will sometimes choose to lay out his little capital
in land. A man of profession, too,
whose revenue is derived from another source,
often loves to secure his savings in the same
way. But a young man, who, instead of applying
to trade or to some profession, should
employ a capital of two or three thousand
pounds in the purchase and cultivation of a
small piece of land, might indeed expect to
live very happily and very independently, but
must bid adieu for ever to all hope of either
great fortune or great illustration, which, by
a different employment of his stock, he might
have had the same chance of acquiring with
other people. Such a person, too, though he
cannot aspire at being a proprietor, will often
disdain to be a farmer. The small quantity
of land, therefore, which is brought to market,
and the high price of what is brought
thither, prevents a great number of capitals
from being employed in its cultivation and
improvement, which would otherwise have
taken that direction. In North America, on
the contrary, fifty or sixty pounds is often
found a sufficient stock to begin a plantation
with. The purchase and improvement of uncultivated
land is there the most profitable employment
of the smallest as well as of the
greatest capitals, and the most direct road to
all the fortune and illustration which can be
acquired in that country. Such land, indeed,
is in North America to be had almost for nothing,
or at a price much below the value of
the natural produce; a thing impossible in
Europe, or indeed in any country where all
lands have long been private property. If
landed estates, however, were divided equally
among all the children, upon the death of any
proprietor who left a numerous family, the
estate would generally be sold. So much land
would come to market, that it could no longer
sell at a monopoly price. The free rent of
the land would go no nearer to pay the interest
of the purchase-money, and a small capital
might be employed in purchasing land
as profitable as in any other way.
England, on account of the natural fertility
of the soil, of the great extent of the sea-coast
in proportion to that of the whole country,
and of the many navigable rivers which run
through it, and afford the conveniency of water
carriage to some of the most inland parts
of it, is perhaps as well fitted by nature as
any large country in Europe to be the seat of
foreign commerce, of manufactures for distant
sale, and of all the improvements which these
can occasion. From the beginning of the
reign of Elizabeth, too, the English legislature
has been peculiarly attentive to the interest
of commerce and manufactures, and in
reality there is no country in Europe, Holland
itself not excepted, of which the law is,
upon the whole, more favourable to this sort
of industry. Commerce and manufactures
have accordingly been continually advancing
during all this period. The cultivation and
improvement of the country has, no doubt,
been gradually advancing too; but it seems to
have followed slowly, and at a distance, the
more rapid progress of commerce and manufactures.
The greater part of the country
must probably have been cultivated before the
reign of Elizabeth; and a very great part of
it still remains uncultivated, and the cultivation
of the far greater part much inferior to
what it might be. The law of England, however,
favours agriculture, not only indirectly,
by the protection of commerce, but by several
direct encouragements. Except in times of
scarcity, the exportation of corn is not only free,
but encouraged by a bounty. In times of moderate
plenty, the importation of foreign corn is
loaded with duties that amount to a prohibition.
The importation of live cattle, except
from Ireland, is prohibited at all times; and
it is but of late that it was permitted from
thence. Those who cultivate the land, therefore,
have a monopoly against their countrymen
for the two greatest and most important
articles of land produce, bread and butcher's
meat. These encouragements, though at bottom,
perhaps, as I shall endeavour to show
hereafter, altogether illusory, sufficiently demonstrate
at least the good intention of the legislature
to favour agriculture. But what is
of much more importance than all of them,
the yeomanry of England are rendered as secure,
as independent, and as respectable, as
law can make them. No country, therefore,
in which the right of primogeniture takes
place, which pays tithes, and where perpetuities,
though contrary to the spirit of the law,
are admitted in some cases, can give more encouragement
to agriculture than England.
Such, however, notwithstanding, is the state
of its cultivation. What would it have been,
had the law given no direct encouragement to
agriculture besides what arises indirectly from
the progress of commerce, and had left the
yeomanry in the same condition as in most
other countries of Europe? It is now more
than two hundred years since the beginning
of the reign of Elizabeth, a period as long as
the course of human prosperity usually endures.
France seems to have had a considerable
share of foreign commerce, near a century
before England was distinguished as a commercial
country. The marine of France was
considerable, according to the notions of the
times, before the expedition of Charles VIII.
to Naples. The cultivation and improvement
of France, however, is, upon the whole, inferior
to that of England. The law of the
country has never given the same direct encouragement
to agriculture.
The foreign commerce of Spain and Portugal
to the other parts of Europe, though
chiefly carried on in foreign ships, is very considerable.
That to their colonies is carried