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