Book V: Chapter 3 - Page 2

at interest, which at that time was considered as
usury, and prohibited bylaw, would have been still more so. In
those times of violence and disorder, besides, it was convenient
to have a hoard of money at hand, that in case they should be
driven from their own home, they might have something of known
value to carry with them to some place of safety. The same
violence which made it convenient to hoard, made it equally
convenient to conceal the hoard. The frequency of treasure-trove,
or of treasure found, of which no owner was known, sufficiently
demonstrates the frequency, in those times, both of hoarding and
of concealing the hoard. Treasure-trove was then considered as an
important branch of the revenue of the sovereign. All the
treasure-truve of the kingdom would scarce, perhaps, in the
present times, make an important branch of the revenue of a
private gentleman of a good estate.

The same disposition, to save and to hoard, prevailed in the
sovereign, as well as in the subjects. Among nations, to whom
commerce and manufacture are little known, the sovereign, it has
already been observed in the Fourth book, is in a situation which
naturally disposes him to the parsimony requisite for
accumulation. In that situation, the expense, even of a
sovereign, cannot be directed by that vanity which delights in
the gaudy finery of a court. The ignorance of the times affords
but few of the trinkets in which that finery consists. Standing
armies are not then necessary; so that the expense, even of a
sovereign, like that of any other great lord can be employed in
scarce any thing but bounty to his tenants, and hospitality to
his retainers. But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to
extravagance; though vanity almost always does. All the ancient
sovereigns of Europe, accordingly, it has already been observed,
had treasures. Every Tartar chief, in the present times, is said
to have one.

In a commercial country, abounding with every sort of expensive
luxury, the sovereign, in the same manner as almost all the great
proprietors in his dominions, naturally spends a great part of
his revenue in purchasing those luxuries. His own and the
neighbouring countries supply him abundantly with all the costly
trinkets which compose the splendid, but insignificant, pageantry
of a court. For the sake of an inferior pageantry of the same
kind, his nobles dismiss their retainers, make their tenants
independent, and become gradually themselves as insignificant as
the greater part of the wealthy burghers in his dominions.
The same frivolous passions, which influence their conduct,
influence his. How can it be supposed that he should be the only
rich man in his dominions who is insensible to pleasures of