FOOTNOTES
[1] The 18 millions sterling in circulation, as calculated in 1688, by Dr. Davenant, were, in 1711, brought down to 12 millions, probably as we reduce now to 20 or 25, the 40 millions and upwards which might be supposed in England, were we to confine ourselves to the calculation of the coin struck in the present reign, and of the old pieces preserved on account of their weight being unimpaired. The sequel will shew, that it is next to an impossibility for a country, tolerably governed, to preserve, for any length of time, more or less money than its wants require.
[2] I have mentioned the fatal tree, as a consequence of the miseries attending war. This is more sensibly felt in England than any where else, for reasons obvious to every one. During the first years that immediately follow a peace, a four-fold number of wretches, to what are executed at other times, are brought to the gallows. It is with much ado that a man returns within the sphere of the confined and daily occupations of the handicrafts or husbandmen, when he has for some years rioted in that licentiousness permitted, in a manner, to soldiers and sailors, in every thing that does not concern their respective service.
[3] This idea is the more to be attended to, as, supposing it were possible that an increase of coin, within the nation, should enhance the produce of industry alone, the landed proprietors would certainly be obliged to petition for an act of parliament, prohibiting the importation of bullion, for fear it should be turned into coin; just as they would be obliged to pray for a tax on the productions of the earth, if none but the taxed articles were to increase in price.—We now petition against taxes; we should then pray to be taxed. This would be no bad subject for a Comedy, if attempted by a writer who would handle it properly. I hope the labouring man would be allotted a very bustling part; that is, he would engross the best wishes of all good men, and command the attention of all those who do not think themselves entitled to that appellation.
[4] Since my writing the above I have seen the account-book (Bilan) of another nation; I shall notice it in its proper place.
[5] Under the idea of labour, I comprise all kinds of capitals necessary to keep in action the labouring man; a stock, or capital, is but an accumulation of savings, made from former labours, whether it represents the savings of a certain number of years, in regard to one man, or those of some centuries, in regard to the nation or some privileged individuals.
[6] One of the most respectable English writers has been charged with having entirely given up the American cause, which he had hitherto so strenuously supported; in my opinion it is a mistake. It was not to the Americans that the Doctor was attached, it was to certain maxims, plain but fertile, by which they seemed to have been directed, and which the said author, establishes and recommends as the only guides for all Princes and Nations, to lead them to that point of prosperity the limits of which can be prescribed by Nature alone; the Americans most probably will return to those maxims, and I presume to think, that they will instantly be restored to the favour of that worthy Divine; my opinions so nearly approach to those of that honest man on every point that truly concerns society, that I wish either to convert him, or to be perverted by him, with regard to the reimbursement. I must confess, that if the ideas which are the ground-work of my principles, be false, the error is mine alone; if I am right, the mistake of the Doctor, (like the imperfections in Shakespeare), is the fault of his age, not of himself. I shall further add, that the reimbursement, according to the principles I have laid down, is not a measure by any means material to the State; it is only a trifling injustice done to very little purpose, and not even suspected by those who sustain it, a je ne sais quoi giving to one a little credit and a little uneasiness to others, keeping the bulls and bears in spirits and the writers of paragraphs in full employ, but luckily productive of a light and transitory sensation only, and even that in a small part of the machine: so little is reimbursed at a time! so soon is one tired of reimbursing! Presently, the only essential object, the price of every thing shapes itself so well by the circumstances attending the reimbursement, that I should not hesitate to ascribe the ordinary, the infallible reparation of all evil, to the credit of one sole principle of all good, were it not my invariable maxim (as it is the Doctor’s and his friend M. Turgot’s) not to scandalise even those who do not believe in God.
There is a prejudice much more unaccountable in England, in the proud England, than the whim of a national reimbursement; it is that prejudice which all the hired writers, pro and con, endeavour to propagate from age to age in all countries, a prejudice, on the destroying of which every unhired writer can never be too intent, that prejudice stating, that the prosperity of a State depends on one single individual. Where is that Phœnix to be found? There are always two pretenders at least, who cry at once, I am the man, and a thousand voices exclaiming together, he is the man. The prosperity of a State, be its extent what it may, solely depends on its agriculture, its industry, its knowledge, and on that degree of liberty with which those three objects can exert themselves in every way. This is the grand truth which ought to be impressed on every mind.⸺Let one great man die in a country where great men are appreciated⸺stamp on the ground, and ten such men will start up: many more will start up when every body, without respect either to face or mask, is at liberty to stand as a candidate.
[7] Let the question on this very point be asked of any one, who can remember, and compare. I except no article whatsoever of industry, which is brought to perfection.
[8] It is truly farcical to hear and see the deep-fetched sigh of a tradesman, when he is reminded by a purchaser, that the subject matter of the bargain is dearer than it used to be: “Alas! Sir, (says he) this very article is taxed one shilling; and, Sir, I say nothing of that cursed shop-tax.” But why? If the purchaser has some kind of labour, no matter what, and no matter how, to dispose of, it is evident that, as soon as the sigh will have gone round, the tax will be paid, without any expence but that of some thousands of sighs exchanged by the community at large.
[9] I must confess I wish also that a little time could be spared to examine whether all kinds of taxes, already devised or to be devised, already established or to be established, on any other object but consumption, whatever may be the appellation with which they may be honoured or disgraced, from the land-tax down to the shop-tax, are not in fact so many poll-taxes:—that is to say, I wish they would be pleased to examine, whether that man whose hand is obliged, under pain of distress, to give at such a day such a sum, can, upon due recollection, disguise to himself that his head is as really taxed, as if the subsidy to be paid was called a poll-tax, or la taille. If I am not mistaken, the case is this: the shopkeeper feels that he ought not to pay a tax upon his shop; he pays it and cries out like an eagle; he is right: the land proprietor does not know that he ought not to pay a tax upon his land; he pays it and says nothing; he is wrong: the Minister wanted money; he thought that nothing remained untaxed; he suspected that the land proprietor would at last cry out as loud as the shopkeeper, if the land-tax was increased; he taxed the shops: a shop, in truth, does not appear (very evidently at least) more sacred than the land upon which it is erected.—It is not at all impossible, but that in some few years all these misunderstandings will be talked of with as little reverence as witchcraft; but till then, the good mother Nature must work underhand, as she ever did, and probably ever will.
[10] In the Political Arithmetic of Mr. Young, may be seen the accounts, year by year, whence I have drawn the inferences here submitted to the Reader. It is but a few days ago that I thought of comparing with my own ideas the result of the whole of those accounts.
[11] It is a very good idea, according to the Navigation-Act, to restrain, as much as possible, the English sugar-colonies, which their strongest interests attach for ever to England,—to restrain, I say, those sugar-colonies, in order to enlarge the faculties of some relics of timber, tar, and wheat-colonies, which their strongest interests will detach from England as soon as they shall be strong enough to make the best of their timber, tar, and wheat. It is said in England, that the sugar-cane planters are so immensely rich, that they can well afford to pay 20 per cent. dearer to their dutiful brethren, for what they could purchase 20 per cent. cheaper from their revolted ones.—A sugar-cane planter, with a clear revenue of one or ten thousand pounds sterling in sugar, is neither more nor less rich than a freeholder in Great-Britain, with a clear revenue of one or ten thousand pounds sterling in wheat or grass; the one, as well as the other, is every day rich by the 2 or 4 pounds weight of food he can digest, and by the 6 or 10 or 15 lb. of cloaths he can wear; the one, as well as the other, picks out those 10 or 20 pounds from the materials that best suit his taste or fancy.—To the shame of thy power, ô Opulence, here thou must stop! huc usque venies.—Such is the truth, no greater is the truth, no less trivial is the truth, before which that great globe itself, that immense and baseless fabric of premiums, prohibitions, restrictions, and so many other financiering visions—shall dissolve, and leave not a wreck behind!