CHAP. XXVI.

Of the inland trade of England; its magnitude, and the great advantage it is of to the nation in general. The vast consequence of London to the whole kingdom. Of the increase of this commerce by credit.

I HAVE in few words described what I mean by the inland trade of England, in the introduction of this work; it is the circulation of commerce among ourselves :

1. For the carrying on our manufactures of several kinds in the several counties where they are made, and the employing the several sorts of people and trades needful for the said manufactures.

2. For the raising and vending provisions of all kinds for supply of the vast numbers of people that are employed everywhere by the said manufactures.

3. For the importing and bringing in from abroad all kinds of foreign growth and manufactures which

we want.

4. For the carrying about and dispersing, as well our own growth and manufactures, as the imported growth and manufactures of other nations, to the retailer, and by them to the last consumer, which is the utmost end of all trade.

This I call inland trade; and these circulators of goods, and retailers of them to the last consumer, are those whom we are to understand by the word 'tradesmen,' in all parts of this work.

By this prodigy of a trade, all the vast importation

from our own countries is circulated, and dispersed to the remotest corners of the island, whereby the consumption is become so great, and by which our colonies are so increased, and are become so populous and so wealthy, as I have already observed. This importation consists chiefly of sugars and tobacco, of which the consumption in Great Britain is scarcely to be conceived, besides the consumption of cotton, indigo, rice, ginger, pimento or Jamaica pepper, cocoa or chocolate, rum and molasses, trainoil, salt-fish, whale-fin, all sorts of firs, abundance of valuable drugs, pitch, tar, turpentine, deals, masts, timber, and many other things of smaller value; all which, besides the employing a very great number of ships, and English seamen, occasion again a very great exportation of our own manufactures of all sorts to those colonies; which being circulated again for consumption there, that circulation is to be accounted a branch of home or inland trade, as those colonies are, or all such occasions, esteemed as a branch or part of ourselves, and of the British go

vernment.

This trade to our West Indies and American colonies is very considerable, as it employs so many ships and sailors, and so much of the growth of those colonies is again exported by us to other parts of the world, over and above what is consumed among us at home; and also, as all those goods, and a great deal of money in specie, is returned hither for and in balance of our own manufactures and merchandises exported thither. On these ac

counts some have insisted that more real wealth is brought into Great Britain every year from those colonies, than is brought from the Spanish West Indies to Old Spain, notwithstanding the extent of their dominion is above twenty times as much, and notwithstanding the vast quantity of gold and silver

which they bring from the mines of Mexico and the mountains of Potosi.

As the manufactures of England, particularly those of wool (cotton-wool included) and of silk, are the greatest, and amount to the greatest value of any single manufacture in Europe, so they not only employ more people, but those people gain the most money, that is to say, have the best wages for their work of any people in the world; and yet, which is a peculiar to England, the English manufactures are, allowing for their goodness, the cheapest at market of any in the world too. Even France itself, after all the pains they are at to get our wool, and all the expense they have been at to imitate our manufactures, by getting over our work. men, and giving them even greater wages than they had here, have yet made so little proficiency in it, that they still, in spite of the strictest prohibitions, send hither, and to Holland and Germany, for English broadcloths, druggets, duroys, flannels, says, and several other sorts of our goods, to supply their own. Nor can they clothe themselves to their satisfaction with their own goods; but if any French gentleman of quality comes over hither from France, he is sure to bring no more coats with him than backs, but immediately to make him new clothes as soon as he arrives, and to carry as many new suits home with him at his return as he can get leave to bring ashore when he comes there; a demonstration that our manufacture exceeds theirs, after all their boasts of it, both in goodness and in cheapness, even by their own confession. But I am not now to enter upon the particular manufactures; but the general trade in the manufacture. This particular being a trade of such a magnitude, it is to be observed for our purpose, that the greatness of it consists of two parts :

1. The consumption of it at home, including our own plantations and factories.

2. The exportation of it to foreign parts, exclusive of the said plantations and factories.

It is the first of these which is the subject of my present discourse; because the tradesmen to whom, and for whose instruction these sheets are designed, are the people principally concerned in the making all these manufactures, and wholly and solely concerned in dispersing and circulating them for the home consumption; and this, with some additions, as explained above, I call inland trade.

The home consumption of our own goods, as it is very great, so it has one particular circumstance attending it, which exceedingly increases it as a trade; and that is, that besides the numbers of people which it employs in the raising the materials, and making the goods themselves as a manufacture, there are multitudes of people employed, cattle maintained, with wagons and carts for the service on shore, barges and boats for carriage in the rivers, and ships and barks for carrying by sea, and all for the circulating these manufactures from one place to another for the consumption of them among the people.

So that, in short, the circulation of the goods is a business bearing a very great proportion to the trade itself.

This is owing to another particular circumstance of our manufacture, and perhaps is not so remarkably the case of any other manufacture or country in Europe; namely, that though all our manufactures are used and called for by almost all the people, and that in every part of the whole British dominion, yet they are made and wrought in several distinct and respective counties in Britain, and some of them at the remotest distance from one anC. E. T. I.

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other, hardly any two manufactures being made in one place. For example:

The broadcloth and druggets, in Wilts, Gloucester, and Worcestershire.

The serges, in Devon and Somersetshire.

The narrowcloths, in Yorkshire and Staffordshire.

The kerseys, cottons, half-thicks, duffields, plains, and coarser things, in Lancashire and Westmorland.

The shaloons, in the counties of Northampton,
Berks, Oxford, Southampton, and York.
The women's stuffs, in Norfolk.

The linseywoolseys, &c., at Kidderminster.
The dimities and cotton-wares, at Manchester.
The flannels, at Salisbury and in Wales.
The tammies, at Coventry; and the like.

It is the same, in some respects, with our provisions, especially for the supply of the city of London, and also of several other parts.

When I speak of provision, I mean such as is not made use of in the county where it is made and produced. For example :

:

Butter, in firkins, in Suffolk and Yorkshire.

Cheese, from Cheshire, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire.

Herrings cured red, from Yarmouth in Norfolk. Coals for fuel, from Northumberland and Durham.

Malt, from the counties of Hertford, Essex, Kent, Bucks, Oxford, Berks, &c.

And thus of many other things, which are the proper produce of one part of the country only, but are from thence dispersed for the ordinary use of the people into many, or perhaps into all the other coun