
of trade,
it has never been
pretended that either
the country
loses
by its commerce
with the town,
or the town by
that with the country
which maintains it.
As subsistence is,
in the nature of things,
prior to conveniency and luxury,
so the industry which
procures the former,
must necessarily be prior to
that
which ministers
to the latter.
The cultivation
and improvement
of the country,
therefore,
which affords subsistence,
must,
necessarily,
be prior to the increase
of the town,
which furnishes only the means
of conveniency and luxury.
It is the surplus produce
of the country only,
or what
is over and above
the maintenance
of the cultivators,
that constitutes
the subsistence
of the town,
which can
therefore increase
only with the increase
of the surplus produce.
The town,
indeed,
may not always derive
its whole subsistence
from the country
in its neighbourhood,
or even from the territory
to which
it belongs,
but from very distant countries;
and this,
though it forms no exception
from the general rule,
has occasioned
considerable variations
in the progress
of opulence in different ages
and nations.
That order
of things which necessity
imposes,
in general,
though
not in every particular country,
is in every particular country
promoted
by the natural inclinations
of man.
If human
institutions
had never
thwarted those
natural inclinations,
the towns
could nowhere have increased
beyond what
the improvement and cultivation
of the territory
in which they were situated
could support;
till such time,
at least,
as the whole of
that territory
was completely cultivated
and improved.
Upon equal,
or nearly equal profits,
most men
will choose
to employ their capitals,
rather
in the improvement
and cultivation
of land,
than either in
manufactures
or in foreign trade.
The man
who employs his capital
in land,
has it more under
his view and command;
and his fortune
is much less liable
to accidents than
that of the trader,
who is obliged frequently
to commit it,
not only to the winds
and the waves,
but
to the more uncertain elements
of human folly and injustice,
by giving great credits,
in distant countries,
to men with whose character
and situation
he
can seldom be thoroughly acquainted.
The capital of the landlord,
on the contrary,
which is fixed
in the improvement
of his land,
seems
to be as well
secured
as the nature
of human
affairs can admit of.
The beauty of the country,
besides,
the pleasure of a
country life,
the tranquillity of mind which
it promises,
and,
wherever the injustice
of human
laws does not disturb it,
the independency which
it really affords,
have
charms that,
more or less,
attract everybody;
and as
to cultivate the ground
was the original destination
of man,
so,
in every stage
of his existence,
he seems
to retain a predilection
for this primitive employment.
Without the assistance
of some artificers,
indeed,
the cultivation
of land cannot be carried on,
but with great inconveniency
and continual interruption.
Smiths,
carpenters,
wheelwrights and ploughwrights,
masons and bricklayers,
tanners,
shoemakers,
and tailors,
are people
whose service
the farmer
has frequent occasion for.
Such artificers, too,
stand occasionally
in need of the assistance
of one another;
and as their residence
is not,
like that of the farmer,
necessarily
tied down to a precise spot,
they naturally settle
in the neighbourhood
of one another,
and thus form a small town
or village.
The butcher,
the brewer,
and the baker,
soon
join them,
together
with many other artificers
and retailers,
necessary or useful
for supplying
their occasional wants,
and who
contribute still
further to augment the town.
The inhabitants of the town,
and those of the country,
are mutually the servants
of one another.
The town
is
a continual fair or market,
to which the inhabitants
of the country resort,
in order to exchange
their rude
for manufactured produce.
It is this commerce
which supplies
the inhabitants of the town,
both with the materials
of their work,
and the means
of their subsistence.
The quantity
of the finished work which
they sell
to the inhabitants
of the country,
necessarily
regulates
the quantity
of the materials
and provisions which
they buy.
Neither their employment nor
subsistence,
therefore,
can augment,
but in proportion
to the augmentation
of the demand
from the country
for finished work;
and this demand
can augment only
in proportion
to the extension
of improvement and cultivation.
Had human institutions,
therefore,
never
disturbed
the natural course of things,
the progressive wealth
and increase
of the towns
would,
in every political society,
be consequential,
and in proportion
to the improvement
and cultivation
of the territory
of country.
In our North American colonies,
where uncultivated
land is still
to be had upon easy terms,
no manufactures
for distant sale
have ever yet been
established in any
of their towns.
When an artificer
has acquired
a little more stock than
is necessary
for carrying
on his own business
in supplying the neighbouring
country,
he does not,
in North America,
attempt
to establish
with it a manufacture
for more distant sale,
but employs it
in the purchase
and improvement
of uncultivated land.
From artificer
he becomes planter;
and neither
the large wages nor the easy subsistence which
that country
affords to artificers,
can bribe him rather
to work for other people than
for himself.
He feels that an artificer
is the servant
of his customers,
from whom
he derives his subsistence;
but that
a planter
who cultivates his own land,
and derives
his necessary subsistence
from the labour
of his own family,
is really a master,
and independent
of all the world.
In countries,
on the contrary,
where there is
either no uncultivated land,
or none
that can be had
upon easy terms,
every artificer
who has acquired more stock
than
he can employ
in the occasional jobs
of the neighbourhood,
endeavours
to prepare work
for more distant sale.
The smith
erects some sort of iron,
the weaver some sort
of linen or woollen manufactory.
Those different
manufactures come,
in process of time,
to be gradually subdivided,
and thereby improved
and refined
in a great variety
of ways,
which may easily be conceived,
and which it
is therefore unnecessary
to explain any farther.
In seeking
for employment to a capital,
manufactures are,
upon equal
or nearly equal profits,
naturally
preferred to foreign commerce,
for the same reason that
agriculture
is naturally preferred to
manufactures.
As the capital
of the landlord
or farmer
is more secure than
that of the manufacturer,
so the capital
of the manufacturer,
being
at all times more
within his view
and command,
is more secure
than
that of the foreign merchant.
In every period,
indeed,
of every society,
the surplus part both
of the rude
and manufactured produce,
or that for which
there is no demand at home,
must be sent abroad,
in order to
be exchanged for something
for which
there is
some demand at home.
But whether the capital
which carries
this surplus produce abroad
be a foreign
or a domestic one,
is of very little importance.
If the society
has not acquired
sufficient capital,
both
to cultivate all its lands,
and to manufacture
in the completest manner
the whole
of its rude produce,
there
is even
a considerable advantage
that the rude produce
should be exported
by a foreign capital,
in order that
the whole stock
of the society
may be employed
in more useful purposes.
The:
wealth of ancient Egypt,
that of China and Indostan,
sufficiently
demonstrate
that a nation
may attain a very high degree
of opulence,
though the greater part
of its exportation trade
be carried on by foreigners.
The progress
of our North American
and West Indian colonies,
would have been
much less rapid,
had no capital but what
belonged to themselves
been employed
in exporting
their surplus produce.
According to
the natural course of things,
therefore,
the greater part
of the capital
of every growing society is,
first,
directed to agriculture,
afterwards to
manufactures,
and, last of all,
to foreign commerce.
This order of things
is so very natural,
that in every society
that had any territory,
it has always,
I believe,
been in some degree observed.
Some of
their lands
must have been cultivated
before any considerable
towns could be established,
and some sort of coarse
industry
of the manufacturing kind
must have been carried on
in those towns,
before they
could well think
of employing themselves
in foreign commerce.
But though this
natural order of things
must have taken place
in some degree
in every such society,
it has,
in all
the modern states
of Europe,
been in many respects entirely
inverted.
The foreign commerce
of some of
their cities
has introduced all
their finer manufactures,
or such as
were fit for distant sale;
and manufactures
and foreign commerce
together
have given birth
to the principal improvements
of agriculture.
The manners and customs which
the nature
of their
original government introduced,
and which
remained after that government
was greatly altered,
necessarily
forced them
into this
unnatural and retrograde order.
OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT
OF AGRICULTURE
IN THE ANCIENT STATE
OF EUROPE,
AFTER THE FALL
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
When the German
and Scythian nations
overran the western provinces
of the Roman empire,
the confusions
which followed so great
a revolution
lasted for several centuries.
The rapine
and violence which
the barbarians
exercised
against the ancient inhabitants,
interrupted the commerce
between the towns
and the country.
The towns
were deserted,
and the country
was left uncultivated;
and the western provinces
of Europe,
which had enjoyed
a considerable degree
of opulence
under the Roman empire,
sunk into the lowest state
of poverty and barbarism.
During the continuance
of those confusions,
the chiefs
and principal leaders
of those nations
acquired,
or usurped to themselves,
the greater part
of the lands
of those countries.
A great part of them
was uncultivated;
but no part of them,
whether
cultivated
or uncultivated,
was left
without a proprietor.
All of them were engrossed,
and
the greater part by a few
great proprietors.
This original engrossing
of uncultivated
lands,
though a great,
might have been
but a transitory evil.
They
might soon have been divided
again,
and broke into small parcels,
either
by succession
or by alienation.
The law of primogeniture
hindered them from
being divided by succession;
the introduction of entails
prevented their being
broke into small parcels
by alienation.
When land,
like moveables,
is considered
as the means
only of subsistence and enjoyment,
the natural law
of succession divides it,
like them,
among all
the children of the family;
of all of whom
the subsistence and enjoyment
may be supposed equally dear
to the father.
This natural law
of succession,
accordingly,
took place among the Romans
who made no more distinction
between elder and younger,
between male and female,
in the inheritance of lands,
than
we do
in the distribution
of moveables.
But when land
was considered as the means,
not of subsistence merely,
but of power and protection,
it was thought
better that
it should descend undivided
to one.
In those
disorderly times,
every great landlord
was a sort of petty prince.
His tenants
were his subjects.
He was their judge,
and in some respects
their legislator
in peace
and their leader in war.
He made war
according to
his own discretion,
frequently against his neighbours,
and sometimes against
his sovereign.
The security
of a landed estate,
therefore,
the protection which
its owner
could afford to those
who dwelt on it,
depended upon its greatness.
To divide it was
to ruin it,
and to expose every part
of it
to be oppressed
and swallowed up
by the incursions
of its neighbours.
The law of primogeniture,
therefore,
came to take place,
not immediately indeed,
but in process of time,
in the succession
of landed estates,
for the same reason
that it
has generally taken place in
that of monarchies,
though not
always at their first institution.
That the power,
and consequently
the security of the monarchy,
may not be weakened
by division,
it must descend entire
to one of the children.
To which
of them so important
a preference shall be given,
must be determined
by some general rule,
founded not
upon the doubtful distinctions
of personal merit,
but upon some plain
and evident difference
which can admit
of no dispute.
Among the children
of the same family
there can be no
indisputable difference
but that
of sex,
and that of age.
The male sex
is universally preferred
to the female;
and when all other things
are equal,
the elder
everywhere takes place
of the younger.
Hence
the origin
of the right of primogeniture,
and of
what is called
lineal succession.
Laws
frequently continue
in force long
after
the circumstances which first
gave occasion to them,
and which
could alone
render them reasonable,
are no more.
In the present state
of Europe,
the proprietor
of a single acre
of land
is
as perfectly secure
in his possession
as the proprietor of 100,000.
The right of primogeniture,
however,
still
continues
to be respected;
and as of all institutions
it is the fittest
to support the pride
of family distinctions,
it
is still likely
to endure for many centuries.
In every other respect,
nothing
can be more contrary
to the real interest
of a numerous family,
than a right which,
in order to
enrich one,
beggars all the rest
of the children.
Entails
are the natural consequences
of the law of primogeniture.
They
were introduced
to preserve
a certain lineal succession,
of which the law
of primogeniture first
gave the idea,
and to hinder any part
of the original estate from
being carried
out of the proposed line,
either by gift,
or device,
or alienation;
either by the folly,
or by the misfortune of any
of its successive owners.
They
were altogether unknown
to the Romans.
Neither their substitutions,
nor fidei commisses,
bear any resemblance to
entails,
though some French lawyers
have thought
proper
to dress
the modern institution
in the language and garb
of those ancient ones.
When
great landed estates
were a sort of principalities,
entails
might not be unreasonable.
Like
what are called
the fundamental laws
of some monarchies,
they
might frequently hinder
the security
of thousands
from being endangered
by the caprice or extravagance
of one man.
But in the present state
of Europe,
when small as well as
great estates
derive their security
from the laws
of their country,
nothing
can be more completely absurd.
They are founded
upon the most absurd
of all suppositions,
the supposition
that
every successive generation
of men
have not an equal right
to the earth,
and to all
that it possesses;
but that the property
of the present generation
should be restrained
and regulated according to
the fancy of those
who died,
perhaps
five hundred years ago.
Entails,
however,
are still respected,
through the greater part
of Europe;
In those countries,
particularly,
in which noble birth
is a necessary qualification
for the
enjoyment either
of civil or military honours.
Entails
are thought necessary
for maintaining
this exclusive privilege
of the nobility
to the great offices
and honours of their country;
and that order
having usurped
one unjust advantage
over the rest
of their fellow-citizens,
lest their poverty
should render it ridiculous,
it is thought reasonable
that
they should have another.
The common law of England,
indeed,
is said
to abhor perpetuities,
and they are accordingly more
restricted there
than in any other European
monarchy;
though even
England
is not altogether
without them.
In Scotland,
more than one fifth,
perhaps
more than one third
part of the whole
lands in the country,
are at present
supposed
to be under strict entail.
Great tracts of uncultivated
land were in this manner not
only engrossed
by particular families,
but
the possibility
of their being divided
again
was as much as
possible precluded
for ever.
It seldom
happens,
however,
that a great proprietor
is a great improver.
In the disorderly times
which gave birth
to those
barbarous institutions,
the great proprietor
was sufficiently employed
in defending
his own territories,
or in extending
his jurisdiction
and authority
over those
of his neighbours.
He had no leisure
to attend
to the cultivation
and improvement
of land.
When the establishment
of law and order
afforded him this leisure,
he often wanted the inclination,
and almost
always
the requisite abilities.
If the expense of his house
and person either equalled
or exceeded his revenue,
as it did very frequently,
he had no stock
to employ in this manner.
If he was an economist,
he generally found it
more profitable
to employ his annual savings
in new purchases
than
in the improvement
of his old estate.
To improve land with profit,
like all
other commercial projects,
requires an exact attention
to small savings
and small gains,
of which a man
born to a great fortune,
even though naturally frugal,
is very seldom capable.
The situation of such
a person
naturally disposes him
to attend rather to ornament,
which pleases his fancy,
than
to profit,
for which
he has so little occasion.
The elegance of his dress,
of his equipage,
of his house
and household furniture,
are objects which,
from his infancy,
he has been accustomed
to have some anxiety about.
The turn
of mind which this habit
naturally forms,
follows him
when he
comes
to think
of the improvement of land.
He embellishes,
perhaps,
four or five hundred acres
in the neighbourhood
of his house,
at ten times
the expense which the land
is worth
after all his improvements;
and finds,
that
if he
was to improve
his whole estate
in the same manner,
and he
has little taste
for any other,
he would be a bankrupt
before
he had finished
the tenth part
of it.
There
still remain,
in both parts
of the united kingdom,
some great estates which
have continued,
without interruption,
in the hands
of the same family
since the times
of feudal anarchy.
Compare the present condition
of those estates
with the possessions
of the small proprietors
in their neighbourhood,
and you
will require no other argument
to convince you
how
unfavourable such extensive property
is to improvement.
If little improvement
was to be expected
from such great proprietors,
still less
was to be hoped for
from those
who occupied
the land under them.
In the ancient state
of Europe,
the occupiers of land
were all tenants at will.
They
were all,
or almost all,
slaves,
but their slavery
was of a milder kind
than
that known
among the ancient Greeks
and Romans,
or even in
our West Indian colonies.
They
were supposed
to belong more directly
to the land than
to their master.
They
could,
therefore,
be sold with it,
but not separately.
They
could marry,
provided
it was
with the consent
of their master;
and he
could not afterwards dissolve
the marriage
by selling the man and wife
to different persons.
If he
maimed or murdered any
of them,
he was liable
to some penalty,
though generally
but to a small one.
They
were not,
however,
capable
of acquiring property.
Whatever
they acquired
was acquired to their master,
and he
could take it
from them at pleasure.
Whatever cultivation
and improvement
could be carried on by means
of such slaves,
was properly carried on
by their master.
It was at his expense.
The seed,
the cattle,
and the instruments
of husbandry,
were all his.
It was for his benefit.
Such slaves
could acquire nothing
but
their daily maintenance.
It was properly the proprietor
himself,
therefore,
that in this case
occupied his own
lands,
and cultivated them
by his own bondmen.
This species of slavery
still subsists in Russia,
Poland,
Hungary,
Bohemia,
Moravia,
and other parts of Germany.
It is only
in the western
and south-western provinces
of Europe
that it has gradually been
abolished altogether.
But if great improvements
are seldom to be expected
from great proprietors,
they
are least of all
to be expected
when they
employ slaves
for their workmen.
The experience
of all ages and nations,
I believe,
demonstrates that the work
done by slaves,
though it
appears
to cost
only their maintenance,
is in the end
the dearest of any.
A person
who can acquire no property
can have no other interest
but to eat as much
and to labour as
little as possible.
Whatever
work
he does beyond what
is sufficient
to purchase
his own maintenance,
can be squeezed out of him
by violence only,
and not by any interest
of his own.
In ancient Italy,
how much
the cultivation of corn
degenerated,
how unprofitable it
became to the master,
when it
fell under the management
of slaves,
is remarked both
by Pliny and Columella.
In the time of Aristotle,
it had not been much
better in ancient Greece.
Speaking
of the ideal republic described
in the laws of Plato,
to maintain 5000 idle men
(the number
of warriors supposed necessary
for its defence),
together
with their women and servants,
would require,
he says,
a territory
of boundless extent
and fertility,
like the plains of Babylon.
The pride of man
makes him love to domineer,
and nothing
mortifies him so much as
to be obliged
to condescend
to persuade his inferiors.
Wherever
the law allows it,
and the nature of the work
can afford it,
therefore,
he will generally prefer
the service
of slaves to
that of freemen.
The planting
of sugar and tobacco
can afford the expense
of slave cultivation.
The raising of corn,
it seems,
in the present times,
cannot.
In the English colonies,
of which the principal produce
is corn,
the far greater part
of the work
is done by freemen.
The late resolution
of the Quakers
in Pennsylvania,
to set
at liberty
all their negro slaves,
may satisfy us that
their number
cannot be very great.
Had they
made any considerable part
of their property,
such
a resolution
could never have been agreed to.
In our sugar colonies.,
on the contrary,
the whole work
is done by slaves,
and in our tobacco colonies
a very great part of it.
The profits
of a sugar plantation in any
of our West Indian colonies,
are generally much greater than
those of any other cultivation
that is known either
in Europe or America;
and
the profits of a
tobacco plantation,
though inferior to those
of sugar,
are superior to those
of corn,
as has already been observed.
Both
can afford
the expense
of slave cultivation
but sugar
can afford it still better
than tobacco.
The number of negroes,
accordingly,
is much greater,
in proportion to
that of whites,
in our sugar
than in our
tobacco colonies.
To the slave cultivators
of ancient times gradually
succeeded a species
of farmers,
known at present
in France
by the name of metayers.
They
are called
in Latin Coloni Partiarii.
They have been so long
in disuse
in England,
that at present
I know no
English name for them.
The proprietor
furnished them with the seed,
cattle,
and instruments of husbandry,
the whole stock,
in short,
necessary
for cultivating the farm.
The produce
was divided equally
between the proprietor
and the farmer,
after setting aside what
was judged necessary for
keeping up the stock,
which was restored
to the proprietor,
when the farmer either
quitted
or was turned
out of the farm.
Land
occupied
by such
tenants is properly cultivated
at the expense
of the proprietors,
as much as that occupied
by slaves.
There is,
however,
one very essential difference
between them.
Such tenants,
being freemen,
are capable
of acquiring property;
and having
a certain proportion
of the produce
of the land,
they have
a plain interest that
the whole produce
should be as
great as possible,
in order that their own
proportion may be so.
A slave,
on the contrary,
who can acquire nothing
but his maintenance,
consults his own ease,
by making the land produce as
little as possible
over and above
that maintenance.
It is probable
that it
was partly
upon account
of this advantage,
and partly upon account
of the encroachments which
the sovereigns,
always jealous
of the great lords,
gradually
encouraged
their villains
to make upon their authority,
and which seem,
at least,
to have been such as
rendered this species
of servitude
altogether inconvenient,
that tenure in villanage
gradually wore out
through the greater part
of Europe.
The time and manner,
however,
in which so important
a revolution
was brought about,
is one
of the most obscure points
in modern history.
The church of Rome
claims great merit in it;
and it is certain,
that so early
as the twelfth century,
Alexander III.
published a bull
for the general emancipation
of slaves.
It seems,
however,
to have been
rather a pious exhortation,
than a law
to which exact obedience
was required
from the faithful.
Slavery
continued
to take place almost
universally for several
centuries afterwards,
till it
was gradually abolished
by the joint operation
of the
two
interests above mentioned;
that of the proprietor
on the one hand,
and that
of the sovereign
on the other.
A villain,
enfranchised,
and at the same time
allowed
to continue
in possession of the land,
having no stock of his own,
could cultivate
it only by means
of what the landlord
advanced to him,
and must
therefore have been
what
the French call a metayer.
It could never,
however,
be the interest even
of this last species
of cultivators,
to lay out,
in the further improvement
of the land,
any part
of the little stock which
they might save
from their own share
of the produce;
because the landlord,
who laid out nothing,
was to get one half of
whatever it produced.
The tithe,
which
is but a tenth
of the produce,
is found
to be a very great hindrance
to improvement.
A tax,
therefore,
which amounted to one half,
must have been
an effectual bar to it.
It might be the interest
of a metayer
to make
the land produce as much as
could be brought out of it
by means
of the stock furnished
by the proprietor;
but it could never be
his interest
to mix any part
of his own with it.
In France,
where five parts out of six
of the whole kingdom
are said
to be still occupied
by this species
of cultivators,
the proprietors
complain,
that
their metayers take
every opportunity
of employing
their master's cattle
rather
in carriage than
in cultivation;
because,
in the one case,
they get the whole profits
to themselves,
in the other
they share them
with their landlord.
This species of tenants
still subsists
in some parts of Scotland.
They are called
steel-bow tenants.
Those ancient English tenants,
who are said
by Chief-Baron Gilbert and
Dr Blackstone
to have been rather bailiffs
of the landlord than farmers,
properly so called,
were probably
of the same kind.
To this
species of tenantry succeeded,
though by very slow degrees,
farmers,
properly so called,
who cultivated the land
with their own stock,
paying a rent certain
to the landlord.
When
such farmers
have a lease
for a term of years,
they
may sometimes find it
for their interest
to lay out part
of their capital
in the further improvement
of the farm;
because they
may sometimes expect
to recover it,
with a large profit,
before the expiration
of the lease.
The possession,
even of such farmers,
however,
was long extremely precarious,
and still is so in
many parts
of Europe.
They
could,
before the expiration
of their term,
be legally ousted
of their leases
by a new purchaser;
in England,
even,
by the fictitious action of a
common recovery.
If they
were turned out illegally
by the violence
of their master,
the action by which they
obtained redress
was extremely imperfect.
It
did not always reinstate them
in the possession
of the land,
but gave them damages,
which
never amounted
to a real loss.
Even in England,
the country,
perhaps of Europe,
where
the yeomanry
has always been most respected,
it was not
till about the 14th
of Henry VII
that the action
of ejectment was invented,
by which the tenant recovers,
not damages only,
but possession,
and in which
his claim
is not necessarily concluded
by the uncertain decision
of a single assize.
This action
has been found
so effectual a remedy,
that,
in the modern practice,
when the landlord
has occasion
to sue
for the possession
of the land,
he seldom
makes
use of the actions which
properly belong
to him as a landlord,
the writ of right
or the writ of entry,
but sues in the name
of his tenant,
by the writ of ejectment.
In England,
therefore the security
of the tenant
is equal to
that of the proprietor.
In England,
besides,
a lease
for life
of forty shillings a-year
value is a freehold,
and entitles the lessee
to a vote
for a member
of parliament;
and as a great part
of the yeomanry
have freeholds of this kind,
the whole order
becomes respectable
to their landlords,
on account
of the political
consideration which
this gives them.
There is,
I believe,
nowhere in Europe,
except in England,
any instance
of the tenant building
upon the land
of which
he had no lease,
and trusting
that the honour
of his landlord
would take no advantage
of so important
an improvement.
Those laws and customs,
so favourable to the yeomanry,
have perhaps contributed more
to the present grandeur
of England,
than all
their boasted regulations
of commerce taken together.
The law
which secures
the longest leases
against successors
of every kind,
is, so far as I know,
peculiar to Great Britain.
It was introduced
into Scotland so early
as 1449,
by a law
of James II.
Its beneficial influence,
however,
has been much
obstructed by entails;
the heirs of entail
being generally restrained
from letting leases
for any long term
of years,
frequently for
more than one year.
A late act of parliament has,
in this respect,
somewhat slackened
their fetters,
though they
are still
by much too strait.
In Scotland,
besides,
as no leasehold
gives a vote for a member
of parliament,
the yeomanry
are upon this
account less respectable
to their landlords than
in England.
In other parts of Europe,
after it
was found convenient
to secure tenants both
against heirs and purchasers,
the term of their security
was still limited
to a very short period;
in France,
for example,
to nine years
from the commencement
of the lease.
It has in that country,
indeed,
been lately extended
to twentyseven,
a period still too short
to encourage the tenant
to make
the most important improvements.
The proprietors
of land
were anciently the legislators
of every part of Europe.
The laws
relating
to land,
therefore,
were all calculated for what
they supposed the interest
of the proprietor.
It was for his interest,
they had imagined,
that no lease
granted by any
of his predecessors
should hinder him
from enjoying,
during a long term
of years,
the full value of his land.
Avarice and injustice
are always short-sighted,
and they
did not foresee
how much this regulation
must obstruct improvement,
and thereby hurt,
in the long-run,
the real interest
of the landlord.
The farmers, too,
besides
paying the rent,
were anciently,
it was supposed,
bound
to perform a great number
of services to the landlord,
which were seldom either
specified in the lease,
or regulated
by any precise rule,
but by the use
and wont of the manor
or barony.
These services,
therefore,
being almost entirely arbitrary,
subjected the tenant
to many vexations.
In Scotland the abolition
of all services not precisely stipulated
in the lease,
has,
in the course of a few years,
very much
altered
for the better the condition
of the yeomanry of
that country.
The public services
to which the yeomanry
were bound,
were not less arbitrary
than the private ones.
To make
and maintain the high roads,
a servitude which
still subsists,
I believe,
everywhere,
though with different degrees
of oppression
in different countries,
was not the only one.
When the king's troops,
when his household,
or his officers of any kind,
passed
through any part
of the country,
the yeomanry
were bound
to provide them with horses,
carriages,
and provisions,
at a price regulated
by the purveyor.
Great Britain is,
I believe,
the only monarchy in Europe
where
the oppression of purveyance
has been entirely abolished.
It still subsists
in France and Germany.
The public taxes,
to which they
were subject,
were as irregular
and oppressive
as the services
The ancient lords,
though extremely unwilling
to grant,
themselves,
any pecuniary aid
to their sovereign,
easily
allowed him to tallage,
as they called it,
their tenants,
and had not
knowledge
enough to foresee how much
this must,
in the end,
affect their own revenue.
The taille,
as it
still subsists in France.
may serve as an example
of those ancient tallages.
It is a tax
upon the supposed profits
of the farmer,
which
they estimate by the stock
that he
has upon the farm.
It is his interest,
therefore,
to appear to have as
little as possible,
and consequently to employ as
little as possible
in its cultivation,
and none in its improvement.
Should any stock
happen
to accumulate
in the hands
of a French farmer,
the taille
is almost
equal to a prohibition
of its ever being employed
upon the land.
This tax,
besides,
is supposed to dishonour
whoever
is subject to it,
and to degrade him below,
not only the rank
of a gentleman,
but that of a burgher;
and whoever
rents the lands of another
becomes subject to it.
No gentleman,
nor even any burgher,
who has stock,
will submit to this degradation.
This tax,
therefore,
not only hinders
the stock
which accumulates
upon the land from
being employed
in its improvement,
but drives away
all other stock
from it.
The ancient tenths
and fifteenths,
so usual
in England in former times,
seem,
so far
as they affected the land,
to have been taxes
of the same nature
with the taille.
Under all
these discouragements,
little improvement
could be expected
from the occupiers
of land.
That order of people,
with all
the liberty and security
which law
can give,
must always improve
under great disadvantage.
The farmer,
compared with the proprietor,
is as a merchant
who trades
with burrowed money,
compared
with one
who trades with his own.
The stock of both
may improve;
but that of the one,
with
only equal good conduct,
must always improve more slowly
than
that of the other,
on account
of the large share
of the profits
which is consumed
by the interest
of the loan.
The lands
cultivated by the farmer must,
in the same manner,
with
only equal good conduct,
be improved more slowly
than those
cultivated by the proprietor,
on account
of the large share
of the produce
which
is consumed in the rent,
and which,
had the farmer
been proprietor,
he might have employed
in the further improvement
of the land.
The station of a farmer,
besides,
is, from the nature
of things,
inferior to
that of a proprietor.
Through the greater part
of Europe,
the yeomanry
are regarded
as an inferior rank
of people,
even to the better sort
of tradesmen and mechanics,
and in all parts
of Europe
to the great merchants
and master manufacturers.
It can seldom happen,
therefore,
that a man
of any considerable stock
should quit the superior,
in order to
place himself
in an inferior station.
Even in the present state
of Europe,
therefore,
little stock
is likely
to go
from any other profession
to the improvement
of land in the way
of farming.
More does,
perhaps,
in Great Britain
than in any other country,
though even there
the great stocks
which are in some places
employed
in farming,
have generally been
acquired
by fanning,
the trade,
perhaps,
in which,
of all others,
stock
is commonly acquired most slowly.
After small proprietors,
however,
rich and great farmers
are in every
country
the principal improvers.
There
are more such,
perhaps,
in England
than in any other European
monarchy.
In the republican governments
of Holland,
and of Berne in Switzerland,
the farmers
are said
to be not inferior to those
of England.
The ancient policy
of Europe was,
over and above all this,
unfavourable
to the improvement
and cultivation
of land,
whether
carried on
by the proprietor
or by the farmer;
first,
by the general prohibition
of the exportation of corn,
without a special licence,
which seems
to have been
a very universal regulation;
and, secondly,
by the restraints
which were laid
upon the inland commerce,
not only of corn,
but of almost every
other part
of the produce
of the farm,
by the absurd laws
against engrossers,
regraters,
and forestallers,
and by the privileges
of fairs and markets.
It has already been
observed
in what manner the prohibition
of the exportation of corn,
together
with some encouragement
given
to the importation
of foreign corn,
obstructed the cultivation
of ancient Italy,
naturally
the most fertile country
in Europe,
and at that time the seat
of the greatest empire
in the world.
To what degree such restraints
upon the inland commerce
of this commodity,
joined
to the general prohibition
of exportation,
must have discouraged
the cultivation
of countries less fertile,
and less favourably
circumstanced,
it is not,
perhaps,
very easy
to imagine.
OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS
OF CITIES AND TOWNS,
AFTER THE FALL
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The inhabitants
of cities and towns were,
after the fall
of the Roman empire,
not more favoured than those
of the country.
They consisted,
indeed,
of a very different order
of people
from the first inhabitants
of the ancient republics
of Greece and Italy.
These last
were composed chiefly
of the proprietors
of lands,
among whom
the public territory
was originally divided,
and who
found it convenient
to build their houses
in the neighbourhood
of one another,
and to surround them
with a wall,
for the sake
of common defence.
After the fall
of the Roman empire,
on the contrary,
the proprietors of land
seem generally
to have lived
in fortified castles
on their own estates,
and in the midst
of their own tenants
and dependants.
The towns
were chiefly inhabited
by tradesmen and mechanics,
who seem,
in those days,
to have been of servile,
or very nearly
of servile condition.
The privileges which
we find granted
by ancient charters
to the inhabitants
of some
of the principal towns
in Europe,
sufficiently show what they
were before those grants.
The people to whom it
is granted as a privilege,
that they
might give away
their own daughters
in marriage
without the consent
of their lord,
that upon their death
their own children,
and not
their lord,
should succeed to their goods,
and that
they might dispose
of their own effects
by will,
must,
before those grants,
have been either altogether,
or very nearly,
in the same state
of villanage
with the occupiers
of land in the country.
They seem,
indeed,
to have been a very poor,
mean
set of people,
who seemed to travel about
with their goods
from place to place,
and from fair to fair,
like the hawkers and pedlars
of the present times.
In all the different countries
of Europe then,
in the same manner
as in several
of the Tartar governments
of Asia
at present,
taxes
used to be levied
upon the persons and goods
of travellers,
when they
passed through certain manors,
when they
went over certain bridges,
when they
carried
about their goods
from place to place
in a fair,
when they erected in it
a booth
or stall to sell them in.
These different taxes
were known
in England by the names
of passage,
pontage,
lastage,
and stallage.
Sometimes the king,
sometimes a great lord,
who had,
it seems,
upon some occasions,
authority
to do this,
would grant
to particular traders,
to such particularly
as lived
in their own demesnes,
a general exemption
from such taxes.
Such traders,
though
in other respects of servile,
or very nearly
of servile condition,
were upon this account
called
free traders.
They,
in return,
usually
paid to their protector
a sort of annual poll-tax.
In those days protection
was seldom granted
without a valuable consideration,
and this tax
might perhaps be considered
as compensation
for what
their patrons
might lose
by their exemption
from other taxes.
At first,
both
those poll-taxes and
those exemptions
seem to have been altogether
personal,
and to have affected only
particular individuals,
during either their lives,
or the pleasure
of their protectors.
In the
very imperfect accounts which
have been published
from Doomsday-book,
of several
of the towns of England,
mention
is frequently made,
sometimes of the tax which
particular burghers paid,
each of them,
either to the king,
or to some other great lord,
for this sort of protection,
and sometimes of the
general amount
only of all those taxes.
(see
Brady's Historical Treatise
of Cities and Boroughs,
p. 3.
etc.)
But how servile
soever may have been originally
the condition
of the inhabitants
of the towns,
it appears evidently,
that
they arrived
at liberty and independency
much earlier
than the occupiers of land
in the country.
That part
of the king's revenue
which arose
from such poll-taxes
in any particular town,
used commonly
to be let in farm,
during a term of years,
for a rent certain,
sometimes to
the sheriff of the county,
and sometimes to other persons.
The burghers
themselves
frequently got credit
enough to be admitted
to farm
the revenues of this sort winch
arose out of their own town,
they
becoming jointly
and severally answerable
for the whole rent.
(See Madox,
Firma Burgi,
p. 18;
also History of the Exchequer,
c.10,
sect. v,
p. 223,
first edition.)
To let a farm
in this manner,
was quite agreeable
to the usual economy of,
I believe,
the sovereigns
of all
the different countries
of Europe,
who used frequently to let
whole manors to all
the tenants of those manors,
they
becoming jointly
and severally answerable
for the whole rent;
but in return
being allowed
to collect it
in their own way,
and to pay it
into the king's exchequer
by the hands
of their own bailiff,
and being thus altogether freed
from the insolence
of the king's officers;
a circumstance in those days
regarded as
of the greatest importance.
At first,
the farm of the town
was probably let
to the burghers,
in the same manner as it
had been to other farmers,
for a term
of years only.
In process of time,
however,
it seems
to have become
the general practice
to grant it
to them in fee,
that is for ever,
reserving a rent certain,
never
afterwards to be augmented.
The payment
having thus become perpetual,
the exemptions,
in return,
for which it was made,
naturally
became perpetual too.
Those exemptions,
therefore,
ceased to be personal,
and could not afterwards be considered
as
belonging to individuals,
as individuals,
but as burghers
of a particular burgh,
which,
upon this account,
was called a free burgh,
for the same reason that they
had been called free burghers
or free traders.
Along with this grant,
the important privileges,
above mentioned,
that they
might give away
their own daughters
in marriage,
that their children
should succeed to them,
and that
they might dispose
of their own effects
by will,
were generally bestowed
upon the burghers
of the town
to whom it was given.
Whether such privileges
had before been usually granted,
along
with the freedom of trade,
to particular burghers,
as individuals,
I know not.
I reckon
it not improbable
that they were,
though
I cannot produce
any direct evidence
of it.
But however
this may have been,
the principal attributes
of villanage and slavery
being thus taken away
from them,
they now at least
became really free,
in our present sense
of the word freedom.
Nor was this all.
They were generally
at the same time
erected
into a commonalty
or corporation,
with the privilege
of having magistrates
and a town-council
of their own,
of making bye-laws
for their own government,
of building walls
for their own defence,
and of reducing all
their inhabitants
under a sort
of military discipline,
by obliging them
to watch and ward;
that is,
as anciently understood,
to guard
and defend those walls
against all attacks
and surprises,
by night as well as
by day.
In England
they were generally exempted
from suit
to the hundred
and county courts:
and all such pleas
as should arise among them,
the pleas
of the crown excepted,
were left
to the decision
of their own magistrates.
In other countries,
much greater and
more extensive jurisdictions
were frequently granted
to them.
(See Madox,
Firma Burgi.
See also Pfeffel
in the Remarkable events
under Frederick II. and
his Successors
of the House of Suabia.)
It might,
probably,
be necessary
to grant to such towns
as were admitted
to farm their own revenues,
some sort
of compulsive jurisdiction
to oblige their own citizens
to make payment.
In those
disorderly times,
it might have been extremely
inconvenient
to have left them
to seek this sort
of justice
from any other tribunal.
But it
must seem extraordinary,
that the sovereigns of all
the different countries
of Europe
should have exchanged
in this manner
for a rent certain,
never more to be augmented,
that branch of their revenue,
which was,
perhaps,
of all others,
the most likely
to be improved
by the natural course
of things,
without either expense
or attention
of their own;
and that they should,
besides,
have in this manner
voluntarily erected a sort
of independent republics
in the heart
of their own dominions.
In order to
understand this,
it must be remembered,
that,
in those days,
the sovereign
of perhaps no country
in Europe
was able
to protect,
through the whole extent
of his dominions,
the weaker part
of his subjects
from the oppression
of the great lords.
Those whom
the law could not protect,
and who were not
strong enough
to defend themselves,
were obliged
either
to have recourse
to the protection
of some great lord,
and in order to
obtain it,
to become either his slaves
or vassals;
or to enter
into a league
of mutual defence
for the common protection
of one another.
The inhabitants
of cities and burghs,
considered as single individuals,
had no power
to defend themselves;
but by entering
into a league
of mutual defence
with their neighbours,
they
were capable
of making no
contemptible resistance.
The lords
despised the burghers,
whom
they considered not only
as a different order,
but as a parcel
of emancipated slaves,
almost of a different species
from themselves.
The wealth
of the burghers never failed
to provoke their envy
and indignation,
and they
plundered them
upon every occasion
without mercy or remorse.
The burghers
naturally hated
and feared the lords.
The king
hated and feared them too;
but though,
perhaps,
he might despise,
he had no reason either
to hate
or fear the burghers.
Mutual interest,
therefore,
disposed them
to support the king,
and the king
to support them
against the lords.
They were the enemies
of his enemies,
and it was his interest
to render them
as secure and independent
of those enemies
as he
could.
By granting them magistrates
of their own,
the privilege
of making bye-laws
for their own government,
that of building walls
for their own defence,
and that
of reducing all
their inhabitants
under a sort
of military discipline,
he
gave them all the means
of security and independency
of the barons
which it
was in his power
to bestow.
Without the establishment
of some regular government
of this kind,
without some authority
to compel their inhabitants
to act
according to some certain plan
or system,
no voluntary league
of mutual defence
could either
have afforded them
any permanent security,
or have enabled them
to give
the king any considerable support.
By granting them the farm
of their own town
in fee,
he took away from those
whom
he wished
to have for his friends,
and, if one
may say so,
for his allies,
all ground
of jealousy and suspicion,
that he
was ever afterwards
to oppress them,
either by raising
the farm-rent of their town,
or by granting it
to some other farmer.
The princes
who lived
upon the worst terms
with their barons,
seem accordingly
to have been
the most liberal
in grants of this kind
to their burghs.
King John of England,
for example,
appears
to have been
a most munificent benefactor
to his towns.
(See Madox.)
Philip I. of France
lost all authority
over his barons.
Towards the end
of his reign,
his son Lewis,
known afterwards
by the name
of Lewis the Fat,
consulted,
according to Father Daniel,
with the bishops
of the royal demesnes,
concerning the most proper means
of restraining
the violence
of the great lords.
Their advice
consisted
of two different proposals.
One
was to erect a new order
of jurisdiction,
by establishing magistrates
and
a town-council in
every considerable
town
of his demesnes.
The other
was
to form a new militia,
by making
the inhabitants
of those towns,
under the command
of their own magistrates,
march out
upon proper occasions
to the assistance
of the king.
It is from this period,
according to
the French antiquarians,
that we
are to date the institution
of the magistrates and councils
of cities
in France.
It was
during the unprosperous reigns
of the princes
of the house of Suabia,
that the greater part
of the free
towns of Germany
received the first grants
of their privileges,
and that
the famous Hanseatic league
first became formidable.
(See Pfeffel.)
The militia of the cities
seems,
in those times,
not to have been inferior to
that of the country;
and as
they could
be more readily assembled
upon any sudden occasion,
they frequently had
the advantage
in their disputes
with the neighbouring lords.
In countries such as Italy
or Switzerland,
in which,
on account either
of their distance
from the principal seat
of government,
of the natural strength
of the country itself,
or of some other reason,
the sovereign
came to lose the whole
of his authority;
the cities
generally became
independent republics,
and conquered all the nobility
in their neighbourhood;
obliging them
to pull down their castles
in the country,
and to live,
like other peaceable inhabitants,
in the city.
This
is the short history
of the republic of Berne,
as well as of several
other cities in Switzerland.
If you except Venice,
for of
that city
the history
is somewhat different,
it is the history
of all
the considerable Italian republics,
of which so great
a number arose
and perished
between the end
of the twelfth
and the beginning
of the sixteenth century.
In countries
such as France and England,
where the authority
of the sovereign,
though frequently very low,
never
was destroyed altogether,
the cities
had no opportunity
of becoming entirely
independent.
They became,
however,
so considerable,
that the sovereign
could impose no tax
upon them,
besides the
stated farm-rent of the town,
without their own consent.
They were,
therefore,
called upon
to send deputies
to the general
assembly of the states
of the kingdom,
where they
might join
with the clergy
and the barons
in granting,
upon urgent occasions,
some extraordinary aid
to the king.
Being generally, too,
more favourable to his power,
their deputies
seem sometimes
to have been employed
by him as a counterbalance
in those assemblies
to the authority
of the great lords.
Hence the origin
of the representation
of burghs
in the states-general
of all great monarchies
in Europe.
Order and good government,
and along with them
the liberty
and security
of individuals,
were in this manner
established in cities,
at a time
when the occupiers
of land in the country,
were exposed to every sort
of violence.
But men
in this
defenceless state naturally
content themselves
with their necessary subsistence;
because,
to acquire more,
might only tempt
the injustice
of their oppressors.
On the contrary,
when they
are secure of enjoying
the fruits of their industry,
they naturally exert it
to better their condition,
and to acquire not only
the necessaries,
but
the conveniencies and elegancies
of life.
That industry,
therefore,
which aims
at something
more than necessary subsistence,
was established
in cities long before
it was commonly practised
by the occupiers
of land in the country.
If,
in the hands
of a poor cultivator,
oppressed
with the servitude
of villanage,
some little stock
should accumulate,
he would naturally conceal it
with great care
from his master,
to whom
it
would otherwise have belonged,
and take the first opportunity
of
running away to a town.
The law
was at that time
so indulgent
to the inhabitants of towns,
and so desirous
of diminishing the authority
of the lords over those
of the country,
that if he
could conceal himself there
from the pursuit
of his lord
for a year,
he was free for ever.
Whatever stock,
therefore,
accumulated
in the hands
of the industrious part
of the inhabitants
of the country,
naturally
took refuge in cities,
as
the only sanctuaries in which it
could be secure to the person
that acquired it.
The inhabitants of a city,
it is true,
must always ultimately derive
their subsistence,
and the whole materials
and means of their industry,
from the country.
But those of a city,
situated near either
the sea-coast or the banks
of a navigable river,
are not necessarily confined
to derive them
from the country
in their neighbourhood.
They have a much wider range,
and may draw them
from the most remote corners
of the world,
either
in exchange
for the manufactured produce
of their own industry,
or by performing the office
of carriers
between distant countries,
and exchanging the produce
of one for
that of another.
A city
might,
in this manner,
grow up to great wealth
and splendour,
while not only
the country
in its neighbourhood,
but all
those to which it
traded,
were
in poverty and wretchedness.
Each of those countries,
perhaps,
taken singly,
could afford
it but a small part,
either
of its subsistence
or of its employment;
but all of them
taken together,
could afford it both
a great subsistence
and a great employment.
There were,
however,
within the narrow circle
of the commerce
of those times,
some countries that
were opulent and industrious.
Such
was the Greek empire as long
as it subsisted,
and that
of the Saracens
during the reigns
of the Abassides.
Such, too,
was Egypt till it
was conquered by the Turks,
some part
of the coast of Barbary,
and all
those provinces of Spain
which were
under the government
of the Moors.
The cities of Italy
seem to have been
the first in Europe
which were raised
by commerce
to any considerable degree
of opulence.
Italy
lay in
the centre of what
was at that time
the improved and
civilized part of the world.
The crusades, too,
though,
by the great waste
of stock and destruction
of inhabitants which
they occasioned,
they must necessarily have retarded
the progress
of the greater part
of Europe,
were extremely favourable to
that of some Italian cities.
The great armies
which marched
from all parts
to the conquest
of the Holy Land,
gave
extraordinary encouragement
to the shipping
of Venice,
Genoa,
and Pisa,
sometimes in transporting them
thither,
and always in supplying them
with provisions.
They were the commissaries,
if one
may say so,
of those armies;
and the most destructive frenzy
that ever
befel the European nations,
was a source
of opulence
to those republics.
The inhabitants
of trading cities,
by importing
the improved
manufactures
and expensive luxuries
of richer countries,
afforded some food
to the vanity
of the great proprietors,
who eagerly purchased them
with great quantities
of the rude produce
of their own lands.
The commerce
of a great part
of Europe in those times,
accordingly,
consisted chiefly
in the exchange
of their own rude,
for the manufactured produce
of more civilized nations.
Thus the wool
of England used
to be exchanged
for the wines of France,
and the fine cloths
of Flanders,
in the same manner
as the corn in Poland
is at this day,
exchanged
for the wines and brandies
of France,
and for the silks and velvets
of France and Italy.
A taste
for the finer and more
improved
manufactures was,
in this manner,
introduced by foreign commerce
into countries where
no such works
were carried on.
But when this taste
became so general as
to occasion
a considerable demand,
the merchants,
in order to
save the expense of carriage,
naturally
endeavoured to establish some
manufactures
of the same kind
in their own country.
Hence
the origin
of the first
manufactures for distant sale,
that seem
to have been established
in the western provinces
of Europe,
after the fall
of the Roman empire.
No large country,
it must be observed,
ever
did or could subsist
without some sort of
manufactures
being carried on in it;
and when it
is said of any such country
that it has no
manufactures,
it must always be understood
of the finer and more
improved,
or of such as
are fit for distant sale.
In every large country
both the clothing
and household furniture
or the far greater part
of the people,
are the produce
of their own industry.
This
is even more universally
the case in those
poor countries
which are commonly said
to have no manufactures,
than in those
rich ones
that are said
to abound in them.
In the latter
you will generally find,
both in the clothes
and household furniture
of the lowest rank of people,
a much greater proportion
of foreign productions
than in the former.
Those
manufactures
which are fit
for distant sale,
seem to have been introduced
into different countries
in two different ways.
Sometimes they
have been introduced
in the manner above mentioned,
by the violent operation,
if one
may say so,
of the stocks
of particular merchants
and undertakers,
who established them
in imitation of some foreign
manufactures of the same kind.
Such
manufactures,
therefore,
are the offspring
of foreign commerce;
and such
seem
to have been the ancient
manufactures of silks,
velvets,
and brocades,
which flourished
in Lucca
during the thirteenth century.
They
were banished from
thence by the tyranny
of one
of Machiavel's heroes,
Castruccio Castracani.
In 1310,
nine hundred families
were driven out of Lucca,
of whom thirty-one retired
to Venice,
and offered
to introduce there
the silk manufacture.
(See Sandi Istoria civile
de Vinezia,
part 2 vol. i,
page 247 and 256.)
Their offer
was accepted,
many
privileges were conferred
upon them,
and they
began the manufacture
with three hundred workmen.
Such, too,
seem
to have been
the manufactures of fine
cloths
that anciently flourished
in Flanders,
and which
were introduced
into England in the beginning
of the reign of Elizabeth,
and such
are the present silk
manufactures
of Lyons and Spitalfields.
Manufactures
introduced in this manner
are generally employed
upon foreign materials,
being
imitations of foreign
manufactures.
When
the Venetian manufacture
was first established,
the materials
were all brought
from Sicily and the Levant.
The more
ancient manufacture of Lucca
was likewise
carried on
with foreign materials.
The cultivation
of mulberry trees,
and the breeding
of silk-worms,
seem not
to have been common
in the northern parts
of Italy
before the sixteenth century.
Those arts
were not introduced
into France
till the reign
of Charles IX.
The manufactures of Flanders
were carried on
chiefly with Spanish
and English wool.
Spanish wool
was the material,
not of
the first woollen manufacture
of England,
but of the first
that was fit
for distant sale.
More than one half
the materials
of the Lyons manufacture
is at this
day
foreign silk;
when it was first established,
the whole,
or very nearly the whole,
was so.
No part
of the materials
of the Spitalfields manufacture
is ever likely
to be the produce
of England.
The seat of such manufactures,
as they
are generally introduced
by the scheme
and project of a few
individuals,
is sometimes established
in a maritime city,
and sometimes in an
inland town,
according as their interest,
judgment,
or caprice,
happen
to determine.
At other times,
manufactures
for distant
sale grow up naturally,
and as it
were of their own accord,
by the
gradual refinement
of those household and coarser
manufactures
which must at all times
be carried on
even in
the poorest and rudest countries.
Such
manufactures
are generally employed
upon the materials which
the country produces,
and they
seem frequently
to have been first refined
and improved
In such inland countries
as were not,
indeed,
at a very great,
but
at a considerable distance
from the sea-coast,
and sometimes even from
all water carriage.
An inland country,
naturally fertile
and easily cultivated,
produces
a great surplus
of provisions beyond what
is necessary
for maintaining
the cultivators;
and on account
of the expense
of land carriage,
and inconveniency
of river navigation,
it may frequently be difficult
to send this surplus abroad.
Abundance,
therefore,
renders provisions cheap,
and encourages
a great number
of workmen
to settle
in the neighbourhood,
who find that
their industry
can there procure them more
of the necessaries
and conveniencies
of life than
in other places.
They work
up the materials
of manufacture which
the land produces,
and exchange
their finished work,
or,
what is the same thing,
the price of it,
for more
materials and provisions.
They give a new value
to the surplus part
of the rude produce,
by saving the expense
of carrying it
to the water-side,
or to some distant market;
and they
furnish
the cultivators with something
in exchange for it
that is
either useful or agreeable
to them,
upon easier terms than they
could have obtained it
before.
The cultivators
get a better price
for their surplus produce,
and can purchase
cheaper other conveniencies
which they
have
occasion for.
They
are thus both
encouraged and enabled
to increase
this surplus produce
by a further improvement
and better cultivation
of the land;
and as the fertility of
she land had given birth
to the manufacture,
so the progress
of the manufacture
reacts upon the land,
and increases still further
it's fertility.
The manufacturers
first supply
the neighbourhood,
and afterwards,
as their work
improves and refines,
more distant markets.
For though
neither the rude produce,
nor even
the coarse manufacture,
could,
without the greatest difficulty,
support
the expense
of a considerable land-carriage,
the refined
and improved manufacture easily may.
In a small bulk
it frequently contains
the price
of a great quantity
of rude produce.
A piece of fine cloth,
for example
which weighs only
eighty pounds,
contains in it the price,
not
only of eighty pounds weight
of wool,
but sometimes of several
thousand weight of corn,
the maintenance
of the different working people,
and of their immediate employers.
The corn
which could with difficulty
have been carried abroad
in its own shape,
is in this manner
virtually exported in
that
of the complete manufacture,
and may easily be sent
to the remotest corners
of the world.
In this manner
have grown up naturally,
and, as it were,
of their own accord,
the manufactures of Leeds,
Halifax,
Sheffield,
Birmingham,
and Wolverhampton.
Such
manufactures
are the offspring
of agriculture.
In the modern history
of Europe,
their extension
and improvement
have generally been posterior
to those
which were the offspring
of foreign commerce.
England
was noted
for the manufacture
of fine cloths
made of Spanish wool,
more than a century
before any
of those which
now flourish
in the places above mentioned
were fit for foreign sale.
The extension and improvement of these last
could not take place but
in consequence
of the extension and improvement
of agriculture,
the last and greatest effect
of foreign commerce,
and of
the manufactures immediately
introduced by it,
and which
I shall now proceed
to explain.
HOW THE COMMERCE
OF TOWNS CONTRIBUTED
TO THE IMPROVEMENT
OF THE COUNTRY.
The increase and riches
of commercial
and manufacturing towns
contributed
to the improvement
and cultivation
of the countries
to which
they belonged,
in three different ways:
First,
by affording
a great and ready market
for the rude produce
of the country,
they
gave encouragement
to its cultivation
and further improvement.
This benefit
was not even confined
to the countries
in which they were situated,
but extended more or less
to all
those with which
they had any dealings.
To all of them
they afforded a market
for some part either
of their rude
or manufactured produce,
and, consequently,
gave some encouragement
to the industry and improvement
of all.
Their own country,
however,
on account
of its neighbourhood,
necessarily
derived
the greatest benefit
from this market.
Its rude produce
being charged
with less carriage,
the traders
could pay
the growers
a better price for it,
and yet afford it as cheap
to the consumers as
that of more distant countries.
Secondly,
the wealth
acquired
by the inhabitants of cities
was frequently employed in purchasing
such lands as
were to be sold,
of which a great part
would frequently be uncultivated.
Merchants
are commonly ambitious
of becoming country gentlemen,
and, when they do,
they are generally the best
of all improvers.
A merchant
is accustomed
to employ his money
chiefly in profitable projects;
whereas
a mere country
gentleman is accustomed
to employ it
chiefly in expense.
The one
often sees his money
go from him,
and return to him
again with a profit;
the other,
when once
he parts with it,
very seldom
expects
to see any more of it.
Those different habits
naturally affect their temper
and disposition
in every sort of business.
The merchant
is commonly a bold,
a country
gentleman a timid undertaker.
The one
is not afraid to lay out
at once a large capital
upon the improvement
of his land,
when he
has a probable prospect
of raising the value of it
in proportion to the expense;
the other,
if he has any capital,
which is not always the case,
seldom ventures
to employ it in this manner.
If he improves at all,
it
is commonly
not with a capital,
but with what he
can save
out or his annual revenue.
Whoever
has had the fortune
to live in a mercantile town,
situated
in an unimproved country,
must have frequently observed how
much more spirited
the operations of merchants
were in this way,
than those
of mere country gentlemen.
The habits,
besides,
of order,
economy,
and attention,
to which
mercantile business
naturally forms a merchant,
render him much fitter
to execute,
with profit and success,
any project of improvement.
Thirdly,
and lastly,
commerce
and manufactures gradually
introduced order
and good government,
and with them the liberty
and security
of individuals,
among the inhabitants
of the country,
who had before lived almost
in a continual state
of war with their neighbours,
and of servile dependency
upon their superiors.
This,
though it
has been the least observed,
is by far the most important
of all their effects.
Mr Hume
is the only writer who,
so far as I know,
has hitherto taken notice
of it.
In a country
which has
neither foreign commerce nor any of the
finer
manufactures,
a great proprietor,
having nothing
for which
he can exchange
the greater part
of the produce
of his lands
which is over and above
the maintenance
of the cultivators,
consumes
the whole in
rustic hospitality at home.
If this surplus produce
is sufficient
to maintain
a hundred or a thousand men,
he
can make
use of it in no
other way
than by maintaining
a hundred or a thousand men.
He is at all times,
therefore,
surrounded
with a multitude
of retainers and dependants,
who,
having no equivalent
to give
in return
for their maintenance,
but being fed entirely
by his bounty,
must obey him,
for the same reason
that soldiers
must obey the prince
who pays them.
Before the extension
of commerce
and manufactures in Europe,
the hospitality
of the rich and the great,
from the sovereign down
to the smallest baron,
exceeded every thing which,
in the present times,
we can easily form
a notion of Westminster-hall
was the dining-room
of William Rufus,
and might frequently,
perhaps,
not be too large
for his company.
It was reckoned a piece
of magnificence
in Thomas Becket,
that he strewed the floor
of his hall
with clean hay or rushes in
the season,
in order that
the knights and squires,
who could not get seats,
might not spoil
their fine clothes
when they
sat down on the floor
to eat their dinner.
The great Earl of Warwick
is said
to have entertained every day,
at his different manors,
30,000 people;
and though the number
here
may have been exaggerated,
it must,
however,
have been very great
to admit of such exaggeration.
A hospitality
nearly of the same kind
was exercised not
many years ago in
many different parts
of the Highlands of Scotland.
It seems
to be common
in all nations
to whom commerce
and manufactures
are little known.
I have seen,
says Doctor Pocock,
an Arabian chief
dine in the streets
of a town
where he
had come
to sell his cattle,
and invite all passengers,
even common beggars,
to sit down
with him and
partake of his banquet.
The occupiers of land
were in every respect
as dependent
upon the great proprietor as
his retainers.
Even such of them
as were not in a state
of villanage,
were tenants at will,
who paid
a rent
in no respect equivalent
to the subsistence which
the land
afforded them.
A crown,
half a crown,
a sheep,
a lamb,
was some years ago,
in the Highlands of Scotland,
a common
rent for lands
which maintained a family.
In some places
it is so at this day;
nor will money at present
purchase a greater quantity
of commodities there than
in other places.
In a country
where the surplus produce
of a large estate
must be consumed
upon the estate itself,
it will frequently be
more convenient
for the proprietor,
that part of it
be consumed
at a distance
from his own house,
provided they who consume
it
are as dependent
upon him as either
his retainers
or his menial servants.
He is thereby saved
from the embarrassment
of either
too large a company,
or too large a family.
A tenant at will,
who possesses land sufficient
to maintain his family
for little more than
a quit-rent,
is as dependent
upon the proprietor as any servant
or retainer
whatever,
and must obey him with
as little reserve.
Such a proprietor,
as he feeds
his servants and retainers
at his own house,
so he
feeds his tenants
at their houses.
The subsistence of both
is derived from his bounty,
and its continuance
depends
upon his good pleasure.
Upon the authority which
the great proprietors
necessarily had,
in such a state of things,
over their tenants and retainers,
was founded
the power
of the ancient barons.
They necessarily became
the judges in peace,
and the leaders in war,
of all
who dwelt upon their estates.
They
could maintain order,
and execute the law,
within their respective demesnes,
because each of them
could there turn
the whole force
of all the inhabitants
against the injustice
of anyone.
No other person
had sufficient authority
to do this.
The king,
in particular,
had not.
In those ancient times,
he was little more than
the greatest proprietor
in his dominions,
to whom,
for the sake
of common defence
against their common enemies,
the other great proprietors
paid certain respects.
To have enforced payment
of a small debt
within the lands
of a great proprietor,
where all
the inhabitants were armed,
and accustomed
to stand by one another,
would have
cost the king,
had
he attempted it
by his own authority,
almost
the same effort
as to extinguish
a civil war.
He was,
therefore,
obliged
to abandon the administration
of justice,
through the greater part
of the country,
to those
who were capable
of administering it;
and,
for the same reason,
to leave the command
of the country militia
to those
whom
that militia
would obey.
It is a mistake
to imagine that
those territorial jurisdictions
took
their origin
from the feudal law.
Not only
the highest jurisdictions,
both civil and criminal,
but the power
of levying troops,
of coining money,
and even that
of making bye-laws
for the government
of their own people,
were all rights
possessed allodially
by the great proprietors
of land,
several centuries
before even
the name of the feudal law
was known
in Europe.
The authority and jurisdiction
of the Saxon
lords in England
appear
to have been as great
before the Conquest
as that of any of the
Norman lords after it.
But the feudal law
is not supposed
to have become the common law
of England
till after the Conquest.
That
the most extensive authority
and jurisdictions
were possessed by the great
lords in France allodially,
long
before the feudal law
was introduced into
that country,
is a matter of fact
that admits of no doubt.
That authority,
and those jurisdictions,
all necessarily flowed
from the state
of property and manners
just now described.
Without remounting
to the remote antiquities
of either the French
or English monarchies,
we may find,
in much later times,
many proofs that such effects
must always flow
from such causes.
It is not
thirty years ago since
Mr Cameron of Lochiel,
a gentleman
of Lochaber in Scotland,
without any legal warrant
whatever,
not being what
was then called
a lord of regality,
nor even a tenant in chief,
but a vassal
of the Duke of Argyll,
and with out being
so much as a justice
of peace,
used,
notwithstanding,
to exercise
the highest criminal jurisdictions
over his own people.
He is said
to have done so
with great equity,
though
without any of the formalities
of justice;
and it is not improbable
that the state
of that part
of the country
at that time
made it necessary for him
to assume this authority,
in order to
maintain the public peace.
That gentleman,
whose rent never
exceeded £500 a-year,
carried,
in 1745,
800 of his own people
into the rebellion
with him.
The introduction
of the feudal law,
so far
from extending,
may be regarded
as an attempt
to moderate,
the authority
of the great allodial lords.
It established
a regular subordination,
accompanied
with a long train
of services and duties,
from the king down
to the smallest proprietor.
During the minority
of the proprietor,
the rent,
together
with the management
of his lands,
fell into the hands
of his immediate superior;
and, consequently,
those of all great proprietors
into the hands
of the king,
who was charged
with the maintenance
and education
of the pupil,
and who,
from his authority as guardian,
was supposed
to have a right
of disposing
of him in marriage,
provided
it was
in a manner not unsuitable
to his rank.
But though this institution
necessarily tended
to strengthen the authority
of the king,
and to weaken
that of the great proprietors,
it could not do either
sufficiently for establishing order
and good government
among the inhabitants
of the country;
because
it
could not alter sufficiently
that state
of property and manners
from which
the disorders arose.
The authority
of government still continued
to be,
as before,
too weak in the head,
and too strong
in the inferior members;
and the excessive strength
of the inferior members
was the cause
of the weakness
of the head.
After the institution
of feudal subordination,
the king
was as incapable
of restraining the violence
of the great lords
as before.
They still continued
to make war
according to
their own discretion,
almost
continually upon one another,
and very frequently
upon the king;
and the open
country
still continued
to be a scene of violence,
rapine,
and disorder.
But what all the violence
of the feudal institutions
could never have effected,
the silent and insensible
operation
of foreign commerce
and manufactures gradually
brought about.
These
gradually furnished
the great proprietors
with something
for which
they could exchange
the whole surplus produce
of their lands,
and which
they could consume themselves,
without sharing it either
with tenants or retainers.
All for ourselves,
and nothing for other people,
seems,
in every age
of the world,
to have been the vile maxim
of the masters of mankind.
As soon,
therefore,
as they
could find a method
of consuming the whole value
of their rents themselves,
they had no disposition
to share them
with any other persons.
For a pair
of diamond buckles,
perhaps,
or for
something as frivolous
and useless,
they exchanged
the maintenance,
or,
what is the same thing,
the price
of the maintenance
of 1000 men
for a year,
and with it
the whole weight
and authority which
it could give them.
The buckles,
however,
were to be all their own,
and no other human creature
was to have any share
of them;
whereas,
in the more ancient method
of expense,
they
must have shared
with at least 1000 people.
With the judges that
were
to determine the preference,
this difference
was perfectly decisive;
and thus,
for the gratification
of the most childish,
the meanest,
and the most sordid
of all vanities
they gradually
bartered their whole power
and authority.
In a country
where there is
no foreign commerce,
nor any of the finer
manufactures,
a man
of £10,000 a-year
cannot well employ his revenue
in any other way
than in maintaining,
perhaps,
1000 families,
who are all of them
necessarily at his command.
In the present state
of Europe,
a man of £10,000 a-year
can spend his whole revenue,
and he generally does so,
without directly maintaining twenty people,
or being
able to command
more than ten footmen,
not worth the commanding.
Indirectly,
perhaps,
he maintains as great,
or even a greater number
of people,
than
he could have done
by the ancient method
of expense.
For though the quantity
of precious productions
for which
he exchanges his whole revenue
be very small,
the number of workmen
employed
in collecting
and preparing
it must necessarily have been
very great.
Its great price generally
arises from the wages
of their labour,
and the profits
of all
their immediate employers.
By paying that price,
he
indirectly pays all
those wages
and profits,
and thus
indirectly contributes
to the maintenance of all
the workmen
and their employers.
He generally contributes,
however,
but
a very small proportion to
that of each;
to a very few,
perhaps,
not a tenth,
to many not a hundredth,
and to some not a thousandth,
or even a ten thousandth part
of their whole annual maintenance.
Though he contributes,
therefore,
to the maintenance
of them all,
they
are all more
or less independent
of him,
because generally
they can all be maintained
without him.
When the great proprietors
of land
spend their rents
in maintaining their tenants
and retainers,
each of them
maintains entirely
all his own tenants
and all his own retainers.
But when they
spend them
in maintaining tradesmen
and artificers,
they may,
all of them taken together,
perhaps
maintain as great,
or,
on account of the waste
which attends rustic hospitality,
a greater number
of people than before.
Each of them,
however,
taken singly,
contributes often
but a very small share
to the maintenance
of any individual
of this greater number.
Each tradesman or artificer
derives his subsistence
from the employment,
not of one,
but of a hundred
or
a thousand different customers.
Though in some measure
obliged to them all,
therefore,
he is not absolutely dependent
upon any one
of them.
The personal expense
of the great proprietors
having
in this
manner gradually increased,
it was impossible
that
the number of their retainers
should not
as gradually diminish,
till they
were at last
dismissed altogether.
The same cause gradually
led them
to dismiss
the unnecessary part
of their tenants.
Farms
were enlarged,
and the occupiers of land,
notwithstanding
the complaints
of depopulation,
reduced to the number necessary
for cultivating it,
according to
the imperfect state
of cultivation and improvement
in those times.
By the removal
of the unnecessary mouths,
and by exacting
from the farmer
the full value of the farm,
a greater surplus,
or,
what is the same thing,
the price
of a greater surplus,
was obtained
for the proprietor,
which the merchants
and manufacturers
soon furnished him
with a method
of spending
upon his own person,
in the same manner
as he
had done the rest.
The cause continuing
to operate,
he was desirous
to raise
his rents above what
his lands,
in the actual state
of their improvement,
could afford.
His tenants
could agree to this
upon one condition only,
that they
should be secured
in their possession for such
a term of years as
might give them
time to recover,
with profit,
whatever
they should lay not
in the further improvement
of the land.
The expensive vanity
of the landlord
made him
willing
to accept of this condition;
and hence
the origin of long leases.
Even a tenant at will,
who pays the full value
of the land,
is not altogether dependent
upon the landlord.
The pecuniary advantages which
they receive from one another
are mutual and equal,
and such
a tenant
will expose
neither
his life nor his fortune
in the service
of the proprietor.
But if he
has a lease for
along term of years,
he is altogether independent;
and his landlord
must not expect
from him even
the most trifling service,
beyond
what is either
expressly stipulated
in the lease,
or imposed
upon him by the common
and known law
of the country.
The tenants
having in this manner
become independent,
and the retainers
being dismissed,
the great proprietors
were no longer capable
of interrupting
the regular execution
of justice,
or of disturbing
the peace
of the country.
Having sold their birth-right,
not like Esau,
for a mess of pottage
in time
of hunger and necessity,
but,
in the wantonness of plenty,
for trinkets and baubles,
fitter
to be the playthings
of children
than the serious pursuits
of men,
they became as
insignificant as any substantial
burgher
or tradesmen
in a city.
A regular government
was established
in the country
as well as in the city,
nobody
having sufficient power
to disturb its operations
in the one,
any more than
in the other.
It does not,
perhaps,
relate to the present subject,
but I cannot help
remarking it,
that very old families,
such as
have possessed
some considerable estate
from father
to son
for many successive generations,
are very rare
in commercial countries.
In countries
which have little commerce,
on the contrary,
such as Wales,
or the Highlands of Scotland,
they
are very common.
The Arabian
histories
seem to be
all full of genealogies;
and there is
a history
written by a Tartar Khan,
which has been translated
into several European languages,
and which
contains
scarce any thing else;
a proof
that ancient
families are very common
among those 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 apt to run out,
and his benevolence,
it seems,
is seldom so violent
as to attempt
to maintain
more than he can afford.
But where
he
can spend the greatest revenue
upon his own person,
he frequently has no bounds
to his expense,
because
he frequently has no bounds
to his vanity,
or to his affection
for his own person.
In commercial countries,
therefore,
riches,
in spite of
the most violent regulations
of law
to prevent their dissipation,
very seldom
remain long
in the same family.
Among simple nations,
on the contrary,
they frequently do,
without any regulations
of law;
for among nations
of shepherds,
such as the Tartars
and Arabs,
the consumable nature
of their property
necessarily renders
all
such regulations impossible.
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 least intention
to serve the public.
To gratify
the most childish vanity
was the sole motive
of the great proprietors.
The merchants and artificers,
much less ridiculous,
acted merely
from a view
to their own interest,
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 foresight
of
that
great revolution which the folly
of the one,
and the industry
of the other,
was gradually bringing about.
It was thus,
that,
through the greater part
of Europe,
the commerce
and manufactures of cities,
instead of being the effect,
have been
the cause
and occasion
of the improvement
and cultivation
of the country.
This order,
however,
being contrary
to the natural course
of things,
is necessarily
both slow and uncertain.
Compare
the slow progress
of those European countries
of which the wealth
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 supposed
to double
in less than
five hundred years.
In several
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 small proprietor,
however,
who knows every part
of his little territory,
views it
with all the affection
which property,
especially small property,
naturally
inspires,
and who
upon that account takes pleasure,
not only in cultivating,
but in adorning it,
is generally
of all improvers
the most industrious,
the most intelligent,
and the most successful.
The same regulations,
besides,
keep so much land
out of the market,
that
there are always more capitals
to buy than
there is land to sell,
so that
what is sold always
sells at a monopoly price.
The rent never
pays the interest
of the purchase-money,
and is,
besides,
burdened
with repairs
and other occasional charges,
to which the interest
of money
is not liable.
To purchase land,
is, everywhere
in Europe,
a most unprofitable employment
of a small capital.
For the sake
of the superior security,
indeed,
a man of moderate circumstances,
when he retires from business,
will sometimes choose
to lay out
his little capital
in land.
A man of profession,
too
whose revenue
is derived from another source
often loves
to secure his savings
in the same way.
But a young man,
who,
instead of applying
to trade
or to some profession,
should 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 illustration,
which,
by a different employment
of his stock,
he might have had
the same chance
of
acquiring with other people.
Such a person, too,
though he
cannot aspire
at being a proprietor,
will often disdain
to be a farmer.
The small 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 otherwise have taken
that direction.
In North America,
on the contrary,
fifty or sixty pounds
is often found
a sufficient stock
to begin a plantation with.
The purchase and improvement
of uncultivated
land is there
the most profitable employment
of the smallest
as well as
of the greatest capitals,
and the most direct road
to all
the fortune and illustration
which can be required in
that country.
Such land,
indeed,
is in North America
to be had almost for nothing,
or at a price much
below the value
of the natural produce;
a thing impossible in Europe,
or indeed in any
country where all
lands have long
been private property.
If landed estates,
however,
were divided equally
among all the children,
upon the death
of any
proprietor
who left a numerous family,
the estate
would generally be sold.
So much land
would come
to market,
that
it could no longer sell
at a monopoly price.
The free rent of the land
would go no nearer
to pay the interest
of the purchase-money,
and a small capital
might be employed
in purchasing land
as
profitable as in any other way.
England,
on account
of the natural fertility
of the soil,
of the great extent
of the sea-coast
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 seat
of foreign commerce,
of manufactures for distant sale,
and of all
the improvements which
these can occasion.
From the beginning
of the reign
of Elizabeth, too,
the English legislature
has been peculiarly attentive
to the interest
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 sort 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
seems to have followed slowly,
and at a distance,
the more rapid progress
of commerce
and manufactures.
The greater part
of the country
must probably have been cultivated
before the reign of Elizabeth;
and a very great part
of it
still remains uncultivated,
and the cultivation
of the far greater part much inferior
to what
it might be,
The law of England,
however,
favours agriculture,
not only indirectly,
by the protection of commerce,
but by several direct
encouragements.
Except
in times of scarcity,
the exportation of corn
is not only free,
but encouraged by a bounty.
In times of moderate plenty,
the importation
of foreign corn
is loaded with duties
that amount
to a prohibition.
The importation of live cattle,
except from Ireland,
is prohibited at all times;
and it is but of late
that it
was permitted from thence.
Those who cultivate the land,
therefore,
have a monopoly
against their countrymen
for the two greatest
and most important articles
of land produce,
bread and butcher's meat.
These encouragements,
although at bottom,
perhaps,
as I shall endeavour
to show
hereafter,
altogether illusory,
sufficiently
demonstrate
at least the good intention
of the legislature
to favour agriculture.
But what
is of much more importance
than all of them,
the yeomanry of England
are rendered as secure,
as independent,
and as respectable,
as law
can make them.
No country,
therefore,
which
the right of primogeniture
takes place,
which pays
tithes,
and where perpetuities,
though contrary
to the spirit
of the law,
are admitted in some cases,
can give more encouragement
to agriculture
than England.
Such,
however,
notwithstanding,
is the state
of its cultivation.
What would
it have been,
had
the law
given no direct
encouragement to agriculture besides what
arises indirectly
from the progress of commerce,
and had left the yeomanry
in the same condition
as in most other countries
of Europe?
It
is now
more than two hundred years
since the beginning
of the reign of Elizabeth,
a period as long
as the course
of human prosperity
usually endures.
France
seems
to have had a considerable share
of foreign commerce,
near a century before England
was distinguished
as a commercial country.
The marine of France
was considerable,
according to
the notions of the times,
before the expedition
of Charles VIII. to Naples.
The cultivation
and improvement
of France,
however,
is, upon the whole,
inferior to that of England.
The law of the country
has never given
the same direct encouragement
to agriculture.
The foreign commerce
of Spain and Portual
to the other parts
of Europe,
though chiefly carried on
in foreign ships,
is very considerable.
That to their colonies
is carried on in their own,
and is much greater,
on account
of the great riches
and extent
of those colonies.
But it
has never introduced
any considerable
manufactures for distant sale
into either
of those countries,
and the greater part of both
still remains uncultivated.
The foreign commerce
of Portugal
is of older standing than
that of any great country
in Europe,
except Italy.
Italy
is the only great country
of Europe
which seems
to have been cultivated
and improved in every part,
by means of foreign commerce
and manufactures
for distant sale.
Before the invasion
of Charles VIII.,
Italy,
according to Guicciardini,
was cultivated not less in
the most mountainous
and barren parts
of the country,
than
in the plainest and most fertile.
The advantageous situation
of the country,
and the great number
of independent status which
at that time
subsisted in it,
probably
contributed not a little
to this general cultivation.
It is not impossible, too,
notwithstanding this
general expression
of one
of the most judicious and reserved
of modern historians,
that Italy
was not at that time better
cultivated than England
is at present.
The capital,
however,
that is acquired
to any country
by commerce
and manufactures,
is always
a very precarious and uncertain
possession,
till some part of it
has been secured
and realized
in the cultivation
and improvement
of its lands.
A merchant,
it has been said
very properly,
is not necessarily
the citizen
of any particular country.
It is
in a great measure indifferent
to him from what place
he carries on his trade;
and a very trifling
disgust
will make him
remove his capital,
and, together with it,
all the industry which
it supports,
from one country to another.
No part of it
can be said
to belong
to any particular country,
till it has been spread,
as it were,
over the face of
that country,
either in buildings,
or in the lasting improvement
of lands.
No vestige now remains
of the great wealth
said to have been possessed
by the greater part
of the Hanse Towns,
except
in the obscure histories
of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries.
It
is even
uncertain where some of them
were situated,
or to
what towns
in Europe the Latin
names
given to some of them
belong.
But though the misfortunes
of Italy,
in the end
of the fifteenth and beginning
of the sixteenth centuries,
greatly
diminished
the commerce
and manufactures of the cities
of Lombardy and Tuscany,
those countries
still continue
to be
among the most populous and best
cultivated in Europe.
The civil wars of Flanders,
and
the Spanish government which
succeeded them,
chased away
the great commerce of Antwerp,
Ghent,
and Bruges.
But Flanders
still continues
to be one of the richest,
best
cultivated,
and most populous provinces
of Europe.
The ordinary revolutions
of war and government
easily dry up the sources of
that wealth
which arises
from commerce only.
That which
arises
from the
more solid improvements
of agriculture
is much more durable,
and cannot be destroyed but
by those
more violent convulsions
occasioned
by the depredations
of hostile
and barbarous nations
continued
for a century or two
together;
such as those
that happened
for some time
before and after the fall
of the Roman empire
in the western provinces
of Europe.