were fit for foreign sale. The extension
and improvement of these last could not
take place but in consequence of the extension
and improvement of agriculture, the last and
greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of
the manufactures immediately introduced by
it, and which I shall now proceed to explain.
CHAP. IV.
HOW THE COMMERCE OF TOWNS CONTRIBUTED
TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
The increase and riches of commercial and
manufacturing towns contributed to the improvement
and cultivation of the countries to
which they belonged, in three different ways:
First, by affording a great and ready market
for the rude produce of the country, they
gave encouragement to its cultivation and further
improvement. This benefit was not even
confined to the countries in which they were
situated, but extended more or less to all those
with which they had any dealings. To all of
them they afforded a market for some part
either of their rude or manufactured produce,
and, consequently, gave some encouragement
to the industry and improvement of all. Their
own country, however, on account of its neighbourhood,
necessarily derived the greatest benefit
from this market. Its rude produce being
charged with less carriage, the traders
could pay the growers a better price for it,
and yet afford it as cheap to the consumers as
that of more distant countries.
Secondly, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants
of cities was frequently employed in
purchasing such lands as were to be sold, of
which a great part would frequently be uncultivated.
Merchants are commonly ambitious
of becoming country gentlemen, and, when
they do, they are generally the best of all improvers.
A merchant is accustomed to employ
his money chiefly in profitable projects;
whereas a mere country gentleman is accustomed
to employ it chiefly in expense. The one
often sees his money go from him, and return
to him again with a profit; the other, when
once he parts with it, very seldom expects to
see any more of it. Those different habits
naturally affect their temper and disposition
in every sort of business. The merchant is
commonly a bold, a country gentleman a timid
undertaker. The one is not afraid to lay
out at once a large capital upon the improvement
of his land, when he has a probable prospect
of raising the value of it in proportion to
the expense; the other, if he has any capital,
which is not always the case, seldom ventures
to employ it in this manner. If he improves
at all, it is commonly not with a capital, but
with what he can save out of his annual revenue.
Whoever has had the fortune to live in
a mercantile town, situated in an unimproved
country, must have frequently observed how
much more spirited the operations of merchants
were in this way, than those of mere country
gentlemen. The habits, besides, of order, economy,
and attention, to which mercantile
business naturally forms a merchant, render
him much fitter to execute, with profit and
success, any project of improvement.
Thirdly, and lastly, commerce and manufactures
gradually introduced order and good
government, and with them the liberty and security
of individuals, among the inhabitants
of the country, who had before lived almost
in a continual state of war with their neighbours,
and of servile dependency upon their
superiors. This, though it has been the least
observed, is by far the most important of all
their effects. Mr Hume is the only writer
who, so far as I know, has hitherto taken notice
of it.
In a country which has neither foreign commerce
nor any of the finer manufactures, a
great proprietor, having nothing for which he
can exchange the greater part of the produce
of his lands which is over and above the maintenance
of the cultivators, consumes the whole
in rustic hospitality at home. If this surplus
produce is sufficient to maintain a hundred or
a thousand men, he can make use of it in no
other way than by maintaining a hundred or
a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore,
surrounded with a multitude of retainers
and dependents, who, having no equivalent
to give in return for their maintenance,
but being fed entirely by his bounty, must
obey him, for the same reason that soldiers
obey the prince who pays them. Before
the extension of commerce and manufactures
in Europe, the hospitality of the rich and the
great, from the sovereign down to the smallest
baron, exceeded every thing which, in the
present times, we can easily form a notion of.
Westminster-hall was the dining-room of William
Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps,
not be too large for his company. It was
reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas
Becket, that he strewed the floor of his hall
with clean hay or rushes in the season, in order
that the knights and squires, who could
not get seats, might not spoil their fine clothes
when they sat down on the floor to eat their
dinner. The great Earl of Warwick is said
to have entertained every day, at his different
manors, 30,000 people; and though the number
here may have been exaggerated, it must,
however, have been very great to admit of
such exaggeration. A hospitality nearly of
the same kind was exercised not many years
ago in many different parts of the Highlands
of Scotland. It seems to be common in all
nations to whom commerce and manufactures
are little known. I have seen, says Doctor