After all the proper subjects of taxation
have been exhausted, if the exigencies of the
state still continue to require new taxes, they
must be imposed upon improper ones. The
taxes upon the necessaries of life, therefore,
may be no impeachment of the wisdom of that
republic, which, in order to acquire and to
maintain its independency, has, in spite of
its great frugality, been involved in such expensive
wars as have obliged it to contract
great debts. The singular countries of Holland
and Zealand, besides, require a considerable
expense even to preserve their existence,
or to prevent their being swallowed up by the
sea, which must have contributed to increase
considerably the load of taxes in those two
provinces. The republican form of government
seems to be the principal support of the
present grandeur of Holland. The owners
of great capitals, the great mercantile families,
have generally either some direct share, or
some indirect influence, in the administration
of that government. For the sake of the respect
and authority which they derive from
this situation, they are willing to live in a
country where their capital, if they employ it
themselves, will bring them less profit, and if
they lend it to another, less interest; and
where the very moderate revenue which they
can draw from it will purchase less of the
necessaries and conveniencies of life than in
any other part of Europe. The residence of
such wealthy people necessarily keeps alive,
in spite of all disadvantages, a certain degree
of industry in the country. Any public calamity
which should destroy the republican
form of government, which should throw the
whole administration into the hands of nobles
and of soldiers, which should annihilate altogether
the importance of those wealthy merchants,
would soon render it disagreeable to
them to live in a country where they were no
longer likely to be much respected. They
would remove both their residence and their
capital to some other country, and the industry
and commerce of Holland would soon
follow the capitals which supported them.
CHAP. III.
OF PUBLIC DEBTS.
In that rude state of society which precedes
the extension of commerce and the improvement
of manufactures; when those expensive
luxuries, which commerce and manufactures
can alone introduce, are altogether unknown;
the person who possesses a large revenue, I
have endeavoured to show in the third book
of this Inquiry, can spend or enjoy that revenue
in no other way than by maintaining
nearly as many people as it can maintain. A
large revenue may at all times be said to consist
in the command of a large quantity of
the necessaries of life. In that rude state of
things, it is commonly paid in a large quantity
of those necessaries, in the materials of
plain food and coarse clothing, in corn and
cattle, in wool and raw hides. When neither
commerce nor manufactures furnish any thing
for which the owner can exchange the greater
part of those materials which are over and
above his own consumption, he can do nothing
with the surplus, but feed and clothe
nearly as many people as it will feed and clothe.
A hospitality in which there is no luxury, and a
liberality in which there is no ostentation,
occasion, in this situation of things, the principal
expenses of the rich and the great.
But these I have likewise endeavoured to
show, in the same book, are expenses by which
people are not very apt to ruin themselves.
There is not, perhaps, any selfish pleasure so
frivolous, of which the pursuit has not sometimes
ruined even sensible men. A passion
for cock-fighting has ruined many. But the
instances, I believe, are not very numerous, of
people who have been ruined by a hospitality
or liberality of this kind; though the hospitality
of luxury, and the liberality of ostentation
have ruined many. Among our feudal
ancestors, the long time during which estates
used to continue in the same family, sufficiently
demonstrates the general disposition
of people to live within their income. Though
the rustic hospitality, constantly exercised by
the great landholders, may not, to us in the
present times, seem consistent with that order
which we are apt to consider as inseparably
connected with good economy; yet we
must certainly allow them to have been at
least so far frugal, as not commonly to have
spent their whole income. A part of their
wool and raw hides, they had generally an
opportunity of selling for money. Some part
of this money, perhaps, they spent in purchasing
the few objects of vanity and luxury,
with which the circumstances of the times
could furnish them; but some part of it they
seem commonly to have hoarded. They
could not well, indeed, do any thing else but
hoard whatever money they saved. To trade,
was disgraceful to a gentleman; and to lend
money at interest, which at that time was
considered as usury, and prohibited by law,
would have been still more so. In those
times of violence and disorder, besides, it
was convenient to have a hoard of money at
hand, that in case they should be driven from
their own home, they might have something
of known value to carry with them to some
place of safety. The same violence which
made it convenient to hoard, made it equally
convenient to conceal the hoard. The frequency
of treasure-trove, or of treasure found,
of which no owner was known, sufficiently
demonstrates the frequency, in those times,