If the people of this not-trading country (as we shall now call it) be abundantly furnished with commodities useful to the traders, they will easily part with them, at first, for the instruments of luxury and ease; but the great profit of the traders will insensibly increase the demand for the productions of their new correspondents; this will have the effect of producing a competition between themselves, and thereby of throwing the demand on their side, from the principles I shall afterwards explain. This is perpetually a disadvantage in traffic: the most unpolished nations in the world quickly perceive the effects of it; and are taught to profit of the discovery, in spite of the address of those who are the most expert in commerce.
The traders will, therefore, be very fond of falling upon every method and contrivance to inspire this people with a taste of refinement and delicacy. Abundance of fine presents, consisting of every instrument of luxury and superfluity, the best adapted to the genius of the people, will be given to the prince and leading men among them. Workmen will even be employed at home to study the taste of the strangers, and to captivate their desires by every possible means. The more eager they are of presents, the more lavish the traders will be in bestowing and diversifying them. It is an animal put up to fatten, the more he eats the sooner he is fit for slaughter. When their taste for superfluity is fully formed, when the relish for their former simplicity is sophisticated, poisoned, and obliterated, then they are surely in the fetters of the traders, and the deeper they go, the less possibility there is of their getting out. The presents then will die away, having served their purpose; and if afterwards they are found to be continued, it will probably be to support the competition against other nations, who will incline to share of the profits.
If, on the contrary, this not-trading nation does not abound with commodities useful to the traders, these will make little account of trading with them, whatever their turn may be; but if we suppose this country inhabited by a laborious people, who, having taken a taste for refinement from the traders, apply themselves to agriculture, in order to produce articles of subsistence, they will sollicit the merchants to give them part of their manufactures in exchange for those; and this trade will undoubtedly have the effect of multiplying numbers in the trading nation. But if food cannot be furnished, nor any other branch of production found out to support the correspondence, the taste for refinement will soon die away, and trade will stop in this quarter.
Had it not been for the furs in those countries adjacent to Hudson’s Bay, and in Canada, the Europeans never would have thought of supplying instruments of luxury to those nations; and if the inhabitants of those regions had not taken a taste for the instruments of luxury furnished to them by the Europeans, they never would have become so indefatigable nor so dexterous hunters. At the same time we are not to suppose, that ever these Americans would have come to Europe in quest of our manufactures. It is therefore owing to our merchants, that these nations are become in any degree fond of refinement; and this taste, in all probability, will not soon exceed the proportion of the productions of their country. From these beginnings of foreign trade it is easy to trace its increase.
One step towards this, is the establishing correspondences in foreign countries; and these are more or less necessary in proportion as the country where they are established is more or less polished or acquainted with trade. They supply the want of posts, and point out to the merchants what proportion the productions of the country bear to the demand of the inhabitants for manufactures. This communicates an idea of commerce to the not-trading nation, and they insensibly begin to fix a determined value upon their own productions, which perhaps bore no determined value at all before.
Let me trace a little the progress of this refinement in the savages, in order to shew how it has the effect of throwing the demand upon the traders, and of creating a competition among them, for the productions of the new country.
Experience shews, that in a new discovered country, merchants constantly find some article or other of its productions, which turns out to a great account in commerce; and we see that the longer such a trade subsists, and the more the inhabitants take a taste for European manufactures, the more their own productions rise in their value, and the less profit is made by trading with them, even in cases where the trade is carried on by companies; which is a very wise institution for one reason, that it cuts off a competition between our merchants.
This we shall shew, in its proper place, to be the best means of keeping prices low in favour of the nation; however it may work a contrary effect with respect to individuals who must buy from these monopolies.
When companies are not established, and when trade is open, our merchants, by their eagerness to profit of the new trade, betray the secrets of it, they enter into competition for the purchase of the foreign produce, and this raises prices and favours the commerce of the most ignorant savages.
Some account for this in a different manner. They alledge that it is not this competition which raises prices; because there is also a competition among the savages as to which of them shall get the merchandize; and this may be sufficient to counterbalance the other, and in proportion as the quantity of goods demanded by the savages, as an exchange for the produce of their country, becomes greater, a less quantity of this produce must be given for every parcel of the goods.