BOOK V.

OF THE REVENUE OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.

CHAP. 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 Tartar 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 wagons, 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

every one 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, prepare

him sufficiently for war. Running, wrestling, cudgel-playing, throwing

the javelin, drawing the bow, &c. 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 judgement 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 defenceles 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 seed-time, 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 siege 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 seed-time, 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 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

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 republic 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 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

manufacturers 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 states

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.

If 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 practiced 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, bears 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 army 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 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 word, 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 tradesmen, 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 the 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 neighbors 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 civilised. 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

must 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 grant; 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 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 fire-arms 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 civilisation.

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 requisition 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 any body 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 open 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 of 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 likewise 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 in 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[47] 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 then. 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 any 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 where 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 L.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 plaintiff 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 by 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 seem 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.

ART. 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 erections and maintenance of the public works which facilitate

the commerce of any country, such as good roads, bridges, navigable

canals, harbours, &c. 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 proportional 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 and 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 these

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, &c.

is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight, than upon

carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, &c. 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, &c. 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 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 high-road 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 very 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 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[48], 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 be augmented very fast. The facility with

which a great revenue could be drawn from them, would probably encourage

administration to recur very frequently to 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[49]. 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 these officers chastise any

parish or communeaute, which has had the misfortune to fall under their

displeasure.

_Of the public Works and Institutions 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 same 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 in 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 23d of George II. c. 31), 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 committee-man 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.