Book IV: Chapter 1 - Page 2

in great want of them the next. Money, on the
contrary, is a steady friend, which, though it may travel about
from hand to hand, yet if it can be kept from going out of the
country, is not very liable to be wasted and consumed. Gold and
silver, therefore, are, according to him, the must solid and
substantial part of the moveable wealth of a nation ; and to
multiply those metals ought, he thinks, upon that account, to be
the great object of its political economy.

Others admit, that if a nation could be separated from all the
world, it would be of no consequence how much or how little money
circulated in it. The consumable goods, which were circulated by
means of this money, would only be exchanged for a greater or a
smaller number of pieces; but the real wealth or poverty of the
country, they allow, would depend altogether upon the abundance
or scarcity of those consumable goods. But it is otherwise, they
think, with countries which have connections with foreign
nations, and which are obliged to carry on foreign wars, and to
maintain fleets and armies in distant countries. This, they say,
cannot be done, but by sending abroad money to pay them with ;
and a nation cannot send much money abroad, unless it has a good
deal at home. Every such nation, therefore, must endeavour, in
time of peace, to accumulate gold and silver, that when occasion
requires, it may have wherewithal to carry on foreign wars.

In consequence of those popular notions, all the different
nations of Europe have studied, though to little purpose, every
possible means of accumulating gold and silver in their
respective countries. Spain and Portugal, the proprietors of the
principal mines which supply Europe with those metals, have
either prohibited their exportation under the severest penalties,
or subjected it to a considerable duty. The like prohibition
seems anciently to have made a part of the policy of most other
European nations. It is even to be found, where we should least
of all expect to find it, in some old Scotch acts of Parliament,
which forbid, under heavy penalties, the carrying gold or silver
forth of the kingdom. The like policy anciently took place both
in France and England.

When those countries became commercial, the merchants found this
prohibition, upon many occasions, extremely inconvenient. They
could frequently buy more advantageously with gold and silver,
than with any other commodity, the foreign goods which they
wanted, either to import into their own, or to carry to some
other foreign country. They remonstrated, therefore, against this
prohibition as hurtful to trade.

They represented, first, that the exportation of gold and silver,
in order to purchase foreign goods, did