The effeminacy and luxury of the rich, those interior causes, of which we have already spoken, always give facility to those efforts which envy and avarice excite.

The rivalship, in time of peace, is a contest confined to modern nations; or, at least, but little known to the ancients.  Indeed, it is only amongst commercial nations that it can exist.  There can be no competition in agriculture; and, indeed, it is only in war, or in commerce, that nations can interfere with each other.

The Phoenicians were the only commercial people of antiquity.  Carthage was the colony, and received the Indian produce at second hand.  It was in no way a rival.

When Solomon mounted on the throne of his father David, he applied himself to commerce; but the wisdom and power he possessed were such as bore down all opposition during his reign.  Having married the daughter of the King of Egypt, who assisted him in several conquests, he founded the city of Palmyra, or Tadmore in the Wilderness, for the greater conveniency of the Eastern trade.  The King of Tyre was his ally, but he was so, most probably, from necessity, for the alliance was very unnatural; and, soon after the death of Solomon, the Tyrians excited the King of Babylon to destroy Jerusalem:  so, that if there had been, in ancient times, more people concerned in commerce, there is no doubt there would likewise have been more envy and rivality. =sic=

The cities of Italy, the Dutch, the Flemish, the English, and the French, have been incessantly struggling to supplant each other in manufactures and commerce; and the war of custom-house duties and drawbacks has become very active and formidable.

This modern species of warfare is not only less bloody, but the object is more legitimate, and the consequences neither so sudden nor so fatal as open force; to which is to be added, that if a nation will but determine to be industrious, it never can be greatly injured.  If it enjoyed any peculiarly great advantages, those may, indeed, be wrested from it, but that is only taking away what it has no right to possess, and what it may always do without. [end of page #177]

The intention of this inquiry is not to discover a method by which a nation may engross the trade that ought to belong to others, it is only to enable it, by industry and other means, to guard against the approaches of adversity, which tend to sink it far below its level, thereby making way for the elevation of some other nation, on the ruins of its greatness.

As, in the interior causes of decline, we have traced the most part to the manners and habits of the people, so, in the exterior causes, it will be found that much depends upon the conduct of the government. [end of page #178]

CHAP.  XI.

Why the Intercourse between Nations is ultimately in Favour of the poorer one, though not so at first.