states. It has been so, not only to
Hamburgh, but to Venice and Amsterdam.
A revenue of this kind has even by some
people been thought not below the attention
of so great an empire as that of Great Britain.
Reckoning the ordinary dividend of the bank
of England at five and a-half per cent., and
its capital at ten millions seven hundred and
eighty thousand pounds, the net annual profit,
after paying the expense of management,
must amount, it is said, to five hundred and
ninety-two thousand nine hundred pounds.
Government, it is pretended, could borrow
this capital at three per cent. interest, and, by
taking the management of the bank into its
own hands, might make a clear profit of two
hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred
pounds a-year. The orderly, vigilant, and
parsimonious administration of such aristocracies
as those of Venice and Amsterdam, is extremely
proper, it appears from experience,
for the management of a mercantile project of
this kind. But whether such a government
as that of England, which, whatever may be
its virtues, has never been famous for good
economy; which, in time of peace, has generally
conducted itself with the slothful and
negligent profusion that is, perhaps, natural
to monarchies; and, in time of war, has constantly
acted with all the thoughtless extravagance
that democracies are apt to fall into,
could be safely trusted with the management
of such a project, must at least be good deal
more doubtful.
The post-office is properly a mercantile project.
The government advances the expense
of establishing the different offices, and of buying
or hiring the necessary horses or carriages,
and is repaid, with a large profit, by the duties
upon what is carried. It is, perhaps, the only
mercantile project which has been successfully
managed by, I believe, every sort of government.
The capital to be advanced is not very
considerable. There is no mystery in the business.
The returns are not only certain, but
immediate.
Princes, however, have frequently engaged
in many other mercantile projects, and have
been willing, like private persons, to mend their
fortunes, by becoming adventurers in the common
branches of trade. They have scarce
ever succeeded. The profusion with which
the affairs of princes are always managed,
renders it almost impossible that they should.
The agents of a prince regard the wealth of
their master as inexhaustible; are careless at
what price they buy, are careless at what price
they sell, are careless at what expense they
transport his goods from one place to another.
Those agents frequently live with the profusion
of princes; and sometimes, too, in spite
of that profusion, and by a proper method of
making up their accounts, acquire the fortunes
of princes. It was thus, as we are told by
Machiavel, that the agents of Lorenzo of Medicis,
not a prince of mean abilities, carried on
his trade. The republic of Florence was
several times obliged to pay the debt into
which their extravagance had involved him.
He found it convenient, accordingly to give up
the business of merchant, the business to which
his family had originally owed their fortune,
and, in the latter part of his life, to employ
both what remained of that fortune, and the
revenue of the state, of which he had the disposal,
in projects and expenses more suitable
to his station.
No two characters seem more inconsistent
than those of trader and sovereign. If the
trading spirit of the English East India company
renders them very bad sovereigns, the
spirit of sovereignty seems to have rendered
them equally bad traders. While they were
traders only, they managed their trade successfully,
and were able to pay from their profits
a moderate dividend to the proprietors of
their stock. Since they became sovereigns,
with a revenue which, it is said, was originally
more than three millions sterling, they have
been obliged to beg the ordinary assistance of
government, in order to avoid immediate bankruptcy.
In their former situation, their servants
in India considered themselves as the
clerks of merchants; in their present situation,
those servants consider themselves as the ministers
of sovereigns.
A state may sometimes derive some part of
its public revenue from the interest of money,
as well as from the profits of stock. If it has
amassed a treasure, it may lend a part of that
treasure, either to foreign states, or to its own
subjects.
The canton of Berne derives a considerable
revenue by lending a part of its treasure to
foreign states, that is, by placing it in the
public funds of the different indebted nations
of Europe, chiefly in those of France and
England. The security of this revenue must
depend, first, upon the security of the funds
in which it is placed, or upon the good faith
of the government which has the management
of them; and, secondly, upon the certainty or
probability of the continuance of peace with
the debtor nation. In the case of a war, the
very first act of hostility on the part of the
debtor nation might be the forfeiture of the
funds of its creditor. This policy of lending
money to foreign states is, so far as I know
peculiar to the canton of Berne.
The city of Hamburgh[51] has established a
sort of public pawn-shop, which lends money
to the subjects of the state, upon pledges, at
six per cent. interest. This pawn-shop, or
lombard, as it is called, affords a revenue, it
is pretended, to the state, of a hundred and