POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



arts, and by maritime commerce, metals and monies arc at- 

 tra6led, they being drawn by political chemistry from the 

 countries which possess them, by the means of the exchange 

 of the produ6tions they need, for the money they hold in su- 

 perfluity. It is an incontrovertible truth, that there is a re- 

 ciprocal attra6lion between money and the things it repre- 

 sents ; but with this difference, that the force of what is re- 

 presented is greater than that of the representative, or token, 

 which is the money. 



Who among us is ignorant, that the nations of Europe 

 which have most money are England and Holland ? without 

 these powers possessing any other means of acquiring it, un- 

 less by agriculture, arts, and maritime commerce. And if 

 the productions and woollen manufa6lures of the English are 

 the magnet, which, by the touch or spring of commerce, 

 gently attradls to them money, and enriches them year after 

 year ; why is Quito so poor, and wherefore does it remain in 

 that state, when there are, within its territory, an abundance 

 of productions, and whatever is needful for the manufacture 

 of woollens and cottons, the latter of which constitute the 

 principal mine of opulent India ? The cause of our decline is 

 very visible : we are in need of an aCtive commerce, both in- 

 ternal and external. Our natural productions have not a lu- 

 crative vent ; and this observation applies equally to the pro- 

 ducts of industry. From this fatal principle results the neces- 

 sary consequence of depopulation ; because all flee from the 

 poor, in the same way as many poor negleCt to marry and 

 settle, simply because they are poor. 



Hence I return to my proposition, that the extreme po- 

 verty to which my beloved Quito is reduced, is and ought to 



3 B 2 be 



