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BOOK commends the trade. Though their skill and dexterity are much fuperior to that of almoft. any artificers, and though their whole life is one continual fcene of hardship and danger, yet for all this dexterity and skill, for all those hardships and dangers, while they remain in the condition of common failors, they receive scarce any other recompence but the pleasure of exercising the one and of furmounting the other. Their wages are not greater than thofe of common labourers at the port which regulates the rate of feamen's wages. As they are continually going from port to port, the monthly pay of those who fail from all the different ports of Great Britain, is more nearly upon a level that that of any other workmen in thofe different places; and the rate of the port to and from which the greatest number fail, that is the port of London, regulates that of all the reft. At London the wages of the greater part of the different claffes of workmen are about double thofe of the fame claffes at Edinburgh. But the failors who fail from the port of London feldom earn above three or four fhillings a month more than thofe who fail from the port of Leith, and the difference is frequently not fo great. In time of peace, and in the merchant fervice, the London price is from a guinea to about seven-and-twenty fhillings the calendar month. A common labourer in London, at the rate of nine or ten fhillings a week, may earn in the calendar month from forty to five-and-forty fhillings. The failor, indeed, over and above his pay, is fupplied with provi

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fions. Their value, however, may not perhaps CHA P. always exceed the difference between his pay and that of the common labourer; and though it fometimes fhould, the excefs will not be clear gain to the failor, because he cannot fhare it with his wife and family, whom he must maintain out of his wages at home.

The dangers and hair-breadth escapes of a life of adventures, inftead of difheartening young people, feem frequently to recommend a trade to them. A tender mother, among the inferior ranks of people, is often afraid to fend her fon to school at a fea-port town, left the fight of the ships and the converfation and adventures of the failors should entice him to go to fea. The diftant prospect of hazards, from which we can hope to extricate ourselves by courage and addrefs, is not difagreeable to us, and does not raife the wages of labour in any employment. It is otherwife with those in which courage and addrefs can be of no avail. In trades which are known to be very unwholefome, the wages of labour are always remarkably high. Unwholesomeness is

fpecies of difagreeableness, and its effects upon the wages of labour are to be ranked under that general head.

In all the different employments of flock, the ordinary rate of profit varies more or lefs with the certainty or uncertainty of the returns. These are in general lefs uncertain in the inland than in the foreign trade, and in fome branches of foreign trade than in others; in the trade to North America, for example, than in that to Jamaica.

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BOOK Jamaica. The ordinary rate of profit always I. rifes more or lefs with the risk. It does not, however, feem to rife in proportion to it, or fo as to compenfate it completely. Bankruptcies are

moft frequent in the most hazardous trades. The moft hazardous of all trades, that of a fmuggler, though when the adventure fucceeds it is likewife the most profitable, is the infallible road to bankruptcy. The prefumptuous hope of fuccefs feems to act here as upon all other occafions, and to entice fo many adventurers into thofe hazardous trades, that their competition reduces their profit below what is fufficient to compenfate the rifk. To compenfate it completely, the common returns ought, over and above the ordinary profits of stock, not only to make up for all occafional loffes, but to afford a furplus profit to the adventurers of the fame nature with the profit of infurers. But if the common returns were fufficient for all this, bankruptcies would not be more frequent in thefe than in other trades.

Of the five circumstances, therefore, which vary the wages of labour, two only affect the profits of stock; the agreeablenefs or difagreeableness of the bufinefs, and the risk or fecurity with which it is attended. In point of agreeablenefs or difagreeablenefs, there is little or no difference in the far greater part of the different employments of stock; but a great deal in those of labour; and the ordinary profit of ftock, though it rifes with the risk, does not always feem to rife in proportion to it. It fhould follow from all this, that, in the fame fociety or

neighbourhood, the average and ordinary rates c of profit in the different employments of flock fhould be more nearly upon a level than the pecuniary wages of the different forts of labour. They are fo accordingly. The difference between the earnings of a common labourer and thofe of a well employed lawyer or phyfician, is evidently much greater than that between the ordinary profits in any two different branches of trade. The apparent difference, befides, in the profits of different trades, is generally a deception arifing from our not always diftinguishing what ought to be confidered as wages, from what ought to be confidered as profit.

Apothecaries profit is become a bye-word, denoting fomething uncommonly extravagant.. This great apparent profit, however, is frequently no more than the reasonable wages of labour. The skill of an apothecary is a much nicer and more delicate matter than that of any artificer whatever; and the truft which is repofed in him is of much greater importance. He is the phyfician of the poor in all cafes, and of the rich when the distress or danger is not very great. His reward, therefore, ought to be fuitable to his skill and his truft, and it arifes generally from the price at which he fells his drugs. But the whole drugs which the beft employed apothecary, in a large market town, will fell in a year, may not perhaps coft him above thirty or forty pounds. Though he fhould fell them, therefore, for three or four hundred, or at a thousand per cent. profit, this may frequently be

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BOOK no more than the reafonable wages of his labour charged, in the only way in which he can charge them, upon the price of his drugs. The greater part of the apparent profit is real wages disguised in the garb of profit.

In a small fea-port town, a little grocer will make forty or fifty per cent. upon a stock of a fingle hundred pounds, while a confiderable wholesale merchant in the fame place will scarce make eight or ten per cent. upon a stock of ten thoufand. The trade of the grocer may be neceffary for the conveniency of the inhabitants, and the narrowness of the market may not admit the employment of a larger capital in the bufinefs. The man, however, must not only live by his trade, but live by it fuitably to the quali fications which it requires. Befides poffeffing a little capital, he must be able to read, write, and account, and must be a tolerable judge too of, perhaps, fifty or fixty different forts of goods, their prices, qualities, and the markets where they are to be had cheapest. He must have all the knowledge, in short, that is neceffary for a great merchant, which nothing hinders him from becoming but the want of a fufficient capital. Thirty or forty pounds a year cannot be confidered as too great a recompence for the labour of a perfon fo accomplished. Deduct this from the feemingly great profits of his capital, and little more will remain, perhaps, than the ordinary profits of stock. The greater part of the apparent profit is, in this cafe too, real wages.

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