CHAP. XVI. ON LOCALITY OF GOLD AND SILVER. 15 



foreigners as well as natives, should import a 

 certain quantity of coin or bullion in every ship 

 in proportion to the value of the other goods, and 

 should expend all that coin and bullion, with all 

 the money received for their imports, in pur- 

 chasing the commodities of the country; but they 

 were forbidden to export any gold or silver, in 

 coin or bullion, under very severe penalties. We 

 need scarcely remark that these laws were found 

 in practice so injudicious, and so incapable of 

 being executed, that they were, in a few years, 

 repealed in both countries. 



During the whole of this reign the trade had 

 increased both in its imports and its exports ; and 

 as the latter regularly exceeded the former, a 

 great increase in the deposit of the precious metals 

 either in the form of coin or of bullion must have 

 taken place in this kingdom. There seems good 

 reason to conclude that in proportion to the ex- 

 tent and population, those metals must have been 

 more abundant in the British Islands than in any 

 of the larger kingdoms of Europe. The state of 

 the general commerce of the countries of the 

 world, though an uncertain is perhaps the best 

 criterion by which to form a judgment of the 

 actual deposit of the precious metals in each indi- 

 vidual country. That country which from its 

 labour and soil produces the most valuable com- 

 modities, will receive in exchange for them the 

 greatest portion of other articles. As gold and 



