As trade enriched the citizens in England, so it contributed to their
freedom, and this freedom on the other side extended their commerce,
whence arose the grandeur of the State. Trade raised by insensible
degrees the naval power, which gives the English a superiority over the
seas, and they now are masters of very near two hundred ships of war.
Posterity will very probably be surprised to hear that an island whose
only produce is a little lead, tin, fuller's-earth, and coarse wool,
should become so powerful by its commerce, as to be able to send, in
1723, three fleets at the same time to three different and far distanced
parts of the globe. One before Gibraltar, conquered and still possessed
by the English; a second to Portobello, to dispossess the King of Spain
of the treasures of the West Indies; and a third into the Baltic, to
prevent the Northern Powers from coming to an engagement.
At the time when Louis XIV. made all Italy tremble, and that his armies,
which had already possessed themselves of Savoy and Piedmont, were upon
the point of taking Turin; Prince Eugene was obliged to march from the
middle of Germany in order to succour Savoy. Having no money, without
which cities cannot be either taken or defended, he addressed himself to
some English merchants. These, at an hour and half's warning, lent him
five millions, whereby he was enabled to deliver Turin, and to beat the
French; after which he wrote the following short letter to the persons
who had disbursed him the above-mentioned sums: "Gentlemen, I have
received your money, and flatter myself that I have laid it out to your
satisfaction." Such a circumstance as this raises a just pride in an
English merchant, and makes him presume (not without some reason) to
compare himself to a Roman citizen; and, indeed, a peer's brother does
not think traffic beneath him. When the Lord Townshend was Minister of
State, a brother of his was content to be a City merchant; and at the
time that the Earl of Oxford governed Great Britain, a younger brother
was no more than a factor in Aleppo, where he chose to live, and where he
died. This custom, which begins, however, to be laid aside, appears
monstrous to Germans, vainly puffed up with their extraction. These
think it morally impossible that the son of an English peer should be no
more than a rich and powerful citizen, for all are princes in Germany.
There have been thirty highnesses of the same name, all whose patrimony
consisted only in their escutcheons and their pride.
In France the title of marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept
of it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote
provinces with money in his purse, and a name terminating in _ac_ or
_ille_, may strut about, and cry, "Such a man as I! A man of my rank and
figure!" and may look down upon a trader with sovereign contempt; whilst
the trader on the other side, by thus often hearing his profession
treated so disdainfully, is fool enough to blush at it. However, I need
not say which is most useful to a nation; a lord, powdered in the tip of
the mode, who knows exactly at what o'clock the king rises and goes to
bed, and who gives himself airs of grandeur and state, at the same time
that he is acting the slave in the ante-chamber of a prime minister; or a
merchant, who enriches his country, despatches orders from his counting-
house to Surat and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the well-being of the
world.