COMMERCE. 



125 



the contemplation of the hard lot reserved for their posterity, 

 by an exclusion from the first and most honourable distin6lions 

 in society, have embraced celibacy, that they might not beget 

 an offspring whose sole inheritance would be an obscure po- 

 verty ; or, lastly (and this refie6tion is extended to the above- 

 mentioned casts), that description of vagabonds and disorder- 

 ly persons, who have no other resources for their advancement, 

 except the vain and fruitless desire of acquiring riches. Indi- 

 viduals of this description do not increase and multiply, be- 

 cause the principal rule for the propagation of living creatures 

 is subsistence. A species is augmented or diminished, in pro- 

 portion to the means it possesses of procuring nourishment. 

 The she wolves are more prolific than the ewes ; and there 

 are, notwithstanding, more rams than wolves. 



If, therefore, the deficiency of hands for the rural opera- 

 tions, and the small internal consumption of the produ6tions, 

 be, in Peru, insuperable obstacles to the progress of agricul- 

 ture ; that which is opposed to the external commerce, by the 

 distance of the country, by its local situation, and by the 

 want of canals, bridges, and roads, to facilitate the traffic, 

 and reduce the expences of the carriage and transport, is not 

 less so. Without these resources, to aid the sales and exports 

 of the superfluous commodities, there can be neither com- 

 merce, culture, nor communication. They are, in the body 

 politic, what the blood-vessels are in the human body : if the 

 latter give a free passage to the blood, and maintain motion 

 and life, the former redouble and sustain the transmittals and 

 exchanges, augmenting in a similar degree the a6tivity and 

 bulk of the enterprizes. The prejudices occasioned by this 

 defe6t, have been recently pointed out, with much energy, by 



a Spaniard, 



