III. the maintenance of a hundred men for three weeks, and both the CHA P. maintenance, and, what is nearly equal to the maintenance, the wear and tear of four hundred horfes as well as of fifty great waggons. Whereas upon the fame quantity of goods carried by water, there is to be charged only the maintenance of fix or eight men, and the wear and tear of a fhip of two hundred tons burden, together with the value of the fuperior risk, or the difference of the infurance between land and water-carriage. Were there no other communication between those two places, therefore, but by landcarriage, as no goods could be tranfported from the one to the other except fuch whose price was very confiderable in proportion to their weight, they could carry on but a small part of that commerce which at present subsists between them, and consequently could give but a small part of that encouragement which they at present mutually afford to each other's industry. There could be little or no commerce of any kind between the distant parts of the world. What goods could bear the expence of land carriage between London and Calcutta? Or if there were any fo precious as to be able to fupport this expence, with what fafety could they be tranfported through the territories of so many barbarous nations? Those two cities, however, at prefent carry on a very confiderable commerce with each other, and by mutually affording a market, give a good deal of encouragement to each other's industry. SINCE fuch, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage, it is natural that the first improvements of art and induftry fhould be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every fort of labour, and that they fhould always be much later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the country. of the country. The inland parts of the country can for a long time have no other market for the greater part of their goods, I. BOOK goods, but the country which lies round about them, and feparates them from the fea-coaft, and the great navigable rivers. The extent of their market, therefore, muft for a long time be in proportion to the riches and populoufnefs of that country, and confequently their improvement muft always be pofterior to the improvement of that country. In our North American colonies the plantations have conftantly followed either the fea-coaft or the banks of the navigable rivers, and have fcarce any where extended themfelves to any confiderable diftance from both. THE nations that, according to the beft authenticated history, appear to have been first civilized, were thofe that dwelt round the coaft of the Mediterranean fea. That fea, by far the greatest inlet that is known in the world, having no tides, nor confequently any waves except fuch as are caufed by the wind only, was, by the smoothness of its furface, as well as by the multitude of its iflands, and the proximity of its neighbouring fhores, extremely favourable to the infant navigation of the world; when, from their ignorance of the compafs, men were afraid to quit the view of the coaft, and from the imperfection of the art of ship-building, to abandon themfelves to the boisterous waves of the ocean. To país beyond the pillars of Hercules, that is, to fail out of the Streights of Gibraltar, was, in the antient world, long confidered as a moft wonderful and dangerous exploit of navigation. It was late before even the Phenicians and Carthaginians, the moft. skilful navigators and fhip-builders of thofe old times, attempted it, and they were for a long time the only nations that did attempt it. OF all the countries on the coaft of the Mediterranean fea, Egypt feems to have been the first in which either agriculture or manufactures were cultivated and improved to any confiderable degree. degree. Upper Egypt extends itself no where above a few miles from the Nile, and in Lower Egypt that great river breaks itself into many different canals, which, with the affiftance of a little art, feem to have afforded a communication by water-carriage, not only between all the great towns, but between all the confiderable villages, and even to many farm-houses in the country; nearly in the fame manner as the Rhine and the Maese do in Holland at present. The extent and easiness of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal causes of the early improvement of Egypt. THE improvements in agriculture and manufactures feem likewife to have been of very great antiquity in the provinces of Bengal in the East Indies, and in fome of the eastern provinces of China; though the great extent of this antiquity is not authenticated by any hiftories of whofe authority we, in this part of the world, are well affured. In Bengal the Ganges and feveral other great rivers form a great number of navigable canals in the fame manner as the Nile does in Egypt. In the eastern provinces of China too, several great rivers form, by their different branches, a multitude of canals, and by communicating with one another afford an inland navigation much more extensive than that either of the Nile or the Ganges, or perhaps than both of them put together. It is remarkable that neither the antient Egyptians, nor the Indians, nor the Chinese, encouraged foreign commerce, but seem all to have derived their great opulence from this inland navigation. any ALL the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Afia which lies confiderable way north of the Euxine and Cafpian feas, the antient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, feem in all of the world to have been in the fame barbarous and ages uncivilized state in which we find them at present. The sea of VOL. I. E Tartary I. BOOK Tartary is the frozen ocean which admits of no navigation, and though fome of the greatest rivers in the world run through that country, they are at too great a distance from one another to carry commerce and communication through the greater part of it. There are in Africa none of thofe great inlets, fuch as the Baltic and Adriatic feas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine feas in both Europe and Afia, and the gulphs of Arabia, Perfia, India, Bengal, and Siam, in Afia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: and the great rivers of Africa are at too great a diftance from one another to give occafion to any confiderable inland navigation. The commerce befides which any nation can carry on by means of a river which does not break itself into any great number of branches or canals, and which runs into another territory before it reaches the sea, can never be very confiderable; because it is always in the power of the nations who poffefs that other territory to obftruct the communication between the upper country and the fea. The navigation of the Danube is of very little use to the different ftates of Bavaria, Austria and Hungary, in comparison of what it would be if any of them poffeffed the whole of its course till it falls into the Black Sea. HAP. CHA P. IV. Of the Origin and Use of Money. HEN the division of labour has been once thoroughly c WHEN has been once established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can fupply. He fupplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that furplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own confumption, for fuch parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occafion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the fociety itself grows to be what is properly a commercial fociety. BUT when the divifion of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging muft frequently have been very much clogged and embarraffed in its operations. One man, we shall fuppofe, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occafion for, while another has lefs. The former confequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this fuperfluity. But if this latter fhould chance to have nothing that the former ftands in need of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more meat in his fhop than he himself can confume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their refpective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate occafion for. No exchange can, in this case, be made between them. He cannot be their merchant, nor they his customers; and they are all of them thus mutually lefs ferviceable to one another. In order to avoid the inconveniency E 2 of 1 |