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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

all those inhabitants of Great Britain, who are at present em-ployed in preparing the goods with which these eighty-twothousand hogsheads are annually purchased. Those goods,which are part of the produce of the land and labour ofGreat Britain, having no market at home, and being de-prived of that which they had abroad, must cease to be pro-duced. The most round-about foreign trade of consumptiontherefore, may, upon some occasions, be as necessary for sup-porting the productive labour of the country, and the valueof its annual produce, as the most direct.

When the capital stock of any country is increased tosuch a degree, that it cannot be all employed in supplyingthe consumption, and supporting the productive labour ofthat particular country, the surplus part of it naturally dis-gorges itself into the carrying trade, and is employed in per-forming the same offices to other countries. The carryingtrade is the natural effect and symptom of great nationalwealth; but it does not seem to be the natural cause of it.Those statesmen who have been disposed to favour it withparticular encouragements, seem to have mistaken the effectand symptom for the cause. Holland, in proportion to theextent of the land, and the number of its inhabitants, by farthe richest country in Europe , has, accordingly, the greatestshare of the carrying trade of Europe . England, perhapsthe second richest country of Europe , is likewise supposed tohave a considerable share of it; though wdnit commonly passesfor the currying trade of England, will frequently, perhaps, befound to be no more than a round-about foreign trade of con-sumption. Such are, in a great measure, the trades whichcarry the goods of the East and West Indies, and of America ,to the different European markets. Those goods are gene-rally purchased either immediately with the produce of British industry, or with something else which had been purchasedwith that produce, and the final returns of those trades aregenerally used or consumed in Great Britain. The tradewhich is carried on in British bottoms between the differentports of the Mediterranean, and some trade of the same kindcarried on by British merchants between the different portsof India , make perhaps, the principal branches of what isproperly the carrying trade of Great Britain.

The extent of the home-trade and of the capital which canbe employed in it, is necessarily limited by the value of thesurplus produce of all those distant places within the conn-