Chapter 1

BOOK V. OF THE REVENUE OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH

CHAPTER I.

OF THE EXPENSES OF THE SOVEREIGN OR COMMONWEALTH.

PART I. Of the Expense of Defence.

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

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

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

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

An army of hunters can seldom exceed two or three hundred men.
The precarious subsistence which the chace affords, could seldom
allow a greater number to keep together for any considerable
time. An army of shepherds, on the contrary, may sometimes amount
to two or three hundred thousand. As long as nothing stops their
progress, as long as they can go on from one district, of which
they have consumed the forage, to another, which is yet entire;
there seems to be scarce any limit to the number who can march on
together. A nation of hunters can never be formidable to the
civilized nations in their neighbourhood; a nation of shepherds
may. Nothing can be more contemptible than an Indian war in North
America; nothing, on the contrary, can be more dreadful than a
Tartar invasion has frequently been in Asia. The judgment of
Thucydides, that both Europe and Asia could not resist the
Scythians united, has been verified by the experience of all
ages. The inhabitants of the extensive, but 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 agricuiture generally pass the whole day in the open
air, exposed to all the inclemencies of the seasons. The
hardiness of their ordinary life prepares them for the fatigues
of war, to some of which their necessary occupations bear a great
analogy. The necessary occupation of a ditcher prepares him to
work in the trenches, and to fortify a camp, as well as to
inclose a field. The ordinary pastimes of such husbandmen are the
same as those of shepherds, and are in the same manner the images
of war. But as husbandmen have less leisure than shepherds, they
are not so frequently employed in those pastimes. They are
soldiers but soldiers not quite so much masters of their
exercise. Such as they are, however, it seldom costs the
sovereign or commonwealth any expense to prepare them for the
field.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART II.

Of the Expense of Justice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The whole expense of justice, too, might easily be defrayed by
the fees of court ; and, without exposing the administration of
justice to any real hazard of corruption, the public revenue
might thus be entirely discharged from a certain, though perhaps
but a small incumbrance. It is difficult to regulate the fees of
court effectually, where a person so powerful as the sovereign is
to share in them and to derive any considerable part of his
revenue from them. It is very easy, where the judge is the
principal person who can reap any benefit from them. The law can
very easily oblige the judge to respect the regulation though it
might not always be able to make the sovereign respect it. Where
the fees of court are precisely regulated and ascertained where
they are paid all at once, at a certain period of every process,
into the hands of a cashier or receiver, to be by him distributed
in certain known proportions among the different judges after the
process is decided and not till it is decided ; there seems to be
no more danger of corruption than when such fees are prohibited
altogether. Those fees, without occasioning any considerable
increase in the expense of a law-suit, might be rendered fully
sufficient for defraying the whole expense of justice. But
not being paid to the judges till the process was determined,
they might be some incitement to the diligence of the court in
examining and deciding it. In courts which consisted of a
considerable number of judges, by proportioning the share of each
judge to the number of hours and days which he had employed in
examining the process, either in the court, or in a committee, by
order of the court, those fees might give some encouragement to
the diligence of each particular judge. Public services are never
better performed, than when their reward comes only in
consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the
diligence employed in performing them. In the different
parliaments of France, the fees of court (called epices and
vacations) constitute the far greater part of the emoluments of
the judges. After all deductions are made, the neat salary paid
by the crown to a counsellor or judge in the parliament of
Thoulouse. in rank and dignity the second parliament of the
kingdom, amounts only to 150 livres, about £6:11s. sterling
a-year. About seven years ago, that sum was in the same place the
ordinary yearly wages of a common footman. The distribuion 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 originaliy 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 plantiff alleging that he could not pay the king, because the
defendant would not pay him. In consequence of such fictions, it
came, in many cases, to depend altogether upon the parties,
before what court they would choose to have their cause tried,
and each court endeavoured, by superior dispatch and
impartiality, to draw to itself as many causes as it could. The
present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in
England was, perhaps, originally, in a great measure, formed by
this emulation, which anciently took place between their
respective judges : each judge endeavouring to give, in his own
court, the speediest and most effectual remedy which the law
would admit, for every sort of injustice. Originally, the courts
of law gave damages only for breach of contract. The court of
chancery, as a court of conscience, first took upon it to enforce
the specific performance of agreements. When the breach of
contract consisted in the non-payment of money, the damage
sustained could be compensated in no other way than by ordering
payment, which was equivalent to a specific performance of the
agreement. In such cases, therefore, the remedy of the courts
of law was sufficient. It was not so in others. When the
tenant sued his lord for having unjustly outed him of his lease,
the damages which he recovered were by no means equivalent to the
possession of the land. Such causes, therefore, for some time,
went all to the court of chancery, to the no small loss of the
courts of law. It was to draw back such causes to themselves,
that the courts of law are said to have invented the artificial
and fictitious writ of ejectment, the most effectual remedy for
an unjust outer or dispossession of land.

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

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

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

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

PART III.

Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches,
post-chaises, etc. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their
weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts,
waggons, etc. the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to
contribute, in a very easy manner, to the relief of the poor, by
rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the
different parts of the country.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The terms of admission into the Hamburgh company are now said to
be quite easy ; and the directors either have it not in their
power to subject the trade to any troublesome restraint or
regulations, or, at least, have not of late exercised that power.
It has not always been so. About the middle of the last century,
the fine for admission was fifty, and at one time one hundred
pounds, and the conduct of the company was said to be extremely
oppressive. In l643, in 1645, and in 1661, the clothiers and free
traders of the west of England complained of them to parliament,
as of monopolists, who confined the trade, and oppressed the
manufactures of the country. Though those complaints produced no
act of parliament, they had probably intimidated the company so
far, as to oblige them to reform their conduct. Since that time,
at least, there have been no complaints against them. By the 10th
and 11th of William III. c.6, the fine for admission into the
Russia company was reduced to five pounds; and by the 25th of
Charles II. c.7, that for admission into the Eastland company to
forty shillings ; while, at the same time, Sweden, Denmark, and
Norway, all the countries on the north side of the Baltic, were
exempted from their exclusive charter. The conduct of those
companies had probably given occasion to those two acts of
parliament. Before that time, Sir Josiah Child had
represented both these and the Hamburgh company as extremely
oppressive, and imputed to their bad management the low state of
the trade, which we at that time carried on to the countries
comprehended within their respective charters. But though such
companies may not, in the present times, be very oppressive, they
are certainly altogether useless. To be merely useless, indeed,
is perhaps, the highest eulogy which can ever justly be bestowed
upon a regulated company; and all the three companies above
mentioned seem, in their present state, to deserve this eulogy.

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

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

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

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

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