could have supported it. The whole gold
and silver annually imported into both
Spain and Portugal, according to the best
accounts, does not commonly much exceed
£6,000,000 sterling, which, in some years,
would scarce have paid four months expense
of the late war.
The commodities most proper for being
transported to distant countries, in order to
purchase there either the pay and provisions of
an army, or some part of the money of the
mercantile republic to be employed in purchasing
them, seem to be the finer and more
improved manufactures; such as contain a
great value in a small bulk, and can therefore
be exported to a great distance at little expense.
A country whose industry produces
a great annual surplus of such manufactures,
which are usually exported to foreign countries,
may carry on for many years a very expensive
foreign war, without either exporting
any considerable quantity of gold and silver,
or even having any such quantity to export.
A considerable part of the annual surplus of
its manufactures must, indeed, in this case, be
exported without bringing back any returns
to the country, though it does to the merchant;
the government purchasing of the merchant
his bills upon foreign countries, in order
to purchase there the pay and provisions of an
army. Some part of this surplus, however,
may still continue to bring back a return.
The manufacturers during the war will have a
double demand upon them, and be called upon
first to work up goods to be sent abroad,
for paying the bills drawn upon foreign countries
for the pay and provisions of the army;
and, secondly, to work up such as are necessary
for purchasing the common returns that
had usually been consumed in the country. In
the midst of the most destructive foreign war,
therefore, the greater part of manufactures
may frequently flourish greatly; and, on the
contrary, they may decline on the return of
peace. They may flourish amidst the ruin of
their country, and begin to decay upon the
return of its prosperity. The different state of
many different branches of the British manufactures
during the late war, and for some
time after the peace, may serve as an illustration
of what has been just now said.
No foreign war, of great expense or duration,
could conveniently be carried on by the
exportation of the rude produce of the soil.
The expense of sending such a quantity of it
into a foreign country as might purchase the
pay and provisions of an army would be too
great. Few countries, too, produce much
more rude produce than what is sufficient for
the subsistence of their own inhabitants. To
send abroad any great quantity of it, therefore,
would be to send abroad a part of the necessary
subsistence of the people. It is otherwise
with the exportation of manufactures.
The maintenance of the people employed in
them is kept at home, and only the surplus
part of their work is exported. Mr Hume
frequently takes notice of the inability of the
ancient kings of England to carry on, without
interruption, any foreign war of long duration.
The English in those days had nothing wherewithal
to purchase the pay and provisions of
their armies in foreign countries, but either
the rude produce of the soil, of which no considerable
part could be spared from the home
consumption, or a few manufactures of the
coarsest kind, of which, as well as of the rude
produce, the transportation was too expensive.
This inability did not arise from the want of
money, but of the finer and more improved
manufactures. Buying and selling was transacted
by means of money in England then as
well as now. The quantity of circulating
money must have borne the same proportion
to the number and value of purchases and
sales usually transacted at that time, which it
does to those transacted at present; or, rather,
it must have borne a greater proportion, because
there was then no paper, which now occupies
a great part of the employment of gold
and silver. Among nations to whom commerce
and manufactures are little known, the
sovereign, upon extraordinary occasions, can
seldom draw any considerable aid from his
subjects, for reasons which shall be explained
hereafter. It is in such countries, therefore,
that he generally endeavours to accumulate a
treasure, as the only resource against such
emergencies. Independent of this necessity,
he is, in such a situation, naturally disposed
to the parsimony requisite for accumulation.
In that simple state, the expense even of a sovereign
is not directed by the vanity which delights
in the gaudy finery of a court, but is
employed in bounty to his tenants, and hospitality
to his retainers. But bounty and hospitality
very seldom lead to extravagance;
though vanity almost always does. Every
Tartar chief, accordingly, has a treasure. The
treasures of Mazepa, chief of the Cossacks in
the Ukraine, the famous ally of Charles XII.,
are said to have been very great. The French
kings of the Merovingian race had all treasures.
When they divided their kingdom
among their different children, they divided
their treasure too. The Saxon princes, and
the first kings after the Conquest, seem likewise
to have accumulated treasures. The first
exploit of every new reign was commonly to
seize the treasure of the preceding king, as
the most essential measure for securing the
succession. The sovereigns of improved and
commercial countries are not under the same
necessity of accumulating treasures, because
they can generally draw from their subjects
extraordinary aids upon extraordinary occasions.
They are likewise less disposed to do
so. They naturally, perhaps necessarily, follow
the mode of the times; and their expense
comes to be regulated by the same extravagant