From their appearance my mind catches a ferfation of tranquil grandeur. They are fo carefully polifhed, fo airy, fo perfectly light, that I feel as if it were impoffible to be melancholy in them. I am even fatigued with their variety.

I will imagine that, after having furveyed the reft of the house, the fancy firikes me of viewing the fervants' offices. I defcend by a narrow ftaircafe. I creep cautiously along dark paffages. I pafs from room to room, but every where is gloom. The light of day never fully enters the apartments. The breath of heaven cannot freely play among them. There is fomething in the very air that feels mufty and ftagnant to my fenfe. The furniture is frugal, unexceptionable perhaps in itself, but firangely contrasted with the fplendour of the reft of the houfe. If I enter the apartment which each fervant confiders as his own, or, it may be, is compelled to fhare with another, I perceive a general air of flovenlinefs and negligence, that amply reprefents to me the depreflion and humiliated ftate of mind of its tenant.

I cfcape from this place, as I would efcape from the fpectacle of a jail. I cannot return again to the fplendid apartments I have left. Their furniture has loft its beauty, and the pic

tures

with the cloth of which I was in need, without having recourse to the groveling and ungenerous methods of barter and fale. We might supply each other for this reafon only, because one party had a fuperfluity and the other a want, without in the smallest degree adverting to a reciprocal bounty to be by this method engendered; and we might depend upon the correfponding upright and disinterested affections of the other members of the community, for the being in like manner fupplied with the commodities of which we were in want *.

Liberal and generous habits of thinking and acting, are the growth only of a high degree of civilifation and refinement. It was to be expected therefore that, in the coarse and narrow ftate of human fociety, in which the division of labour was first introduced, the illiberal ideas of barter and fale would fpeedily follow.

The perfons who first had recourse to these ideas, undoubtedly were not aware what a complication of vices and mifery they were preparing for mankind. Barter and fale being once introduced, the invention of a circulating medium in the precious metals gave folidity to the evil, and afforded a field upon which for the rapacity

*Political Juftice, Book VIII, Chap. VIII, octavo edi

tion.

P 4

and

and selfishness of man to develop all their refine

ments.

It is from this point that the inequality of fortunes took their commencement. Here began to be exhibited the fenfelefs profufion of fome and the infatiable avarice of others. It is an old remark, that there is no avarice fo great and fo deftitute of fhame, as that of the licentious prodigal.

Avarice is not fo thoroughly displayed in the prefervation, as in the accumulation, of wealth. The chief method by which wealth can be begun to be accumulated by him who is deftitute of it, is trade, the tranfactions of barter and fale.

The trader or merchant is a man the grand effort of whofe life is directed to the purfuit of gain. This is true to a certain degree of the lawyer, the foldier and the divine, of every man who proposes by fome fpecies of industry to ac quire for himself a pecuniary income. But there is a great difference in this respect, Other men, though, it may be, their first object in choofing their calling was the acquifition of income, yet have their attention frequently diverted from this object, by the progrefs of reputation, or the improvements of which they have a prospect in the art they purfuc. The trader begins, proceeds and concludes with this one

object

To attempt it in any otherway, is the mockery of equality. We may make them furly and mutinous, but we cannot make them free. All that we can perform with fuccefs, is to exercise a mild empire over them, to make our commands few, fimple and unoppreffive, and to excite them, if poffible, to adopt for their leisure hours purfuits and a bufinefs which fhall be properly their

own.

It has fometimes been alleged, that fervants cannot be confidered as flaves, because the engagement into which they enter is a voluntary compact. Suppofe I could compel a man, by the preffure of a complication of circumftances, to fell himself for a flave, and authorise him to fpend the purchase-money in decorating his own perfon, would he not nevertheless be a flave? It is the condition under which he exifts, not the way in which he came into it, that conftitutes the difference between a freeman and a flave. It must be acknowledged that the flavery of an English fervant has its mitigations, and is, in feveral intelligible and diftinct particulars, preferable to that of a Weft-Indian Negro.

ESSAY V.

OF TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.

IN

the world of which man is an inhabitant, there are fome who, by the eftablished diftribution of property, are provided with the means of fubfiftence, from the period of their birth, without the intervention of any industry of theirs; and others who have no profpect of obtaining even the neceffarics of life, but through the medium of their own exertions.

The numbers in this latter clafs are fo great, and in the former fo infignificant, that the latter, whether the question to be confidered relate to freedom, virtue or happiness, may well pafs for all, and the former be regarded as nothing.

The clafs of the unprovided, comprehenfive as it is, is fomewhat fwelled, by the addition of thofe perfons who, though provided for by the condition of their birth as to the neceffaries of life, are yet diffàtisfied, covet fomething more, and refort to fome fpecies of induftry or occupation that they may fill up the imaginary deficiency.

From this furvey of the human fpecies it appears that there cannot be a queftion of greater importance,

I