ed to us in wares, must necessarily be brought home in treasure."*

The gain on our foreign commerce is here supposed to consist exclusively of the gold and silver which, it is taken for granted, must necessarily be brought home in payment of the excess of exported commodities. Mr Mun lays no stress whatever on the circumstance of foreign commerce enabling us to obtain an infinite variety of useful and agreeable products, which it would either have been impossible for us to produce at all, or to produce so cheaply at home. We are desired to consider all this accession of wealth-all the vast addition made by commerce to the motives which stimulate, and to the comforts and enjoyments which reward the labour of the industrious, as nothing,-and to fix our attention exclusively on the balance of L. 200,000 of gold and silver! This is much the same as if we were desired to estimate the comfort and advantage derived from a suit of clothes, by the number and glare of the metal buttons by which they are fastened. And yet the rule for estimating the advantageousness of foreign commerce, which Mr Mun has here given, was long regarded by the generality of merchants and practical statesmen as infallible; and such is the inveteracy of ancient prejudices, that we are still annually congratulated on the excess of our exports over our imports!

There were many other circumstances, however,

*Treasure by Foreign Trade, p. 11.

besides the erroneous notions respecting the precious metals, which led to the enactment of regulations restricting the freedom of industry, and secured the ascendancy of the mercantile system. The feudal governments established in the countries that had formed the western division of the Roman Empire, early sunk into a state of confusion and anarchy. The princes, unable of themselves to restrain the usurpations of the greater barons, or to control their violence, endeavoured to strengthen their influence and consolidate their power, by attaching the inhabitants of cities and towns to their interests. For this purpose, they granted them charters, enfranchising the inhabitants, abolishing every existing mark of servitude, and forming them into corporations, or bodies politic, to be governed by a council and magistrates of their own selection. The order and good government that were thus established in the cities, and the security of property enjoy. ed by their inhabitants, while the rest of the country was a prey to rapine and disorder, stimulated their industry, and gave them a decided superiority over the cultivators of the soil. It was from the cities that the princes derived the greater part of their supplies of money; and it was by their assistance and co-operation that they were enabled to control and subdue the pride and independence of the barons. But the citizens did not render this assistance to their sovereigns merely by way of compensation for the original gift of their charters. They were continually soliciting and obtaining new privileges.

And it was not to be expected that princes, whom they had laid under so many obligations, and who justly regarded them as forming the most industrious and deserving portion of their subjects, should feel any great disinclination to gratify their wishes. To enable them to obtain cheap provisions, and to carry on their industry to the best advantage, the exporta tion of corn, and of the raw materials of their manufactures, was strictly prohibited; at the same time that heavy duties and absolute prohibitions were interposed to prevent the importation of manufactured articles from abroad, and to secure the complete monopoly of the home-market to the home manufac

turers.

These, together with the privilege granted to the citizens of corporate towns of preventing any individual from exercising any branch of business until he had obtained leave from them; and a variety of subordinate regulations intended to force the importation of the raw materials required in manu. factures, and the exportation of manufactured goods, form the principal features of the system of public economy adopted, in the view of encouraging manufacturing industry, in every country in Europe, in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The freedom of industry recognized by their ancient laws was almost totally destroyed. It would be easy to mention a thousand instances of the excess to which this artificial system was carried in England and other countries; but as many of these instances must be familiar to the reader, I shall only observe, as illustrative of its spirit, that, by an

C

act passed in 1678, for the encouragement of the English woollen manufacture, it was ordered that all dead bodies should be wrapped in a woollen shroud!

But the exclusion of foreign competition, and the monopoly of the home-market, were not enough to satisfy the manufacturers and merchants. Having obtained all the advantage they could from the public, they next attempted to prey on each other. Such of them as possessed most influence, procured the privilege of carrying on particular branches of industry to the exclusion of every other individual. This abuse was carried to a most oppressive height in the reign of Elizabeth, who granted an infinite number of new patents. At length, the grievance became so insupportable, as to induce all classes to join in petitioning for its abolition: which, after much opposition on the part of the Crown, by whom the power of erecting monopolies was considered a very valuable branch of the prerogative, was effected by an act passed in 1624. This act has been productive of the greatest advantage; but it did not touch any of the fundamental principles of the mercantile or manufacturing system; and the exclusive privileges of all bodies-corporate were exempted from its ope

ration..

In France the interests of the manufacturers were. warmly espoused by the justly celebrated M. Colbert, minister of finances during the most splendid period of the reign of Louis XIV.; and the year 1664, when the famous tariff, compiled under his di

rection, was first promulgated, has been sometimes considered, by the Continental writers, though, as we have seen, most erroneously, as the real era of the mercantile system.

*

The restrictions in favour of the manufacturers were all zealously supported by the advocates of the mercantile system, and the balance of trade. The facilities given to the exportation of goods manufactured at home, and the obstacles thrown in the way of importation from abroad, seemed peculiarly well fitted for making the exports exceed the imports, and procuring a favourable balance. Instead, therefore, of regarding these regulations as the offspring of a selfish monopolizing spirit, they looked on them as having been dictated by the soundest policy. The interests of the manufacturers and merchants were thus naturally identified; and were held to be the same with those of the public. The acquisition of a favourable balance of payments was the grand object to be accomplished; and heavy duties and restrictions on importation, and bounties and premiums on exportation, were the means by which this object was to be attained. It cannot excite our surprise that a system having so many popular prejudices in its favour, and which afforded a plausible apology for the exclusive privileges enjoyed by the manufacturing and commercial classes, should have early attained, or that it should still preserve, notwithstanding

* See Mengotti, Dissertazione sul Colbertismo, cap. 11.