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POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



Political But no inquiry concerning the nature and causes of 

 Kconomy. national wealth had occupied the speculations of our 

 " -Y -' ancestors. They had not ascended to the principles of 

 political economy, in order to deduce from that source 

 their systems of finance and civil jurisprudence, which 

 ought however to be nothing more than corollaries from 

 those principles. They had abandoned the development 

 of public wealth to the result of individual efforts, 

 without examining their nature; and thus property 

 had long accumulated silently, in each society, by the 

 labour of each artisan to procure his own subsistence., 

 and afterwards his own comforts before the manner 

 of acquiring and preserving it became an object of 

 scientific speculation. The philosophers of antiqui- 

 ty were engaged in proving to their disciples, that 

 riches are useless for happiness ; not in pointing out 

 to governments the laws by which the increase of 

 those riches may be favoured or retarded. The atten- 

 tion of thinking men was at length directed to national 

 wealth, by the requisitions of states, and the poverty of 

 the people. An important change which occurred in 

 the general politics of Europe, during the sixteenth 

 century, almost everywhere overturned public liberty ; 

 oppressed the smaller states ; destroyed the privileges 

 of the towns and provinces ; and conferred the right to 

 dispose of national fortunes on a small number of so- 

 vereigns, absolutely unacquainted with the industry by 

 which wealth is accumulated or preserved. Before the 

 reign of Charles V., one half of Europe, lying under the 

 feudal system, had no liberty or knowledge, and no 

 finance. But the other half, which had already reach- 

 ed a high degree of prosperity, which was daily in- 

 creasing its agricultural riches, its manufactories, and 

 its trade, was governed by men who, in private life, 

 had attended to the study of economy, who in acquir- 

 ing their own property, had learned what is suitable 

 in that of states ; and who governing free communi- 

 ties, to which they were responsible, guided their ad- 

 ministrations, not according to their own ambition, 

 but according to the interest of all. Till the fifteenth 

 century, wealth and credit were nowhere to be found 

 but in the republics of Italy, and of the Hansea- 

 tic league ; the imperial towns of Germany ; the free 

 towns of Belgium and Spain, and perhaps also in some 

 towns of France and England, which happened to en- 

 joy great municipal privileges. The magistrates of 

 all those towns were men constantly brought up in 

 business, and without having brought political econo- 

 my to the form of a science, they had yet the feeling 

 as well as the experience of what would serve or injure 

 the interests of their fellow-citizens. 



The dreadful wars which began with the sixteenth 

 century, and altogether overturned the balance of Eu- 

 rope, transferred a nearly absolute authority to three or 

 lour all-powerful monarchs, who shared among them 

 the government of the civilized world. Charles V. 

 united, under his dominion, all the countries which had 

 hitherto been celebrated for their industry and wealth, 

 Spain, nearly all Italy, Flanders, and Germany ; 

 but he united after having ruined them ; and his ad- 

 ministration, by suppressing all their privileges, pre- 

 vented the recovery of former opulence. The most 

 absolute kings can no more govern by themselves, than 

 kings whose authority is limited by laws. The former 

 transmit their power to ministers, whom they themselves 

 select, in place of taking such as would be nominated 

 by the popular confidence. But they find them among a 

 class of persons different from that in which free govern- 

 ments find them. Jn the eyes of an absolute king, the 



first quality of a statesman is his being in possession of Political 

 a rank so high that he may have lived in noble indo- -E 

 lence, or at least in absolute ignorance of domestic eco- "" 

 nomy. The ministers of Charles V. whatever talents 

 they show for negociation and intrigue, were all equally 

 ignorant of pecuniary affairs. They ruined the public 

 finances, agriculture, trade, and every kind of industry, 

 from one end of Europe to the other ; they made the 

 people feel the difference, which might indeed have 

 been anticipated, between their ignorance and the prac- 

 tical knowledge of republican magistrates. 



Charles V., his rival Francis I., and Henry VIII. who 

 wished to hold the balance between them, had engaged 

 in expences beyond their incomes ; the ambition of their 

 successors, and the obstinacy of the house of Austria, 

 which continued to maintain a destructive system of 

 warfare during more than a hundred years, caused those 

 expences, in spite of the public poverty, to go on in- 

 creasing. But as the suffering became more general, 

 the friends of humanity felt more deeply the obligation 

 laid on them to undertake the defence of the poor. By 

 an order of sequence opposite to the natural progress of 

 ideas, the science of political economy sprung from that 

 of finance. Philosophers wished to shield the people 

 from the speculations of absolute power. They felt that, 

 to obtain a hearing from kings, they must speak to them 

 of royal interests, not of justice or duty. They inves- 

 tigated the nature and causes of national wealth, to 

 show governments how it might be shared without be- 

 ing destroyed. 



Too little liberty existed in Europe, to allow those 

 who first occupied themselves with political economy, 

 to present their speculations to the world ; and finances 

 were enveloped in too profound a secrecy to admit of 

 men, not engaged in public business, knowing facts 

 enough to form the basis of general rules. Hence the stu- 

 dy of political economy began with ministers, when once 

 it had fortunately happened that kings put men at the 

 head of their finances, who combined talents with justice 

 and-love of the publicweal. Two great French ministers, 

 Sully under Henry IV., and Colbert under Louis XIV., 

 were the first who threw any light on a subject till 

 then regarded as a secret of state, in which mystery 

 had engendered and concealed the greatest absurdities. 

 Yet in spite of all their genius and authority, it was a 

 task beyond their power to introduce any thing like 

 order, precision or uniformity into this branch of go- 

 vernment. Both of them, however, not only repressed 

 the frightful spoliations of the revenue farmers, and by 

 their protection communicated some degree of security 

 to private fortunes ; but likewise dimly perceived the 

 true sources of national prosperity, and busied them- 

 selves with efforts to make them flow more abundantly. 

 Sully gave his chief protection to agriculture. He used 

 to say, that pasturage and husbandry were the itvo breasts 

 of' the state. Colbert, descended from a family engaged 

 in the cloth trade, studied above all to encourage ma- 

 nufactures and commerce. He furnished himself with 

 the opinion of merchants, and asked their advice on 

 all emergencies. Both statesmen opened roads and ca- 

 nals to facilitate the exchange of commodities ; both 

 protected the spirit of enterprise, and honoured the in- 

 dustrious activity which diffused plepty over their coun- 

 try. 



Colbert, the later of the two,fwas greatly prior to 

 any of the writers who have treated political economy 

 as a science, and reduced it to a body of doctrines. He 

 had a system, however, in regard to national wealth : 

 he required one to give uniformity to his plans, and 



