Til JO WK A I.'I'll Of NATIONS.

SGI

publican form of government seems to be tlie principal supportof the present grandeur of Holland . The owners of great capi-tals, the great mercantile families, have generally either somedirect share, or some indirect influence, in the administration ofthat government. For the sake of the respect and authoritywhich they derive from this situation, they are willing tolivein acountry where their capital, if they employ it themselves, willbring them less profit, and if they lend it to another, less in-terest; and where the very moderate revenue which they candraw from it will purchase less of the necessaries and conve-niencies of life than in any other part of Europe . The resi-dence of such wealthy people necessarily keeps alive, in spiteof all disadvantages, a certain degree of industry in the coun-try. Any public calamity which should destroy the republicanform of government, which should tln’ow the whole adminis-tration into the hands of nobles and of soldiers, which shouldannihilate altogether the importance of those wealthy mer-chants, would soon render it disagreeable to them to live in acountry where they were no longer likely to be much respected.They would remove both their residence and their capital tosome other country, and the industry and commerce of Hol­ land would soon follow the capitals which supported them.

CHAP. III.

Of Public Debts.

IN that rude state ol society which precedes the extension ofcommerce and the improvement of manufactures, when thoseexpensive luxuries which commerce and manufactures canalone introduce arc altogether unknown, the person who pos-sesses a large revenue, 1 have endeavoured to shew in thethird book of this Inquiry, can spend or enjoy that revenue inno other way than by maintaining nearly as many people asit can maintain. A large revenue may at all times be said toconsist in the command of a large quantity of the necessariesof life. In that rude state of things it is commonly paid ina large quantity of those necessaries, in the materials of plainfood and coarse clothing, in com and cattle, in wool and rawhides. When neither commerce nor manufactures furnish anyfiling for which the owner can exchange the greater part ofthose materials which are over and above his own consump-tion, he can do nothing with the surplus but feed and clothenearly as many people as it will feed and clothe. A hospi-