"That no man will be the richer for the making much money, nor have any part of it, but as he buys it for an equivalent price.

"That the free coynage is a perpetual motion found out, whereby to melt and coyn without ceasing, and so to feed goldsmiths and coyners at the public charge.

"That debasing the coyn is defrauding one another, and to the public there is no sort of advantage from it; for that admits no character, or value, but intrinsick.

"That the sinking by alloy or weight is all one. "That exchange and ready money are the same, nothing but carriage and re-carriage being saved.

"That money exported in trade is an increase to the wealth of the nation; but spent in war, and payments abroad, is so much impoverishment.

"In short, that ALL FAVOUR TO ONE TRADE, OR INTEREST, IS AN ABUSE, AND CUTS SO MUCH OF PROFIT FROM THE PUBLIC."

Unluckily this admirable tract never obtained any considerable circulation. There is good reason, indeed, for supposing that it was designedly suppressed.* At all events, it speedily became excessively scarce; and I am not aware that it has ever been referred to by any subsequent writer on commerce.

The same enlarged and liberal views that had

* See the Honourable Roger North's Life of his Brother, the Honourable Sir Dudley North, p. 179.

found so able a supporter in Sir Dudley North, were subsequently advocated to a greater or less extent by Locke,* the anonymous author of a pamphlet on the East India Trade, † Vanderlint, ‡ Sir Matthew Decker, § Hume, and Harris ¶. But their efforts were ineffectual to the subversion of the mercantile system. Their opinions respecting the nature of wealth were confused and contradictory; and as they neither attempted to investigate its sources, nor to trace the causes of national opulence, their arguments in favour of a liberal system of commerce had somewhat of an empirical aspect, and failed of making that impression which is always made by reasonings logically deduced from well established principles, and shown to be consistent with experience. Mr Locke, as we shall afterwards show, unquestionably entertained very correct opinions respecting the paramount influence of labour in the production of

*Considerations on the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money, 1691; and Further Considerations ́ on Raising the Value of Money, 1695.

+ Considerations on the East India Trade, 1701. This is a very remarkable pamphlet. The author has successfully refuted the various arguments advanced in justification of the prohibition against importing East India manufactured goods; and has given a very striking illustration of the effects of the division of labour.

Money Answers all Things, 1734.

§ Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade, 1744.

Political Essays, 1752.

Essay on Money and Coins, 1757.

wealth; but he did not prosecute his investigations in the view of elucidating the principles of this science, and made no reference to them in his subsequent writings. And though Mr Harris adopted Mr Locke's views, and deduced from them some practical inferences of great importance, his general principles are merely introduced by way of preface to his Treatise on Money; and are not explained at any length, or in that logical and systematic manner that is necessary in scientific investigations.

But, what the English writers had left undone was now attempted by a French philosopher, equally distinguished for the subtlety and originality of his understanding, and the integrity and simplicity of his character. This was the celebrated M. Quesnay, a physician, attached to the court of Louis XV. It is to him that the merit unquestionably belongs of having first attempted to investigate and analyze the sources of wealth, with the intention of ascertaining the fundamental principles of Political Economy; and who thus gave it a systematic form, and raised it to the rank of a science. Quesnay's father was a small proprietor, and having been educated in the country, he was naturally inclined to regard agriculture with more than ordinary partiality. At an early period of his life he had been struck with its depressed state in France, and had set himself to discover the causes which had prevented its making that progress which the industry of the inhabitants, the fertility of the soil, and the excellence of the climate, seemed to insure. In the course of this in

ture.

quiry he speedily discovered that the prevention of the exportation of corn to foreign countries, and the preference given by the regulations of Colbert to the manufacturing and commercial classes over the agriculturists, formed the most powerful obstacles to the progress and improvement of agriculBut Quesnay was not satisfied with exposing the injustice of this preference, and its pernicious consequences. His zeal for the interests of agriculture led him, not merely to place it on the same level with manufactures and commerce, but to raise it above them, by endeavouring to show that it was the only species of industry which contributed to increase the riches of a nation. Founding on the indisputable fact, that every thing that either ministers to our wants or gratifies our desires, must be originally derived from the earth, Quesnay assumed as a self-evident truth, and as the basis of his system, that the earth is the only source of wealth; and held that industry was altogether incapable of producing any new value, except when employed in agriculture, including under that term fisheries and mines. His observation of the striking effects of the vege tative powers of nature, and his inability to explain the real origin and causes of rent, confirmed him in this opinion. The circumstance, that of those who are engaged in industrious undertakings, none but the cultivators of the soil paid rent for the use of natural agents, appeared to him an incontrovertible proof, that agriculture was the only species of industry which yielded a net surplus (produit net) over

and above the expences of production. Quesnay allowed that manufacturers and merchants were highly useful; but, as they realized no net surplus in the shape of rent, he contended they did not add any greater value to the raw material of the commodi. ties they manufactured or carried from place to place, than was just equivalent to the value of the capital or stock consumed by them during the time they were necessarily engaged in these operations. These principles once established, Quesnay proceeded to divide society into three classes; the first, or productive class, by whose agency all wealth is produced, consists of the farmers and labourers engaged in agriculture, who subsist on a portion of the produce of the land reserved to themselves as the wages of their labour, and as a reasonable profit on their capital; the second, or proprietary class, consists of those who live on the rent of the land, or on the net surplus produce raised by the cultivators after their necessary expences have been deducted; and the third, or unproductive class, consists of manufacturers, merchants, menial servants, &c., whose labour, though exceedingly useful, adds nothing to the national wealth, and who subsist entirely on the wages paid them by the other two classes. It is obvious, supposing this classification made on just principles, that all taxes must fall on the landlords. The third, or unproductive class, have nothing but what they receive from the other two classes; and if any deduction were made from the fair and reasonable profits and wages of the husbandmen, it would have the