productiveness of the capitals successively applied to them. Neither is it true, as is assumed in every part of the "Wealth of Nations," that rent enters into and forms a constituent part of the cost or price of raw produce; for that is determined by the cost of producing that portion of the required supply that is raised under the most unfavourable circumstances, or by the agency of the capital last applied to the land; and it has been shown over and over again that neither this capital, nor its produce, ever pays any rent.-M'Culloch, 66.

MONOPOLY is a great enemy to good management, which can never be universally established but in consequence of that free and universal competition which forces everybody to have recourse to it for the sake of self-defence. It is not more than fifty years ago that some of the counties in the neighbourhood of London petitioned the parliament against the extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties. Those remoter counties, they pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves, and would thereby reduce their rents and ruin their cultivation. Their rents, however, have risen and their cultivation has been improved since that time.-Smith, 68.

AT Buenos Ayres, we are told by Ulloa, four reals (18. 94d. sterling) was, forty or fifty years ago, the ordinary price for an ox, chosen from a herd of two or three hundred.

IN Cochin China the finest white sugar commonly sells for eight shillings a hundred weight.-72.

IN the new town of Edinburgh, built within these few years, there is not, perhaps, a single stick of Scotch timber.

77.

WHEN Tavernier, a jeweller, visited the diamond mines of Golconda and Visiapour, he was informed that the sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought, had ordered all of them to be shut up, except those which yield the largest and finest stones. The others, it seems, were to the proprietor not worth the working.-80.

SIXTEEN shillings, we are told by Mr. Byron, was the price of a good horse in the capital of Chili not many years ago.

-85.

THE great debasement of the silver coin began in the reign of Charles II., and had gone on continually increasing till 1695, at which time a guinea commonly exchanged for thirty shillings of the worn and clipt silver.-89.

IN France, till 1764, the exportation of grain was by law prohibited. 91.

THE price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradual variations, varies less from year to year than that of almost any other part of the rude produce of land; and the price of the precious metals is even less liable to sudden variations than that of the coarse ones. The durableness of metals is the foundation of this extraordinary steadiness of price.-97.

WHEN We read in Pliny that Scius bought a white nightingale, as a present for the Empress Agrippina, at the price of 6.000 sestertii, equal to about £50 of our present money; and that Asinius Celer purchased a surmullet at the price of 8,000 sestertii, equal to about £66s 13. 4d. of our present money; the extravagance of those prices, how much soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding, to appear to us about one-third less than it really was.-101.

IN the time of Edward IV. the art of knitting stockings was probably not known in any part of Europe. Their hose were made of common cloth. The first person that wore stockings in England is said to have been Queen Elizabeth: she received them as a present from the Spanish ambassador. -114.

NEITHER wind nor water-mills of any kind were known in England so early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. nor, so far as I know, in any other part of Europe north of the Alps. They had been introduced into Italy some time before.

In the currencies of North America, before the act of parliament which put a stop to the circulation of ten and five shillings notes, paper was commonly issued for so small a sum as a shilling. In some paper currencies of Yorkshire, it was issued even for so small a sum as a sixpence.-142.

ENTAILS were altogether unknown to the Romans. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died, perhaps, five hundred years ago. The common law of England is said to abhor perpetuities, and they are accordingly more restricted there than in any other European monarchy; though even England is not altogether without them. In Scotland, more than one-fifth, perhaps more than one-third part, of the whole lands of the country are at present supposed to be under strict entail.-171.

COLLIERS, coal-bearers, salters, and all individuals employed

in collieries and salt-works were placed by the old law of Scotland, enforced by several comparatively modern statutes, in the exact condition of the adscripti gleba of the middle ages. They were bound to perpetual service at the works to which they belonged; upon a sale of the works the new proprietor acquired a right to their services; all persons were prohibited from receiving them into their employment without the express consent of their last master; and, in the event of their deserting to another work, and being claimed within twelve months, their employers were obliged to restore them within twenty-four hours, under a high penalty! Such was the state of the Scotch colliers, &c., so late as 1775.-M'Culloch, 172.

THE experience of ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as much and to labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.-Smith.

IT is not thirty years ago since Mr. Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochaber in Scotland, without any legal warrant whatever, not being what was then called a lord of regality, nor even a tenant in chief, but a vassal of the Duke of Argyle, and without being so much as a justice of peace, used, notwithstanding, to exercise the highest criminal jurisdiction over his own people. He is said to have done so with great equity, though without any of the formalities of justice. It is not improbable that the state of that part of the country at that time made it necessary for him to assume this authority, in order to maintain the public peace. That gentleman, whose rent never exceeded £500 a year, carried, in 1745, eight hundred of his own people into the rebellion with him.-183.

IN a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of ten thousand a year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, a thousand families, who are all of them necessarily at his command. In the present state of Europe, a man of ten thousand a year can spend his whole revenue, and he generally does so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command more than ten footmen not worth the commanding.

VERY old families, such as have possessed some considerable estate from father to son for so many successive generations,

are very rare in commercial countries. Riches, in spite of the most violent regulations of law to prevent their dissipation, very seldom remain long in the same family. Among simple nations, on the contrary, they frequently do, without any regulations of law; for among nations of shepherds, such as the Tartars and Arabs, the consumable nature of their property necessarily renders all such regulations impossible.-184.

To purchase land is, everywhere in Europe, a most unprofitable employment of a small capital. A young man who, instead of applying to trade or to some profession, should employ a capital of two or three thousand pounds in the purchase and cultivation of a small piece of land, might indeed expect to live very happily and very independently, but must bid adieu for ever to all hope of either great fortune or great illustration, which, by a different employment of his stock, he might have had the same chance of acquiring with other people.-185.

FRANCE seems to have had a considerable share of foreign commerce near a century before England was distinguished as a commercial country. The foreign commerce of Portugal is of older standing than that of any great country in Europe except Italy. Italy is the only great country of Europe which seems to have been cultivated and improved in every part, by means of foreign commerce and manufactures for distant sale. -186.

THE ordinary revolutions of war and government easily dry up the sources of that wealth which arises from commerce only. That which arises from the more solid improvements of agriculture is much more durable, and cannot be destroyed but by those violent convulsions occasioned by the depredations of hostile and barbarous nations continued for a century or two together; such as those that happened for some time before and after the fall of the Roman empire in the western provinces of Europe.-187.

POLITICAL economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and, secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign. [Political economy is now most commonly defined, "the science of the laws which regulate the production, distribution, and consumption of those articles or products that

have exchangeable value, and are, at the same time, necessary, useful, or agreeable to man."-M'Culloch.]

FOR some time after the discovery of America, the first inquiry of the Spaniards, when they arrived upon any unknown coast, used to be, if there was any gold or silver to be found in the neighbourhood? By the information which they received they judged whether it was worth while to make a settlement there, or if the country was worth conquering. Plano Corpius, a monk, sent ambassador from the King of France to one of the sons of the famous Gengis Khan, says, that the Tartars used frequently to ask him if there was plenty of sheep and oxen in the kingdom of France? Their inquiry had the same object with that of the Spaniards. They wanted to know if the country was rich enough to be worth the conquering.

A COUNTRY that has no mines of its own must undoubtedly draw its gold and silver from foreign countries, in the same manner as one that has no vineyards of its own must draw its wines. It does not seem necessary, however, that the attention of government should be more turned towards the one than towards the other object. A country that has wherewithal to buy wine, will always get the wine which it has occasion for a country that has wherewithal to buy gold and silver, will never be in want of those metals. They are to be bought for a certain price, like all other commodities, and as they are the price of all other commodities, so all other commodities are the price of those metals.-190.

GOODS can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money; but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods. Money, therefore, necessarily runs after goods, but goods do not always or necessarily run after money. - 192.

CONSUMABLE commodities, it is said, are soon destroyed; whereas gold and silver are of a more durable nature, and were it not for this continual exportation, might be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the real wealth of the country. Nothing, therefore, it is pretended, can be more disadvantageous to any country than the trade which consists in the exchange of such lasting for such perishable commodities. We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hardware of England for the wines of France; and yet hardware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. To attempt to increase the wealth of any country, either by