chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade
of riches; which, in their eye, is never so
complete as when they appear to possess those
decisive marks of opulence which nobody can
possess but themselves. In their eyes, the
merit of an object, which is in any degree
either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhanced
by its scarcity, or by the great labour which
it requires to collect any considerable quantity
of it; a labour which nobody can afford to
pay but themselves. Such objects they are
willing to purchase at a higher price than
things much more beautiful and useful, but
more common. These qualities of utility,
beauty, and scarcity, are the original foundation
of the high price of those metals, or of
the great quantity of other goods for which
they can everywhere be exchanged. This
value was antecedent to, and independent of
their being employed as coin, and was the
quality which fitted them for that employment.
That employment, however, by occasioning
a new demand, and by diminishing
the quantity which could be employed in any
other way, may have afterwards contributed
to keep up or increase their value.
The demand for the precious stones arises
altogether from their beauty. They are of no
use but as ornaments; and the merit of their
beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity,
or by the difficulty and expense of getting
them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly
make up, upon most occasions, almost
the whole of the high price. Rent comes
in but for a very small share, frequently for no
share; and the most fertile mines only afford
any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a
jeweller, visited the diamond mines of Golconda
and Visiapour, he was informed that
the sovereign of the country, for whose benefit
they were wrought, had ordered all of
them to be shut up except those which yielded
the largest and finest stones. The other,
it seems, were to the proprietor not worth the
working.
As the prices, both of the precious metals
and of the precious stones, is regulated all
over the world by their price at the most fertile
mine in it, the rent which a mine of either
can afford to its proprietor is in proportion,
not to its absolute, but to what may be called
its relative fertility, or to its superiority over
other mines of the same kind. If new mines
were discovered, as much superior to those of
Potosi, as they were superior to those of Europe,
the value of silver might be so much degraded
as to render even the mines of Potosi
not worth the working. Before the discovery
of the Spanish West Indies, the most fertile
mines in Europe may have afforded as great
a rent to their proprietors as the richest mines
in Peru do at present. Though the quantity
of silver was much less, it might have exchanged
for an equal quantity of other goods, and
the proprietor's share might have enabled him
to purchase or command an equal quantity
either of labour or of commodities.
The value, both of the product and of the
rent, the real revenue which they afforded,
both to the public and to the proprietor, might
have been the same.
The most abundant mines, either of the
precious metals, or of the precious stones,
could add little to the wealth of the world.
A produce, of which the value is principally
derived from its scarcity, is necessarily degraded
by its abundance. A service of plate, and
the other frivolous ornaments of dress and
furniture, could be purchased for a smaller
quantity of labour, or for a smaller quantity
of commodities; and in this would consist the
sole advantage which the world could derive
from that abundance.
It is otherwise in estates above ground.
The value, both of their produce and of their
rent, is in proportion to their absolute, and
not to their relative fertility. The land which
produces certain quantity of food, clothes,
and lodging, can always feed, clothe, and
lodge, a certain number of people; and whatever
may be the proportion of the landlord, it
will always give him a proportionable command
of the labour of those people, and of the
commodities with which that labour can supply
him. The value of the most barren land
is not diminished by the neighbourhood of the
most fertile. On the contrary, it is generally
increased by it. The great number of people
maintained by the fertile lands afford a market
to many parts of the produce of the barren,
which they could never have found among
those whom their own produce could maintain.
Whatever increases the fertility of land in
producing food, increases not only the value
of the lands upon which the improvement is
bestowed, but contributes likewise to increase
that or many other lands, by creating a new
demand for their produce. That abundance
of food, of which, in consequence of the improvement
of land, many people have the disposal
beyond what they themselves can consume,
is the great cause of the demand, both
for the precious metals and the precious stones,
as well as for every other conveniency and ornament
of dress, lodging, household furniture,
and equipage. Food not only constitutes the
principal part of the riches of the world, but
it is the abundance of food which gives the
principal part of their value to many other
sorts of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba
and St. Domingo, when they were first discovered
by the Spaniards, used to wear little
bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and
other parts of their dress. They seemed to
value them as we would do any little pebbles
of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and
to consider them as just worth the picking up,
but not worth the refusing to any body who
asked them. They gave them to their new