\ 
244 on manufactures and agriculture. Dee. 1% 
sons who are thus deprived of their means of sub- 
sistence, must, at a great expence, be reprefsed by @ 
military power from committing enormities; and 
thus be driven to seek fhelter in some other coun- 
try, where their manufacturing knowledge may 
perhaps make them welcome guests; or they must 
prevail against the power of sili and pillage and 
anarchy must take place. 
In case your manufacturers are driven abroad to 
other countries, your manufactures and your po- 
pulation are both permanently diminifhed, and with 
them the prosperity, and the wealth of all who re- 
main behind is decreased ; and consequently the na- 
tional resources fall off. But when the resources 
of aonce wealthy court fail, it is impofsible to 
bring it back to that kind of prudent economy, that 
might have been practised had it never known ex~ 
cefs. Taxes then become excefsive. The remain- | 
ing manufactures, under the rigorous execution of 
revenue laws, languifh for a time, and then expire. 
The people, in the mean while, seeking for refuge in 
happier countries, retire in great numbers ; andthe 
population diminifhes in a most astonifhing degree. 
Such has been the fate of Spain, which was once 2 __ 
wealthy, a manufacturing, and a populous country, 
Its population in a fhort period, has sunk from twen- 7 
ty-five to eight millions of people ; its manufactures © 
are ruined; and its agriculture is in the most lan. 
guid neglect. But such, in a still more conspicuous 4 
degree, has been the miserable reverse of fortune that 
Antwerp has undergone; which three centuries 
ago experienced a flufh of prosperity arising from 
Pd) 
