148 



Necessaries. 



V0L.V. 



not aiming at that article as a staple of com- 

 merce, how constantly are they in want of, 

 and how dearly do they pay strangers for, 

 bread ! 



' It may seem an odd position (says Mr. 

 Hume) that the poverty of the common peo- 

 ple of France, Spain, and Italy, is, in some 

 measure, owing to the superior riches of the 

 soil and happiness of the climate; and yet 

 there want not many reasons to justify this 

 paradox. The fine vineyards of Champaign 

 and Burgundy are cultivated by peasants, 

 who have scarcely bread to eat! but the 

 farmers and graziers are in better circum- 

 stances. Any country is happy when the 

 people in common are plentifully and whole- 

 somely fed, and warmly and decently clothed. 



In the war of 1744, France, in the midst 

 of almost uninterrupted victories and con- 

 quests, whilst her labour and attention were 

 applied to the cultivation of wine and silk, 

 was compelled to make peace and relinquish 

 her conquests, merely from a want of grain ! 

 while her enemies had only the barren island 

 of Cape Breton to give in exchange. 



Intimations have been thrown out in Ame- 

 rica, encouraging the people with flattering 

 prospects of great wealth, would they em- 

 ploy their attention in the cultivation of silk ; 

 and so it was that the first James of England 

 attempted to infect the minds of the people 

 of England ; but it is an employment equally 

 inconsistent with the genius of the English 

 as of the American people — a feminine busi- 

 ness at best. The silk raised in France, 

 yielded such an immense apparent profit, 

 that James repeatedly recommended from his 

 throne, the raising silkworms in England, but 

 the people fell not into his scheme, although 

 perhaps more earnestly pressed by him and 

 his servants than most other matters, and 

 even by the Judges on the circuits, however 

 foreign to their office ; and there could be no 

 doubt of the silkworm thriving and working 

 as well in England as in other parts of Eu- 

 rope, as appeared from many experiments, 

 besides what are recorded in the transactions 

 of their Philosophic Society. It was not 

 many years, ere that brilliant business began 

 to decline rapidly in France, where now it is 

 quite trifling to what it then was; for the 

 profit, being little else than apparent, was 

 not realized ; and the people of England re- 

 jected the royal scheme for making them 

 rich, the employment being suitable only to 

 effeminate, spiritless, slow-going nations; 

 and it is observable that, all the world over, 

 the silk culture flourishes chiefly amongst 

 people of that cast, who are in a state of 

 miserable oppression or slavery ; the very na- 

 ture of the employment tends to enervate 

 that hardiness and vigour, which is a general 

 ■effort of manly labour and employment, and 



to effeminate the nation that shall ever stum- 

 ble upon it. A large silk-work has lately 

 failed in France. Experience convinces me 

 of infinite difficulty in the success of such a 

 manufactory ; the filth and stench of the in- 

 sect are also disgusting ; I abandon the sub- 

 ject to its native climates, for in houses it is 

 intolerable to the meanest peasantry.' — (Let- 

 ter to Mr. Young). 



But it is said the silk business would bo 

 women's work; be it so; but if our wives 

 and daughters were to raise as much silk as 

 would purchase all the food and clothing 

 wanted, the men would undoubtedly become 

 idle and indifl'erent to other produce in quan- 

 tities: the land (as in other silk-growing 

 countries) would be but little, if at all culti- 

 vated or improved, and the women, perform- 

 ing in a few weeks the business of rai8ii>g 

 worms and reeling silk, would become indo- 

 lent for the rest of the year ; and both the 

 men and the women would, in time, become 

 ignorant of husbandry and housewifery. Nor 

 could the silk more readily purchase what 

 we want than money would ; and if a moun- 

 tain of dollars was open to all the people 

 with which they should purchase what at 

 present they labour in the fields to produce, 

 can there be any difficulty in conceiving the 

 wretchedness and poverty and dependency 

 in which a country of people, so circum- 

 stanced, would presently be plunged? How 

 totally ignorant the next generation would 

 bo of agriculture, commerce and the arts! 

 The riches and safety of a country consist in 

 the number of its inhabitants well employed. 

 Near Princeton, New Jersey, are large plan- 

 tations of the mulberry-tree, for the culture 

 of the silk-worm ; some of the farmers 

 greatly object to them, as interfering with 

 more useful domestic occupations, and as en- 

 couraging idleness. The people of Carolina 

 were, long ago, to be made rich by the cul- 

 ture of silk, and they entered heartily upon 

 the business, under every encouragement; 

 yet, in twenty-five years, they exported only 

 251 pounds of raw silk from their worms, 

 and, in the same time, imported 40,520 pounds 

 of wrought silk, besides 38,862, silk mixed 

 with other materials ! 



Now it cannot be thought that I mean we 

 should be wholly employed in cultivating 

 grain ; it is only wished that we should not 

 drop nor relax from cultivating the articles 

 of life to the greatest extent, that, in a course 

 of traffic, we may make luxuries and delica- 

 cies subservient to them, and never allow ne- 

 cessaries to depend on luxuries. In raising 

 all the necessaries, and the better commo- 

 dities for staples of trade that we can, a safe 

 game is played, as we then have a moral cer- 

 tainty of our real wants being ever supplied, 

 and there will always be a surplusage of ne- 



