Book IV: Chapter 2 - Page 2

individual is continually exerting himself to find out the
most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command.
It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society,
which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage
naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous to the society.

First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near
home as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support
of domestic industry, provided always that he can thereby obtain
the ordinary, or not a great deal less than the ordinary profits
of stock.

Thus, upon equal, or nearly equal profits, every wholesale
merchant naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade of
consumption, and the foreign trade of consumption to the carrying
trade. In the home trade, his capital is never so long out of his
sight as it frequently is in the foreign trade of consumption. He
can know better the character and situation of the persons whom
he trusts; and if he should happen to be deceived, he knows
better the laws of the country from which he must seek redress.
In the carrying trade, the capital of the merchant is, as it
were, divided between two foreign countries, and no part of it is
ever necessarily brought home, or placed under his own immediate
view and command. The capital which an Amsterdam merchant employs
in carrying corn from Koningsberg to Lisbon, and fruit and wine
from Lisbon to Koningsberg, must generally be the one half of it
at Koningsberg, and the other half at Lisbon. No part of it need
ever come to Amsterdam. The natural residence of such a merchant
should either be at Koningsberg or Lisbon ; and it can only be
some very particular circumstances which can make him prefer the
residence of Amsterdam. The uneasiness, however, which he feels
at being separated so far from his capital, generally determines
him to bring part both of the Koningsberg goods which he destines
for the market of Lisbon, and of the Lisbon goods which he
destines for that of Koningsberg, to Amsterdam ; and though this
necessarily subjects him to a double charge of loading and
unloading as well as to the payment of some duties and customs,
yet, for the sake of having some part of his capital always under
his own view and command, he willingly submits to this
extraordinary charge; and it is in this manner that every country
which has any considerable share of the carrying trade, becomes
always the emporium, or general market, for the goods of all the
different countries whose trade it carries on. The merchant, in
order to save a second loading and unloading, endeavours always
to sell in the home market, as much of the goods of all those