ONE of the most solid foundations on which an enquirer can proceed in matters of political economy, as connected with the fate of nations, seems to be by an appeal to history, a view of the effects that have been produced, and an investigation of the causes that have operated in producing them.
Unfortunately, in this case, the materials are but very scanty, and sometimes rather of doubtful authority; nevertheless, such as they are, I do not think it well to reject the use of them, and have, therefore, begun, by taking a view of the causes that have ruined nations that have been great and wealthy, beginning with the earliest records and coming down to the present time. {5}
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{5} Dr. Robertson very truly says, "It is a cruel mortification, in searching for what is instructive in the history of past times, to find that the exploits of conquerors who have desolated the earth, and the freaks of tyrants who have rendered nations unhappy, are recorded with minute, and often disgusting accuracy, while the discovery of useful arts, and the progress of the most beneficial branches of commerce are passed over in silence, and suffered to sink in oblivion." Disquisition on the Ancient Commerce to India.
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I divide this space into three periods, because in each is to be seen a very distinct feature.
During the first period, previous to the fall of the Roman empire, the order of things was such as had arisen from the new state of mankind, who had gradually increased in numbers, and improved in sciences and arts. The different degrees of wealth were owing, at first, to local situation, natural advantages, and priority in point of settlement, till the causes of decline begun to operate on some; when the adventitious causes of wealth and power, producing conquest, began to establish a new order of things.
The second period, from the fall of the Roman government till the discovery of America, and the passage to the East Indies, by the ocean, has likewise a distinct feature, and is treated of by itself.
The rulers of mankind were not then men, who from the ease and leisure of pastoral life, under a mild heaven, had studied science, and cultivated the arts; they were men who had descended from a cold northern climate, where nature did little to supply their wants, where hunger and cold could not be avoided but by industry and exertion; where, in one word, the sterility of nature was counteracted by the energy of man.