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114

BOOK facture was first established, the materials were all

111. brought from Sicily and the Levant. The more

ancient manufacture of Lucca was likewife carfied on with foreign materials. The cultivation of mulberry trees, and the breeding of filkworms, feem not to have been common in the northern parts of Italy before the fixteenth century. Thofe arts were not introduced into France till the reign of Charles IX. The manufactures of Flanders were carried on chiefly with Spanish and English wool. Spanish wool was the material, not of the firft woollen manufacture of England, but of the first that was fit for diftant fale. More than one half the materials of the Lyons manufacture is at this day foreign filk; when it was firft established, the whole or very nearly the whole was fo. No part of the materials of the Spital-fields manufacture is ever likely to be the produce of England. The feat of fuch manufactures, as they are generally introduced by the fcheme and project of a few individuals, is fometimes established in a maritime city, and fometimes in an inland town, according as their interest, judgment or caprice happen to determine.

Ar other times manufactures for diftant fale grow up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, by the gradual refinement of thofe houfhold and coarfer manufactures which muft at all times be carried on even in the poorest and rudest countries. Such manufactures are generally employed upon the materials which the country produces, and they feem frequently to

III.

have been firft refined and improved in fuch in- CHAP. land countries as were, not indeed at a very great, but at a confiderable distance from the fea coaft, and fometimes even from all water carriage. An inland country naturally fertile and eafily cultivated, produces a great furplus of provifions beyond what is neceffary for maintaining the cultivators, and on account of the expence of land carriage, and inconveniency of river navigation, it may frequently be difficult to fend this furplus abroad. Abundance, therefore, renders provifions cheap, and encourages a great number of workmen to fettle in the neighbourhood, who find that their induftry can there procure them more of the neceffaries and conveniencies of life than in other places. They work up the materials of manufacture which the land produces, and exchange their finished work, or what is the fame thing the price of it, for more materials and provifions. They give a new value to the furplus part of the rude produce, by faving the expence of carrying it to the water fide, or to fome diftant market; and they furnish the cultivators with fomething in exchange for it that is either ufeful or agreeable to them, upon easier terms than they could have obtained it before. The cultivators get a better price for their furplus produce, and can purchase cheaper other conveniencies which they have occafion for. They are thus both encouraged and enabled to increase this furplus produce by a further improvement and better cultivation of the land; and as the fertility of the land had given birth

III.

BOOK to the manufacture, fo the progrefs of the manufacture re-acts upon the land, and increafes ftill further its fertility. The manufacturers first fupply the neighbourhood, and afterwards, as their work improves and refines, more distant markets. For though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarfe manufacture, could, without the greatest difficulty, fupport the expence of a confiderable land carriage, the refined and improved manufacture eafily may. In a finall bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quantity of rude produce. A piece of fine cloth, for example, which weighs only eighty pounds, contains in it, the price, not only of eighty pounds weight of wool, but fometimes of feveral thoufand weight of corn, the maintenance of the different working people, and of their immediate employers. The corn, which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in its own fhape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may eafily be fent to the remoteft corners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. Such manufactures are the offspring of agriculture. In the modern hiftory of Europe, their extenfion and improvement have generally been pofterior to those which were the offspring of foreign commerce. England was noted for the manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool, more than a century before any of thofe which now flourish in the places above

mentioned

IV.

mentioned were fit for foreign fale. The exten- CHA P. fion and improvement of these last could not take place but in confequence of the extension and improvement of agriculture, the last and greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it, and which I fhall now proceed to explain.

CHA P. IV.

How the Commerce of the Towns contributed to the
Improvement of the Country.

TH

HE increafe and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns, contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the countries to which they belonged, in three different ways.

FIRST, by affording a great and ready market for the rude produce of the country, they gave encouragement to its cultivation and further improvement. This benefit was not even confined to the countries in which they were fituated, but extended more or lefs to all those with which they had any dealings. To all of them they afforded a market for fome part either of their rude or manufactured produce, and confequently gave fome encouragement to the industry and improvement of all. Their own country, however, on account of its neighbourhood, neceffarily derived the greatest benefit from this market.

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BOOK Its rude produce being charged with lefs carriage, the traders could pay the growers a better price for it, and yet afford it as cheap to the confumers as that of more diftant countries.

SECONDLY, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of cities was frequently employed in purchafing fuch lands as were to be fold, of which a great part would frequently be uncultivated. Merchants are commonly ambitious of becoming country gentlemen, and when they do, they are generally the best of all improvers. A merchant is accustomed to employ his money chiefly in profitable projects; whereas a mere country gentleman is accustomed to employ it chiefly in expence. The one often fees his money go from him and return to him again with a profit: the other, when once he parts with it, very seldom expects to fee any more of it. Thofe different habits naturally affect their temper and difposition in every fort of business. A merchant is commonly a bold; a country gentleman, a timid undertaker. The one is not afraid to lay out at once a large capital upon the improvement of his land, when he has a probable profpect of raising the value of it in proportion to the expence. The other, if he has any capital, which is not always the cafe, feldom ventures to employ it in this manner. If he improves at all, it is commonly not with a capital, but with what he can fave out of his annual revenue. Whoever has had the fortune to live in a mercantile town fituated in an unimproved country, must have frequently obferved how much more spirited

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