markitect-main/examples/infospace-with-history/artifacts/sources/book-5-chapter-01.md

id, title, book, chapter, artifact_type

id	title	book	chapter	artifact_type
book-5-chapter-01	OF THE EXPENSES OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.	5	1	content

CHAPTER I. OF THE EXPENSES OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.

  PART I. Of the Expense of Defence.

  The first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the
  violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed
  only by means of a military force. But the expense both of preparing this
  military force in time of peace, and of employing it in time of war, is
  very different in the different states of society, in the different
  periods of improvement.

  Among nations of hunters, the lowest and rudest state of society, such as
  we find it among the native tribes of North America, every man is a
  warrior, as well as a hunter. When he goes to war, either to defend his
  society, or to revenge the injuries which have been done to it by other
  societies, he maintains himself by his own labour, in the same manner as
  when he lives at home. His society (for in this state of things there is
  properly neither sovereign nor commonwealth) is at no sort of expense,
  either to prepare him for the field, or to maintain him while he is in it.

  Among nations of shepherds, a more advanced state of society, such as we
  find it among the Tartars and Arabs, every man is, in the same manner, a
  warrior. Such nations have commonly no fixed habitation, but live either
  in tents, or in a sort of covered waggons, which are easily transported
  from place to place. The whole tribe, or nation, changes its situation
  according to the different seasons of the year, as well as according to
  other accidents. When its herds and flocks have consumed the forage of one
  part of the country, it removes to another, and from that to a third. In
  the dry season, it comes down to the banks of the rivers; in the wet
  season, it retires to the upper country. When such a nation goes to war,
  the warriors will not trust their herds and flocks to the feeble defence
  of their old men, their women and children; and their old men, their women
  and children, will not be left behind without defence, and without
  subsistence. The whole nation, besides, being accustomed to a wandering
  life, even in time of peace, easily takes the field in time of war.
  Whether it marches as an army, or moves about as a company of herdsmen,
  the way of life is nearly the same, though the object proposed by it be
  very different. They all go to war together, therefore, and everyone does
  as well as he can. Among the Tartars, even the women have been frequently
  known to engage in battle. If they conquer, whatever belongs to the
  hostile tribe is the recompence of the victory; but if they are
  vanquished, all is lost; and not only their herds and flocks, but their
  women and children become the booty of the conqueror. Even the greater
  part of those who survive the action are obliged to submit to him for the
  sake of immediate subsistence. The rest are commonly dissipated and
  dispersed in the desert.

  The ordinary life, the ordinary exercise of a Tartar or Arab, prepares him
  sufficiently for war. Running, wrestling, cudgel-playing, throwing the
  javelin, drawing the bow, etc. are the common pastimes of those who live
  in the open air, and are all of them the images of war. When a Tartar or
  Arab actually goes to war, he is maintained by his own herds and flocks,
  which he carries with him, in the same manner as in peace. His chief or
  sovereign (for those nations have all chiefs or sovereigns) is at no sort
  of expense in preparing him for the field; and when he is in it, the
  chance of plunder is the only pay which he either expects or requires.

  An army of hunters can seldom exceed two or three hundred men. The
  precarious subsistence which the chace affords, could seldom allow a
  greater number to keep together for any considerable time. An army of
  shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount to two or three hundred
  thousand. As long as nothing stops their progress, as long as they can go
  on from one district, of which they have consumed the forage, to another,
  which is yet entire; there seems to be scarce any limit to the number who
  can march on together. A nation of hunters can never be formidable to the
  civilized nations in their neighbourhood; a nation of shepherds may.
  Nothing can be more contemptible than an Indian war in North America;
  nothing, on the contrary, can be more dreadful than a Tartar invasion has
  frequently been in Asia. The judgment of Thucydides, that both Europe and
  Asia could not resist the Scythians united, has been verified by the
  experience of all ages. The inhabitants of the extensive, but defenceless
  plains of Scythia or Tartary, have been frequently united under the
  dominion of the chief of some conquering horde or clan; and the havock and
  devastation of Asia have always signalized their union. The inhabitants of
  the inhospitable deserts of Arabia, the other great nation of shepherds,
  have never been united but once, under Mahomet and his immediate
  successors. Their union, which was more the effect of religious enthusiasm
  than of conquest, was signalized in the same manner. If the hunting
  nations of America should ever become shepherds, their neighbourhood would
  be much more dangerous to the European colonies than it is at present.

  In a yet more advanced state of society, among those nations of husbandmen
  who have little foreign commerce, and no other manufactures but those
  coarse and household ones, which almost every private family prepares for
  its own use, every man, in the same manner, either is a warrior, or easily
  becomes such. Those who live by agriculture generally pass the whole day
  in the open air, exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. The
  hardiness of their ordinary life prepares them for the fatigues of war, to
  some of which their necessary occupations bear a great analogy. The
  necessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to work in the trenches,
  and to fortify a camp, as well as to inclose a field. The ordinary
  pastimes of such husbandmen are the same as those of shepherds, and are in
  the same manner the images of war. But as husbandmen have less leisure
  than shepherds, they are not so frequently employed in those pastimes.
  They are soldiers but soldiers not quite so much masters of their
  exercise. Such as they are, however, it seldom costs the sovereign or
  commonwealth any expense to prepare them for the field.

  Agriculture, even in its rudest and lowest state, supposes a settlement,
  some sort of fixed habitation, which cannot be abandoned without great
  loss. When a nation of mere husbandmen, therefore, goes to war, the whole
  people cannot take the field together. The old men, the women and
  children, at least, must remain at home, to take care of the habitation.
  All the men of the military age, however, may take the field, and in small
  nations of this kind, have frequently done so. In every nation, the men of
  the military age are supposed to amount to about a fourth or a fifth part
  of the whole body of the people. If the campaign, too, should begin after
  seedtime, and end before harvest, both the husbandman and his principal
  labourers can be spared from the farm without much loss. He trusts that
  the work which must be done in the mean time, can be well enough executed
  by the old men, the women, and the children. He is not unwilling,
  therefore, to serve without pay during a short campaign; and it frequently
  costs the sovereign or commonwealth as little to maintain him in the field
  as to prepare him for it. The citizens of all the different states of
  ancient Greece seem to have served in this manner till after the second
  Persian war; and the people of Peloponnesus till after the Peloponnesian
  war. The Peloponnesians, Thucydides observes, generally left the field in
  the summer, and returned home to reap the harvest. The Roman people, under
  their kings, and during the first ages of the republic, served in the same
  manner. It was not till the seige of Veii, that they who staid at home
  began to contribute something towards maintaining those who went to war.
  In the European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman
  empire, both before, and for some time after, the establishment of what is
  properly called the feudal law, the great lords, with all their immediate
  dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense. In the field, in
  the same manner as at home, they maintained themselves by their own
  revenue, and not by any stipend or pay which they received from the king
  upon that particular occasion.

  In a more advanced state of society, two different causes contribute to
  render it altogether impossible that they who take the field should
  maintain themselves at their own expense. Those two causes are, the
  progress of manufactures, and the improvement in the art of war.

  Though a husbandman should be employed in an expedition, provided it
  begins after seedtime, and ends before harvest, the interruption of his
  business will not always occasion any considerable diminution of his
  revenue. Without the intervention of his labour, Nature does herself the
  greater part of the work which remains to be done. But the moment that an
  artificer, a smith, a carpenter, or a weaver, for example, quits his
  workhouse, the sole source of his revenue is completely dried up. Nature
  does nothing for him; he does all for himself. When he takes the field,
  therefore, in defence of the public, as he has no revenue to maintain
  himself, he must necessarily be maintained by the public. But in a
  country, of which a great part of the inhabitants are artificers and
  manufacturers, a great part of the people who go to war must be drawn from
  those classes, and must, therefore, be maintained by the public as long as
  they are employed in its service.

  When the art of war, too, has gradually grown up to be a very intricate
  and complicated science; when the event of war ceases to be determined, as
  in the first ages of society, by a single irregular skirmish or battle;
  but when the contest is generally spun out through several different
  campaigns, each of which lasts during the greater part of the year; it
  becomes universally necessary that the public should maintain those who
  serve the public in war, at least while they are employed in that service.
  Whatever, in time of peace, might be the ordinary occupation of those who
  go to war, so very tedious and expensive a service would otherwise be by
  far too heavy a burden upon them. After the second Persian war,
  accordingly, the armies of Athens seem to have been generally composed of
  mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly of citizens, but partly, too,
  of foreigners; and all of them equally hired and paid at the expense of
  the state. From the time of the siege of Veii, the armies of Rome received
  pay for their service during the time which they remained in the field.
  Under the feudal governments, the military service, both of the great
  lords, and of their immediate dependents, was, after a certain period,
  universally exchanged for a payment in money, which was employed to
  maintain those who served in their stead.

  The number of those who can go to war, in proportion to the whole number
  of the people, is necessarily much smaller in a civilized than in a rude
  state of society. In a civilized society, as the soldiers are maintained
  altogether by the labour of those who are not soldiers, the number of the
  former can never exceed what the latter can maintain, over and above
  maintaining, in a manner suitable to their respective stations, both
  themselves and the other officers of government and law, whom they are
  obliged to maintain. In the little agrarian states of ancient Greece, a
  fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people considered the
  themselves as soldiers, and would sometimes, it is said, take the field.
  Among the civilized nations of modern Europe, it is commonly computed,
  that not more than the one hundredth part of the inhabitants of any
  country can be employed as soldiers, without ruin to the country which
  pays the expense of their service.

  The expense of preparing the army for the field seems not to have become
  considerable in any nation, till long after that of maintaining it in the
  field had devolved entirely upon the sovereign or commonwealth. In all the
  different republics of ancient Greece, to learn his military exercises,
  was a necessary part of education imposed by the state upon every free
  citizen. In every city there seems to have been a public field, in which,
  under the protection of the public magistrate, the young people were
  taught their different exercises by different masters. In this very simple
  institution consisted the whole expense which any Grecian state seems ever
  to have been at, in preparing its citizens for war. In ancient Rome, the
  exercises of the Campus Martius answered the same purpose with those of
  the Gymnasium in ancient Greece. Under the feudal governments, the many
  public ordinances, that the citizens of every district should practise
  archery, as well as several other military exercises, were intended for
  promoting the same purpose, but do not seem to have promoted it so well.
  Either from want of interest in the officers entrusted with the execution
  of those ordinances, or from some other cause, they appear to have been
  universally neglected; and in the progress of all those governments,
  military exercises seem to have gone gradually into disuse among the great
  body of the people.

  In the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, during the whole period of
  their existence, and under the feudal governments, for a considerable time
  after their first establishment, the trade of a soldier was not a
  separate, distinct trade, which constituted the sole or principal
  occupation of a particular class of citizens; every subject of the state,
  whatever might be the ordinary trade or occupation by which he gained his
  livelihood, considered himself, upon all ordinary occasions, as fit
  likewise to exercise the trade of a soldier, and, upon many extraordinary
  occasions, as bound to exercise it.

  The art of war, however, as it is certainly the noblest of all arts, so,
  in the progress of improvement, it necessarily becomes one of the most
  complicated among them. The state of the mechanical, as well as some other
  arts, with which it is necessarily connected, determines the degree of
  perfection to which it is capable of being carried at any particular time.
  But in order to carry it to this degree of perfection, it is necessary
  that it should become the sole or principal occupation of a particular
  class of citizens; and the division of labour is as necessary for the
  improvement of this, as of every other art. Into other arts, the division
  of labour is naturally introduced by the prudence of individuals, who find
  that they promote their private interest better by confining themselves to
  a particular trade, than by exercising a great number. But it is the
  wisdom of the state only, which can render the trade of a soldier a
  particular trade, separate and distinct from all others. A private
  citizen, who, in time of profound peace, and without any particular
  encouragement from the public, should spend the greater part of his time
  in military exercises, might, no doubt, both improve himself very much in
  them, and amuse himself very well; but he certainly would not promote his
  own interest. It is the wisdom of the state only, which can render it for
  his interest to give up the greater part of his time to this peculiar
  occupation; and states have not always had this wisdom, even when their
  circumstances had become such, that the preservation of their existence
  required that they should have it.

  A shepherd has a great deal of leisure; a husbandman, in the rude state of
  husbandry, has some; an artificer or manufacturer has none at all. The
  first may, without any loss, employ a great deal of his time in martial
  exercises; the second may employ some part of it; but the last cannot
  employ a single hour in them without some loss, and his attention to his
  own interest naturally leads him to neglect them altogether. Those
  improvements in husbandry, too, which the progress of arts and
  manufactures necessarily introduces, leave the husbandman as little
  leisure as the artificer. Military exercises come to be as much neglected
  by the inhabitants of the country as by those of the town, and the great
  body of the people becomes altogether unwarlike. That wealth, at the same
  time, which always follows the improvements of agriculture and
  manufactures, and which, in reality, is no more than the accumulated
  produce of those improvements, provokes the invasion of all their
  neighbours. An industrious, and, upon that account, a wealthy nation, is
  of all nations the most likely to be attacked; and unless the state takes
  some new measure for the public defence, the natural habits of the people
  render them altogether incapable of defending themselves.

  In these circumstances, there seem to be but two methods by which the
  state can make any tolerable provision for the public defence.

  It may either, first, by means of a very rigorous police, and in spite of
  the whole bent of the interest, genius, and inclinations of the people,
  enforce the practice of military exercises, and oblige either all the
  citizens of the military age, or a certain number of them, to join in some
  measure the trade of a soldier to whatever other trade or profession they
  may happen to carry on.

  Or, secondly, by maintaining and employing a certain number of citizens in
  the constant practice of military exercises, it may render the trade of a
  soldier a particular trade, separate and distinct from all others.

  If the state has recourse to the first of those two expedients, its
  military force is said to consist in a militia; if to the second, it is
  said to consist in a standing army. The practice of military exercises is
  the sole or principal occupation of the soldiers of a standing army, and
  the maintenance or pay which the state affords them is the principal and
  ordinary fund of their subsistence. The practice of military exercises is
  only the occasional occupation of the soldiers of a militia, and they
  derive the principal and ordinary fund of their subsistence from some
  other occupation. In a militia, the character of the labourer, artificer,
  or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier; in a standing army,
  that of the soldier predominates over every other character; and in this
  distinction seems to consist the essential difference between those two
  different species of military force.

  Militias have been of several different kinds. In some countries, the
  citizens destined for defending the state seem to have been exercised
  only, without being, if I may say so, regimented; that is, without being
  divided into separate and distinct bodies of troops, each of which
  performed its exercises under its own proper and permanent officers. In
  the republics of ancient Greece and Rome, each citizen, as long as he
  remained at home, seems to have practised his exercises, either separately
  and independently, or with such of his equals as he liked best; and not to
  have been attached to any particular body of troops, till he was actually
  called upon to take the field. In other countries, the militia has not
  only been exercised, but regimented. In England, in Switzerland, and, I
  believe, in every other country of modern Europe, where any imperfect
  military force of this kind has been established, every militiaman is,
  even in time of peace, attached to a particular body of troops, which
  performs its exercises under its own proper and permanent officers.

  Before the invention of fire-arms, that army was superior in which the
  soldiers had, each individually, the greatest skill and dexterity in the
  use of their arms. Strength and agility of body were of the highest
  consequence, and commonly determined the fate of battles. But this skill
  and dexterity in the use of their arms could be acquired only, in the same
  manner as fencing is at present, by practising, not in great bodies, but
  each man separately, in a particular school, under a particular master, or
  with his own particular equals and companions. Since the invention of
  fire-arms, strength and agility of body, or even extraordinary dexterity
  and skill in the use of arms, though they are far from being of no
  consequence, are, however, of less consequence. The nature of the weapon,
  though it by no means puts the awkward upon a level with the skilful, puts
  him more nearly so than he ever was before. All the dexterity and skill,
  it is supposed, which are necessary for using it, can be well enough
  acquired by practising in great bodies.

  Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command, are qualities which,
  in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of
  battles, than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their
  arms. But the noise of fire-arms, the smoke, and the invisible death to
  which every man feels himself every moment exposed, as soon as he comes
  within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be
  well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any
  considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even
  in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle, there was no
  noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was
  no invisible cause of wounds or death. Every man, till some mortal weapon
  actually did approach him, saw clearly that no such weapon was near him.
  In these circumstances, and among troops who had some confidence in their
  own skill and dexterity in the use of their arms, it must have been a good
  deal less difficult to preserve some degree of regularity and order, not
  only in the beginning, but through the whole progress of an ancient
  battle, and till one of the two armies was fairly defeated. But the habits
  of regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command, can be acquired
  only by troops which are exercised in great bodies.

  A militia, however, in whatever manner it may be either disciplined or
  exercised, must always be much inferior to a well disciplined and well
  exercised standing army.

  The soldiers who are exercised only once a week, or once a-month, can
  never be so expert in the use of their arms, as those who are exercised
  every day, or every other day; and though this circumstance may not be of
  so much consequence in modern, as it was in ancient times, yet the
  acknowledged superiority of the Prussian troops, owing, it is said, very
  much to their superior expertness in their exercise, may satisfy us that
  it is, even at this day, of very considerable consequence.

  The soldiers, who are bound to obey their officer only once a-week, or
  once a-month, and who are at all other times at liberty to manage their
  own affairs their own way, without being, in any respect, accountable to
  him, can never be under the same awe in his presence, can never have the
  same disposition to ready obedience, with those whose whole life and
  conduct are every day directed by him, and who every day even rise and go
  to bed, or at least retire to their quarters, according to his orders. In
  what is called discipline, or in the habit of ready obedience, a militia
  must always be still more inferior to a standing army, than it may
  sometimes be in what is called the manual exercise, or in the management
  and use of its arms. But, in modern war, the habit of ready and instant
  obedience is of much greater consequence than a considerable superiority
  in the management of arms.

  Those militias which, like the Tartar or Arab militia, go to war under the
  same chieftains whom they are accustomed to obey in peace, are by far the
  best. In respect for their officers, in the habit of ready obedience, they
  approach nearest to standing armies. The Highland militia, when it served
  under its own chieftains, had some advantage of the same kind. As the
  Highlanders, however, were not wandering, but stationary shepherds, as
  they had all a fixed habitation, and were not, in peaceable times,
  accustomed to follow their chieftain from place to place; so, in time of
  war, they were less willing to follow him to any considerable distance, or
  to continue for any long time in the field. When they had acquired any
  booty, they were eager to return home, and his authority was seldom
  sufficient to detain them. In point of obedience, they were always much
  inferior to what is reported of the Tartars and Arabs. As the Highlanders,
  too, from their stationary life, spend less of their time in the open air,
  they were always less accustomed to military exercises, and were less
  expert in the use of their arms than the Tartars and Arabs are said to be.

  A militia of any kind, it must be observed, however, which has served for
  several successive campaigns in the field, becomes in every respect a
  standing army. The soldiers are every day exercised in the use of their
  arms, and, being constantly under the command of their officers, are
  habituated to the same prompt obedience which takes place in standing
  armies. What they were before they took the field, is of little
  importance. They necessarily become in every respect a standing army,
  after they have passed a few campaigns in it. Should the war in America
  drag out through another campaign, the American militia may become, in
  every respect, a match for that standing army, of which the valour
  appeared, in the last war at least, not inferior to that of the hardiest
  veterans of France and Spain.

  This distinction being well understood, the history of all ages, it will
  be found, hears testimony to the irresistible superiority which a well
  regulated standing army has over a militia.

  One of the first standing armies, of which we have any distinct account in
  any well authenticated history, is that of Philip of Macedon. His frequent
  wars with the Thracians, Illyrians, Thessalians, and some of the Greek
  cities in the neighbourhood of Macedon, gradually formed his troops, which
  in the beginning were probably militia, to the exact discipline of a
  standing army. When he was at peace, which he was very seldom, and never
  for any long time together, he was careful not to disband that army. It
  vanquished and subdued, after a long and violent struggle, indeed, the
  gallant and well exercised militias of the principal republics of ancient
  Greece; and afterwards, with very little struggle, the effeminate and ill
  exercised militia of the great Persian empire. The fall of the Greek
  republics, and of the Persian empire was the effect of the irresistible
  superiority which a standing arm has over every other sort of militia. It
  is the first great revolution in the affairs of mankind of which history
  has preserved any distinct and circumstantial account.

  The fall of Carthage, and the consequent elevation of Rome, is the second.
  All the varieties in the fortune of those two famous republics may very
  well be accounted for from the same cause.

  From the end of the first to the beginning of the second Carthaginian war,
  the armies of Carthage were continually in the field, and employed under
  three great generals, who succeeded one another in the command; Amilcar,
  his son-in-law Asdrubal, and his son Annibal: first in chastising their
  own rebellious slaves, afterwards in subduing the revolted nations of
  Africa; and lastly, in conquering the great kingdom of Spain. The army
  which Annibal led from Spain into Italy must necessarily, in those
  different wars, have been gradually formed to the exact discipline of a
  standing army. The Romans, in the meantime, though they had not been
  altogether at peace, yet they had not, during this period, been engaged in
  any war of very great consequence; and their military discipline, it is
  generally said, was a good deal relaxed. The Roman armies which Annibal
  encountered at Trebi, Thrasymenus, and Cannae, were militia opposed to a
  standing army. This circumstance, it is probable, contributed more than
  any other to determine the fate of those battles.

  The standing army which Annibal left behind him in Spain had the like
  superiority over the militia which the Romans sent to oppose it; and, in a
  few years, under the command of his brother, the younger Asdrubal,
  expelled them almost entirely from that country.

  Annibal was ill supplied from home. The Roman militia, being continually
  in the field, became, in the progress of the war, a well disciplined and
  well exercised standing army; and the superiority of Annibal grew every
  day less and less. Asdrubal judged it necessary to lead the whole, or
  almost the whole, of the standing army which he commanded in Spain, to the
  assistance of his brother in Italy. In this march, he is said to have been
  misled by his guides; and in a country which he did not know, was
  surprised and attacked, by another standing army, in every respect equal
  or superior to his own, and was entirely defeated.

  When Asdrubal had left Spain, the great Scipio found nothing to oppose him
  but a militia inferior to his own. He conquered and subdued that militia,
  and, in the course of the war, his own militia necessarily became a well
  disciplined and well exercised standing army. That standing army was
  afterwards carried to Africa, where it found nothing but a militia to
  oppose it. In order to defend Carthage, it became necessary to recal the
  standing army of Annibal. The disheartened and frequently defeated African
  militia joined it, and, at the battle of Zama, composed the greater part
  of the troops of Annibal. The event of that day determined the fate of the
  two rival republics.

  From the end of the second Carthaginian war till the fall of the Roman
  republic, the armies of Rome were in every respect standing armies. The
  standing army of Macedon made some resistance to their arms. In the height
  of their grandeur, it cost them two great wars, and three great battles,
  to subdue that little kingdom, of which the conquest would probably have
  been still more difficult, had it not been for the cowardice of its last
  king. The militias of all the civilized nations of the ancient world, of
  Greece, of Syria, and of Egypt, made but a feeble resistance to the
  standing armies of Rome. The militias of some barbarous nations defended
  themselves much better. The Scythian or Tartar militia, which Mithridates
  drew from the countries north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, were the
  most formidable enemies whom the Romans had to encounter after the second
  Carthaginian war. The Parthian and German militias, too, were always
  respectable, and upon several occasions, gained very considerable
  advantages over the Roman armies. In general, however, and when the Roman
  armies were well commanded, they appear to have been very much superior;
  and if the Romans did not pursue the final conquest either of Parthia or
  Germany, it was probably because they judged that it was not worth while
  to add those two barbarous countries to an empire which was already too
  large. The ancient Parthians appear to have been a nation of Scythian or
  Tartar extraction, and to have always retained a good deal of the manners
  of their ancestors. The ancient Germans were, like the Scythians or
  Tartars, a nation of wandering shepherds, who went to war under the same
  chiefs whom they were accustomed to follow in peace. ‘Their militia was
  exactly of the same kind with that of the Scythians or Tartars, from whom,
  too, they were probably descended.’

  Many different causes contributed to relax the discipline of the Roman
  armies. Its extreme severity was, perhaps, one of those causes. In the
  days of their grandeur, when no enemy appeared capable of opposing them,
  their heavy armour was laid aside as unnecessarily burdensome, their
  laborious exercises were neglected, as unnecessarily toilsome. Under the
  Roman emperors, besides, the standing armies of Rome, those particularly
  which guarded the German and Pannonian frontiers, became dangerous to
  their masters, against whom they used frequently to set up their own
  generals. In order to render them less formidable, according to some
  authors, Dioclesian, according to others, Constantine, first withdrew them
  from the frontier, where they had always before been encamped in great
  bodies, generally of two or three legions each, and dispersed them in
  small bodies through the different provincial towns, from whence they were
  scarce ever removed, but when it became necessary to repel an invasion.
  Small bodies of soldiers, quartered in trading and manufacturing towns,
  and seldom removed from those quarters, became themselves trades men,
  artificers, and manufacturers. The civil came to predominate over the
  military character; and the standing armies of Rome gradually degenerated
  into a corrupt, neglected, and undisciplined militia, incapable of
  resisting the attack of the German and Scythian militias, which soon
  afterwards invaded the western empire. It was only by hiring the militia
  of some of those nations to oppose to that of others, that the emperors
  were for some time able to defend themselves. The fall of the western
  empire is the third great revolution in the affairs of mankind, of which
  ancient history has preserved any distinct or circumstantial account. It
  was brought about by the irresistible superiority which the militia of a
  barbarous has over that of a civilized nation; which the militia of a
  nation of shepherds has over that of a nation of husbandmen, artificers,
  and manufacturers. The victories which have been gained by militias have
  generally been, not over standing armies, but over other militias, in
  exercise and discipline inferior to themselves. Such were the victories
  which the Greek militia gained over that of the Persian empire; and such,
  too, were those which, in later times, the Swiss militia gained over that
  of the Austrians and Burgundians.

  The military force of the German and Scythian nations, who established
  themselves upon ruins of the western empire, continued for some time to be
  of the same kind in their new settlements, as it had been in their
  original country. It was a militia of shepherds and husbandmen, which, in
  time of war, took the field under the command of the same chieftains whom
  it was accustomed to obey in peace. It was, therefore, tolerably well
  exercised, and tolerably well disciplined. As arts and industry advanced,
  however, the authority of the chieftains gradually decayed, and the great
  body of the people had less time to spare for military exercises. Both the
  discipline and the exercise of the feudal militia, therefore, went
  gradually to ruin, and standing armies were gradually introduced to supply
  the place of it. When the expedient of a standing army, besides, had once
  been adopted by one civilized nation, it became necessary that all its
  neighbours should follow the example. They soon found that their safety
  depended upon their doing so, and that their own militia was altogether
  incapable of resisting the attack of such an army.

  The soldiers of a standing army, though they may never have seen an enemy,
  yet have frequently appeared to possess all the courage of veteran troops,
  and, the very moment that they took the field, to have been fit to face
  the hardiest and most experienced veterans. In 1756, when the Russian army
  marched into Poland, the valour of the Russian soldiers did not appear
  inferior to that of the Prussians, at that time supposed to be the
  hardiest and most experienced veterans in Europe. The Russian empire,
  however, had enjoyed a profound peace for near twenty years before, and
  could at that time have very few soldiers who had ever seen an enemy. When
  the Spanish war broke out in 1739, England had enjoyed a profound peace
  for about eight-and-twenty years. The valour of her soldiers, however, far
  from being corrupted by that long peace, was never more distinguished than
  in the attempt upon Carthagena, the first unfortunate exploit of that
  unfortunate war. In a long peace, the generals, perhaps, may sometimes
  forget their skill; but where a well regulated standing army has been kept
  up, the soldiers seem never to forget their valour.

  When a civilized nation depends for its defence upon a militia, it is at
  all times exposed to be conquered by any barbarous nation which happens to
  be in its neighbourhood. The frequent conquests of all the civilized
  countries in Asia by the Tartars, sufficiently demonstrates the natural
  superiority which the militia of a barbarous has over that of a civilized
  nation. A well regulated standing army is superior to every militia. Such
  an army, as it can best be maintained by an opulent and civilized nation,
  so it can alone defend such a nation against the invasion of a poor and
  barbarous neighbour. It is only by means of a standing army, therefore,
  that the civilization of any country can be perpetuated, or even
  preserved, for any considerable time.

  As it is only by means of a well regulated standing army, that a civilized
  country can be defended, so it is only by means of it that a barbarous
  country can be suddenly and tolerably civilized. A standing army
  establishes, with an irresistible force, the law of the sovereign through
  the remotest provinces of the empire, and maintains some degree of regular
  government in countries which could not otherwise admit of any. Whoever
  examines with attention, the improvements which Peter the Great introduced
  into the Russian empire, will find that they almost all resolve themselves
  into the establishment of a well regulated standing army. It is the
  instrument which executes and maintains all his other regulations. That
  degree of order and internal peace, which that empire has ever since
  enjoyed, is altogether owing to the influence of that army.

  Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army, as
  dangerous to liberty. It certainly is so, wherever the interest of the
  general, and that of the principal officers, are not necessarily connected
  with the support of the constitution of the state. The standing army of
  Caesar destroyed the Roman republic. The standing army of Cromwell turned
  the long parliament out of doors. But where the sovereign is himself the
  general, and the principal nobility and gentry of the country the chief
  officers of the army; where the military force is placed under the command
  of those who have the greatest interest in the support of the civil
  authority, because they have themselves the greatest share of that
  authority, a standing army can never be dangerous to liberty. On the
  contrary, it may, in some cases, be favourable to liberty. The security
  which it gives to the sovereign renders unnecessary that troublesome
  jealousy, which, in some modern republics, seems to watch over the
  minutest actions, and to be at all times ready to disturb the peace of
  every citizen. Where the security of the magistrate, though supported by
  the principal people of the country, is endangered by every popular
  discontent; where a small tumult is capable of bringing about in a few
  hours a great revolution, the whole authority of government must be
  employed to suppress and punish every murmur and complaint against it. To
  a sovereign, on the contrary, who feels himself supported, not only by the
  natural aristocracy of the country, but by a well regulated standing army,
  the rudest, the most groundless, and the most licentious remonstrances,
  can give little disturbance. He can safely pardon or neglect them, and his
  consciousness of his own superiority naturally disposes him to do so. That
  degree of liberty which approaches to licentiousness, can be tolerated
  only in countries where the sovereign is secured by a well regulated
  standing army. It is in such countries only, that the public safety does
  not require that the sovereign should be trusted with any discretionary
  power, for suppressing even the impertinent wantonness of this licentious
  liberty.

  The first duty of the sovereign, therefore, that of defending the society
  from the violence and injustice of other independent societies, grows
  gradually more and more expensive, as the society advances in
  civilization. The military force of the society, which originally cost the
  sovereign no expense, either in time of peace, or in time of war, must, in
  the progress of improvement, first be maintained by him in time of war,
  and afterwards even in time of peace.

  The great change introduced into the art of war by the invention of
  fire-arms, has enhanced still further both the expense of exercising and
  disciplining any particular number of soldiers in time of peace, and that
  of employing them in time of war. Both their arms and their ammunition are
  become more expensive. A musket is a more expensive machine than a javelin
  or a bow and arrows; a cannon or a mortar, than a balista or a catapulta.
  The powder which is spent in a modern review is lost irrecoverably, and
  occasions a very considerable expense. The javelins and arrows which were
  thrown or shot in an ancient one, could easily be picked up again, and
  were, besides, of very little value. The cannon and the mortar are not
  only much dearer, but much heavier machines than the balista or catapulta;
  and require a greater expense, not only to prepare them for the field, but
  to carry them to it. As the superiority of the modern artillery, too, over
  that of the ancients, is very great; it has become much more difficult,
  and consequently much more expensive, to fortify a town, so as to resist,
  even for a few weeks, the attack of that superior artillery. In modern
  times, many different causes contribute to render the defence of the
  society more expensive. The unavoidable effects of the natural progress of
  improvement have, in this respect, been a good deal enhanced by a great
  revolution in the art of war, to which a mere accident, the invention of
  gunpowder, seems to have given occasion.

  In modern war, the great expense of firearms gives an evident advantage to
  the nation which can best afford that expense; and, consequently, to an
  opulent and civilized, over a poor and barbarous nation. In ancient times,
  the opulent and civilized found it difficult to defend themselves against
  the poor and barbarous nations. In modern times, the poor and barbarous
  find it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and civilized.
  The invention of fire-arms, an invention which at first sight appears to
  be so pernicious, is certainly favourable, both to the permanency and to
  the extension of civilization.




  PART II. Of the Expense of Justice

  The second duty of the sovereign, that of protecting, as far as possible,
  every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every
  other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of
  justice, requires two very different degrees of expense in the different
  periods of society.

  Among nations of hunters, as there is scarce any property, or at least
  none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour; so there is
  seldom any established magistrate, or any regular administration of
  justice. Men who have no property, can injure one another only in their
  persons or reputations. But when one man kills, wounds, beats, or defames
  another, though he to whom the injury is done suffers, he who does it
  receives no benefit. It is otherwise with the injuries to property. The
  benefit of the person who does the injury is often equal to the loss of
  him who suffers it. Envy, malice, or resentment, are the only passions
  which can prompt one man to injure another in his person or reputation.
  But the greater part of men are not very frequently under the influence of
  those passions; and the very worst men are so only occasionally. As their
  gratification, too, how agreeable soever it may be to certain characters,
  is not attended with any real or permanent advantage, it is, in the
  greater part of men, commonly restrained by prudential considerations. Men
  may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security,
  though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of
  those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the
  hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the
  passions which prompt to invade property; passions much more steady in
  their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever
  there is a great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich
  man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the
  few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites
  the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and
  prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter
  of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which
  is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive
  generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times
  surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can
  never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the
  powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it.
  The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily
  requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no
  property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days
  labour, civil government is not so necessary.

  Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of
  civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable
  property; so the principal causes, which naturally introduce
  subordination, gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable
  property.

  The causes or circumstances which naturally introduce subordination, or
  which naturally and antecedent to any civil institution, give some men
  some superiority over the greater part of their brethren, seem to be four
  in number.

  The first of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of personal
  qualifications, of strength, beauty, and agility of body; of wisdom and
  virtue; of prudence, justice, fortitude, and moderation of mind. The
  qualifications of the body, unless supported by those of the mind, can
  give little authority in any period of society. He is a very strong man,
  who, by mere strength of body, can force two weak ones to obey him. The
  qualifications of the mind can alone give very great authority. They are
  however, invisible qualities; always disputable, and generally disputed.
  No society, whether barbarous or civilized, has ever found it convenient
  to settle the rules of precedency of rank and subordination, according to
  those invisible qualities; but according to something that is more plain
  and palpable.

  The second of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of age. An
  old man, provided his age is not so far advanced as to give suspicion of
  dotage, is everywhere more respected than a young man of equal rank,
  fortune, and abilities. Among nations of hunters, such as the native
  tribes of North America, age is the sole foundation of rank and
  precedency. Among them, father is the appellation of a superior; brother,
  of an equal; and son, of an inferior. In the most opulent and civilized
  nations, age regulates rank among those who are in every other respect
  equal; and among whom, therefore, there is nothing else to regulate it.
  Among brothers and among sisters, the eldest always takes place; and in
  the succession of the paternal estate, every thing which cannot be
  divided, but must go entire to one person, such as a title of honour, is
  in most cases given to the eldest. Age is a plain and palpable quality,
  which admits of no dispute.

  The third of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of fortune.
  The authority of riches, however, though great in every age of society,
  is, perhaps, greatest in the rudest ages of society, which admits of any
  considerable inequality of fortune. A Tartar chief, the increase of whose
  flocks and herds is sufficient to maintain a thousand men, cannot well
  employ that increase in any other way than in maintaining a thousand men.
  The rude state of his society does not afford him any manufactured produce
  any trinkets or baubles of any kind, for which he can exchange that part
  of his rude produce which is over and above his own consumption. The
  thousand men whom he thus maintains, depending entirely upon him for their
  subsistence, must both obey his orders in war, and submit to his
  jurisdiction in peace. He is necessarily both their general and their
  judge, and his chieftainship is the necessary effect of the superiority of
  his fortune. In an opulent and civilized society, a man may possess a much
  greater fortune, and yet not be able to command a dozen of people. Though
  the produce of his estate may be sufficient to maintain, and may, perhaps,
  actually maintain, more than a thousand people, yet, as those people pay
  for every thing which they get from him, as he gives scarce any thing to
  any body but in exchange for an equivalent, there is scarce anybody who
  considers himself as entirely dependent upon him, and his authority
  extends only over a few menial servants. The authority of fortune,
  however, is very great, even in an opulent and civilized society. That it
  is much greater than that either of age or of personal qualities, has been
  the constant complaint of every period of society which admitted of any
  considerable inequality of fortune. The first period of society, that of
  hunters, admits of no such inequality. Universal poverty establishes their
  universal equality; and the superiority, either of age or of personal
  qualities, are the feeble, but the sole foundations of authority and
  subordination. There is, therefore, little or no authority or
  subordination in this period of society. The second period of society,
  that of shepherds, admits of very great inequalities of fortune, and there
  is no period in which the superiority of fortune gives so great authority
  to those who possess it. There is no period, accordingly, in which
  authority and subordination are more perfectly established. The authority
  of an Arabian scherif is very great; that of a Tartar khan altogether
  despotical.

  The fourth of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of birth.
  Superiority of birth supposes an ancient superiority of fortune in the
  family of the person who claims it. All families are equally ancient; and
  the ancestors of the prince, though they may be better known, cannot well
  be more numerous than those of the beggar. Antiquity of family means
  everywhere the antiquity either of wealth, or of that greatness which is
  commonly either founded upon wealth, or accompanied with it. Upstart
  greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness. The hatred
  of usurpers, the love of the family of an ancient monarch, are in a great
  measure founded upon the contempt which men naturally have for the former,
  and upon their veneration for the latter. As a military officer submits,
  without reluctance, to the authority of a superior by whom he has always
  been commanded, but cannot bear that his inferior should be set over his
  head; so men easily submit to a family to whom they and their ancestors
  have always submitted; but are fired with indignation when another family,
  in whom they had never acknowledged any such superiority, assumes a
  dominion over them.

  The distinction of birth, being subsequent to the inequality of fortune,
  can have no place in nations of hunters, among whom all men, being equal
  in fortune, must likewise be very nearly equal in birth. The son of a wise
  and brave man may, indeed, even among them, be somewhat more respected
  than a man of equal merit, who has the misfortune to be the son of a fool
  or a coward. The difference, however will not be very great; and there
  never was, I believe, a great family in the world, whose illustration was
  entirely derived from the inheritance of wisdom and virtue.

  The distinction of birth not only may, but always does, take place among
  nations of shepherds. Such nations are always strangers to every sort of
  luxury, and great wealth can scarce ever be dissipated among them by
  improvident profusion. There are no nations, accordingly, who abound more
  in families revered and honoured on account of their descent from a long
  race of great and illustrious ancestors; because there are no nations
  among whom wealth is likely to continue longer in the same families.

  Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances which principally
  set one man above another. They are the two great sources of personal
  distinction, and are, therefore, the principal causes which naturally
  establish authority and subordination among men. Among nations of
  shepherds, both those causes operate with their full force. The great
  shepherd or herdsman, respected on account of his great wealth, and of the
  great number of those who depend upon him for subsistence, and revered on
  account of the nobleness of his birth, and of the immemorial antiquity or
  his illustrious family, has a natural authority over all the inferior
  shepherds or herdsmen of his horde or clan. He can command the united
  force of a greater number of people than any of them. His military power
  is greater than that of any of them. In time of war, they are all of them
  naturally disposed to muster themselves under his banner, rather than
  under that of any other person; and his birth and fortune thus naturally
  procure to him some sort of executive power. By commanding, too, the
  united force of a greater number of people than any of them, he is best
  able to compel any one of them, who may have injured another, to
  compensate the wrong. He is the person, therefore, to whom all those who
  are too weak to defend themselves naturally look up for protection. It is
  to him that they naturally complain of the injuries which they imagine
  have been done to them; and his interposition, in such cases, is more
  easily submitted to, even by the person complained of, than that of any
  other person would be. His birth and fortune thus naturally procure him
  some sort of judicial authority.

  It is in the age of shepherds, in the second period of society, that the
  inequality of fortune first begins to take place, and introduces among men
  a degree of authority and subordination, which could not possibly exist
  before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which
  is indispensably necessary for its own preservation; and it seems to do
  this naturally, and even independent of the consideration of that
  necessity. The consideration of that necessity comes, no doubt,
  afterwards, to contribute very much to maintain and secure that authority
  and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to
  support that order of things, which can alone secure them in the
  possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to
  defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in
  order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the
  possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel, that
  the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of
  those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their
  lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority; and that upon
  their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in
  subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel
  themselves interested to defend the property, and to support the
  authority, of their own little sovereign, in order that he may be able to
  defend their property, and to support their authority. Civil government,
  so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality,
  instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who
  have some property against those who have none at all.

  The judicial authority of such a sovereign, however, far from being a
  cause of expense, was, for a long time, a source of revenue to him. The
  persons who applied to him for justice were always willing to pay for it,
  and a present never failed to accompany a petition. After the authority of
  the sovereign, too, was thoroughly established, the person found guilty,
  over and above the satisfaction which he was obliged to make to the party,
  was like-wise forced to pay an amercement to the sovereign. He had given
  trouble, he had disturbed, he had broke the peace of his lord the king,
  and for those offences an amercement was thought due. In the Tartar
  governments of Asia, in the governments of Europe which were founded by
  the German and Scythian nations who overturned the Roman empire, the
  administration of justice was a considerable source of revenue, both to
  the sovereign, and to all the lesser chiefs or lords who exercised under
  him any particular jurisdiction, either over some particular tribe or
  clan, or over some particular territory or district. Originally, both the
  sovereign and the inferior chiefs used to exercise this jurisdiction in
  their own persons. Afterwards, they universally found it convenient to
  delegate it to some substitute, bailiff, or judge. This substitute,
  however, was still obliged to account to his principal or constituent for
  the profits of the jurisdiction. Whoever reads the instructions (They are
  to be found in Tyrol’s History of England) which were given to the judges
  of the circuit in the time of Henry II will see clearly that those judges
  were a sort of itinerant factors, sent round the country for the purpose
  of levying certain branches of the king’s revenue. In those days, the
  administration of justice not only afforded a certain revenue to the
  sovereign, but, to procure this revenue, seems to have been one of the
  principal advantages which he proposed to obtain by the administration of
  justice.

  This scheme of making the administration of justice subservient to the
  purposes of revenue, could scarce fail to be productive of several very
  gross abuses. The person who applied for justice with a large present in
  his hand, was likely to get something more than justice; while he who
  applied for it with a small one was likely to get something less. Justice,
  too, might frequently be delayed, in order that this present might be
  repeated. The amercement, besides, of the person complained of, might
  frequently suggest a very strong reason for finding him in the wrong, even
  when he had not really been so. That such abuses were far from being
  uncommon, the ancient history of every country in Europe bears witness.

  When the sovereign or chief exercises his judicial authority in his own
  person, how much soever he might abuse it, it must have been scarce
  possible to get any redress; because there could seldom be any body
  powerful enough to call him to account. When he exercised it by a bailiff,
  indeed, redress might sometimes be had. If it was for his own benefit
  only, that the bailiff had been guilty of an act of injustice, the
  sovereign himself might not always be unwilling to punish him, or to
  oblige him to repair the wrong. But if it was for the benefit of his
  sovereign; if it was in order to make court to the person who appointed
  him, and who might prefer him, that he had committed any act of
  oppression; redress would, upon most occasions, be as impossible as if the
  sovereign had committed it himself. In all barbarous governments,
  accordingly, in all those ancient governments of Europe in particular,
  which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, the administration
  of justice appears for a long time to have been extremely corrupt; far
  from being quite equal and impartial, even under the best monarchs, and
  altogether profligate under the worst.

  Among nations of shepherds, where the sovereign or chief is only the
  greatest shepherd or herdsman of the horde or clan, he is maintained in
  the same manner as any of his vassals or subjects, by the increase of his
  own herds or flocks. Among those nations of husbandmen, who are but just
  come out of the shepherd state, and who are not much advanced beyond that
  state, such as the Greek tribes appear to have been about the time of the
  Trojan war, and our German and Scythian ancestors, when they first settled
  upon the ruins of the western empire; the sovereign or chief is, in the
  same manner, only the greatest landlord of the country, and is maintained
  in the same manner as any other landlord, by a revenue derived from his
  own private estate, or from what, in modern Europe, was called the demesne
  of the crown. His subjects, upon ordinary occasions, contribute nothing to
  his support, except when, in order to protect them from the oppression of
  some of their fellow-subjects, they stand in need of his authority. The
  presents which they make him upon such occasions constitute the whole
  ordinary revenue, the whole of the emoluments which, except, perhaps, upon
  some very extraordinary emergencies, he derives from his dominion over
  them. When Agamemnon, in Homer, offers to Achilles, for his friendship,
  the sovereignty of seven Greek cities, the sole advantage which he
  mentions as likely to be derived from it was, that the people would honour
  him with presents. As long as such presents, as long as the emoluments of
  justice, or what may be called the fees of court, constituted, in this
  manner, the whole ordinary revenue which the sovereign derived from his
  sovereignty, it could not well be expected, it could not even decently be
  proposed, that he should give them up altogether. It might, and it
  frequently was proposed, that he should regulate and ascertain them. But
  after they had been so regulated and ascertained, how to hinder a person
  who was all-powerful from extending them beyond those regulations, was
  still very difficult, not to say impossible. During the continuance of
  this state of things, therefore, the corruption of justice, naturally
  resulting from the arbitrary and uncertain nature of those presents,
  scarce admitted of any effectual remedy.

  But when, from different causes, chiefly from the continually increasing
  expense of defending the nation against the invasion of other nations, the
  private estate of the sovereign had become altogether insufficient for
  defraying the expense of the sovereignty; and when it had become necessary
  that the people should, for their own security, contribute towards this
  expense by taxes of different kinds; it seems to have been very commonly
  stipulated, that no present for the administration of justice should,
  under any pretence, be accepted either by the sovereign, or by his
  bailiffs and substitutes, the judges. Those presents, it seems to have
  been supposed, could more easily be abolished altogether, than effectually
  regulated and ascertained. Fixed salaries were appointed to the judges,
  which were supposed to compensate to them the loss of whatever might have
  been their share of the ancient emoluments of justice; as the taxes more
  than compensated to the sovereign the loss of his. Justice was then said
  to be administered gratis.

  Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country.
  Lawyers and attorneys, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and
  if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they
  actually perform it. The fees annually paid to lawyers and attorneys,
  amount, in every court, to a much greater sum than the salaries of the
  judges. The circumstance of those salaries being paid by the crown, can
  nowhere much diminish the necessary expense of a law-suit. But it was not
  so much to diminish the expense, as to prevent the corruption of justice,
  that the judges were prohibited from receiving my present or fee from the
  parties.

  The office of judge is in itself so very honourable, that men are willing
  to accept of it, though accompanied with very small emoluments. The
  inferior office of justice of peace, though attended with a good deal of
  trouble, and in most cases with no emoluments at all, is an object of
  ambition to the greater part of our country gentlemen. The salaries of all
  the different judges, high and low, together with the whole expense of the
  administration and execution of justice, even where it is not managed with
  very good economy, makes, in any civilized country, but a very
  inconsiderable part of the whole expense of government.

  The whole expense of justice, too, might easily be defrayed by the fees of
  court; and, without exposing the administration of justice to any real
  hazard of corruption, the public revenue might thus be entirely discharged
  from a certain, though perhaps but a small incumbrance. It is difficult to
  regulate the fees of court effectually, where a person so powerful as the
  sovereign is to share in them and to derive any considerable part of his
  revenue from them. It is very easy, where the judge is the principal
  person who can reap any benefit from them. The law can very easily oblige
  the judge to respect the regulation though it might not always be able to
  make the sovereign respect it. Where the fees of court are precisely
  regulated and ascertained where they are paid all at once, at a certain
  period of every process, into the hands of a cashier or receiver, to be by
  him distributed in certain known proportions among the different judges
  after the process is decided and not till it is decided; there seems to be
  no more danger of corruption than when such fees are prohibited
  altogether. Those fees, without occasioning any considerable increase in
  the expense of a law-suit, might be rendered fully sufficient for
  defraying the whole expense of justice. But not being paid to the judges
  till the process was determined, they might be some incitement to the
  diligence of the court in examining and deciding it. In courts which
  consisted of a considerable number of judges, by proportioning the share
  of each judge to the number of hours and days which he had employed in
  examining the process, either in the court, or in a committee, by order of
  the court, those fees might give some encouragement to the diligence of
  each particular judge. Public services are never better performed, than
  when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and
  is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them. In the
  different parliaments of France, the fees of court (called epices and
  vacations) constitute the far greater part of the emoluments of the
  judges. After all deductions are made, the neat salary paid by the crown
  to a counsellor or judge in the parliament of Thoulouse, in rank and
  dignity the second parliament of the kingdom, amounts only to 150 livres,
  about £6:11s. sterling a-year. About seven years ago, that sum was in the
  same place the ordinary yearly wages of a common footman. The distribution
  of these epices, too, is according to the diligence of the judges. A
  diligent judge gains a comfortable, though moderate revenue, by his
  office; an idle one gets little more than his salary. Those parliaments
  are, perhaps, in many respects, not very convenient courts of justice; but
  they have never been accused; they seem never even to have been suspected
  of corruption.

  The fees of court seem originally to have been the principal support of
  the different courts of justice in England. Each court endeavoured to draw
  to itself as much business as it could, and was, upon that account,
  willing to take cognizance of many suits which were not originally
  intended to fall under its jurisdiction. The court of king’s bench,
  instituted for the trial of criminal causes only, took cognizance of civil
  suits; the plaintiff pretending that the defendant, in not doing him
  justice, had been guilty of some trespass or misdemeanour. The court of
  exchequer, instituted for the levying of the king’s revenue, and for
  enforcing the payment of such debts only as were due to the king, took
  cognizance of all other contract debts; the planitiff alleging that he
  could not pay the king, because the defendant would not pay him. In
  consequence of such fictions, it came, in many cases, to depend altogether
  upon the parties, before what court they would choose to have their cause
  tried, and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and impartiality,
  to draw to itself as many causes as it could. The present admirable
  constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally,
  in a great measure, formed by this emulation, which anciently took place
  between their respective judges: each judge endeavouring to give, in his
  own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law would
  admit, for every sort of injustice. Originally, the courts of law gave
  damages only for breach of contract. The court of chancery, as a court of
  conscience, first took upon it to enforce the specific performance of
  agreements. When the breach of contract consisted in the non-payment of
  money, the damage sustained could be compensated in no other way than by
  ordering payment, which was equivalent to a specific performance of the
  agreement. In such cases, therefore, the remedy of the courts of law was
  sufficient. It was not so in others. When the tenant sued his lord for
  having unjustly outed him of his lease, the damages which he recovered
  were by no means equivalent to the possession of the land. Such causes,
  therefore, for some time, went all to the court of chancery, to the no
  small loss of the courts of law. It was to draw back such causes to
  themselves, that the courts of law are said to have invented the
  artificial and fictitious writ of ejectment, the most effectual remedy for
  an unjust outer or dispossession of land.

  A stamp-duty upon the law proceedings of each particular court, to be
  levied by that court, and applied towards the maintenance of the judges,
  and other officers belonging to it, might in the same manner, afford a
  revenue sufficient for defraying the expense of the administration of
  justice, without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of the
  society. The judges, indeed, might in this case, be under the temptation
  of multiplying unnecessarily the proceedings upon every cause, in order to
  increase, as much as possible, the produce of such a stamp-duty. It has
  been the custom in modern Europe to regulate, upon most occasions, the
  payment of the attorneys and clerks of court according to the number of
  pages which they had occasion to write; the court, however, requiring that
  each page should contain so many lines, and each line so many words. In
  order to increase their payment, the attorneys and clerks have contrived
  to multiply words beyond all necessity, to the corruption of the law
  language of, I believe, every court of justice in Europe. A like
  temptation might, perhaps, occasion a like corruption in the form of law
  proceedings.

  But whether the administration of justice be so contrived as to defray its
  own expense, or whether the judges be maintained by fixed salaries paid to
  them from some other fund, it does not seen necessary that the person or
  persons entrusted with the executive power should be charged with the
  management of that fund, or with the payment of those salaries. That fund
  might arise from the rent of landed estates, the management of each estate
  being entrusted to the particular court which was to be maintained by it.
  That fund might arise even from the interest of a sum of money, the
  lending out of which might, in the same manner, be entrusted to the court
  which was to be maintained by it. A part, though indeed but a small part
  of the salary of the judges of the court of session in Scotland, arises
  from the interest of a sum of money. The necessary instability of such a
  fund seems, however, to render it an improper one for the maintenance of
  an institution which ought to last for ever.

  The separation of the judicial from the executive power, seems originally
  to have arisen from the increasing business of the society, in consequence
  of its increasing improvement. The administration of justice became so
  laborious and so complicated a duty, as to require the undivided attention
  of the person to whom it was entrusted. The person entrusted with the
  executive power, not having leisure to attend to the decision of private
  causes himself, a deputy was appointed to decide them in his stead. In the
  progress of the Roman greatness, the consul was too much occupied with the
  political affairs of the state, to attend to the administration of
  justice. A praetor, therefore, was appointed to administer it in his
  stead. In the progress of the European monarchies, which were founded upon
  the ruins of the Roman empire, the sovereigns and the great lords came
  universally to consider the administration of justice as an office both
  too laborious and too ignoble for them to execute in their own persons.
  They universally, therefore, discharged themselves of it, by appointing a
  deputy, bailiff or judge.

  When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce possible
  that justice should not frequently be sacrificed to what is vulgarly
  called politics. The persons entrusted with the great interests of the
  state may even without any corrupt views, sometimes imagine it necessary
  to sacrifice to those interests the rights of a private man. But upon the
  impartial administration of justice depends the liberty of every
  individual, the sense which he has of his own security. In order to make
  every individual feel himself perfectly secure in the possession of every
  right which belongs to him, it is not only necessary that the judicial
  should be separated from the executive power, but that it should be
  rendered as much as possible independent of that power. The judge should
  not be liable to be removed from his office according to the caprice of
  that power. The regular payment of his salary should not depend upon the
  good will, or even upon the good economy of that power.




  PART III. Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions.

  The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth, is that of
  erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works,
  which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great
  society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay
  the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals; and which
  it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual, or small number of
  individuals, should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty
  requires, too, very different degrees of expense in the different periods
  of society.

  After the public institutions and public works necessary for the defence
  of the society, and for the administration of justice, both of which have
  already been mentioned, the other works and institutions of this kind are
  chiefly for facilitating the commerce of the society, and those for
  promoting the instruction of the people. The institutions for instruction
  are of two kinds: those for the education of the youth, and those for the
  instruction of people of all ages. The consideration of the manner in
  which the expense of those different sorts of public works and
  institutions may be most properly defrayed will divide this third part of
  the present chapter into three different articles.

  ARTICLE I.—Of the public Works and Institutions for facilitating the
  Commerce of the Society.

  And, first, of those which are necessary for facilitating Commerce in
  general.

  That the erection and maintenance of the public works which facilitate the
  commerce of any country, such as good roads, bridges, navigable canals,
  harbours, etc. must require very different degrees of expense in the
  different periods of society, is evident without any proof. The expense of
  making and maintaining the public roads of any country must evidently
  increase with the annual produce of the land and labour of that country,
  or with the quantity and weight of the goods which it becomes necessary to
  fetch and carry upon those roads. The strength of a bridge must be suited
  to the number and weight of the carriages which are likely to pass over
  it. The depth and the supply of water for a navigable canal must be
  proportioned to the number and tonnage of the lighters which are likely to
  carry goods upon it; the extent of a harbour, to the number of the
  shipping which are likely to take shelter in it.

  It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should
  be defrayed from that public revenue, as it is commonly called, of which
  the collection and application are in most countries, assigned to the
  executive power. The greater part of such public works may easily be so
  managed, as to afford a particular revenue, sufficient for defraying their
  own expense without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of the
  society.

  A highway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may, in most cases,
  be both made add maintained by a small toll upon the carriages which make
  use of them; a harbour, by a moderate port-duty upon the tonnage of the
  shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another institution for
  facilitating commerce, in many countries, not only defrays its own
  expense, but affords a small revenue or a seignorage to the sovereign. The
  post-office, another institution for the same purpose, over and above
  defraying its own expense, affords, in almost all countries, a very
  considerable revenue to the sovereign.

  When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the lighters
  which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in proportion to their weight
  or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public works
  exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It
  seems scarce possible to invent a more equitable way of maintaining such
  works. This tax or toll, too, though it is advanced by the carrier, is
  finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always be charged in the
  price of the goods. As the expense of carriage, however, is very much
  reduced by means of such public works, the goods, notwithstanding the
  toll, come cheaper to the consumer than they could otherwise have done,
  their price not being so much raised by the toll, as it is lowered by the
  cheapness of the carriage. The person who finally pays this tax,
  therefore, gains by the application more than he loses by the payment of
  it. His payment is exactly in proportion to his gain. It is, in reality,
  no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up, in order
  to get the rest. It seems impossible to imagine a more equitable method of
  raising a tax. When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches,
  post-chaises, etc. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight,
  than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, etc. the
  indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute, in a very easy
  manner, to the relief of the poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation
  of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country.

  When high-roads, bridges, canals, etc. are in this manner made and
  supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can
  be made only where that commerce requires them, and, consequently, where
  it is proper to make them. Their expense, too, their grandeur and
  magnificence, must be suited to what that commerce can afford to pay. They
  must be made, consequently, as it is proper to make them. A magnificent
  high-road cannot be made through a desert country, where there is little
  or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to the country villa
  of the intendant of the province, or to that of some great lord, to whom
  the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. A great bridge cannot
  be thrown over a river at a place where nobody passes, or merely to
  embellish the view from the windows of a neighbouring palace; things which
  sometimes happen in countries, where works of this kind are carried on by
  any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable of
  affording.

  In several different parts of Europe, the toll or lock-duty upon a canal
  is the property of private persons, whose private interest obliges them to
  keep up the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable order, the navigation
  necessarily ceases altogether, and, along with it, the whole profit which
  they can make by the tolls. If those tolls were put under the management
  of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might be
  less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced them. The
  canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the province upwards of
  thirteen millions of livres, which (at twenty-eight livres the mark of
  silver, the value of French money in the end of the last century) amounted
  to upwards of nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. When that great work
  was finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in
  constant repair, was to make a present of the tolls to Riquet, the
  engineer who planned and conducted the work. Those tolls constitute, at
  present, a very large estate to the different branches of the family of
  that gentleman, who have, therefore, a great interest to keep the work in
  constant repair. But had those tolls been put under the management of
  commissioners, who had no such interest, they might perhaps, have been
  dissipated in ornamental and unnecessary expenses, while the most
  essential parts of the works were allowed to go to ruin.

  The tolls for the maintenance of a highroad cannot, with any safety, be
  made the property of private persons. A high-road, though entirely
  neglected, does not become altogether impassable, though a canal does. The
  proprietors of the tolls upon a high-road, therefore, might neglect
  altogether the repair of the road, and yet continue to levy very nearly
  the same tolls. It is proper, therefore, that the tolls for the
  maintenance of such a work should be put under the management of
  commissioners or trustees.

  In Great Britain, the abuses which the trustees have committed in the
  management of those tolls, have, in many cases, been very justly
  complained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money levied is
  more than double of what is necessary for executing, in the completest
  manner, the work, which is often executed in a very slovenly manner, and
  sometimes not executed at all. The system of repairing the high-roads by
  tolls of this kind, it must be observed, is not of very long standing. We
  should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been brought to that
  degree of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and improper
  persons are frequently appointed trustees; and if proper courts of
  inspection and account have not yet been established for controlling their
  conduct, and for reducing the tolls to what is barely sufficient for
  executing the work to be done by them; the recency of the institution both
  accounts and apologizes for those defects, of which, by the wisdom of
  parliament, the greater part may, in due time, be gradually remedied.

  The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain, is supposed
  to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the roads, that the
  savings which, with proper economy, might be made from it, have been
  considered, even by some ministers, as a very great resource, which might,
  at some time or another, be applied to the exigencies of the state.
  Government, it has been said, by taking the management of the turnpikes
  into its own hands, and by employing the soldiers, who would work for a
  very small addition to their pay, could keep the roads in good order, at a
  much less expense than it can be done by trustees, who have no other
  workmen to employ, but such as derive their whole subsistence from their
  wages. A great revenue, half a million, perhaps {Since publishing the two
  first editions of this book, I have got good reasons to believe that all
  the turnpike tolls levied in Great Britain do not produce a neat revenue
  that amounts to half a million; a sum which, under the management of
  government, would not be sufficient to keep in repair five of the
  principal roads in the kingdom}, it has been pretended, might in this
  manner be gained, without laying any new burden upon the people; and the
  turnpike roads might be made to contribute to the general expense of the
  state, in the same manner as the post-office does at present.

  That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner, I have no
  doubt, though probably not near so much as the projectors of this plan
  have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems liable to several very
  important objections.

  First, If the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever be
  considered as one of the resources for supplying the exigencies of the
  state, they would certainly be augmented as those exigencies were supposed
  to require. According to the policy of Great Britain, therefore, they
  would probably he augmented very fast. The facility with which a great
  revenue could be drawn from them, would probably encourage administration
  to recur very frequently te this resource. Though it may, perhaps, be more
  than doubtful whether half a million could by any economy be saved out of
  the present tolls, it can scarcely be doubted, but that a million might be
  saved out of them, if they were doubled; and perhaps two millions, if they
  were tripled {I have now good reason to believe that all these conjectural
  sums are by much too large.}. This great revenue, too, might be levied
  without the appointment of a single new officer to collect and receive it.
  But the turnpike tolls, being continually augmented in this manner,
  instead of facilitating the inland commerce of the country, as at present,
  would soon become a very great incumbrance upon it. The expense of
  transporting all heavy goods from one part of the country to another,
  would soon be so much increased, the market for all such goods,
  consequently, would soon be so much narrowed, that their production would
  be in a great measure discouraged, and the most important branches of the
  domestic industry of the country annihilated altogether.

  Secondly, A tax upon carriages, in proportion to their weight, though a
  very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of repairing the roads, is
  a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, or to supply the
  common exigencies of the state. When it is applied to the sole purpose
  above mentioned, each carriage is supposed to pay exactly for the wear and
  tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is applied to
  any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than that
  wear and tear, and contributes to the supply of some other exigency of the
  state. But as the turnpike toll raises the price of goods in proportion to
  their weight and not to their value, it is chiefly paid by the consumers
  of coarse and bulky, not by those of precious and light commodities.
  Whatever exigency of the state, therefore, this tax might be intended to
  supply, that exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the
  poor, not of the rich; at the expense of those who are least able to
  supply it, not of those who are most able.

  Thirdly, If government should at any time neglect the reparation of the
  high-roads, it would be still more difficult, than it is at present, to
  compel the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. A large
  revenue might thus be levied upon the people, without any part of it being
  applied to the only purpose to which a revenue levied in this manner ought
  ever to be applied. If the meanness and poverty of the trustees of
  turnpike roads render it sometimes difficult, at present, to oblige them
  to repair their wrong; their wealth and greatness would render it ten
  times more so in the case which is here supposed.

  In France, the funds destined for the reparation of the high-roads are
  under the immediate direction of the executive power. Those funds consist,
  partly in a certain number of days labour, which the country people are in
  most parts of Europe obliged to give to the reparation of the highways;
  and partly in such a portion of the general revenue of the state as the
  king chooses to spare from his other expenses.

  By the ancient law of France, as well as by that of most other parts of
  Europe, the labour of the country people was under the direction of a
  local or provincial magistracy, which had no immediate dependency upon the
  king’s council. But, by the present practice, both the labour of the
  country people, and whatever other fund the king may choose to assign for
  the reparation of the high-roads in any particular province or generality,
  are entirely under the management of the intendant; an officer who is
  appointed and removed by the king’s council who receives his orders from
  it, and is in constant correspondence with it. In the progress of
  despotism, the authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of
  every other power in the state, and assumes to itself the management of
  every branch of revenue which is destined for any public purpose. In
  France, however, the great post-roads, the roads which make the
  communication between the principal towns of the kingdom, are in general
  kept in good order; and, in some provinces, are even a good deal superior
  to the greater part of the turnpike roads of England. But what we call the
  cross roads, that is, the far greater part of the roads in the country,
  are entirely neglected, and are in many places absolutely impassable for
  any heavy carriage. In some places it is even dangerous to travel on
  horseback, and mules are the only conveyance which can safely be trusted.
  The proud minister of an ostentatious court, may frequently take pleasure
  in executing a work of splendour and magnificence, such as a great
  highway, which is frequently seen by the principal nobility, whose
  applauses not only flatter his vanity, but even contribute to support his
  interest at court. But to execute a great number of little works, in which
  nothing that can be done can make any great appearance, or excite the
  smallest degree of admiration in any traveller, and which, in short, have
  nothing to recommend them but their extreme utility, is a business which
  appears, in every respect, too mean and paltry to merit the attention of
  so great a magistrate. Under such an administration therefore, such works
  are almost always entirely neglected.

  In China, and in several other governments of Asia, the executive power
  charges itself both with the reparation of the high-roads, and with the
  maintenance of the navigable canals. In the instructions which are given
  to the governor of each province, those objects, it is said, are
  constantly recommended to him, and the judgment which the court forms of
  his conduct is very much regulated by the attention which he appears to
  have paid to this part of his instructions. This branch of public police,
  accordingly, is said to be very much attended to in all those countries,
  but particularly in China, where the high-roads, and still more the
  navigable canals, it is pretended, exceed very much every thing of the
  same kind which is known in Europe. The accounts of those works, however,
  which have been transmitted to Europe, have generally been drawn up by
  weak and wondering travellers; frequently by stupid and lying
  missionaries. If they had been examined by more intelligent eyes, and if
  the accounts of them had been reported by more faithful witnesses, they
  would not, perhaps, appear to be so wonderful. The account which Bernier
  gives of some works of this kind in Indostan, falls very short of what had
  been reported of them by other travellers, more disposed to the marvellous
  than he was. It may too, perhaps, be in those countries, as it is in
  France, where the great roads, the great communications, which are likely
  to be the subjects of conversation at the court and in the capital, are
  attended to, and all the rest neglected. In China, besides, in Indostan,
  and in several other governments of Asia, the revenue of the sovereign
  arises almost altogether from a land tax or land rent, which rises or
  falls with the rise and fall of the annual produce of the land. The great
  interest of the sovereign, therefore, his revenue, is in such countries
  necessarily and immediately connected with the cultivation of the land,
  with the greatness of its produce, and with the value of its produce. But
  in order to render that produce both as great and as valuable as possible,
  it is necessary to procure to it as extensive a market as possible, and
  consequently to establish the freest, the easiest, and the least expensive
  communication between all the different parts of the country; which can be
  done only by means of the best roads and the best navigable canals. But
  the revenue of the sovereign does not, in any part of Europe, arise
  chiefly from a land tax or land rent. In all the great kingdoms of Europe,
  perhaps, the greater part of it may ultimately depend upon the produce of
  the land: but that dependency is neither so immediate nor so evident. In
  Europe, therefore, the sovereign does not feel himself so directly called
  upon to promote the increase, both in quantity and value of the produce of
  the land, or, by maintaining good roads and canals, to provide the most
  extensive market for that produce. Though it should be true, therefore,
  what I apprehend is not a little doubtful, that in some parts of Asia this
  department of the public police is very properly managed by the executive
  power, there is not the least probability that, during the present state
  of things, it could be tolerably managed by that power in any part of
  Europe.

  Even those public works, which are of such a nature that they cannot
  afford any revenue for maintaining themselves, but of which the
  conveniency is nearly confined to some particular place or district, are
  always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the
  management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general
  revenue of the state, of which the executive power must always have the
  management. Were the streets of London to be lighted and paved at the
  expense of the treasury, is there any probability that they would be so
  well lighted and paved as they are at present, or even at so small an
  expense? The expense, besides, instead of being raised by a local tax upon
  the inhabitants of each particular street, parish, or district in London,
  would, in this case, be defrayed out of the general revenue of the state,
  and would consequently be raised by a tax upon all the inhabitants of the
  kingdom, of whom the greater part derive no sort of benefit from the
  lighting and paving of the streets of London.

  The abuses which sometimes creep into the local and provincial
  administration of a local and provincial revenue, how enormous soever they
  may appear, are in reality, however, almost always very trifling in
  comparison of those which commonly take place in the administration and
  expenditure of the revenue of a great empire. They are, besides, much more
  easily corrected. Under the local or provincial administration of the
  justices of the peace in Great Britain, the six days labour which the
  country people are obliged to give to the reparation of the highways, is
  not always, perhaps, very judiciously applied, but it is scarce ever
  exacted with any circumstance of cruelty or oppression. In France, under
  the administration of the intendants, the application is not always more
  judicious, and the exaction is frequently the most cruel and oppressive.
  Such corvees, as they are called, make one of the principal instruments of
  tyranny by which those officers chastise any parish or communeaute, which
  has had the misfortune to fall under their displeasure.

  Of the public Works and Institution which are necessary for facilitating
  particular Branches of Commerce.

  The object of the public works and institutions above mentioned, is to
  facilitate commerce in general. But in order to facilitate some particular
  branches of it, particular institutions are necessary, which again require
  a particular and extraordinary expense.

  Some particular branches of commerce which are carried on with barbarous
  and uncivilized nations, require extraordinary protection. An ordinary
  store or counting-house could give little security to the goods of the
  merchants who trade to the western coast of Africa. To defend them from
  the barbarous natives, it is necessary that the place where they are
  deposited should be in some measure fortified. The disorders in the
  government of Indostan have been supposed to render a like precaution
  necessary, even among that mild and gentle people; and it was under
  pretence of securing their persons and property from violence, that both
  the English and French East India companies were allowed to erect the
  first forts which they possessed in that country. Among other nations,
  whose vigorous government will suffer no strangers to possess any
  fortified place within their territory, it may be necessary to maintain
  some ambassador, minister, or consul, who may both decide, according to
  their own customs, the differences arising among his own countrymen, and,
  in their disputes with the natives, may by means of his public character,
  interfere with more authority and afford them a more powerful protection
  than they could expect from any private man. The interests of commerce
  have frequently made it necessary to maintain ministers in foreign
  countries, where the purposes either of war or alliance would not have
  required any. The commerce of the Turkey company first occasioned the
  establishment of an ordinary ambassador at Constantinople. The first
  English embassies to Russia arose altogether from commercial interests.
  The constant interference with those interests, necessarily occasioned
  between the subjects of the different states of Europe, has probably
  introduced the custom of keeping, in all neighbouring countries,
  ambassadors or ministers constantly resident, even in the time of peace.
  This custom, unknown to ancient times, seems not to be older than the end
  of the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth century; that is, than the
  time when commerce first began to extend itself to the greater part of the
  nations of Europe, and when they first began to attend to its interests.

  It seems not unreasonable, that the extraordinary expense which the
  protection of any particular branch of commerce may occasion, should be
  defrayed by a moderate tax upon that particular branch; by a moderate
  fine, for example, to be paid by the traders when they first enter into
  it; or, what is more equal, by a particular duty of so much per cent. upon
  the goods which they either import into, or export out of, the particular
  countries with which it is carried on. The protection of trade, in
  general, from pirates and freebooters, is said to have given occasion to
  the first institution of the duties of customs. But, if it was thought
  reasonable to lay a general tax upon trade, in order to defray the expense
  of protecting trade in general, it should seem equally reasonable to lay a
  particular tax upon a particular branch of trade, in order to defray the
  extraordinary expense of protecting that branch.

  The protection of trade, in general, has always been considered as
  essential to the defence of the commonwealth, and, upon that account, a
  necessary part of the duty of the executive power. The collection and
  application of the general duties of customs, therefore, have always been
  left to that power. But the protection of any particular branch of trade
  is a part of the general protection of trade; a part, therefore, of the
  duty of that power; and if nations always acted consistently, the
  particular duties levied for the purposes of such particular protection,
  should always have been left equally to its disposal. But in this respect,
  as well as in many others, nations have not always acted consistently; and
  in the greater part of the commercial states of Europe, particular
  companies of merchants have had the address to persuade the legislature to
  entrust to them the performance of this part of the duty of the sovereign,
  together with all the powers which are necessarily connected with it.

  These companies, though they may, perhaps, have been useful for the first
  introduction of some branches of commerce, by making, at their own
  expense, an experiment which the state might not think it prudent to make,
  have in the long-run proved, universally, either burdensome or useless,
  and have either mismanaged or confined the trade.

  When those companies do not trade upon a joint stock, but are obliged to
  admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine, and
  agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member trading
  upon his own stock, and at his own risk, they are called regulated
  companies. When they trade upon a joint stock, each member sharing in the
  common profit or loss, in proportion to his share in this stock, they are
  called joint-stock companies. Such companies, whether regulated or
  joint-stock, sometimes have, and sometimes have not, exclusive privileges.

  Regulated companies resemble, in every respect, the corporation of trades,
  so common in the cities and towns of all the different countries of
  Europe; and are a sort of enlarged monopolies of the same kind. As no
  inhabitant of a town can exercise an incorporated trade, without first
  obtaining his freedom in the incorporation, so, in most cases, no subject
  of the state can lawfully carry on any branch of foreign trade, for which
  a regulated company is established, without first becoming a member of
  that company. The monopoly is more or less strict, according as the terms
  of admission are more or less difficult, and according as the directors of
  the company have more or less authority, or have it more or less in their
  power to manage in such a manner as to confine the greater part of the
  trade to themselves and their particular friends. In the most ancient
  regulated companies, the privileges of apprenticeship were the same as in
  other corporations, and entitled the person who had served his time to a
  member of the company, to become himself a member, either without paying
  any fine, or upon paying a much smaller one than what was exacted of other
  people. The usual corporation spirit, wherever the law does not restrain
  it, prevails in all regulated companies. When they have been allowed to
  act according to their natural genius, they have always, in order to
  confine the competition to as small a number of persons as possible,
  endeavoured to subject the trade to many burdensome regulations. When the
  law has restrained them from doing this, they have become altogether
  useless and insignificant.

  The regulated companies for foreign commerce which at present subsist in
  Great Britain, are the ancient merchant-adventurers company, now commonly
  called the Hamburgh company, the Russia company, the Eastland company, the
  Turkey company, and the African company.

  The terms of admission into the Hamburgh company are now said to be quite
  easy; and the directors either have it not in their power to subject the
  trade to any troublesome restraint or regulations, or, at least, have not
  of late exercised that power. It has not always been so. About the middle
  of the last century, the fine for admission was fifty, and at one time one
  hundred pounds, and the conduct of the company was said to be extremely
  oppressive. In 1643, in 1645, and in 1661, the clothiers and free traders
  of the west of England complained of them to parliament, as of
  monopolists, who confined the trade, and oppressed the manufactures of the
  country. Though those complaints produced no act of parliament, they had
  probably intimidated the company so far, as to oblige them to reform their
  conduct. Since that time, at least, there have been no complaints against
  them. By the 10th and 11th of William III. c.6, the fine for admission
  into the Russia company was reduced to five pounds; and by the 25th of
  Charles II. c.7, that for admission into the Eastland company to forty
  shillings; while, at the same time, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, all the
  countries on the north side of the Baltic, were exempted from their
  exclusive charter. The conduct of those companies had probably given
  occasion to those two acts of parliament. Before that time, Sir Josiah
  Child had represented both these and the Hamburgh company as extremely
  oppressive, and imputed to their bad management the low state of the
  trade, which we at that time carried on to the countries comprehended
  within their respective charters. But though such companies may not, in
  the present times, be very oppressive, they are certainly altogether
  useless. To be merely useless, indeed, is perhaps, the highest eulogy
  which can ever justly be bestowed upon a regulated company; and all the
  three companies above mentioned seem, in their present state, to deserve
  this eulogy.

  The fine for admission into the Turkey company was formerly twenty-five
  pounds for all persons under twenty-six years of age, and fifty pounds for
  all persons above that age. Nobody but mere merchants could be admitted; a
  restriction which excluded all shop-keepers and retailers. By a bye-law,
  no British manufactures could be exported to Turkey but in the general
  ships of the company; and as those ships sailed always from the port of
  London, this restriction confined the trade to that expensive port, and
  the traders to those who lived in London and in its neighbourhood. By
  another bye-law, no person living within twenty miles of London, and not
  free of the city, could be admitted a member; another restriction which,
  joined to the foregoing, necessarily excluded all but the freemen of
  London. As the time for the loading and sailing of those general ships
  depended altogether upon the directors, they could easily fill them with
  their own goods, and those of their particular friends, to the exclusion
  of others, who, they might pretend, had made their proposals too late. In
  this state of things, therefore, this company was, in every respect, a
  strict and oppressive monopoly. Those abuses gave occasion to the act of
  the 26th of George II. c. 18, reducing the fine for admission to twenty
  pounds for all persons, without any distinction of ages, or any
  restriction, either to mere merchants, or to the freemen of London; and
  granting to all such persons the liberty of exporting, from all the ports
  of Great Britain, to any port in Turkey, all British goods, of which the
  exportation was not prohibited, upon paying both the general duties of
  customs, and the particular duties assessed for defraying the necessary
  expenses of the company; and submitting, at the same time, to the lawful
  authority of the British ambassador and consuls resident in Turkey, and to
  the bye-laws of the company duly enacted. To prevent any oppression by
  those bye-laws, it was by the same act ordained, that if any seven members
  of the company conceived themselves aggrieved by any bye-law which should
  be enacted after the passing of this act, they might appeal to the board
  of trade and plantations (to the authority of which a committee of the
  privy council has now succeeded), provided such appeal was brought within
  twelve months after the bye-law was enacted; and that, if any seven
  members conceived themselves aggrieved by any bye-law which had been
  enacted before the passing of this act, they might bring a like appeal,
  provided it was within twelve months after the day on which this act was
  to take place. The experience of one year, however, may not always be
  sufficient to discover to all the members of a great company the
  pernicious tendency of a particular bye-law; and if several of them should
  afterwards discover it, neither the board of trade, nor the committee of
  council, can afford them any redress. The object, besides, of the greater
  part of the bye-laws of all regulated companies, as well as of all other
  corporations, is not so much to oppress those who are already members, as
  to discourage others from becoming so; which may be done, not only by a
  high fine, but by many other contrivances. The constant view of such
  companies is always to raise the rate of their own profit as high as they
  can; to keep the market, both for the goods which they export, and for
  those which they import, as much understocked as they can; which can be
  done only by restraining the competition, or by discouraging new
  adventurers from entering into the trade. A fine, even of twenty pounds,
  besides, though it may not, perhaps, be sufficient to discourage any man
  from entering into the Turkey trade, with an intention to continue in it,
  may be enough to discourage a speculative merchant from hazarding a single
  adventure in it. In all trades, the regular established traders, even
  though not incorporated, naturally combine to raise profits, which are
  noway so likely to be kept, at all times, down to their proper level, as
  by the occasional competition of speculative adventurers. The Turkey
  trade, though in some measure laid open by this act of parliament, is
  still considered by many people as very far from being altogether free.
  The Turkey company contribute to maintain an ambassador and two or three
  consuls, who, like other public ministers, ought to be maintained
  altogether by the state, and the trade laid open to all his majesty’s
  subjects. The different taxes levied by the company, for this and other
  corporation purposes, might afford a revenue much more than sufficient to
  enable a state to maintain such ministers.

  Regulated companies, it was observed by Sir Josiah Child, though they had
  frequently supported public ministers, had never maintained any forts or
  garrisons in the countries to which they traded; whereas joint-stock
  companies frequently had. And, in reality, the former seem to be much more
  unfit for this sort of service than the latter. First, the directors of a
  regulated company have no particular interest in the prosperity of the
  general trade of the company, for the sake of which such forts and
  garrisons are maintained. The decay of that general trade may even
  frequently contribute to the advantage of their own private trade; as, by
  diminishing the number of their competitors, it may enable them both to
  buy cheaper, and to sell dearer. The directors of a joint-stock company,
  on the contrary, having only their share in the profits which are made
  upon the common stock committed to their management, have no private trade
  of their own, of which the interest can be separated from that of the
  general trade of the company. Their private interest is connected with the
  prosperity of the general trade of the company, and with the maintenance
  of the forts and garrisons which are necessary for its defence. They are
  more likely, therefore, to have that continual and careful attention which
  that maintenance necessarily requires. Secondly, The directors of a
  joint-stock company have always the management of a large capital, the
  joint stock of the company, a part of which they may frequently employ,
  with propriety, in building, repairing, and maintaining such necessary
  forts and garrisons. But the directors of a regulated company, having the
  management of no common capital, have no other fund to employ in this way,
  but the casual revenue arising from the admission fines, and from the
  corporation duties imposed upon the trade of the company. Though they had
  the same interest, therefore, to attend to the maintenance of such forts
  and garrisons, they can seldom have the same ability to render that
  attention effectual. The maintenance of a public minister, requiring
  scarce any attention, and but a moderate and limited expense, is a
  business much more suitable both to the temper and abilities of a
  regulated company.

  Long after the time of Sir Josiah Child, however, in 1750, a regulated
  company was established, the present company of merchants trading to
  Africa; which was expressly charged at first with the maintenance of all
  the British forts and garrisons that lie between Cape Blanc and the Cape
  of Good Hope, and afterwards with that of those only which lie between
  Cape Rouge and the Cape of Good Hope. The act which establishes this
  company (the 23rd of George II. c.51 ), seems to have had two distinct
  objects in view; first, to restrain effectually the oppressive and
  monopolizing spirit which is natural to the directors of a regulated
  company; and, secondly, to force them, as much as possible, to give an
  attention, which is not natural to them, towards the maintenance of forts
  and garrisons.

  For the first of these purposes, the fine for admission is limited to
  forty shillings. The company is prohibited from trading in their corporate
  capacity, or upon a joint stock; from borrowing money upon common seal, or
  from laying any restraints upon the trade, which may be carried on freely
  from all places, and by all persons being British subjects, and paying the
  fine. The government is in a committee of nine persons, who meet at
  London, but who are chosen annually by the freemen of the company at
  London, Bristol, and Liverpool; three from each place. No committeeman can
  be continued in office for more than three years together. Any
  committee-man might be removed by the board of trade and plantations, now
  by a committee of council, after being heard in his own defence. The
  committee are forbid to export negroes from Africa, or to import any
  African goods into Great Britain. But as they are charged with the
  maintenance of forts and garrisons, they may, for that purpose export from
  Great Britain to Africa goods and stores of different kinds. Out of the
  moneys which they shall receive from the company, they are allowed a sum,
  not exceeding eight hundred pounds, for the salaries of their clerks and
  agents at London, Bristol, and Liverpool, the house-rent of their offices
  at London, and all other expenses of management, commission, and agency,
  in England. What remains of this sum, after defraying these different
  expenses, they may divide among themselves, as compensation for their
  trouble, in what manner they think proper. By this constitution, it might
  have been expected, that the spirit of monopoly would have been
  effectually restrained, and the first of these purposes sufficiently
  answered. It would seem, however, that it had not. Though by the 4th of
  George III. c.20, the fort of Senegal, with all its dependencies, had been
  invested in the company of merchants trading to Africa, yet, in the year
  following (by the 5th of George III. c.44), not only Senegal and its
  dependencies, but the whole coast, from the port of Sallee, in South
  Barbary, to Cape Rouge, was exempted from the jurisdiction of that
  company, was vested in the crown, and the trade to it declared free to all
  his majesty’s subjects. The company had been suspected of restraining the
  trade and of establishing some sort of improper monopoly. It is not,
  however, very easy to conceive how, under the regulations of the 23d
  George II. they could do so. In the printed debates of the house of
  commons, not always the most authentic records of truth, I observe,
  however, that they have been accused of this. The members of the committee
  of nine being all merchants, and the governors and factors in their
  different forts and settlements being all dependent upon them, it is not
  unlikely that the latter might have given peculiar attention to the
  consignments and commissions of the former, which would establish a real
  monopoly.

  For the second of these purposes, the maintenance of the forts and
  garrisons, an annual sum has been allotted to them by parliament,
  generally about £13,000. For the proper application of this sum, the
  committee is obliged to account annually to the cursitor baron of
  exchequer; which account is afterwards to be laid before parliament. But
  parliament, which gives so little attention to the application of
  millions, is not likely to give much to that of £13,000 a-year; and the
  cursitor baron of exchequer, from his profession and education, is not
  likely to be profoundly skilled in the proper expense of forts and
  garrisons. The captains of his majesty’s navy, indeed, or any other
  commissioned officers, appointed by the board of admiralty, may inquire
  into the condition of the forts and garrisons, and report their
  observations to that board. But that board seems to have no direct
  jurisdiction over the committee, nor any authority to correct those whose
  conduct it may thus inquire into; and the captains of his majesty’s navy,
  besides, are not supposed to be always deeply learned in the science of
  fortification. Removal from an office, which can be enjoyed only for the
  term of three years, and of which the lawful emoluments, even during that
  term, are so very small, seems to be the utmost punishment to which any
  committee-man is liable, for any fault, except direct malversation, or
  embezzlement, either of the public money, or of that of the company; and
  the fear of the punishment can never be a motive of sufficient weight to
  force a continual and careful attention to a business to which he has no
  other interest to attend. The committee are accused of having sent out
  bricks and stones from England for the reparation of Cape Coast Castle, on
  the coast of Guinea; a business for which parliament had several times
  granted an extraordinary sum of money. These bricks and stones, too, which
  had thus been sent upon so long a voyage, were said to have been of so bad
  a quality, that it was necessary to rebuild, from the foundation, the
  walls which had been repaired with them. The forts and garrisons which lie
  north of Cape Rouge, are not only maintained at the expense of the state,
  but are under the immediate government of the executive power; and why
  those which lie south of that cape, and which, too, are, in part at least,
  maintained at the expense of the state, should be under a different
  government, it seems not very easy even to imagine a good reason. The
  protection of the Mediterranean trade was the original purpose or pretence
  of the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca; and the maintenance and
  government of those garrisons have always been, very properly, committed,
  not to the Turkey company, but to the executive power. In the extent of
  its dominion consists, in a great measure, the pride and dignity of that
  power; and it is not very likely to fail in attention to what is necessary
  for the defence of that dominion. The garrisons at Gibraltar and Minorca,
  accordingly, have never been neglected. Though Minorca has been twice
  taken, and is now probably lost for ever, that disaster has never been
  imputed to any neglect in the executive power. I would not, however, be
  understood to insinuate, that either of those expensive garrisons was
  ever, even in the smallest degree, necessary for the purpose for which
  they were originally dismembered from the Spanish monarchy. That
  dismemberment, perhaps, never served any other real purpose than to
  alienate from England her natural ally the king of Spain, and to unite the
  two principal branches of the house of Bourbon in a much stricter and more
  permanent alliance than the ties of blood could ever have united them.

  Joint-stock companies, established either by royal charter, or by act of
  parliament, are different in several respects, not only from regulated
  companies, but from private copartneries.

  First, In a private copartnery, no partner without the consent of the
  company, can transfer his share to another person, or introduce a new
  member into the company. Each member, however, may, upon proper warning,
  withdraw from the copartnery, and demand payment from them of his share of
  the common stock. In a joint-stock company, on the contrary, no member can
  demand payment of his share from the company; but each member can, without
  their consent, transfer his share to another person, and thereby introduce
  a new member. The value of a share in a joint stock is always the price
  which it will bring in the market; and this may be either greater or less
  in any proportion, than the sum which its owner stands credited for in the
  stock of the company.

  Secondly, In a private copartnery, each partner is bound for the debts
  contracted by the company, to the whole extent of his fortune. In a
  joint-stock company, on the contrary, each partner is bound only to the
  extent of his share.

  The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of
  directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to
  the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of
  these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business
  of the company; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail
  among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive contentedly
  such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make
  to them. This total exemption front trouble and front risk, beyond a
  limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in joint-stock
  companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes in any
  private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly draw to themselves
  much greater stocks, than any private copartnery can boast of. The trading
  stock of the South Sea company at one time amounted to upwards of
  thirty-three millions eight hundred thousand pounds. The divided capital
  of the Bank of England amounts, at present, to ten millions seven hundred
  and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of such companies, however,
  being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it
  cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same
  anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery
  frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are
  apt to consider attention to small matters as not for their master’s
  honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it.
  Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in
  the management of the affairs of such a company. It is upon this account,
  that joint-stock companies for foreign trade have seldom been able to
  maintain the competition against private adventurers. They have,
  accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an exclusive privilege; and
  frequently have not succeeded with one. Without an exclusive privilege,
  they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an exclusive privilege, they
  have both mismanaged and confined it.

  The Royal African company, the predecessors of the present African
  company, had an exclusive privilege by charter; but as that charter had
  not been confirmed by act of parliament, the trade, in consequence of the
  declaration of rights, was, soon after the Revolution, laid open to all
  his majesty’s subjects. The Hudson’s Bay company are, as to their legal
  rights, in the same situation as the Royal African company. Their
  exclusive charter has not been confirmed by act of parliament. The South
  Sea company, as long as they continued to be a trading company, had an
  exclusive privilege confirmed by act of parliament; as have likewise the
  present united company of merchants trading to the East Indies.

  The Royal African company soon found that they could not maintain the
  competition against private adventurers, whom, notwithstanding the
  declaration of rights, they continued for some time to call interlopers,
  and to persecute as such. In 1698, however, the private adventurers were
  subjected to a duty of ten per cent. upon almost all the different
  branches of their trade, to be employed by the company in the maintenance
  of their forts and garrisons. But, notwithstanding this heavy tax, the
  company were still unable to maintain the competition. Their stock and
  credit gradually declined. In 1712, their debts had become so great, that
  a particular act of parliament was thought necessary, both for their
  security and for that of their creditors. It was enacted, that the
  resolution of two-thirds of these creditors in number and value should
  bind the rust, both with regard to the time which should be allowed to the
  company for the payment of their debts, and with regard to any other
  agreement which it might be thought proper to make with them concerning
  those debts. In 1730, their affairs were in so great disorder, that they
  were altogether incapable of maintaining their forts and garrisons, the
  sole purpose and pretext of their institution. From that year till their
  final dissolution, the parliament judged it necessary to allow the annual
  sum of £10,000 for that purpose. In 1732, after having been for many years
  losers by the trade of carrying negroes to the West Indies, they at last
  resolved to give it up altogether; to sell to the private traders to
  America the negroes which they purchased upon the coast; and to employ
  their servants in a trade to the inland parts of Africa for gold dust,
  elephants teeth, dyeing drugs, etc. But their success in this more
  confined trade was not greater than in their former extensive one. Their
  affairs continued to go gradually to decline, till at last, being in every
  respect a bankrupt company, they were dissolved by act of parliament, and
  their forts and garrisons vested in the present regulated company of
  merchants trading to Africa. Before the erection of the Royal African
  company, there had been three other joint-stock companies successively
  established, one after another, for the African trade. They were all
  equally unsuccessful. They all, however, had exclusive charters, which,
  though not confirmed by act of parliament, were in those days supposed to
  convey a real exclusive privilege.

  The Hudson’s Bay company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had
  been much more fortunate than the Royal African company. Their necessary
  expense is much smaller. The whole number of people whom they maintain in
  their different settlements and habitations, which they have honoured with
  the name of forts, is said not to exceed a hundred and twenty persons.
  This number, however, is sufficient to prepare beforehand the cargo of
  furs and other goods necessary for loading their ships, which, on account
  of the ice, can seldom remain above six or eight weeks in those seas. This
  advantage of having a cargo ready prepared, could not, for several years,
  be acquired by private adventurers; and without it there seems to be no
  possibility of trading to Hudson’s Bay. The moderate capital of the
  company, which, it is said, does not exceed one hundred and ten thousand
  pounds, may, besides, be sufficient to enable them to engross the whole,
  or almost the whole trade and surplus produce, of the miserable though
  extensive country comprehended within their charter. No private
  adventurers, accordingly, have ever attempted to trade to that country in
  competition with them. This company, therefore, have always enjoyed an
  exclusive trade, in fact, though they may have no right to it in law. Over
  and above all this, the moderate capital of this company is said to be
  divided among a very small number of proprietors. But a joint-stock
  company, consisting of a small number of proprietors, with a moderate
  capital, approaches very nearly to the nature of a private copartnery, and
  may be capable of nearly the same degree of vigilance and attention. It is
  not to be wondered at, therefore, if, in consequence of these different
  advantages, the Hudson’s Bay company had, before the late war, been able
  to carry on their trade with a considerable degree of success. It does not
  seem probable, however, that their profits ever approached to what the
  late Mr Dobbs imagined them. A much more sober and judicious writer, Mr
  Anderson, author of the Historical and Chronological Deduction of
  Commerce, very justly observes, that upon examining the accounts which Mr
  Dobbs himself has given for several years together, of their exports and
  imports, and upon making proper allowances for their extraordinary risk
  and expense, it does not appear that their profits deserve to be envied,
  or that they can much, if at all, exceed the ordinary profits of trade.

  The South Sea company never had any forts or garrisons to maintain, and
  therefore were entirely exempted from one great expense, to which other
  joint-stock companies for foreign trade are subject; but they had an
  immense capital divided among an immense number of proprietors. It was
  naturally to be expected, therefore, that folly, negligence, and
  profusion, should prevail in the whole management of their affairs. The
  knavery and extravagance of their stock-jobbing projects are sufficiently
  known, and the explication of them would be foreign to the present
  subject. Their mercantile projects were not much better conducted. The
  first trade which they engaged in, was that of supplying the Spanish West
  Indies with negroes, of which (in consequence of what was called the
  Assiento Contract granted them by the treaty of Utrecht) they had the
  exclusive privilege. But as it was not expected that much profit could be
  made by this trade, both the Portuguese and French companies, who had
  enjoyed it upon the same terms before them, having been ruined by it, they
  were allowed, as compensation, to send annually a ship of a certain
  burden, to trade directly to the Spanish West Indies. Of the ten voyages
  which this annual ship was allowed to make, they are said to have gained
  considerably by one, that of the Royal Caroline, in 1731; and to have been
  losers, more or less, by almost all the rest. Their ill success was
  imputed, by their factors and agents, to the extortion and oppression of
  the Spanish government; but was, perhaps, principally owing to the
  profusion and depredations of those very factors and agents; some of whom
  are said to have acquired great fortunes, even in one year. In 1734, the
  company petitioned the king, that they might be allowed to dispose of the
  trade and tonnage of their annual ship, on account of the little profit
  which they made by it, and to accept of such equivalent as they could
  obtain from the king of Spain.

  In 1724, this company had undertaken the whale fishery. Of this, indeed,
  they had no monopoly; but as long as they carried it on, no other British
  subjects appear to have engaged in it. Of the eight voyages which their
  ships made to Greenland, they were gainers by one, and losers by all the
  rest. After their eighth and last voyage, when they had sold their ships,
  stores, and utensils, they found that their whole loss upon this branch,
  capital and interest included, amounted to upwards of £237,000.

  In 1722, this company petitioned the parliament to be allowed to divide
  their immense capital of more than thirty-three millions eight hundred
  thousand pounds, the whole of which had been lent to government, into two
  equal parts; the one half, or upwards of £16,900,000, to be put upon the
  same footing with other government annuities, and not to be subject to the
  debts contracted, or losses incurred, by the directors of the company, in
  the prosecution of their mercantile projects; the other half to remain as
  before, a trading stock, and to be subject to those debts and losses. The
  petition was too reasonable not to be granted. In 1733, they again
  petitioned the parliament, that three-fourths of their trading stock might
  be turned into annuity stock, and only one-fourth remain as trading stock,
  or exposed to the hazards arising from the bad management of their
  directors. Both their annuity and trading stocks had, by this time, been
  reduced more than two millions each, by several different payments from
  government; so that this fourth amounted only to £3,662,784:8:6. In 1748,
  all the demands of the company upon the king of Spain, in consequence of
  the assiento contract, were, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, given up
  for what was supposed an equivalent. An end was put to their trade with
  the Spanish West Indies; the remainder of their trading stock was turned
  into an annuity stock; and the company ceased, in every respect, to be a
  trading company.

  It ought to be observed, that in the trade which the South Sea company
  carried on by means of their annual ship, the only trade by which it ever
  was expected that they could make any considerable profit, they were not
  without competitors, either in the foreign or in the home market. At
  Carthagena, Porto Bello, and La Vera Cruz, they had to encounter the
  competition of the Spanish merchants, who brought from Cadiz to those
  markets European goods, of the same kind with the outward cargo of their
  ship; and in England they had to encounter that of the English merchants,
  who imported from Cadiz goods of the Spanish West Indies, of the same kind
  with the inward cargo. The goods, both of the Spanish and English
  merchants, indeed, were, perhaps, subject to higher duties. But the loss
  occasioned by the negligence, profusion, and malversation of the servants
  of the company, had probably been a tax much heavier than all those
  duties. That a joint-stock company should be able to carry on successfully
  any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any
  sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all
  experience.

  The old English East India company was established in 1600, by a charter
  from Queen Elizabeth. In the first twelve voyages which they fitted out
  for India, they appear to have traded as a regulated company, with
  separate stocks, though only in the general ships of the company. In 1612,
  they united into a joint stock. Their charter was exclusive, and, though
  not confirmed by act of parliament, was in those days supposed to convey a
  real exclusive privilege. For many years, therefore, they were not much
  disturbed by interlopers. Their capital, which never exceeded £744,000,
  and of which £50 was a share, was not so exorbitant, nor their dealings so
  extensive, as to afford either a pretext for gross negligence and
  profusion, or a cover to gross malversation. Notwithstanding some
  extraordinary losses, occasioned partly by the malice of the Dutch East
  India company, and partly by other accidents, they carried on for many
  years a successful trade. But in process of time, when the principles of
  liberty were better understood, it became every day more and more
  doubtful, how far a royal charter, not confirmed by act of parliament,
  could convey an exclusive privilege. Upon this question the decisions of
  the courts of justice were not uniform, but varied with the authority of
  government, and the humours of the times. Interlopers multiplied upon
  them; and towards the end of the reign of Charles II., through the whole
  of that of James II., and during a part of that of William III., reduced
  them to great distress. In 1698, a proposal was made to parliament, of
  advancing two millions to government, at eight per cent. provided the
  subscribers were erected into a new East India company, with exclusive
  privileges. The old East India company offered seven hundred thousand
  pounds, nearly the amount of their capital, at four per cent. upon the
  same conditions. But such was at that time the state of public credit,
  that it was more convenient for government to borrow two millions at eight
  per cent. than seven hundred thousand pounds at four. The proposal of the
  new subscribers was accepted, and a new East India company established in
  consequence. The old East India company, however, had a right to continue
  their trade till 1701. They had, at the same time, in the name of their
  treasurer, subscribed very artfully three hundred and fifteen thousand
  pounds into the stock of the new. By a negligence in the expression of the
  act of parliament, which vested the East India trade in the subscribers to
  this loan of two millions, it did not appear evident that they were all
  obliged to unite into a joint stock. A few private traders, whose
  subscriptions amounted only to seven thousand two hundred pounds, insisted
  upon the privilege of trading separately upon their own stocks, and at
  their own risks. The old East India company had a right to a separate
  trade upon their own stock till 1701; and they had likewise, both before
  and after that period, a right, like that or other private traders, to a
  separate trade upon the £315,000, which they had subscribed into the stock
  of the new company. The competition of the two companies with the private
  traders, and with one another, is said to have well nigh ruined both. Upon
  a subsequent occasion, in 1750, when a proposal was made to parliament for
  putting the trade under the management of a regulated company, and thereby
  laying it in some measure open, the East India company, in opposition to
  this proposal, represented, in very strong terms, what had been, at this
  time, the miserable effects, as they thought them, of this competition. In
  India, they said, it raised the price of goods so high, that they were not
  worth the buying; and in England, by overstocking the market, it sunk
  their price so low, that no profit could be made by them. That by a more
  plentiful supply, to the great advantage and conveniency of the public, it
  must have reduced very much the price of India goods in the English
  market, cannot well be doubted; but that it should have raised very much
  their price in the Indian market, seems not very probable, as all the
  extraordinary demand which that competition could occasion must have been
  but as a drop of water in the immense ocean of Indian commerce. The
  increase of demand, besides, though in the beginning it may sometimes
  raise the price of goods, never fails to lower it in the long-run. It
  encourages production, and thereby increases the competition of the
  producers, who, in order to undersell one another, have recourse to new
  divisions or labour and new improvements of art, which might never
  otherwise have been thought of. The miserable effects of which the company
  complained, were the cheapness of consumption, and the encouragement given
  to production; precisely the two effects which it is the great business of
  political economy to promote. The competition, however, of which they gave
  this doleful account, had not been allowed to be of long continuance. In
  1702, the two companies were, in some measure, united by an indenture
  tripartite, to which the queen was the third party; and in 1708, they were
  by act of parliament, perfectly consolidated into one company, by their
  present name of the United Company of Merchants trading to the East
  Indies. Into this act it was thought worth while to insert a clause,
  allowing the separate traders to continue their trade till Michaelmas
  1711; but at the same time empowering the directors, upon three years
  notice, to redeem their little capital of seven thousand two hundred
  pounds, and thereby to convert the whole stock of the company into a joint
  stock. By the same act, the capital of the company, in consequence of a
  new loan to government, was augmented from two millions to three millions
  two hundred thousand pounds. In 1743, the company advanced another million
  to government. But this million being raised, not by a call upon the
  proprietors, but by selling annuities and contracting bond-debts, it did
  not augment the stock upon which the proprietors could claim a dividend.
  It augmented, however, their trading stock, it being equally liable with
  the other three millions two hundred thousand pounds, to the losses
  sustained, and debts contracted by the company in prosecution of their
  mercantile projects. From 1708, or at least from 1711, this company, being
  delivered from all competitors, and fully established in the monopoly of
  the English commerce to the East Indies, carried on a successful trade,
  and from their profits, made annually a moderate dividend to their
  proprietors. During the French war, which began in 1741, the ambition of
  Mr Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, involved them in the wars
  of the Carnatic, and in the politics of the Indian princes. After many
  signal successes, and equally signal losses, they at last lost Madras, at
  that time their principal settlement in India. It was restored to them by
  the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; and, about this time the spirit of war and
  conquest seems to have taken possession of their servants in India, and
  never since to have left them. During the French war, which began in 1755,
  their arms partook of the general good fortune of those of Great Britain.
  They defended Madras, took Pondicherry, recovered Calcutta, and acquired
  the revenues of a rich and extensive territory, amounting, it was then
  said, to upwards of three millions a-year. They remained for several years
  in quiet possession of this revenue; but in 1767, administration laid
  claim to their territorial acquisitions, and the revenue arising from
  them, as of right belonging to the crown; and the company, in compensation
  for this claim, agreed to pay to government £400,000 a-year. They had,
  before this, gradually augmented their dividend from about six to ten per
  cent.; that is, upon their capital of three millions two hundred thousand
  pounds, they had increased it by £128,000, or had raised it from one
  hundred and ninety-two thousand to three hundred and twenty thousand
  pounds a-year. They were attempting about this time to raise it still
  further, to twelve and a-half per cent., which would have made their
  annual payments to their proprietors equal to what they had agreed to pay
  annually to government, or to £400,000 a-year. But during the two years in
  which their agreement with government was to take place, they were
  restrained from any further increase of dividend by two successive acts of
  parliament, of which the object was to enable them to make a speedier
  progress in the payment of their debts, which were at this time estimated
  at upwards of six or seven millions sterling. In 1769, they renewed their
  agreement with government for five years more, and stipulated, that during
  the course of that period, they should be allowed gradually to increase
  their dividend to twelve and a-half per cent; never increasing it,
  however, more than one per cent. in one year. This increase of dividend,
  therefore, when it had risen to its utmost height, could augment their
  annual payments, to their proprietors and government together, but by
  £680,000, beyond what they had been before their late territorial
  acquisitions. What the gross revenue of those territorial acquisitions was
  supposed to amount to, has already been mentioned; and by an account
  brought by the Cruttenden East Indiaman in 1769, the neat revenue, clear
  of all deductions and military charges, was stated at two millions
  forty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty-seven pounds. They were said,
  at the same time, to possess another revenue, arising partly from lands,
  but chiefly from the customs established at their different settlements,
  amounting to £439,000. The profits of their trade, too, according to the
  evidence of their chairman before the house of commons, amounted, at this
  time, to at least £400,000 a-year; according to that of their accountant,
  to at least £500,000; according to the lowest account, at least equal to
  the highest dividend that was to be paid to their proprietors. So great a
  revenue might certainly have afforded an augmentation of £680,000 in their
  annual payments; and, at the same time, have left a large sinking fund,
  sufficient for the speedy reduction of their debt. In 1773, however, their
  debts, instead of being reduced, were augmented by an arrear to the
  treasury in the payment of the four hundred thousand pounds; by another to
  the custom-house for duties unpaid; by a large debt to the bank, for money
  borrowed; and by a fourth, for bills drawn upon them from India, and
  wantonly accepted, to the amount of upwards of twelve hundred thousand
  pounds. The distress which these accumulated claims brought upon them,
  obliged them not only to reduce all at once their dividend to six per
  cent. but to throw themselves upon the mercy of govermnent, and to
  supplicate, first, a release from the further payment of the stipulated
  £400,000 a-year; and, secondly, a loan of fourteen hundred thousand, to
  save them from immediate bankruptcy. The great increase of their fortune
  had, it seems, only served to furnish their servants with a pretext for
  greater profusion, and a cover for greater malversation, than in
  proportion even to that increase of fortune. The conduct of their servants
  in India, and the general state of their affairs both in India and in
  Europe, became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry: in consequence of
  which, several very important alterations were made in the constitution of
  their government, both at home and abroad. In India, their principal
  settlements or Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, which had before been
  altogether independent of one another, were subjected to a
  governor-general, assisted by a council of four assessors, parliament
  assuming to itself the first nomination of this governor and council, who
  were to reside at Calcutta; that city having now become, what Madras was
  before, the most important of the English settlements in India. The court
  of the Mayor of Calcutta, originally instituted for the trial of
  mercantile causes, which arose in the city and neighbourhood, had
  gradually extended its jurisdiction with the extension of the empire. It
  was now reduced and confined to the original purpose of its institution.
  Instead of it, a new supreme court of judicature was established,
  consisting of a chief justice and three judges, to be appointed by the
  crown. In Europe, the qualification necessary to entitle a proprietor to
  vote at their general courts was raised, from five hundred pounds, the
  original price of a share in the stock of the company, to a thousand
  pounds. In order to vote upon this qualification, too, it was declared
  necessary, that he should have possessed it, if acquired by his own
  purchase, and not by inheritance, for at least one year, instead of six
  months, the term requisite before. The court of twenty-four directors had
  before been chosen annually; but it was now enacted, that each director
  should, for the future, be chosen for four years; six of them, however, to
  go out of office by rotation every year, and not be capable of being
  re-chosen at the election of the six new directors for the ensuing year.
  In consequence of these alterations, the courts, both of the proprietors
  and directors, it was expected, would be likely to act with more dignity
  and steadiness than they had usually done before. But it seems impossible,
  by any alterations, to render those courts, in any respect, fit to govern,
  or even to share in the government of a great empire; because the greater
  part of their members must always have too little interest in the
  prosperity of that empire, to give any serious attention to what may
  promote it. Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of small
  fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds share in India stock,
  merely for the influence which he expects to aquire by a vote in the court
  of proprietors. It gives him a share, though not in the plunder, yet in
  the appointment of the plunderers of India; the court of directors, though
  they make that appointment, being necessarily more or less under the
  influence of the proprietors, who not only elect those directors, but
  sometimes over-rule the appointments of their servants in India. Provided
  he can enjoy this influence for a few years, and thereby provide for a
  certain number of his friends, he frequently cares little about the
  dividend, or even about the value of the stock upon which his vote is
  founded. About the prosperity of the great empire, in the government of
  which that vote gives him a share, he seldom cares at all. No other
  sovereigns ever were, or, from the nature of things, ever could be, so
  perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their subjects, the
  improvement or waste of their dominions, the glory or disgrace of their
  administration, as, from irresistible moral causes, the greater part of
  the proprietors of such a mercantile company are, and necessarily must be.
  This indifference, too, was more likely to be increased than diminished by
  some of the new regulations which were made in consequence of the
  parliamentary inquiry. By a resolution of the house of commons, for
  example, it was declared, that when the £1,400,000 lent to the company by
  government, should be paid, and their bond-debts be reduced to £1,500,000,
  they might then, and not till then, divide eight per cent. upon their
  capital; and that whatever remained of their revenues and neat profits at
  home should be divided into four parts; three of them to be paid into the
  exchequer for the use of the public, and the fourth to be reserved as a
  fund, either for the further reduction of their bond-debts, or for the
  discharge of other contingent exigencies which the company might labour
  under. But if the company were bad stewards and bad sovereigns, when the
  whole of their neat revenue and profits belonged to themselves, and were
  at their own disposal, they were surely not likely to be better when
  three-fourths of them were to belong to other people, and the other
  fourth, though to be laid out for the benefit of the company, yet to be so
  under the inspection and with the approbation of other people.

  It might be more agreeable to the company, that their own servants and
  dependants should have either the pleasure of wasting, or the profit of
  embezzling, whatever surplus might remain, after paying the proposed
  dividend of eight per cent. than that it should come into the hands of a
  set of people with whom those resolutions could scarce fail to set them in
  some measure at variance. The interest of those servants and dependants
  might so far predominate in the court of proprietors, as sometimes to
  dispose it to support the authors of depredations which had been committed
  in direct violation of its own authority. With the majority of
  proprietors, the support even of the authority of their own court might
  sometimes be a matter of less consequence than the support of those who
  had set that authority at defiance.

  The regulations of 1773, accordingly, did not put an end to the disorder
  of the company’s government in India. Notwithstanding that, during a
  momentary fit of good conduct, they had at one time collected into the
  treasury of Calcutta more than £3,000,000 sterling; notwithstanding that
  they had afterwards extended either their dominion or their depredations
  over a vast accession of some of the richest and most fertile countries in
  India, all was wasted and destroyed. They found themselves altogether
  unprepared to stop or resist the incursion of Hyder Ali; and in
  consequence of those disorders, the company is now (1784) in greater
  distress than ever; and, in order to prevent immediate bankruptcy, is once
  more reduced to supplicate the assistance of government. Different plans
  have been proposed by the different parties in parliament for the better
  management of its affairs; and all those plans seem to agree in supposing,
  what was indeed always abundantly evident, that it is altogether unfit to
  govern its territorial possessions. Even the company itself seems to be
  convinced of its own incapacity so far, and seems, upon that account
  willing to give them up to government.

  With the right of possessing forts and garrisons in distant and barbarous
  countries is necessarily connected the right of making peace and war in
  those countries. The joint-stock companies, which have had the one right,
  have constantly exercised the other, and have frequently had it expressly
  conferred upon them. How unjustly, how capriciously, how cruelly, they
  have commonly exercised it, is too well known from recent experience.

  When a company of merchants undertake, at their own risk and expense, to
  establish a new trade with some remote and barbarous nation, it may not be
  unreasonable to incorporate them into a joint-stock company, and to grant
  them, in case of their success, a monopoly of the trade for a certain
  number of years. It is the easiest and most natural way in which the state
  can recompense them for hazarding a dangerous and expensive experiment, of
  which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit. A temporary monopoly
  of this kind may be vindicated, upon the same principles upon which a like
  monopoly of a new machine is granted to its inventor, and that of a new
  book to its author. But upon the expiration of the term, the monopoly
  ought certainly to determine; the forts and garrisons, if it was found
  necessary to establish any, to be taken into the hands of government,
  their value to be paid to the company, and the trade to be laid open to
  all the subjects of the state. By a perpetual monopoly, all the other
  subjects of the state are taxed very absurdly in two different ways:
  first, by the high price of goods, which, in the case of a free trade,
  they could buy much cheaper; and, secondly, by their total exclusion from
  a branch of business which it might be both convenient and profitable for
  many of them to carry on. It is for the most worthless of all purposes,
  too, that they are taxed in this manner. It is merely to enable the
  company to support the negligence, profusion, and malversation of their
  own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom allows the dividend of the
  company to exceed the ordinary rate of profit in trades which are
  altogether free, and very frequently makes a fall even a good deal short
  of that rate. Without a monopoly, however, a joint-stock company, it would
  appear from experience, cannot long carry on any branch of foreign trade.
  To buy in one market, in order to sell with profit in another, when there
  are many competitors in both; to watch over, not only the occasional
  variations in the demand, but the much greater and more frequent
  variations in the competition, or in the supply which that demand is
  likely to get from other people; and to suit with dexterity and judgment
  both the quantity and quality of each assortment of goods to all these
  circumstances, is a species of warfare, of which the operations are
  continually changing, and which can scarce ever be conducted successfully,
  without such an unremitting exertion of vigilance and attention as cannot
  long be expected from the directors of a joint-stock company. The East
  India company, upon the redemption of their funds, and the expiration of
  their exclusive privilege, have a right, by act of parliament, to continue
  a corporation with a joint stock, and to trade in their corporate capacity
  to the East Indies, in common with the rest of their fellow subjects. But
  in this situation, the superior vigilance and attention of a private
  adventurer would, in all probability, soon make them weary of the trade.

  An eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political
  economy, the Abbe Morellet, gives a list of fifty-five joint-stock
  companies for foreign trade, which have been established in different
  parts of Europe since the year 1600, and which, according to him, have all
  failed from mismanagement, notwithstanding they had exclusive privileges.
  He has been misinformed with regard to the history of two or three of
  them, which were not joint-stock companies and have not failed. But, in
  compensation, there have been several joint-stock companies which have
  failed, and which he has omitted.

  The only trades which it seems possible for a joint-stock company to carry
  on successfully, without an exclusive privilege, are those, of which all
  the operations are capable of being reduced to what is called a routine,
  or to such a uniformity of method as admits of little or no variation. Of
  this kind is, first, the banking trade; secondly, the trade of insurance
  from fire and from sea risk, and capture in time of war; thirdly, the
  trade of making and maintaining a navigable cut or canal; and, fourthly,
  the similar trade of bringing water for the supply of a great city.

  Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse,
  the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon
  any occasion from those rules, in consequence of some flattering
  speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous
  and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it. But the
  constitution of joint-stock companies renders them in general, more
  tenacious of established rules than any private copartnery. Such
  companies, therefore, seem extremely well fitted for this trade. The
  principal banking companies in Europe, accordingly, are joint-stock
  companies, many of which manage their trade very successfully without any
  exclusive privilege. The bank of England has no other exclusive privilege,
  except that no other banking company in England shall consist of more than
  six persons. The two banks of Edinburgh are joint-stock companies, without
  any exclusive privilege.

  The value of the risk, either from fire, or from loss by sea, or by
  capture, though it cannot, perhaps, be calculated very exactly, admits,
  however, of such a gross estimation, as renders it, in some degree,
  reducible to strict rule and method. The trade of insurance, therefore,
  may be carried on successfully by a joint-stock company, without any
  exclusive privilege. Neither the London Assurance, nor the Royal Exchange
  Assurance companies have any such privilege.

  When a navigable cut or canal has been once made, the management of it
  becomes quite simple and easy, and it is reducible to strict rule and
  method. Even the making of it is so, as it may be contracted for with
  undertakers, at so much a mile, and so much a lock. The same thing may be
  said of a canal, an aqueduct, or a great pipe for bringing water to supply
  a great city. Such under-takings, therefore, may be, and accordingly
  frequently are, very successfully managed by joint-stock companies,
  without any exclusive privilege.

  To establish a joint-stock company, however, for any undertaking, merely
  because such a company might be capable of managing it successfully; or,
  to exempt a particular set of dealers from some of the general laws which
  take place with regard to all their neighbours, merely because they might
  be capable of thriving, if they had such an exemption, would certainly not
  be reasonable. To render such an establishment perfectly reasonable, with
  the circumstance of being reducible to strict rule and method, two other
  circumstances ought to concur. First, it ought to appear with the clearest
  evidence, that the undertaking is of greater and more general utility than
  the greater part of common trades; and, secondly, that it requires a
  greater capital than can easily be collected into a private copartnery. If
  a moderate capital were sufficient, the great utility of the undertaking
  would not be a sufficient reason for establishing a joint-stock company;
  because, in this case, the demand for what it was to produce, would
  readily and easily be supplied by private adventurers. In the four trades
  above mentioned, both those circumstances concur.

  The great and general utility of the banking trade, when prudently
  managed, has been fully explained in the second book of this Inquiry. But
  a public bank, which is to support public credit, and, upon particular
  emergencies, to advance to government the whole produce of a tax, to the
  amount, perhaps, of several millions, a year or two before it comes in,
  requires a greater capital than can easily be collected into any private
  copartnery.

  The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private
  people, and, by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin an
  individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society. In order
  to give this security, however, it is necessary that the insurers should
  have a very large capital. Before the establishment of the two joint-stock
  companies for insurance in London, a list, it is said, was laid before the
  attorney-general, of one hundred and fifty private usurers, who had failed
  in the course of a few years.

  That navigable cuts and canals, and the works which are sometimes
  necessary for supplying a great city with water, are of great and general
  utility, while, at the same time, they frequently require a greater
  expense than suits the fortunes of private people, is sufficiently
  obvious.

  Except the four trades above mentioned, I have not been able to recollect
  any other, in which all the three circumstances requisite for rendering
  reasonable the establishment of a joint-stock company concur. The English
  copper company of London, the lead-smelting company, the glass-grinding
  company, have not even the pretext of any great or singular utility in the
  object which they pursue; nor does the pursuit of that object seem to
  require any expense unsuitable to the fortunes of many private men.
  Whether the trade which those companies carry on, is reducible to such
  strict rule and method as to render it fit for the management of a
  joint-stock company, or whether they have any reason to boast of their
  extraordinary profits, I do not pretend to know. The mine-adventurers
  company has been long ago bankrupt. A share in the stock of the British
  Linen company of Edinburgh sells, at present, very much below par, though
  less so than it did some years ago. The joint-stock companies, which are
  established for the public-spirited purpose of promoting some particular
  manufacture, over and above managing their own affairs ill, to the
  diminution of the general stock of the society, can, in other respects,
  scarce ever fail to do more harm than good. Notwithstanding the most
  upright intentions, the unavoidable partiality of their directors to
  particular branches of the manufacture, of which the undertakers mislead
  and impose upon them, is a real discouragement to the rest, and
  necessarily breaks, more or less, that natural proportion which would
  otherwise establish itself between judicious industry and profit, and
  which, to the general industry of the country, is of all encouragements
  the greatest and the most effectual.

  ART. II.—Of the Expense of the Institution for the Education of
  Youth.

  The institutions for the education of the youth may, in the same manner,
  furnish a revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense. The fee or
  honorary, which the scholar pays to the master, naturally constitutes a
  revenue of this kind.

  Even where the reward of the master does not arise altogether from this
  natural revenue, it still is not necessary that it should be derived from
  that general revenue of the society, of which the collection and
  application are, in most countries, assigned to the executive power.
  Through the greater part of Europe, accordingly, the endowment of schools
  and colleges makes either no charge upon that general revenue, or but a
  very small one. It everywhere arises chiefly from some local or provincial
  revenue, from the rent of some landed estate, or from the interest of some
  sum of money, allotted and put under the management of trustees for this
  particular purpose, sometimes by the sovereign himself, and sometimes by
  some private donor.

  Have those public endowments contributed in general, to promote the end of
  their institution? Have they contributed to encourage the diligence, and
  to improve the abilities, of the teachers? Have they directed the course
  of education towards objects more useful, both to the individual and to
  the public, than those to which it would naturally have gone of its own
  accord? It should not seem very difficult to give at least a probable
  answer to each of those questions.

  In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who
  exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of
  making that exertion. This necessity is greatest with those to whom the
  emoluments of their profession are the only source from which they expect
  their fortune, or even their ordinary revenue and subsistence. In order to
  acquire this fortune, or even to get this subsistence, they must, in the
  course of a year, execute a certain quantity of work of a known value;
  and, where the competition is free, the rivalship of competitors, who are
  all endeavouring to justle one another out of employment, obliges every
  man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness.
  The greatness of the objects which are to be acquired by success in some
  particular professions may, no doubt, sometimes animate the exertions of a
  few men of extraordinary spirit and ambition. Great objects, however, are
  evidently not necessary, in order to occasion the greatest exertions.
  Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean professions, an
  object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions.
  Great objects, on the contrary, alone and unsupported by the necessity of
  application, have seldom been sufficient to occasion any considerable
  exertion. In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some
  very great objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy
  fortunes, have ever in this country been eminent in that profession?

  The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished, more
  or less, the necessity of application in the teachers. Their subsistence,
  so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently derived from a fund,
  altogether independent of their success and reputation in their particular
  professions.

  In some universities, the salary makes but a part, and frequently but a
  small part, of the emoluments of the teacher, of which the greater part
  arises from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The necessity of
  application, though always more or less diminished, is not, in this case,
  entirely taken away. Reputation in his profession is still of some
  importance to him, and he still has some dependency upon the affection,
  gratitude, and favourable report of those who have attended upon his
  instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in no
  way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and diligence
  with which he discharges every part of his duty.

  In other universities, the teacher is prohibited from receiving any
  honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of
  the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this
  case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set
  it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can;
  and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or
  does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest,
  at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it
  altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer
  him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that
  authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a lover of labour, it
  is his interest to employ that activity in any way from which he can
  derive some advantage, rather than in the performance of his duty, from
  which he can derive none.

  If the authority to which he is subject resides in the body corporate, the
  college, or university, of which he himself is a member, and in which the
  greater part of the other members are, like himself, persons who either
  are, or ought to be teachers, they are likely to make a common cause, to
  be all very indulgent to one another, and every man to consent that his
  neighbour may neglect his duty, provided he himself is allowed to neglect
  his own. In the university of Oxford, the greater part of the public
  professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the
  pretence of teaching.

  If the authority to which he is subject resides, not so much in the body
  corporate, of which he is a member, as in some other extraneous persons,
  in the bishop of the diocese, for example, in the governor of the
  province, or, perhaps, in some minister of state, it is not, indeed, in
  this case, very likely that he will be suffered to neglect his duty
  altogether. All that such superiors, however, can force him to do, is to
  attend upon his pupils a certain number of hours, that is, to give a
  certain number of lectures in the week, or in the year. What those
  lectures shall be, must still depend upon the diligence of the teacher;
  and that diligence is likely to be proportioned to the motives which he
  has for exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of this kind, besides, is
  liable to be exercised both ignorantly and capriciously. In its nature, it
  is arbitrary and discretionary; and the persons who exercise it, neither
  attending upon the lectures of the teacher themselves, nor perhaps
  understanding the sciences which it is his business to teach, are seldom
  capable of exercising it with judgment. From the insolence of office, too,
  they are frequently indifferent how they exercise it, and are very apt to
  censure or deprive him of his office wantonly and without any just cause.
  The person subject to such jurisdiction is necessarily degraded by it,
  and, instead of being one of the most respectable, is rendered one of the
  meanest and most contemptible persons in the society. It is by powerful
  protection only, that he can effectually guard himself against the bad
  usage to which he is at all times exposed; and this protection he is most
  likely to gain, not by ability or diligence in his profession, but by
  obsequiousness to the will of his superiors, and by being ready, at all
  times, to sacrifice to that will the rights, the interest, and the honour
  of the body corporate, of which he is a member. Whoever has attended for
  any considerable time to the administration of a French university, must
  have had occasion to remark the effects which naturally result from an
  arbitrary and extraneous jurisdiction of this kind.

  Whatever forces a certain number of students to any college or university,
  independent of the merit or reputation of the teachers, tends more or less
  to diminish the necessity of that merit or reputation.

  The privileges of graduates in arts, in law, physic, and divinity, when
  they can be obtained only by residing a certain number of years in certain
  universities, necessarily force a certain number of students to such
  universities, independent of the merit or reputation of the teachers. The
  privileges of graduates are a sort of statutes of apprenticeship, which
  have contributed to the improvement of education just as the other
  statutes of apprenticeship have to that of arts and manufactures.

  The charitable foundations of scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, etc.
  necessarily attach a certain number of students to certain colleges,
  independent altogether of the merit of those particular colleges. Were the
  students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what college
  they liked best, such liberty might perhaps contribute to excite some
  emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary, which
  prohibited even the independent members of every particular college from
  leaving it, and going to any other, without leave first asked and obtained
  of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very much to extinguish
  that emulation.

  If in each college, the tutor or teacher, who was to instruct each student
  in all arts and sciences, should not be voluntarily chosen by the student,
  but appointed by the head of the college; and if, in case of neglect,
  inability, or bad usage, the student should not be allowed to change him
  for another, without leave first asked and obtained; such a regulation
  would not only tend very much to extinguish all emulation among the
  different tutors of the same college, but to diminish very much, in all of
  them, the necessity of diligence and of attention to their respective
  pupils. Such teachers, though very well paid by their students, might be
  as much disposed to neglect them, as those who are not paid by them at all
  or who have no other recompense but their salary.

  If the teacher happens to be a man of sense, it must be an unpleasant
  thing to him to be conscious, while he is lecturing to his students, that
  he is either speaking or reading nonsense, or what is very little better
  than nonsense. It must, too, be unpleasant to him to observe, that the
  greater part of his students desert his lectures; or perhaps, attend upon
  them with plain enough marks of neglect, contempt, and derision. If he is
  obliged, therefore, to give a certain number of lectures, these motives
  alone, without any other interest, might dispose him to take some pains to
  give tolerably good ones. Several different expedients, however, may be
  fallen upon, which will effectually blunt the edge of all those
  incitements to diligence. The teacher, instead of explaining to his pupils
  himself the science in which he proposes to instruct them, may read some
  book upon it; and if this book is written in a foreign and dead language,
  by interpreting it to them into their own, or, what would give him still
  less trouble, by making them interpret it to him, and by now and then
  making an occasional remark upon it, he may flatter himself that he is
  giving a lecture. The slightest degree of knowledge and application will
  enable him to do this, without exposing himself to contempt or derision,
  by saying any thing that is really foolish, absurd, or ridiculous. The
  discipline of the college, at the same time, may enable him to force all
  his pupils to the most regular attendance upon his sham lecture, and to
  maintain the most decent and respectful behaviour during the whole time of
  the performance.

  The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not
  for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or, more properly
  speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to
  maintain the authority of the master, and, whether he neglects or performs
  his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him as if he
  performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume
  perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and
  folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really perform their duty,
  there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students
  ever neglect theirs. No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance
  upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known
  wherever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt,
  be in some degree requisite, in order to oblige children, or very young
  boys, to attend to those parts of education, which it is thought necessary
  for them to acquire during that early period of life; but after twelve or
  thirteen years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or
  restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any part of education.
  Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that so far from
  being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master,
  provided he shews some serious intention of being of use to them, they are
  generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the
  performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a
  good deal of gross negligence.

  Those parts of education, it is to be observed, for the teaching of which
  there are no public institutions, are generally the best taught. When a
  young man goes to a fencing or a dancing school, he does not, indeed,
  always learn to fence or to dance very well; but he seldom fails of
  learning to fence or to dance. The good effects of the riding school are
  not commonly so evident. The expense of a riding school is so great, that
  in most places it is a public institution. The three most essential parts
  of literary education, to read, write, and account, it still continues to
  be more common to acquire in private than in public schools; and it very
  seldom happens, that anybody fails of acquiring them to the degree in
  which it is necessary to acquire them.

  In England, the public schools are much less corrupted than the
  universities. In the schools, the youth are taught, or at least may be
  taught, Greek and Latin; that is, everything which the masters pretend to
  teach, or which it is expected they should teach. In the universities, the
  youth neither are taught, nor always can find any proper means of being
  taught the sciences, which it is the business of those incorporated bodies
  to teach. The reward of the schoolmaster, in most cases, depends
  principally, in some cases almost entirely, upon the fees or honoraries of
  his scholars. Schools have no exclusive privileges. In order to obtain the
  honours of graduation, it is not necessary that a person should bring a
  certificate of his having studied a certain number of years at a public
  school. If, upon examination, he appears to understand what is taught
  there, no questions are asked about the place where he learnt it.

  The parts of education which are commonly taught in universities, it may
  perhaps be said, are not very well taught. But had it not been for those
  institutions, they would not have been commonly taught at all; and both
  the individual and the public would have suffered a good deal from the
  want of those important parts of education.

  The present universities of Europe were originally, the greater part of
  them, ecclesiastical corporations, instituted for the education of
  churchmen. They were founded by the authority of the pope; and were so
  entirely under his immediate protection, that their members, whether
  masters or students, had all of them what was then called the benefit of
  clergy, that is, were exempted from the civil jurisdiction of the
  countries in which their respective universities were situated, and were
  amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals. What was taught in the
  greater part of those universities was suitable to the end of their
  institution, either theology, or something that was merely preparatory to
  theology.

  When Christianity was first established by law, a corrupted Latin had
  become the common language of all the western parts of Europe. The service
  of the church, accordingly, and the translation of the Bible which were
  read in churches, were both in that corrupted Latin; that is, in the
  common language of the country, After the irruption of the barbarous
  nations who overturned the Roman empire, Latin gradually ceased to be the
  language of any part of Europe. But the reverence of the people naturally
  preserves the established forms and ceremonies of religion long after the
  circumstances which first introduced and rendered them reasonable, are no
  more. Though Latin, therefore, was no longer understood anywhere by the
  great body of the people, the whole service of the church still continued
  to be performed in that language. Two different languages were thus
  established in Europe, in the same manner as in ancient Egypt: a language
  of the priests, and a language of the people; a sacred and a profane, a
  learned and an unlearned language. But it was necessary that the priests
  should understand something of that sacred and learned language in which
  they were to officiate; and the study of the Latin language therefore
  made, from the beginning, an essential part of university education.

  It was not so with that either of the Greek or of the Hebrew language. The
  infallible decrees of the church had pronounced the Latin translation of
  the Bible, commonly called the Latin Vulgate, to have been equally
  dictated by divine inspiration, and therefore of equal authority with the
  Greek and Hebrew originals. The knowledge of those two languages,
  therefore, not being indispensably requisite to a churchman, the study of
  them did not for a long time make a necessary part of the common course of
  university education. There are some Spanish universities, I am assured,
  in which the study of the Greek language has never yet made any part of
  that course. The first reformers found the Greek text of the New
  Testament, and even the Hebrew text of the Old, more favourable to their
  opinions than the vulgate translation, which, as might naturally be
  supposed, had been gradually accommodated to support the doctrines of the
  Catholic Church. They set themselves, therefore, to expose the many errors
  of that translation, which the Roman catholic clergy were thus put under
  the necessity of defending or explaining. But this could not well be done
  without some knowledge of the original languages, of which the study was
  therefore gradually introduced into the greater part of universities; both
  of those which embraced, and of those which rejected, the doctrines of the
  reformation. The Greek language was connected with every part of that
  classical learning, which, though at first principally cultivated by
  catholics and Italians, happened to come into fashion much about the same
  time that the doctrines of the reformation were set on foot. In the
  greater part of universities, therefore, that language was taught previous
  to the study of philosophy, and as soon as the student had made some
  progress in the Latin. The Hebrew language having no connection with
  classical learning, and, except the Holy Scriptures, being the language of
  not a single book in any esteem the study of it did not commonly commence
  till after that of philosophy, and when the student had entered upon the
  study of theology.

  Originally, the first rudiments, both of the Greek and Latin languages,
  were taught in universities; and in some universities they still continue
  to be so. In others, it is expected that the student should have
  previously acquired, at least, the rudiments of one or both of those
  languages, of which the study continues to make everywhere a very
  considerable part of university education.

  The ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches;
  physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic.
  This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things.

  The great phenomena of nature, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies,
  eclipses, comets; thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary meteors;
  the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals;
  are objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so they
  naturally call forth the curiosity of mankind to inquire into their
  causes. Superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by
  referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the
  gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them from more
  familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with, than
  the agency of the gods. As those great phenomena are the first objects of
  human curiosity, so the science which pretends to explain them must
  naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was cultivated.
  The first philosophers, accordingly, of whom history has preserved any
  account, appear to have been natural philosophers.

  In every age and country of the world, men must have attended to the
  characters, designs, and actions of one another; and many reputable rules
  and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down and
  approved of by common consent. As soon as writing came into fashion, wise
  men, or those who fancied themselves such, would naturally endeavour to
  increase the number of those established and respected maxims, and to
  express their own sense of what was either proper or improper conduct,
  sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues, like what are called
  the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more simple one of apophthegms
  or wise sayings, like the proverbs of Solomon, the verses of Theognis and
  Phocyllides, and some part of the works of Hesiod. They might continue in
  this manner, for a long time, merely to multiply the number of those
  maxims of prudence and morality, without even attempting to arrange them
  in any very distinct or methodical order, much less to connect them
  together by one or more general principles, from which they were all
  deducible, like effects from their natural causes. The beauty of a
  systematical arrangement of different observations, connected by a few
  common principles, was first seen in the rude essays of those ancient
  times towards a system of natural philosophy. Something of the same kind
  was afterwards attempted in morals. The maxims of common life were
  arranged in some methodical order, and connected together by a few common
  principles, in the same manner as they had attempted to arrange and
  connect the phenomena of nature. The science which pretends to investigate
  and explain those connecting principles, is what is properly called Moral
  Philosophy.

  Different authors gave different systems, both of natural and moral
  philosophy. But the arguments by which they supported those different
  systems, far from being always demonstrations, were frequently at best but
  very slender probabilities, and sometimes mere sophisms, which had no
  other foundation but the inaccuracy and ambiguity of common language.
  Speculative systems, have, in all ages of the world, been adopted for
  reasons too frivolous to have determined the judgment of any man of common
  sense, in a matter of the smallest pecuniary interest. Gross sophistry has
  scarce ever had any influence upon the opinions of mankind, except in
  matters of philosophy and speculation; and in these it has frequently had
  the greatest. The patrons of each system of natural and moral philosophy,
  naturally endeavoured to expose the weakness of the arguments adduced to
  support the systems which were opposite to their own. In examining those
  arguments, they were necessarily led to consider the difference between a
  probable and a demonstrative argument, between a fallacious and a
  conclusive one; and logic, or the science of the general principles of
  good and bad reasoning, necessarily arose out of the observations which a
  scrutiny of this kind gave occasion to; though, in its origin, posterior
  both to physics and to ethics, it was commonly taught, not indeed in all,
  but in the greater part of the ancient schools of philosophy, previously
  to either of those sciences. The student, it seems to have been thought,
  ought to understand well the difference between good and bad reasoning,
  before he was led to reason upon subjects of so great importance.

  This ancient division of philosophy into three parts was, in the greater
  part of the universities of Europe, changed for another into five.

  In the ancient philosophy, whatever was taught concerning the nature
  either of the human mind or of the Deity, made a part of the system of
  physics. Those beings, in whatever their essence might be supposed to
  consist, were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts, too,
  productive of the most important effects. Whatever human reason could
  either conclude or conjecture concerning them, made, as it were, two
  chapters, though no doubt two very important ones, of the science which
  pretended to give an account of the origin and revolutions of the great
  system of the universe. But in the universities of Europe, where
  philosophy was taught only as subservient to theology, it was natural to
  dwell longer upon these two chapters than upon any other of the science.
  They were gradually more and more extended, and were divided into many
  inferior chapters; till at last the doctrine of spirits, of which so
  little can be known, came to take up as much room in the system of
  philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, of which so much can be known. The
  doctrines concerning those two subjects were considered as making two
  distinct sciences. What are called metaphysics, or pneumatics, were set in
  opposition to physics, and were cultivated not only as the more sublime,
  but, for the purposes of a particular profession, as the more useful
  science of the two. The proper subject of experiment and observation, a
  subject in which a careful attention is capable of making so many useful
  discoveries, was almost entirely neglected. The subject in which, after a
  very few simple and almost obvious truths, the most careful attention can
  discover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty, and can consequently
  produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was greatly cultivated.

  When those two sciences had thus been set in opposition to one another,
  the comparison between them naturally gave birth to a third, to what was
  called ontology, or the science which treated of the qualities and
  attributes which were common to both the subjects of the other two
  sciences. But if subtleties and sophisms composed the greater part of the
  metaphysics or pneumatics of the schools, they composed the whole of this
  cobweb science of ontology, which was likewise sometimes called
  metaphysics.

  Wherein consisted the happiness and perfection of a man, considered not
  only as an individual, but as the member of a family, of a state, and of
  the great society of mankind, was the object which the ancient moral
  philosophy proposed to investigate. In that philosophy, the duties of
  human life were treated of as subservient to the happiness and perfection
  of human life, But when moral, as well as natural philosophy, came to be
  taught only as subservient to theology, the duties of human life were
  treated of as chiefly subservient to the happiness of a life to come. In
  the ancient philosophy, the perfection of virtue was represented as
  necessarily productive, to the person who possessed it, of the most
  perfect happiness in this life. In the modern philosophy, it was
  frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always,
  inconsistent with any degree of happiness in this life; and heaven was to
  be earned only by penance and mortification, by the austerities and
  abasement of a monk, not by the liberal, generous, and spirited conduct of
  a man. Casuistry, and an ascetic morality, made up, in most cases, the
  greater part of the moral philosophy of the schools. By far the most
  important of all the different branches of philosophy became in this
  manner by far the most corrupted.

  Such, therefore, was the common course of philosophical education in the
  greater part of the universities in Europe. Logic was taught first;
  ontology came in the second place; pneumatology, comprehending the
  doctrine concerning the nature of the human soul and of the Deity, in the
  third; in the fourth followed a debased system of moral philosophy, which
  was considered as immediately connected with the doctrines of
  pneumatology, with the immortality of the human soul, and with the rewards
  and punishments which, from the justice of the Deity, were to be expected
  in a life to come: a short and superficial system of physics usually
  concluded the course.

  The alterations which the universities of Europe thus introduced into the
  ancient course of philosophy were all meant for the education of
  ecclesiastics, and to render it a more proper introduction to the study of
  theology. But the additional quantity of subtlety and sophistry, the
  casuistry and ascetic morality which those alterations introduced into it,
  certainly did not render it more for the education of gentlemen or men of
  the world, or more likely either to improve the understanding or to mend
  the heart.

  This course of philosophy is what still continues to be taught in the
  greater part of the universities of Europe, with more or less diligence,
  according as the constitution of each particular university happens to
  render diligence more or less necessary to the teachers. In some of the
  richest and best endowed universities, the tutors content themselves with
  teaching a few unconnected shreds and parcels of this corrupted course;
  and even these they commonly teach very negligently and superficially.

  The improvements which, in modern times have been made in several
  different branches of philosophy, have not, the greater part of them, been
  made in universities, though some, no doubt, have. The greater part of
  universities have not even been very forward to adopt those improvements
  after they were made; and several of those learned societies have chosen
  to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems and
  obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, after they had been
  hunted out of every other corner of the world. In general, the richest and
  best endowed universities have been slowest in adopting those
  improvements, and the most averse to permit any considerable change in the
  established plan of education. Those improvements were more easily
  introduced into some of the poorer universities, in which the teachers,
  depending upon their reputation for the greater part of their subsistence,
  were obliged to pay more attention to the current opinions of the world.

  But though the public schools and universities of Europe were originally
  intended only for the education of a particular profession, that of
  churchmen; and though they were not always very diligent in instructing
  their pupils, even in the sciences which were supposed necessary for that
  profession; yet they gradually drew to themselves the education of almost
  all other people, particularly of almost all gentlemen and men of fortune.
  No better method, it seems, could be fallen upon, of spending, with any
  advantage, the long interval between infancy and that period of life at
  which men begin to apply in good earnest to the real business of the
  world, the business which is to employ them during the remainder of their
  days. The greater part of what is taught in schools and universities,
  however, does not seem to be the most proper preparation for that
  business.

  In England, it becomes every day more and more the custom to send young
  people to travel in foreign countries immediately upon their leaving
  school, and without sending them to any university. Our young people, it
  is said, generally return home much improved by their travels. A young
  man, who goes abroad at seventeen or eighteen, and returns home at
  one-and-twenty, returns three or four years older than he was when he went
  abroad; and at that age it is very difficult not to improve a good deal in
  three or four years. In the course of his travels, he generally acquires
  some knowledge of one or two foreign languages; a knowledge, however,
  which is seldom sufficient to enable him either to speak or write them
  with propriety. In other respects, he commonly returns home more
  conceited, more unprincipled, more dissipated, and more incapable of any
  serious application, either to study or to business, than he could well
  have become in so short a time had he lived at home. By travelling so very
  young, by spending in the most frivolous dissipation the most precious
  years of his life, at a distance from the inspection and control of his
  parents and relations, every useful habit, which the earlier parts of his
  education might have had some tendency to form in him, instead of being
  riveted and confirmed, is almost necessarily either weakened or effaced.
  Nothing but the discredit into which the universities are allowing
  themselves to fall, could ever have brought into repute so very absurd a
  practice as that of travelling at this early period of life. By sending
  his son abroad, a father delivers himself, at least for some time, from so
  disagreeable an object as that of a son unemployed, neglected, and going
  to ruin before his eyes.

  Such have been the effects of some of the modern institutions for
  education.

  Different plans and different institutions for education seem to have
  taken place in other ages and nations.

  In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen was instructed,
  under the direction of the public magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and
  in music. By gymnastic exercises, it was intended to harden his body, to
  sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of
  war; and as the Greek militia was, by all accounts, one of the best that
  ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have
  answered completely the purpose for which it was intended. By the other
  part, music, it was proposed, at least by the philosophers and historians,
  who have given us an account of those institutions, to humanize the mind,
  to soften the temper, and to dispose it for performing all the social and
  moral duties of public and private life.

  In ancient Rome, the exercises of the Campus Martius answered the same
  purpose as those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece, and they seem to have
  answered it equally well. But among the Romans there was nothing which
  corresponded to the musical education of the Greeks. The morals of the
  Romans, however, both in private and public life, seem to have been, not
  only equal, but, upon the whole, a good deal superior to those of the
  Greeks. That they were superior in private life, we have the express
  testimony of Polybius, and of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, two authors well
  acquainted with both nations; and the whole tenor of the Greek and Roman
  history bears witness to the superiority of the public morals of the
  Romans. The good temper and moderation of contending factions seem to be
  the most essential circumstances in the public morals of a free people.
  But the factions of the Greeks were almost always violent and sanguinary;
  whereas, till the time of the Gracchi, no blood had ever been shed in any
  Roman faction; and from the time of the Gracchi, the Roman republic may be
  considered as in reality dissolved. Notwithstanding, therefore, the very
  respectable authority of Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius, and
  notwithstanding the very ingenious reasons by which Mr Montesquieu
  endeavours to support that authority, it seems probable that the musical
  education of the Greeks had no great effect in mending their morals,
  since, without any such education, those of the Romans were, upon the
  whole, superior. The respect of those ancient sages for the institutions
  of their ancestors had probably disposed them to find much political
  wisdom in what was, perhaps, merely an ancient custom, continued, without
  interruption, from the earliest period of those societies, to the times in
  which they had arrived at a considerable degree of refinement. Music and
  dancing are the great amusements of almost all barbarous nations, and the
  great accomplishments which are supposed to fit any man for entertaining
  his society. It is so at this day among the negroes on the coast of
  Africa. It was so among the ancient Celtes, among the ancient
  Scandinavians, and, as we may learn from Homer, among the ancient Greeks,
  in the times preceding the Trojan war. When the Greek tribes had formed
  themselves into little republics, it was natural that the study of those
  accomplishments should for a long time make a part of the public and
  common education of the people.

  The masters who instructed the young people, either in music or in
  military exercises, do not seem to have been paid, or even appointed by
  the state, either in Rome or even at Athens, the Greek republic of whose
  laws and customs we are the best informed. The state required that every
  free citizen should fit himself for defending it in war, and should upon
  that account, learn his military exercises. But it left him to learn them
  of such masters as he could find; and it seems to have advanced nothing
  for this purpose, but a public field or place of exercise, in which he
  should practise and perform them.

  In the early ages, both of the Greek and Roman republics, the other parts
  of education seem to have consisted in learning to read, write, and
  account, according to the arithmetic of the times. These accomplishments
  the richer citizens seem frequently to have acquired at home, by the
  assistance of some domestic pedagogue, who was, generally, either a slave
  or a freedman; and the poorer citizens in the schools of such masters as
  made a trade of teaching for hire. Such parts of education, however, were
  abandoned altogether to the care of the parents or guardians of each
  individual. It does not appear that the state ever assumed any inspection
  or direction of them. By a law of Solon, indeed, the children were
  acquitted from maintaining those parents who had neglected to instruct
  them in some profitable trade or business.

  In the progress of refinement, when philosophy and rhetoric came into
  fashion, the better sort of people used to send their children to the
  schools of philosophers and rhetoricians, in order to be instructed in
  these fashionable sciences. But those schools were not supported by the
  public. They were, for a long time, barely tolerated by it. The demand for
  philosophy and rhetoric was, for a long time, so small, that the first
  professed teachers of either could not find constant employment in any one
  city, but were obliged to travel about from place to place. In this manner
  lived Zeno of Elea, Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and many others. As the
  demand increased, the school, both of philosophy and rhetoric, became
  stationary, first in Athens, and afterwards in several other cities. The
  state, however, seems never to have encouraged them further, than by
  assigning to some of them a particular place to teach in, which was
  sometimes done, too, by private donors. The state seems to have assigned
  the Academy to Plato, the Lyceum to Aristotle, and the Portico to Zeno of
  Citta, the founder of the Stoics. But Epicurus bequeathed his gardens to
  his own school. Till about the time of Marcus Antoninus, however, no
  teacher appears to have had any salary from the public, or to have had any
  other emoluments, but what arose from the honoraries or fees of his
  scholars. The bounty which that philosophical emperor, as we learn from
  Lucian, bestowed upon one of the teachers of philosophy, probably lasted
  no longer than his own life. There was nothing equivalent to the
  privileges of graduation; and to have attended any of those schools was
  not necessary, in order to be permitted to practise any particular trade
  or profession. If the opinion of their own utility could not draw scholars
  to them, the law neither forced anybody to go to them, nor rewarded
  anybody for having gone to them. The teachers had no jurisdiction over
  their pupils, nor any other authority besides that natural authority which
  superior virtue and abilities never fail to procure from young people
  towards those who are entrusted with any part of their education.

  At Rome, the study of the civil law made a part of the education, not of
  the greater part of the citizens, but of some particular families. The
  young people, however, who wished to acquire knowledge in the law, had no
  public school to go to, and had no other method of studying it, than by
  frequenting the company of such of their relations and friends as were
  supposed to understand it. It is, perhaps, worth while to remark, that
  though the laws of the twelve tables were many of them copied from those
  of some ancient Greek republics, yet law never seems to have grown up to
  be a science in any republic of ancient Greece. In Rome it became a
  science very early, and gave a considerable degree of illustration to
  those citizens who had the reputation of understanding it. In the
  republics of ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, the ordinary courts
  of justice consisted of numerous, and therefore disorderly, bodies of
  people, who frequently decided almost at random, or as clamour, faction,
  and party-spirit, happened to determine. The ignominy of an unjust
  decision, when it was to be divided among five hundred, a thousand, or
  fifteen hundred people (for some of their courts were so very numerous),
  could not fall very heavy upon any individual. At Rome, on the contrary,
  the principal courts of justice consisted either of a single judge, or of
  a small number of judges, whose characters, especially as they deliberated
  always in public, could not fail to be very much affected by any rash or
  unjust decision. In doubtful cases such courts, from their anxiety to
  avoid blame, would naturally endeavour to shelter themselves under the
  example or precedent of the judges who had sat before them, either in the
  same or in some other court. This attention to practice and precedent,
  necessarily formed the Roman law into that regular and orderly system in
  which it has been delivered down to us; and the like attention has had the
  like effects upon the laws of every other country where such attention has
  taken place. The superiority of character in the Romans over that of the
  Greeks, so much remarked by Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was
  probably more owing to the better constitution of their courts of justice,
  than to any of the circumstances to which those authors ascribe it. The
  Romans are said to have been particularly distinguished for their superior
  respect to an oath. But the people who were accustomed to make oath only
  before some diligent and well informed court of justice, would naturally
  be much more attentive to what they swore, than they who were accustomed
  to do the same thing before mobbish and disorderly assemblies.

  The abilities, both civil and military, of the Greeks and Romans, will
  readily be allowed to have been at least equal to those of any modern
  nation. Our prejudice is perhaps rather to overrate them. But except in
  what related to military exercises, the state seems to have been at no
  pains to form those great abilities; for I cannot be induced to believe
  that the musical education of the Greeks could be of much consequence in
  forming them. Masters, however, had been found, it seems, for instructing
  the better sort of people among those nations, in every art and science in
  which the circumstances of their society rendered it necessary or
  convenient for them to be instructed. The demand for such instruction
  produced, what it always produces, the talent for giving it; and the
  emulation which an unrestrained competition never fails to excite, appears
  to have brought that talent to a very high degree of perfection. In the
  attention which the ancient philosophers excited, in the empire which they
  acquired over the opinions and principles of their auditors, in the
  faculty which they possessed of giving a certain tone and character to the
  conduct and conversation of those auditors, they appear to have been much
  superior to any modern teachers. In modern times, the diligence of public
  teachers is more or less corrupted by the circumstances which render them
  more or less independent of their success and reputation in their
  particular professions. Their salaries, too, put the private teacher, who
  would pretend to come into competition with them, in the same state with a
  merchant who attempts to trade without a bounty, in competition with those
  who trade with a considerable one. If he sells his goods at nearly the
  same price, he cannot have the same profit; and poverty and beggary at
  least, if not bankruptcy and ruin, will infallibly be his lot. If he
  attempts to sell them much dearer, he is likely to have so few customers,
  that his circumstances will not be much mended. The privileges of
  graduation, besides, are in many countries necessary, or at least
  extremely convenient, to most men of learned professions, that is, to the
  far greater part of those who have occasion for a learned education. But
  those privileges can be obtained only by attending the lectures of the
  public teachers. The most careful attendance upon the ablest instructions
  of any private teacher cannot always give any title to demand them. It is
  from these different causes that the private teacher of any of the
  sciences, which are commonly taught in universities, is, in modern times,
  generally considered as in the very lowest order of men of letters. A man
  of real abilities can scarce find out a more humiliating or a more
  unprofitable employment to turn them to. The endowments of schools and
  colleges have in this manner not only corrupted the diligence of public
  teachers, but have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private
  ones.

  Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science,
  would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the
  circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary or
  convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could
  never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated
  system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally
  believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense.
  Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated
  societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are in a great
  measure independent of their industry. Were there no public institutions
  for education, a gentleman, after going through, with application and
  abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances
  of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world
  completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of
  conversation among gentlemen and men of the world.

  There are no public institutions for the education of women, and there is
  accordingly nothing useless, absurd, or fantastical, in the common course
  of their education. They are taught what their parents or guardians judge
  it necessary or useful for them to learn, and they are taught nothing
  else. Every part of their education tends evidently to some useful
  purpose; either to improve the natural attractions of their person, or to
  form their mind to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, and to economy; to
  render them both likely to became the mistresses of a family, and to
  behave properly when they have become such. In every part of her life, a
  woman feels some conveniency or advantage from every part of her
  education. It seldom happens that a man, in any part of his life, derives
  any conveniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and
  troublesome parts of his education.

  Ought the public, therefore, to give no attention, it may be asked, to the
  education of the people? Or, if it ought to give any, what are the
  different parts of education which it ought to attend to in the different
  orders of the people? and in what manner ought it to attend to them?

  In some cases, the state of society necessarily places the greater part of
  individuals in such situations as naturally form in them, without any
  attention of government, almost all the abilities and virtues which that
  state requires, or perhaps can admit of. In other cases, the state of the
  society does not place the greater part of individuals in such situations;
  and some attention of government is necessary, in order to prevent the
  almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of the people.

  In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far
  greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of
  the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations;
  frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of
  men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose
  whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the
  effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no
  occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in
  finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He
  naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally
  becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to
  become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing
  or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any
  generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just
  judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of
  the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether
  incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have been taken to
  render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in
  war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage
  of his mind, and makes him regard, with abhorrence, the irregular,
  uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the
  activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength
  with vigour and perseverance in any other employment, than that to which
  he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this
  manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and
  martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society, this is the
  state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the
  people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to
  prevent it.

  It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called,
  of hunters, of shepherds, and even of husbandmen in that rude state of
  husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures, and the
  extension of foreign commerce. In such societies, the varied occupations
  of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity, and to invent
  expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring.
  Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that
  drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the
  understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those
  barbarous societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been
  observed, is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some measure a statesman,
  and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the society,
  and the conduct of those who govern it. How far their chiefs are good
  judges in peace, or good leaders in war, is obvious to the observation of
  almost every single man among them. In such a society, indeed, no man can
  well acquire that improved and refined understanding which a few men
  sometimes possess in a more civilized state. Though in a rude society
  there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every individual,
  there is not a great deal in those of the whole society. Every man does,
  or is capable of doing, almost every thing which any other man does, or is
  capable of being. Every man has a considerable degree of knowledge,
  ingenuity, and invention but scarce any man has a great degree. The
  degree, however, which is commonly possessed, is generally sufficient for
  conducting the whole simple business of the society. In a civilized state,
  on the contrary, though there is little variety in the occupations of the
  greater part of individuals, there is an almost infinite variety in those
  of the whole society. These varied occupations present an almost infinite
  variety of objects to the contemplation of those few, who, being attached
  to no particular occupation themselves, have leisure and inclination to
  examine the occupations of other people. The contemplation of so great a
  variety of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless
  comparisons and combinations, and renders their understandings, in an
  extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. Unless those few,
  however, happen to be placed in some very particular situations, their
  great abilities, though honourable to themselves, may contribute very
  little to the good government or happiness of their society.
  Notwithstanding the great abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of
  the human character may be, in a great measure, obliterated and
  extinguished in the great body of the people.

  The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and
  commercial society, the attention of the public, more than that of people
  of some rank and fortune. People of some rank and fortune are generally
  eighteen or nineteen years of age before they enter upon that particular
  business, profession, or trade, by which they propose to distinguish
  themselves in the world. They have, before that, full time to acquire, or
  at least to fit themselves for afterwards acquiring, every accomplishment
  which can recommend them to the public esteem, or render them worthy of
  it. Their parents or guardians are generally sufficiently anxious that
  they should be so accomplished, and are in most cases, willing enough to
  lay out the expense which is necessary for that purpose. If they are not
  always properly educated, it is seldom from the want of expense laid out
  upon their education, but from the improper application of that expense.
  It is seldom from the want of masters, but from the negligence and
  incapacity of the masters who are to be had, and from the difficulty, or
  rather from the impossibility, which there is, in the present state of
  things, of finding any better. The employments, too, in which people of
  some rank or fortune spend the greater part of their lives, are not, like
  those of the common people, simple and uniform. They are almost all of
  them extremely complicated, and such as exercise the head more than the
  hands. The understandings of those who are engaged in such employments,
  can seldom grow torpid for want of exercise. The employments of people of
  some rank and fortune, besides, are seldom such as harass them from
  morning to night. They generally have a good deal of leisure, during which
  they may perfect themselves in every branch, either of useful or
  ornamental knowledge, of which they may have laid the foundation, or for
  which they may have acquired some taste in the earlier part of life.

  It is otherwise with the common people. They have little time to spare for
  education. Their parents can scarce afford to maintain them, even in
  infancy. As soon as they are able to work, they must apply to some trade,
  by which they can earn their subsistence. That trade, too, is generally so
  simple and uniform, as to give little exercise to the understanding;
  while, at the same time, their labour is both so constant and so severe,
  that it leaves them little leisure and less inclination to apply to, or
  even to think of any thing else.

  But though the common people cannot, in any civilized society, be so well
  instructed as people of some rank and fortune; the most essential parts of
  education, however, to read, write, and account, can be acquired at so
  early a period of life, that the greater part, even of those who are to be
  bred to the lowest occupations, have time to acquire them before they can
  be employed in those occupations. For a very small expense, the public can
  facilitate, can encourage and can even impose upon almost the whole body
  of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of
  education.

  The public can facilitate this acquisition, by establishing in every
  parish or district a little school, where children maybe taught for a
  reward so moderate, that even a common labourer may afford it; the master
  being partly, but not wholly, paid by the public; because, if he was
  wholly, or even principally, paid by it, he would soon learn to neglect
  his business. In Scotland, the establishment of such parish schools has
  taught almost the whole common people to read, and a very great proportion
  of them to write and account. In England, the establishment of charity
  schools has had an effect of the same kind, though not so universally,
  because the establishment is not so universal. If, in those little
  schools, the books by which the children are taught to read, were a little
  more instructive than they commonly are; and if, instead of a little
  smattering in Latin, which the children of the common people are sometimes
  taught there, and which can scarce ever be of any use to them, they were
  instructed in the elementary parts of geometry and mechanics; the literary
  education of this rank of people would, perhaps, be as complete as can be.
  There is scarce a common trade, which does not afford some opportunities
  of applying to it the principles of geometry and mechanics, and which
  would not, therefore, gradually exercise and improve the common people in
  those principles, the necessary introduction to the most sublime, as well
  as to the most useful sciences.

  The public can encourage the acquisition of those most essential parts of
  education, by giving small premiums, and little badges of distinction, to
  the children of the common people who excel in them.

  The public can impose upon almost the whole body of the people the
  necessity of acquiring the most essential parts of education, by obliging
  every man to undergo an examination or probation in them, before he can
  obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to set up any trade,
  either in a village or town corporate.

  It was in this manner, by facilitating the acquisition of their military
  and gymnastic exercises, by encouraging it, and even by imposing upon the
  whole body of the people the necessity of learning those exercises, that
  the Greek and Roman republics maintained the martial spirit of their
  respective citizens. They facilitated the acquisition of those exercises,
  by appointing a certain place for learning and practising them, and by
  granting to certain masters the privilege of teaching in that place. Those
  masters do not appear to have had either salaries or exclusive privileges
  of any kind. Their reward consisted altogether in what they got from their
  scholars; and a citizen, who had learnt his exercises in the public
  gymnasia, had no sort of legal advantage over one who had learnt them
  privately, provided the latter had learned them equally well. Those
  republics encouraged the acquisition of those exercises, by bestowing
  little premiums and badges of distinction upon those who excelled in them.
  To have gained a prize in the Olympic, Isthmian, or Nemaean games, gave
  illustration, not only to the person who gained it, but to his whole
  family and kindred. The obligation which every citizen was under, to serve
  a certain number of years, if called upon, in the armies of the republic,
  sufficiently imposed the necessity of learning those exercises, without
  which he could not be fit for that service.

  That in the progress of improvement, the practice of military exercises,
  unless government takes proper pains to support it, goes gradually to
  decay, and, together with it, the martial spirit of the great body of the
  people, the example of modern Europe sufficiently demonstrates. But the
  security of every society must always depend, more or less, upon the
  martial spirit of the great body of the people. In the present times,
  indeed, that martial spirit alone, and unsupported by a well-disciplined
  standing army, would not, perhaps, be sufficient for the defence and
  security of any society. But where every citizen had the spirit of a
  soldier, a smaller standing army would surely be requisite. That spirit,
  besides, would necessarily diminish very much the dangers to liberty,
  whether real or imaginary, which are commonly apprehended from a standing
  army. As it would very much facilitate the operations of that army against
  a foreign invader; so it would obstruct them as much, if unfortunately
  they should ever be directed against the constitution of the state.

  The ancient institutions of Greece and Rome seem to have been much more
  effectual for maintaining the martial spirit of the great body of the
  people, than the establishment of what are called the militias of modern
  times. They were much more simple. When they were once established, they
  executed themselves, and it required little or no attention from
  government to maintain them in the most perfect vigour. Whereas to
  maintain, even in tolerable execution, the complex regulations of any
  modern militia, requires the continual and painful attention of
  government, without which they are constantly falling into total neglect
  and disuse. The influence, besides, of the ancient institutions, was much
  more universal. By means of them, the whole body of the people was
  completely instructed in the use of arms; whereas it is but a very small
  part of them who can ever be so instructed by the regulations of any
  modern militia, except, perhaps, that of Switzerland. But a coward, a man
  incapable either of defending or of revenging himself, evidently wants one
  of the most essential parts of the character of a man. He is as much
  mutilated and deformed in his mind as another is in his body, who is
  either deprived of some of its most essential members, or has lost the use
  of them. He is evidently the more wretched and miserable of the two;
  because happiness and misery, which reside altogether in the mind, must
  necessarily depend more upon the healthful or unhealthful, the mutilated
  or entire state of the mind, than upon that of the body. Even though the
  martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the defence of the
  society, yet, to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and
  wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading
  themselves through the great body of the people, would still deserve the
  most serious attention of government; in the same manner as it would
  deserve its most serious attention to prevent a leprosy, or any other
  loathsome and offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from
  spreading itself among them; though, perhaps, no other public good might
  result from such attention, besides the prevention of so great a public
  evil.

  The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which, in
  a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings of
  all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of the
  intellectual faculties of a man, is, if possible, more contemptible than
  even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed in a still more
  essential part of the character of human nature. Though the state was to
  derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of people,
  it would still deserve its attention that they should not be altogether
  uninstructed. The state, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from
  their instruction. The more they are instructed, the less liable they are
  to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant
  nations frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed and
  intelligent people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an
  ignorant and stupid one. They feel themselves, each individually, more
  respectable, and more likely to obtain the respect of their lawful
  superiors, and they are, therefore, more disposed to respect those
  superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing
  through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition; and they are,
  upon that account, less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary
  opposition to the measures of government. In free countries, where the
  safety of government depends very much upon the favourable judgment which
  the people may form of its conduct, it must surely be of the highest
  importance, that they should not be disposed to judge rashly or
  capriciously concerning it.

  Art. III.—Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Instruction of
  People of all Ages.

  The institutions for the instruction of people of all ages, are chiefly
  those for religious instruction. This is a species of instruction, of
  which the object is not so much to render the people good citizens in this
  world, as to prepare them for another and a better world in the life to
  come. The teachers of the doctrine which contains this instruction, in the
  same manner as other teachers, may either depend altogether for their
  subsistence upon the voluntary contributions of their hearers; or they may
  derive it from some other fund, to which the law of their country may
  entitle them; such as a landed estate, a tythe or land tax, an established
  salary or stipend. Their exertion, their zeal and industry, are likely to
  be much greater in the former situation than in the latter. In this
  respect, the teachers of a new religion have always had a considerable
  advantage in attacking those ancient and established systems, of which the
  clergy, reposing themselves upon their benefices, had neglected to keep up
  the fervour of faith and devotion in the great body of the people; and
  having given themselves up to indolence, were become altogether incapable
  of making any vigorous exertion in defence even of their own
  establishment. The clergy of an established and well endowed religion
  frequently become men of learning and elegance, who possess all the
  virtues of gentlemen, or which can recommend them to the esteem of
  gentlemen; but they are apt gradually to lose the qualities, both good and
  bad, which gave them authority and influence with the inferior ranks of
  people, and which had perhaps been the original causes of the success and
  establishment of their religion. Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of
  popular and bold, though perhaps stupid and ignorant enthusiasts, feel
  themselves as perfectly defenceless as the indolent, effeminate, and full
  fed nations of the southern parts of Asia, when they were invaded by the
  active, hardy, and hungry Tartars of the north. Such a clergy, upon such
  an emergency, have commonly no other resource than to call upon the civil
  magistrate to persecute, destroy, or drive out their adversaries, as
  disturbers of the public peace. It was thus that the Roman catholic clergy
  called upon the civil magistrate to persecute the protestants, and the
  church of England to persecute the dissenters; and that in general every
  religious sect, when it has once enjoyed, for a century or two, the
  security of a legal establishment, has found itself incapable of making
  any vigorous defence against any new sect which chose to attack its
  doctrine or discipline. Upon such occasions, the advantage, in point of
  learning and good writing, may sometimes be on the side of the established
  church. But the arts of popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes,
  are constantly on the side of its adversaries. In England, those arts have
  been long neglected by the well endowed clergy of the established church,
  and are at present chiefly cultivated by the dissenters and by the
  methodists. The independent provisions, however, which in many places have
  been made for dissenting teachers, by means of voluntary subscriptions, of
  trust rights, and other evasions of the law, seem very much to have abated
  the zeal and activity of those teachers. They have many of them become
  very learned, ingenious, and respectable men; but they have in general
  ceased to be very popular preachers. The methodists, without half the
  learning of the dissenters, are much more in vogue.

  In the church of Rome the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are
  kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in
  any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive many of
  them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary
  oblations of the people; a source of revenue, which confession gives them
  many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their whole
  subsistence from such oblations. It is with them as with the hussars and
  light infantry of some armies; no plunder, no pay. The parochial clergy
  are like those teachers whose reward depends partly upon their salary, and
  partly upon the fees or honoraries which they get from their pupils; and
  these must always depend, more or less, upon their industry and
  reputation. The mendicant orders are like those teachers whose subsistence
  depends altogether upon their industry. They are obliged, therefore, to
  use every art which can animate the devotion of the common people. The
  establishment of the two great mendicant orders of St Dominic and St.
  Francis, it is observed by Machiavel, revived, in the thirteenth and
  fourteenth centuries, the languishing faith and devotion of the catholic
  church. In Roman catholic countries, the spirit of devotion is supported
  altogether by the monks, and by the poorer parochial clergy. The great
  dignitaries of the church, with all the accomplishments of gentlemen and
  men of the world, and sometimes with those of men of learning, are careful
  to maintain the necessary discipline over their inferiors, but seldom give
  themselves any trouble about the instruction of the people.

  “Most of the arts and professions in a state,” says by far the most
  illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age, “are of such a
  nature, that, while they promote the interests of the society, they are
  also useful or agreeable to some individuals; and, in that case, the
  constant rule of the magistrate, except, perhaps, on the first
  introduction of any art, is, to leave the profession to itself, and trust
  its encouragement to the individuals who reap the benefit of it. The
  artizans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their customers,
  increase, as much as possible, their skill and industry; and as matters
  are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the commodity is always
  sure to be at all times nearly proportioned to the demand.

  “But there are also some callings which, though useful and even necessary
  in a state, bring no advantage or pleasure to any individual; and the
  supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the retainers
  of those professions. It must give them public encouragement in order to
  their subsistence; and it must provide against that negligence to which
  they will naturally be subject, either by annexing particular honours to
  profession, by establishing a long subordination of ranks, and a strict
  dependence, or by some other expedient. The persons employed in the
  finances, fleets, and magistracy, are instances of this order of men.

  “It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics
  belong to the first class, and that their encouragement, as well as that
  of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of
  individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit or
  consolation from their spiritual ministry and assistance. Their industry
  and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional motive; and
  their skill in the profession, as well as their address in governing the
  minds of the people, must receive daily increase, from their increasing
  practice, study, and attention.

  “But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find that this
  interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will
  study to prevent; because, in every religion except the true, it is highly
  pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the truth, by
  infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion.
  Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and
  sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most
  violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually endeavour, by some
  novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be
  paid to truth, morals, or decency, in the doctrines inculcated. Every
  tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the
  human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry
  and address, in practising on the passions and credulity of the populace.
  And, in the end, the civil magistrate will find that he has dearly paid
  for his intended frugality, in saving a fixed establishment for the
  priests; and that, in reality, the most decent and advantageous
  composition, which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe
  their indolence, by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and
  rendering it superfluous for them to be farther active, than merely to
  prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pastors. And in this
  manner ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first
  from religious views, prove in the end advantageous to the political
  interests of society.”

  But whatever may have been the good or bad effects of the independent
  provision of the clergy, it has, perhaps, been very seldom bestowed upon
  them from any view to those effects. Times of violent religious
  controversy have generally been times of equally violent political
  faction. Upon such occasions, each political party has either found it, or
  imagined it, for his interest, to league itself with some one or other of
  the contending religious sects. But this could be done only by adopting,
  or, at least, by favouring the tenets of that particular sect. The sect
  which had the good fortune to be leagued with the conquering party
  necessarily shared in the victory of its ally, by whose favour and
  protection it was soon enabled, in some degree, to silence and subdue all
  its adversaries. Those adversaries had generally leagued themselves with
  the enemies of the conquering party, and were, therefore the enemies of
  that party. The clergy of this particular sect having thus become complete
  masters of the field, and their influence and authority with the great
  body of the people being in its highest vigour, they were powerful enough
  to overawe the chiefs and leaders of their own party, and to oblige the
  civil magistrate to respect their opinions and inclinations. Their first
  demand was generally that he should silence and subdue all their
  adversaries; and their second, that he should bestow an independent
  provision on themselves. As they had generally contributed a good deal to
  the victory, it seemed not unreasonable that they should have some share
  in the spoil. They were weary, besides, of humouring the people, and of
  depending upon their caprice for a subsistence. In making this demand,
  therefore, they consulted their own ease and comfort, without troubling
  themselves about the effect which it might have, in future times, upon the
  influence and authority of their order. The civil magistrate, who could
  comply with their demand only by giving them something which he would have
  chosen much rather to take, or to keep to himself, was seldom very forward
  to grant it. Necessity, however, always forced him to submit at last,
  though frequently not till after many delays, evasions, and affected
  excuses.

  But if politics had never called in the aid of religion, had the
  conquering party never adopted the tenets of one sect more than those of
  another, when it had gained the victory, it would probably have dealt
  equally and impartially with all the different sects, and have allowed
  every man to choose his own priest, and his own religion, as he thought
  proper. There would, and, in this case, no doubt, have been, a great
  multitude of religious sects. Almost every different congregation might
  probably have had a little sect by itself, or have entertained some
  peculiar tenets of its own. Each teacher, would, no doubt, have felt
  himself under the necessity of making the utmost exertion, and of using
  every art, both to preserve and to increase the number of his disciples.
  But as every other teacher would have felt himself under the same
  necessity, the success of no one teacher, or sect of teachers, could have
  been very great. The interested and active zeal of religious teachers can
  be dangerous and troublesome only where there is either but one sect
  tolerated in the society, or where the whole of a large society is divided
  into two or three great sects; the teachers of each acting by concert, and
  under a regular discipline and subordination. But that zeal must be
  altogether innocent, where the society is divided into two or three
  hundred, or, perhaps, into as many thousand small sects, of which no one
  could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity. The
  teachers of each sect, seeing themselves surrounded on all sides with more
  adversaries than friends, would be obliged to learn that candour and
  moderation which are so seldom to be found among the teachers of those
  great sects, whose tenets, being supported by the civil magistrate, are
  held in veneration by almost all the inhabitants of extensive kingdoms and
  empires, and who, therefore, see nothing round them but followers,
  disciples, and humble admirers. The teachers of each little sect, finding
  themselves almost alone, would be obliged to respect those of almost every
  other sect; and the concessions which they would mutually find it both
  convenient and agreeable to make one to another, might in time, probably
  reduce the doctrine of the greater part of them to that pure and rational
  religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism,
  such as wise men have, in all ages of the world, wished to see
  established; but such as positive law has, perhaps, never yet established,
  and probably never will establish in any country; because, with regard to
  religion, positive law always has been, and probably always will be, more
  or less influenced by popular superstition and enthusiasm. This plan of
  ecclesiastical government, or, more properly, of no ecclesiastical
  government, was what the sect called Independents (a sect, no doubt, of
  very wild enthusiasts), proposed to establish in England towards the end
  of the civil war. If it had been established, though of a very
  unphilosophical origin, it would probably, by this time, have been
  productive of the most philosophical good temper and moderation with
  regard to every sort of religious principle. It has been established in
  Pennsylvania, where, though the quakers happen to be the most numerous,
  the law, in reality, favours no one sect more than another; and it is
  there said to have been productive of this philosophical good temper and
  moderation.

  But though this equality of treatment should not be productive of this
  good temper and moderation in all, or even in the greater part of the
  religious sects of a particular country; yet, provided those sects were
  sufficiently numerous, and each of them consequently too small to disturb
  the public tranquillity, the excessive zeal of each for its particular
  tenets could not well be productive of any very hurtful effects, but, on
  the contrary, of several good ones; and if the government was perfectly
  decided, both to let them all alone, and to oblige them all to let alone
  one another, there is little danger that they would not of their own
  accord, subdivide themselves fast enough, so as soon to become
  sufficiently numerous.

  In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of
  ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two
  different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of
  which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the liberal,
  or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally admired and
  revered by the common people; the latter is commonly more esteemed and
  adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The degree of
  disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices
  which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of
  gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction
  between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose
  system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure
  to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of
  the two sexes, etc. provided they are not accompanied with gross
  indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally
  treated with a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or
  pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, those
  excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. The
  vices of levity are always ruinous to the common people, and a single
  week’s thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor
  workman for ever, and to drive him, through despair, upon committing the
  most enormous crimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people,
  therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such
  excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to
  people of their condition. The disorder and extravagance of several years,
  on the contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion; and people of that
  rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some degree of
  excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune; and the liberty of
  doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the privileges which
  belong to their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they
  regard such excesses with but a small degree of disapprobation, and
  censure them either very slightly or not at all.

  Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom
  they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous
  proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been adopted
  by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions; for there
  have been some. It was the system by which they could best recommend
  themselves to that order of people, to whom they first proposed their plan
  of reformation upon what had been before established. Many of them,
  perhaps the greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by
  refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some degree of
  folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has frequently
  recommended them, more than any thing else, to the respect and veneration
  of the common people.

  A man of rank and fortune is, by his station, the distinguished member of
  a great society, who attend to every part of his conduct, and who thereby
  oblige him to attend to every part of it himself. His authority and
  consideration depend very much upon the respect which this society bears
  to him. He dares not do anything which would disgrace or discredit him in
  it; and he is obliged to a very strict observation of that species of
  morals, whether liberal or austere, which the general consent of this
  society prescribes to persons of his rank and fortune. A man of low
  condition, on the contrary, is far from being a distinguished member of
  any great society. While he remains in a country village, his conduct may
  be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In this
  situation, and in this situation only, he may have what is called a
  character to lose. But as soon as he comes into a great city, he is sunk
  in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by
  nobody; and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it himself, and to
  abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and vice. He never emerges
  so effectually from this obscurity, his conduct never excites so much the
  attention of any respectable society, as by his becoming the member of a
  small religious sect. He from that moment acquires a degree of
  consideration which he never had before. All his brother sectaries are,
  for the credit of the sect, interested to observe his conduct; and, if he
  gives occasion to any scandal, if he deviates very much from those austere
  morals which they almost always require of one another, to punish him by
  what is always a very severe punishment, even where no evil effects attend
  it, expulsion or excommunication from the sect. In little religious sects,
  accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always
  remarkably regular and orderly; generally much more so than in the
  established church. The morals of those little sects, indeed, have
  frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial.

  There are two very easy and effectual remedies, however, by whose joint
  operation the state might, without violence, correct whatever was unsocial
  or disagreeably rigorous in the morals of all the little sects into which
  the country was divided.

  The first of those remedies is the study of science and philosophy, which
  the state might render almost universal among all people of middling or
  more than middling rank and fortune; not by giving salaries to teachers in
  order to make them negligent and idle, but by instituting some sort of
  probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences, to be undergone
  by every person before he was permitted to exercise any liberal
  profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for any
  honourable office, of trust or profit. If the state imposed upon this
  order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion to give
  itself any trouble about providing them with proper teachers. They would
  soon find better teachers for themselves, than any whom the state could
  provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the poison of
  enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people
  were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.

  The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public
  diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire liberty
  to all those who, from their own interest, would attempt, without scandal
  or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, music,
  dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations and exhibitions; would
  easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy
  humour which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and
  enthusiasm. Public diversions have always been the objects of dread and
  hatred to all the fanatical promoters of those popular frenzies. The
  gaiety and good humour which those diversions inspire, were altogether
  inconsistent with that temper of mind which was fittest for their purpose,
  or which they could best work upon. Dramatic representations, besides,
  frequently exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even
  to public execration, were, upon that account, more than all other
  diversions, the objects of their peculiar abhorrence.

  In a country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more
  than those of another, it would not be necessary that any of them should
  have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sovereign or
  executive power; or that he should have anything to do either in
  appointing or in dismissing them from their offices. In such a situation,
  he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about them, further
  than to keep the peace among them, in the same manner as among the rest of
  his subjects, that is, to hinder them from persecuting, abusing, or
  oppressing one another. But it is quite otherwise in countries where there
  is an established or governing religion. The sovereign can in this case
  never be secure, unless he has the means of influencing in a considerable
  degree the greater part of the teachers of that religion.

  The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation.
  They can act in concert, and pursue their interest upon one plan, and with
  one spirit as much as if they were under the direction of one man; and
  they are frequently, too, under such direction. Their interest as an
  incorporated body is never the same with that of the sovereign, and is
  sometimes directly opposite to it. Their great interest is to maintain
  their authority with the people, and this authority depends upon the
  supposed certainty and importance of the whole doctrine which they
  inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity of adopting every part of it
  with the most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery. Should the
  sovereign have the imprudence to appear either to deride, or doubt himself
  of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity, attempt to
  protect those who did either the one or the other, the punctilious honour
  of a clergy, who have no sort of dependency upon him, is immediately
  provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to employ all the
  terrors of religion, in order to oblige the people to transfer their
  allegiance to some more orthodox and obedient prince. Should he oppose any
  of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger is equally great. The
  princes who have dared in this manner to rebel against the church, over
  and above this crime of rebellion, have generally been charged, too, with
  the additional crime of heresy, notwithstanding their solemn protestations
  of their faith, and humble submission to every tenet which she thought
  proper to prescribe to them. But the authority of religion is superior to
  every other authority. The fears which it suggests conquer all other
  fears. When the authorized teachers of religion propagate through the
  great body of the people, doctrines subversive of the authority of the
  sovereign, it is by violence only, or by the force of a standing army,
  that he can maintain his authority. Even a standing army cannot in this
  case give him any lasting security; because if the soldiers are not
  foreigners, which can seldom be the case, but drawn from the great body of
  the people, which must almost always be the case, they are likely to be
  soon corrupted by those very doctrines. The revolutions which the
  turbulence of the Greek clergy was continually occasioning at
  Constantinople, as long as the eastern empire subsisted; the convulsions
  which, during the course of several centuries, the turbulence of the Roman
  clergy was continually occasioning in every part of Europe, sufficiently
  demonstrate how precarious and insecure must always be the situation of
  the sovereign, who has no proper means of influencing the clergy of the
  established and governing religion of his country.

  Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evident
  enough, are not within the proper department of a temporal sovereign, who,
  though he may be very well qualified for protecting, is seldom supposed to
  be so for instructing the people. With regard to such matters, therefore,
  his authority can seldom be sufficient to counterbalance the united
  authority of the clergy of the established church. The public
  tranquillity, however, and his own security, may frequently depend upon
  the doctrines which they may think proper to propagate concerning such
  matters. As he can seldom directly oppose their decision, therefore, with
  proper weight and authority, it is necessary that he should be able to
  influence it; and he can influence it only by the fears and expectations
  which he may excite in the greater part of the individuals of the order.
  Those fears and expectations may consist in the fear of deprivation or
  other punishment, and in the expectation of further preferment.

  In all Christian churches, the benefices of the clergy are a sort of
  freeholds, which they enjoy, not during pleasure, but during life or good
  behaviour. If they held them by a more precarious tenure, and were liable
  to be turned out upon every slight disobligation either of the sovereign
  or of his ministers, it would perhaps be impossible for them to maintain
  their authority with the people, who would then consider them as mercenary
  dependents upon the court, in the sincerity of whose instructions they
  could no longer have any confidence. But should the sovereign attempt
  irregularly, and by violence, to deprive any number of clergymen of their
  freeholds, on account, perhaps, of their having propagated, with more than
  ordinary zeal, some factious or seditious doctrine, he would only render,
  by such persecution, both them and their doctrine ten times more popular,
  and therefore ten times more troublesome and dangerous, than they had been
  before. Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of govermnent,
  and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who
  have the smallest pretensions to independency. To attempt to terrify them,
  serves only to irritate their bad humour, and to confirm them in an
  opposition, which more gentle usage, perhaps, might easily induce them
  either to soften, or to lay aside altogether. The violence which the
  French government usually employed in order to oblige all their
  parliaments, or sovereign courts of justice, to enregister any unpopular
  edict, very seldom succeeded. The means commonly employed, however, the
  imprisonment of all the refractory members, one would think, were forcible
  enough. The princes of the house of Stuart sometimes employed the like
  means in order to influence some of the members of the parliament of
  England, and they generally found them equally intractable. The parliament
  of England is now managed in another manner; and a very small experiment,
  which the duke of Choiseul made, about twelve years ago, upon the
  parliament of Paris, demonstrated sufficiently that all the parliaments of
  France might have been managed still more easily in the same manner. That
  experiment was not pursued. For though management and persuasion are
  always the easiest and safest instruments of government as force and
  violence are the worst and the most dangerous; yet such, it seems, is the
  natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the good
  instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The French
  government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to use
  management and persuasion. But there is no order of men, it appears I
  believe, from the experience of all ages, upon whom it is so dangerous or
  rather so perfectly ruinous, to employ force and violence, as upon the
  respected clergy of an established church. The rights, the privileges, the
  personal liberty of every individual ecclesiastic, who is upon good terms
  with his own order, are, even in the most despotic governments, more
  respected than those of any other person of nearly equal rank and fortune.
  It is so in every gradation of despotism, from that of the gentle and mild
  government of Paris, to that of the violent and furious government of
  Constantinople. But though this order of men can scarce ever be forced,
  they may be managed as easily as any other; and the security of the
  sovereign, as well as the public tranquillity, seems to depend very much
  upon the means which he has of managing them; and those means seem to
  consist altogether in the preferment which he has to bestow upon them.

  In the ancient constitution of the Christian church, the bishop of each
  diocese was elected by the joint votes of the clergy and of the people of
  the episcopal city. The people did not long retain their right of
  election; and while they did retain it, they almost always acted under the
  influence of the clergy, who, in such spiritual matters, appeared to be
  their natural guides. The clergy, however, soon grew weary of the trouble
  of managing them, and found it easier to elect their own bishops
  themselves. The abbot, in the same manner, was elected by the monks of the
  monastery, at least in the greater part of abbacies. All the inferior
  ecclesiastical benefices comprehended within the diocese were collated by
  the bishop, who bestowed them upon such ecclesiastics as he thought
  proper. All church preferments were in this manner in the disposal of the
  church. The sovereign, though he might have some indirect influence in
  those elections, and though it was sometimes usual to ask both his consent
  to elect, and his approbation of the election, yet had no direct or
  sufficient means of managing the clergy. The ambition of every clergyman
  naturally led him to pay court, not so much to his sovereign as to his own
  order, from which only he could expect preferment.

  Through the greater part of Europe, the pope gradually drew to himself,
  first the collation of almost all bishoprics and abbacies, or of what were
  called consistorial benefices, and afterwards, by various machinations and
  pretences, of the greater part of inferior benefices comprehended within
  each diocese, little more being left to the bishop than what was barely
  necessary to give him a decent authority with his own clergy. By this
  arrangement the condition of the sovereign was still worse than it had
  been before. The clergy of all the different countries of Europe were thus
  formed into a sort of spiritual army, dispersed in different quarters
  indeed, but of which all the movements and operations could now be
  directed by one head, and conducted upon one uniform plan. The clergy of
  each particular country might be considered as a particular detachment of
  that army, of which the operations could easily be supported and seconded
  by all the other detachments quartered in the different countries round
  about. Each detachment was not only independent of the sovereign of the
  country in which it was quartered, and by which it was maintained, but
  dependent upon a foreign sovereign, who could at any time turn its arms
  against the sovereign of that particular country, and support them by the
  arms of all the other detachments.

  Those arms were the most formidable that can well be imagined. In the
  ancient state of Europe, before the establishment of arts and
  manufactures, the wealth of the clergy gave them the same sort of
  influence over the common people which that of the great barons gave them
  over their respective vassals, tenants, and retainers. In the great landed
  estates, which the mistaken piety both of princes and private persons had
  bestowed upon the church, jurisdictions were established, of the same kind
  with those of the great barons, and for the same reason. In those great
  landed estates, the clergy, or their bailiffs, could easily keep the
  peace, without the support or assistance either of the king or of any
  other person; and neither the king nor any other person could keep the
  peace there without the support and assistance of the clergy. The
  jurisdictions of the clergy, therefore, in their particular baronies or
  manors, were equally independent, and equally exclusive of the authority
  of the king’s courts, as those of the great temporal lords. The tenants of
  the clergy were, like those of the great barons, almost all tenants at
  will, entirely dependent upon their immediate lords, and, therefore,
  liable to be called out at pleasure, in order to fight in any quarrel in
  which the clergy might think proper to engage them. Over and above the
  rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in the tithes a very large
  portion of the rents of all the other estates in every kingdom of Europe.
  The revenues arising from both those species of rents were, the greater
  part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, etc. The
  quantity exceeded greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and
  there were neither arts nor manufactures, for the produce of which they
  could exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this
  immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great barons
  employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most profuse
  hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the hospitality and
  the charity of the ancient clergy, accordingly, are said to have been very
  great. They not only maintained almost the whole poor of every kingdom,
  but many knights and gentlemen had frequently no other means of
  subsistence than by travelling about from monastery to monastery, under
  pretence of devotion, but in reality to enjoy the hospitality of the
  clergy. The retainers of some particular prelates were often as numerous
  as those of the greatest lay-lords; and the retainers of all the clergy
  taken together were, perhaps, more numerous than those of all the
  lay-lords. There was always much more union among the clergy than among
  the lay-lords. The former were under a regular discipline and
  subordination to the papal authority. The latter were under no regular
  discipline or subordination, but almost always equally jealous of one
  another, and of the king. Though the tenants and retainers of the clergy,
  therefore, had both together been less numerous than those of the great
  lay-lords, and their tenants were probably much less numerous, yet their
  union would have rendered them more formidable. The hospitality and
  charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a great
  temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their spiritual
  weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect and veneration
  among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and
  almost all occasionally, fed by them. Everything belonging or related to
  so popular an order, its possessions, its privileges, its doctrines,
  necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes of the common people; and every
  violation of them, whether real or pretended, the highest act of
  sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness. In this state of things, if the
  sovereign frequently found it difficult to resist the confederacy of a few
  of the great nobility, we cannot wonder that he should find it still more
  so to resist the united force of the clergy of his own dominions,
  supported by that of the clergy of all the neighbouring dominions. In such
  circumstances, the wonder is, not that he was sometimes obliged to yield,
  but that he ever was able to resist.

  The privileges of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us, who live
  in the present times, appear the most absurd), their total exemption from
  the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England was called the
  benefit of clergy, were the natural, or rather the necessary, consequences
  of this state of things. How dangerous must it have been for the sovereign
  to attempt to punish a clergyman for any crime whatever, if his order were
  disposed to protect him, and to represent either the proof as insufficient
  for convicting so holy a man, or the punishment as too severe to be
  inflicted upon one whose person had been rendered sacred by religion? The
  sovereign could, in such circumstances, do no better than leave him to be
  tried by the ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own
  order, were interested to restrain, as much as possible, every member of
  it from committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such
  gross scandal as might disgust the minds of the people.

  In the state in which things were, through the greater part of Europe,
  during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and for
  some time both before and after that period, the constitution of the
  church of Rome may be considered as the most formidable combination that
  ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as
  well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind, which can
  flourish only where civil government is able to protect them. In that
  constitution, the grossest delusions of superstition were supported in
  such a manner by the private interests of so great a number of people, as
  put them out of all danger from any assault of human reason; because,
  though human reason might, perhaps, have been able to unveil, even to the
  eyes of the common people, some of the delusions of superstition, it could
  never have dissolved the ties of private interest. Had this constitution
  been attacked by no other enemies but the feeble efforts of human reason,
  it must have endured for ever. But that immense and well-built fabric,
  which all the wisdom and virtue of man could never have shaken, much less
  have overturned, was, by the natural course of things, first weakened, and
  afterwards in part destroyed; and is now likely, in the course of a few
  centuries more, perhaps, to crumble into ruins altogether.

  The gradual improvements of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the
  same causes which destroyed the power of the great barons, destroyed,
  in the same manner, through the greater part of Europe, the whole
  temporal power of the clergy. In the produce of arts, manufactures, and
  commerce, the clergy, like the great barons, found something for which
  they could exchange their rude produce, and thereby discovered the
  means of spending their whole revenues upon their own persons, without
  giving any considerable share of them to other people. Their charity
  became gradually less extensive, their hospitality less liberal, or
  less profuse. Their retainers became consequently less numerous, and,
  by degrees, dwindled away altogether. The clergy, too, like the great
  barons, wished to get a better rent from their landed estates, in order
  to spend it, in the same manner, upon the gratification of their own
  private vanity and folly. But this increase of rent could be got only
  by granting leases to their tenants, who thereby became, in a great
  measure, independent of them. The ties of interest, which bound the
  inferior ranks of people to the clergy, were in this manner gradually
  broken and dissolved. They were even broken and dissolved sooner than
  those which bound the same ranks of people to the great barons; because
  the benefices of the church being, the greater part of them, much smaller
  than the estates of the great barons, the possessor of each benefice was
  much sooner able to spend the whole of its revenue upon his own person.
  During the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
  power of the great barons was, through the greater part of Europe, in
  full vigour. But the temporal power of the clergy, the absolute command
  which they had once had over the great body of the people was very much
  decayed. The power of the church was, by that time, very nearly reduced,
  through the greater part of Europe, to what arose from their spiritual
  authority; and even that spiritual authority was much weakened, when it
  ceased to be supported by the charity and hospitality of the clergy. The
  inferior ranks of people no longer looked upon that order as they had
  done before; as the comforters of their distress, and the relievers of
  their indigence. On the contrary, they were provoked and disgusted by the
  vanity, luxury, and expense of the richer clergy, who appeared to spend
  upon their own pleasures what had always before been regarded as the
  patrimony of the poor.

  In this situation of things, the sovereigns in the different states of
  Europe endeavoured to recover the influence which they had once had in the
  disposal of the great benefices of the church; by procuring to the deans
  and chapters of each diocese the restoration of their ancient right of
  electing the bishop; and to the monks of each abbacy that of electing the
  abbot. The re-establishing this ancient order was the object of several
  statutes enacted in England during the course of the fourteenth century,
  particularly of what is called the statute of provisors; and of the
  pragmatic sanction, established in France in the fifteenth century. In
  order to render the election valid, it was necessary that the sovereign
  should both consent to it before hand, and afterwards approve of the
  person elected; and though the election was still supposed to be free, he
  had, however all the indirect means which his situation necessarily
  afforded him, of influencing the clergy in his own dominions. Other
  regulations, of a similar tendency, were established in other parts of
  Europe. But the power of the pope, in the collation of the great benefices
  of the church, seems, before the reformation, to have been nowhere so
  effectually and so universally restrained as in France and England. The
  concordat afterwards, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of
  France the absolute right of presenting to all the great, or what are
  called the consistorial, benefices of the Gallican church.

  Since the establishment of the pragmatic sanction and of the concordat,
  the clergy of France have in general shewn less respect to the decrees of
  the papal court, than the clergy of any other catholic country. In all the
  disputes which their sovereign has had with the pope, they have almost
  constantly taken part with the former. This independency of the clergy of
  France upon the court of Rome seems to be principally founded upon the
  pragmatic sanction and the concordat. In the earlier periods of the
  monarchy, the clergy of France appear to have been as much devoted to the
  pope as those of any other country. When Robert, the second prince of the
  Capetian race, was most unjustly excommunicated by the court of Rome, his
  own servants, it is said, threw the victuals which came from his table to
  the dogs, and refused to taste any thing themselves which had been
  polluted by the contact of a person in his situation. They were taught to
  do so, it may very safely be presumed, by the clergy of his own dominions.

  The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church, a claim in
  defence of which the court of Rome had frequently shaken, and sometimes
  overturned, the thrones of some of the greatest sovereigns in Christendom,
  was in this manner either restrained or modified, or given up altogether,
  in many different parts of Europe, even before the time of the
  reformation. As the clergy had now less influence over the people, so the
  state had more influence over the clergy. The clergy, therefore, had both
  less power, and less inclination, to disturb the state.

  The authority of the church of Rome was in this state of declension, when
  the disputes which gave birth to the reformation began in Germany, and
  soon spread themselves through every part of Europe. The new doctrines
  were everywhere received with a high degree of popular favour. They were
  propagated with all that enthusiastic zeal which commonly animates the
  spirit of party, when it attacks established authority. The teachers of
  those doctrines, though perhaps, in other respects, not more learned than
  many of the divines who defended the established church, seem in general
  to have been better acquainted with ecclesiastical history, and with the
  origin and progress of that system of opinions upon which the authority of
  the church was established; and they had thereby the advantage in almost
  every dispute. The austerity of their manners gave them authority with the
  common people, who contrasted the strict regularity of their conduct with
  the disorderly lives of the greater part of their own clergy. They
  possessed, too, in a much higher degree than their adversaries, all the
  arts of popularity and of gaining proselytes; arts which the lofty and
  dignified sons of the church had long neglected, as being to them in a
  great measure useless. The reason of the new doctrines recommended them to
  some, their novelty to many; the hatred and contempt of the established
  clergy to a still greater number: but the zealous, passionate, and
  fanatical, though frequently coarse and rustic eloquence, with which they
  were almost everywhere inculcated, recommended them to by far the greatest
  number.

  The success of the new doctrines was almost everywhere so great, that the
  princes, who at that time happened to be on bad terms with the court of
  Rome, were, by means of them, easily enabled, in their own dominions, to
  overturn the church, which having lost the respect and veneration of the
  inferior ranks of people, could make scarce any resistance. The court of
  Rome had disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern parts of
  Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant to be worth
  the managing. They universally, therefore, established the reformation in
  their own dominions. The tyranny of Christiern II., and of Troll
  archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them both from Sweden.
  The pope favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and Gustavus Vasa found
  no difficulty in establishing the reformation in Sweden. Christiern II.
  was afterwards deposed from the throne of Denmark, where his conduct had
  rendered him as odious as in Sweden. The pope, however, was still disposed
  to favour him; and Frederic of Holstein, who had mounted the throne in his
  stead, revenged himself, by following the example of Gustavus Vasa. The
  magistrates of Berne and Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with the
  pope, established with great ease the reformation in their respective
  cantons, where just before some of the clergy had, by an imposture
  somewhat grosser than ordinary, rendered the whole order both odious and
  contemptible.

  In this critical situation of its affairs the papal court was at
  sufficient pains to cultivate the friendship of the powerful sovereigns of
  France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that time emperor of Germany.
  With their assistance, it was enabled, though not without great
  difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or to
  obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions. It
  was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of England.
  But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so without giving
  offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king of Spain and
  emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he did not embrace
  himself the greater part of the doctrines of the reformation, was yet
  enabled, by their general prevalence, to suppress all the monasteries, and
  to abolish the authority of the church of Rome in his dominions. That he
  should go so far, though he went no further, gave some satisfaction to the
  patrons of the reformation, who, having got possession of the government
  in the reign of his son and successor completed, without any difficulty,
  the work which Henry VIII. had begun.

  In some countries, as in Scotland, where the government was weak,
  unpopular, and not very firmly established, the reformation was strong
  enough to overturn, not only the church, but the state likewise, for
  attempting to support the church.

  Among the followers of the reformation, dispersed in all the different
  countries of Europe, there was no general tribunal, which, like that of
  the court of Rome, or an oecumenical council, could settle all disputes
  among them, and, with irresistible authority, prescribe to all of them the
  precise limits of orthodoxy. When the followers of the reformation in one
  country, therefore, happened to differ from their brethren in another, as
  they had no common judge to appeal to, the dispute could never be decided;
  and many such disputes arose among them. Those concerning the government
  of the church, and the right of conferring ecclesiastical benefices, were
  perhaps the most interesting to the peace and welfare of civil society.
  They gave birth, accordingly, to the two principal parties or sects among
  the followers of the reformation, the Lutheran and Calvinistic sects, the
  only sects among them, of which the doctrine and discipline have ever yet
  been established by law in any part of Europe.

  The followers of Luther, together with what is called the church of
  England, preserved more or less of the episcopal government, established
  subordination among the clergy, gave the sovereign the disposal of all the
  bishoprics, and other consistorial benefices within his dominions, and
  thereby rendered him the real head of the church; and without depriving
  the bishop of the right of collating to the smaller benefices within his
  diocese, they, even to those benefices, not only admitted, but favoured
  the right of presentation, both in the sovereign and in all other lay
  patrons. This system of church government was, from the beginning,
  favourable to peace and good order, and to submission to the civil
  sovereign. It has never, accordingly, been the occasion of any tumult or
  civil commotion in any country in which it has once been established. The
  church of England, in particular, has always valued herself, with great
  reason, upon the unexceptionable loyalty of her principles. Under such a
  government, the clergy naturally endeavour to recommend themselves to the
  sovereign, to the court, and to the nobility and gentry of the country, by
  whose influence they chiefly expect to obtain preferment. They pay court
  to those patrons, sometimes, no doubt, by the vilest flattery and
  assentation; but frequently, too, by cultivating all those arts which best
  deserve, and which are therefore most likely to gain them, the esteem of
  people of rank and fortune; by their knowledge in all the different
  branches of useful and ornamental learning, by the decent liberality of
  their manners, by the social good humour of their conversation, and by
  their avowed contempt of those absurd and hypocritical austerities which
  fanatics inculcate and pretend to practise, in order to draw upon
  themselves the veneration, and upon the greater part of men of rank and
  fortune, who avow that they do not practise them, the abhorrence of the
  common people. Such a clergy, however, while they pay their court in this
  manner to the higher ranks of life, are very apt to neglect altogether the
  means of maintaining their influence and authority with the lower. They
  are listened to, esteemed, and respected by their superiors; but before
  their inferiors they are frequently incapable of defending, effectually,
  and to the conviction of such hearers, their own sober and moderate
  doctrines, against the most ignorant enthusiast who chooses to attack
  them.

  The followers of Zuinglius, or more properly those of Calvin, on the
  contrary, bestowed upon the people of each parish, whenever the church
  became vacant, the right of electing their own pastor; and established, at
  the same time, the most perfect equality among the clergy. The former part
  of this institution, as long as it remained in vigour, seems to have been
  productive of nothing but disorder and confusion, and to have tended
  equally to corrupt the morals both of the clergy and of the people. The
  latter part seems never to have had any effects but what were perfectly
  agreeable.

  As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing their
  own pastors, they acted almost always under the influence of the clergy,
  and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order. The clergy,
  in order to preserve their influence in those popular elections, became,
  or affected to become, many of them, fanatics themselves, encouraged
  fanaticism among the people, and gave the preference almost always to the
  most fanatical candidate. So small a matter as the appointment of a parish
  priest, occasioned almost always a violent contest, not only in one
  parish, but in all the neighbouring parishes who seldom failed to take
  part in the quarrel. When the parish happened to be situated in a great
  city, it divided all the inhabitants into two parties; and when that city
  happened, either to constitute itself a little republic, or to be the head
  and capital of a little republic, as in the case with many of the
  considerable cities in Switzerland and Holland, every paltry dispute of
  this kind, over and above exasperating the animosity of all their other
  factions, threatened to leave behind it, both a new schism in the church,
  and a new faction in the state. In those small republics, therefore, the
  magistrate very soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the
  public peace, to assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant
  benefices. In Scotland, the most extensive country in which this
  presbyterian form of church government has ever been established, the
  rights of patronage were in effect abolished by the act which established
  presbytery in the beginning of the reign of William III. That act, at
  least, put in the power of certain classes of people in each parish to
  purchase, for a very small price, the right of electing their own pastor.
  The constitution which this act established, was allowed to subsist for
  about two-and-twenty years, but was abolished by the 10th of queen Anne,
  ch.12, on account of the confusions and disorders which this more popular
  mode of election had almost everywhere occasioned. In so extensive a
  country as Scotland, however, a tumult in a remote parish was not so
  likely to give disturbance to government as in a smaller state. The 10th
  of queen Anne restored the rights of patronage. But though, in Scotland,
  the law gives the benefice, without any exception to the person presented
  by the patron; yet the church requires sometimes (for she has not in this
  respect been very uniform in her decisions) a certain concurrence of the
  people, before she will confer upon the presentee what is called the cure
  of souls, or the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the parish. She sometimes,
  at least, from an affected concern for the peace of the parish, delays the
  settlement till this concurrence can be procured. The private tampering of
  some of the neighbouring clergy, sometimes to procure, but more frequently
  to prevent this concurrence, and the popular arts which they cultivate, in
  order to enable them upon such occasions to tamper more effectually, are
  perhaps the causes which principally keep up whatever remains of the old
  fanatical spirit, either in the clergy or in the people of Scotland.

  The equality which the presbyterian form of church government establishes
  among the clergy, consists, first, in the equality of authority or
  ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, secondly, in the equality of benefice.
  In all presbyterian churches, the equality of authority is perfect; that
  of benefice is not so. The difference, however, between one benefice and
  another, is seldom so considerable, as commonly to tempt the possessor
  even of the small one to pay court to his patron, by the vile arts of
  flattery and assentation, in order to get a better. In all the
  presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are thoroughly
  established, it is by nobler and better arts, that the established clergy
  in general endeavour to gain the favour of their superiors; by their
  learning, by the irreproachable regularity of their life, and by the
  faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their patrons even
  frequently complain of the independency of their spirit, which they are
  apt to construe into ingratitude for past favours, but which, at worse,
  perhaps, is seldom anymore than that indifference which naturally arises
  from the consciousness that no further favours of the kind are ever to be
  expected. There is scarce, perhaps, to be found anywhere in Europe, a more
  learned, decent, independent, and respectable set of men, than the greater
  part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and
  Scotland.

  Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be very
  great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may be, no doubt,
  carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable effects. Nothing but
  exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. The vices of
  levity and vanity necessarily render him ridiculous, and are, besides,
  almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common people. In his own
  conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of morals which
  the common people respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection,
  by that plan of life which his own interest and situation would lead him
  to follow. The common people look upon him with that kindness with which
  we naturally regard one who approaches somewhat to our own condition, but
  who, we think, ought to be in a higher. Their kindness naturally provokes
  his kindness. He becomes careful to instruct them, and attentive to assist
  and relieve them. He does not even despise the prejudices of people who
  are disposed to be so favourable to him, and never treats them with those
  contemptuous and arrogant airs, which we so often meet with in the proud
  dignitaries of opulent and well endowed churches. The presbyterian clergy,
  accordingly, have more influence over the minds of the common people, than
  perhaps the clergy of any other established church. It is, accordingly, in
  presbyterian countries only, that we ever find the common people
  converted, without persecution completely, and almost to a man, to the
  established church.

  In countries where church benefices are, the greater part of them, very
  moderate, a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than
  a church benefice. The universities have, in this case, the picking and
  chusing of their members from all the churchmen of the country, who, in
  every country, constitute by far the most numerous class of men of
  letters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many of them very
  considerable, the church naturally draws from the universities the greater
  part of their eminent men of letters; who generally find some patron, who
  does himself honour by procuring them church preferment. In the former
  situation, we are likely to find the universities filled with the most
  eminent men of letters that are to be found in the country. In the latter,
  we are likely to find few eminent men among them, and those few among the
  youngest members of the society, who are likely, too, to be drained away
  from it, before they can have acquired experience and knowledge enough to
  be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr de Voltaire, that father
  Porée, a jesuit of no great eminence in the republic of letters, was the
  only professor they had ever had in France, whose works were worth the
  reading. In a country which has produced so many eminent men of letters,
  it must appear somewhat singular, that scarce one of them should have been
  a professor in a university. The famous Cassendi was, in the beginning of
  his life, a professor in the university of Aix. Upon the first dawning of
  his genius, it was represented to him, that by going into the church he
  could easily find a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well
  as a better situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediately
  followed the advice. The observation of Mr de Voltaire may be applied, I
  believe, not only to France, but to all other Roman Catholic countries. We
  very rarely find in any of them an eminent man of letters, who is a
  professor in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions of law and
  physic; professions from which the church is not so likely to draw them.
  After the church of Rome, that of England is by far the richest and best
  endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the church is
  continually draining the universities of all their best and ablest
  members; and an old college tutor who is known and distinguished in Europe
  as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be found there as in any
  Roman catholic country. In Geneva, on the contrary, in the protestant
  cantons of Switzerland, in the protestant countries of Germany, in
  Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, the most eminent men of
  letters whom those countries have produced, have, not all indeed, but the
  far greater part of them, been professors in universities. In those
  countries, the universities are continually draining the church of all its
  most eminent men of letters.

  It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the poets, a
  few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of the other
  eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to have been
  either public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or of
  rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true, from the days of Lysias
  and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch and
  Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the necessity
  of teaching, year after year, in any particular branch of science seems in
  reality to be the most effectual method for rendering him completely
  master of it himself. By being obliged to go every year over the same
  ground, if he is good for any thing, he necessarily becomes, in a few
  years, well acquainted with every part of it, and if, upon any particular
  point, he should form too hasty an opinion one year, when he comes, in the
  course of his lectures to reconsider the same subject the year thereafter,
  he is very likely to correct it. As to be a teacher of science is
  certainly the natural employment of a mere man of letters; so is it
  likewise, perhaps, the education which is most likely to render him a man
  of solid learning and knowledge. The mediocrity of church benefices
  naturally tends to draw the greater part of men of letters in the country
  where it takes place, to the employment in which they can be the most
  useful to the public, and at the same time to give them the best
  education, perhaps, they are capable of receiving. It tends to render
  their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful as possible.

  The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as may
  arise from particular lands or manors, is a branch, it ought to be
  observed, of the general revenue of the state, which is thus diverted to a
  purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe, for
  example, is a real land tax, which puts it out of the power of the
  proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence of the
  state as they otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land, however,
  is, according to some, the sole fund; and, according to others, the
  principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the exigencies of the
  state must be ultimately supplied. The more of this fund that is given to
  the church, the less, it is evident, can be spared to the state. It may be
  laid down as a certain maxim, that all other things being supposed equal,
  the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily be, either the
  sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other; and, in all cases,
  the less able must the state be to defend itself. In several protestant
  countries, particularly in all the protestant cantons of Switzerland, the
  revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman catholic church, the tithes
  and church lands, has been found a fund sufficient, not only to afford
  competent salaries to the established clergy, but to defray, with little
  or no addition, all the other expenses of the state. The magistrates of
  the powerful canton of Berne, in particular, have accumulated, out of the
  savings from this fund, a very large sum, supposed to amount to several
  millions; part of which is deposited in a public treasure, and part is
  placed at interest in what are called the public funds of the different
  indebted nations of Europe; chiefly in those of France and Great Britain.
  What may be the amount of the whole expense which the church, either of
  Berne, or of any other protestant canton, costs the state, I do not
  pretend to know. By a very exact account it appears, that, in 1755, the
  whole revenue of the clergy of the church of Scotland, including their
  glebe or church lands, and the rent of their manses or dwelling-houses,
  estimated according to a reasonable valuation, amounted only to
  £68,514:1:5 ¹⁄₁₂d. This very moderate revenue affords a decent subsistence
  to nine hundred and forty-four ministers. The whole expense of the church,
  including what is occasionally laid out for the building and reparation of
  churches, and of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to
  exceed eighty or eighty-five thousand pounds a-year. The most opulent
  church in Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith,
  the fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere
  morals, in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed
  church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious, which
  an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced by it as
  completely as by any other. The greater part of the protestant churches of
  Switzerland, which, in general, are not better endowed than the church of
  Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree. In the greater
  part of the protestant cantons, there is not a single person to be found,
  who does not profess himself to be of the established church. If he
  professes himself to be of any other, indeed, the law obliges him to leave
  the canton. But so severe, or, rather, indeed, so oppressive a law, could
  never have been executed in such free countries, had not the diligence of
  the clergy beforehand converted to the established church the whole body
  of the people, with the exception of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In
  some parts of Switzerland, accordingly, where, from the accidental union
  of a protestant and Roman catholic country, the conversion has not been so
  complete, both religions are not only tolerated, but established by law.

  The proper performance of every service seems to require, that its pay or
  recompence should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the nature
  of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is very apt to
  suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of those who are
  employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is apt to suffer, perhaps
  still more, by their negligence and idleness. A man of a large revenue,
  whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live like other men of
  large revenues; and to spend a great part of his time in festivity, in
  vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman, this train of life not
  only consumes the time which ought to be employed in the duties of his
  function, but in the eyes of the common people, destroys almost entirely
  that sanctity of character, which can alone enable him to perform those
  duties with proper weight and authority.




  PART IV. Of the Expense of supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign.

  Over and above the expenses necessary for enabling the sovereign to
  perform his several duties, a certain expense is requisite for the support
  of his dignity. This expense varies, both with the different periods of
  improvement, and with the different forms of government.

  In an opulent and improved society, where all the different orders of
  people are growing every day more expensive in their houses, in their
  furniture, in their tables, in their dress, and in their equipage; it
  cannot well be expected that the sovereign should alone hold out against
  the fashion. He naturally, therefore, or rather necessarily, becomes more
  expensive in all those different articles too. His dignity even seems to
  require that he should become so.

  As, in point of dignity, a monarch is more raised above his subjects than
  the chief magistrate of any republic is ever supposed to be above his
  fellow-citizens; so a greater expense is necessary for supporting that
  higher dignity. We naturally expect more splendour in the court of a king,
  than in the mansion-house of a doge or burgo-master.




  CONCLUSION.

  The expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity
  of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the
  whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed
  by the general contribution of the whole society; all the different
  members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their
  respective abilities.

  The expense of the administration of justice, too, may no doubt be
  considered as laid out for the benefit of the whole society. There is no
  impropriety, therefore, in its being defrayed by the general contribution
  of the whole society. The persons, however, who give occasion to this
  expense, are those who, by their injustice in one way or another, make it
  necessary to seek redress or protection from the courts of justice. The
  persons, again, most immediately benefited by this expense, are those whom
  the courts of justice either restore to their rights, or maintain in their
  rights. The expense of the administration of justice, therefore, may very
  properly be defrayed by the particular contribution of one or other, or
  both, of those two different sets of persons, according as different
  occasions may require, that is, by the fees of court. It cannot be
  necessary to have recourse to the general contribution of the whole
  society, except for the conviction of those criminals who have not
  themselves any estate or fund sufficient for paying those fees.

  Those local or provincial expenses, of which the benefit is local or
  provincial (what is laid out, for example, upon the police of a particular
  town or district), ought to be defrayed by a local or provincial revenue,
  and ought to be no burden upon the general revenue of the society. It is
  unjust that the whole society should contribute towards an expense, of
  which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

  The expense of maintaining good roads and communications is, no doubt,
  beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without any
  injustice, be defrayed by the general contributions of the whole society.
  This expense, however, is most immediately and directly beneficial to
  those who travel or carry goods from one place to another, and to those
  who consume such goods. The turnpike tolls in England, and the duties
  called peages in other countries, lay it altogether upon those two
  different sets of people, and thereby discharge the general revenue of the
  society from a very considerable burden.

  The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction,
  is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may,
  therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of
  the whole society. This expense, however, might, perhaps, with equal
  propriety, and even with some advantage, be defrayed altogether by those
  who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or by
  the voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for
  either the one or the other.

  When the institutions, or public works, which are beneficial to the whole
  society, either cannot be maintained altogether, or are not maintained
  altogether, by the contribution of such particular members of the society
  as are most immediately benefited by them; the deficiency must, in most
  cases, be made up by the general contribution of the whole society. The
  general revenue of the society, over and above defraying the expense of
  defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of the chief
  magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular branches of
  revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue, I shall endeavour
  to explain in the following chapter.