( 140 ) Bk.iii. 



CHAP. X. 



Of Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined. 



Ix a country the most exclusively confined to 

 agriculture, some of its raw materials will always 

 be worked up for domestic use. In the most 

 commercial state, not absolutely confined to the 

 walls of a town, some part of the food of its inha- 

 bitants, or of its cattle, will be drawn from the 

 small territory in its neighbourhood. But, in 

 speaking of systems of agriculture and commerce 

 combined, something much further than this kind 

 of combination is intended ; and it is meant to 

 refer to countries, where the resources in land, 

 and the capitals employed in commerce and ma- 

 nufactures, are both considerable, and neither 

 preponderating greatly over the other. 



A country so circumstanced possesses the ad- 

 vantages of both systems, while at the same time 

 it is free from the peculiar evils which belong to 

 each, taken separately. 



The prosperity of manufactures and commerce 

 in any state implies at once that it has freed itself 

 from the worst parts of the feudal system. It 

 shews that the great body of the people are not 

 in a state of servitude ; that they have both the 

 power and the will to save; that when capital 

 accumulates it can find the means of secure em- 



