106 Eytracls from the Replies to 



absolutely impoverishing his country. Suppose the people employed in a cotton 

 work to receive their food from abroad, that all the corn they consume came from 

 America ; such an establishment then would have produced the effect (by dimi- 

 nishing the numbers employed in agriculture) of increasing the prices of agricul- 

 tural labour, without having increased the value of agricultural produce. 



After all, we have no assurance that the manufacturer will employ his money, 

 when he has got it, to augment the industry of his own countrymen. It may very 

 possibly be lent to an American or West Indian adventurer. It may contribute 

 to the production of wheat or sugar on the other side the Atlantic, which Ame- 

 rican ships, filled with American sailors, may bring over to Europe, stimulated by 

 the money gained, perhaps in England, by some other manufactory. Thus the 

 whole business of trade and manufactory, however apparently advantageous, may 

 become injurious to our best interests ; but no one will contend against its essential 

 and probable uses. I only am anxious our statesmen shouldallow that trade ought 

 to follow, and not take the lead of agriculture. 



It is clear, that a province containing 100,000 individuals capable of supplying 

 each other, in all seasons, with the first necessaries of life, would be a greater 

 addition to the strength, and welfare of the nation, than a town containing the 

 same number, engaged in trade exclusively, and dependant on foreigners for food ; 

 it would be much more likely to have an encreased prosperous population, and to 

 improve its real wealth, its morality, and consequently its happiness. Its interests 

 would be the part likely to be affected by war, and not only the best armies but 

 ultimately the greatest revenue, must be forth coming from it. In fact, towns are 

 necessary evils in our system ; their very prosperity produces luxury, feebleness of 

 character, selfishness, and vice. The numbers of men of abilities they contain, who 

 cannot have the least experience of the operation of any one law or measure, on 

 the state at large, by their eloquence and publications ; and the mobs, by their 

 threalenings, induce, nay force, government very often to sacrifice to a mere tem- 

 porary interest, the soundest principles of policy. If possible, the population of a 

 country should be kept diffused over its whole surface; at any rate, no artificial 

 inducements should be allowed to draw men from where they can be of the most, 

 to where they must be of the least use. Now the unequal distribution of the publick 

 burthens, inclines a great part of the community to take shelter, as it were, in towns. 

 Many articles of a country establishment can be dispensed with, without loss of 



