It is much more difficult to reconcile the character of trading nations with the qualities that are improperly called great, than that of any other.  A commercial nation naturally will be just; it may be generous; but it never can become extravagant and wasteful; neither can it be incumbered with the lazy and the idle; for the moment that either of these takes place, commerce flies to another habitation. {36}

—–­ {36} It follows, from this, that a commercial people never become so degraded as those who obtain wealth by other means; but, then, it also follows, that they exist a much shorter time after they become so, and that wealth and power leave them much more speedily. -=-

[end of page #37]

The purpose of this inquiry being, to examine the effects of wealth, and its operation in the decline of nations; it appears to be of considerable importance to remove the error, in which historians and other writers have so long persevered, relative to the two greatest republics of antiquity; particularly as their example applies the most readily, and is the most frequently applied to two rival nations of modern times; although the parallel is extremely imperfect in almost every particular, and in some directly inadmissible. {37}

It cannot but be attended with some advantage to set this matter right.  It may, perhaps, tend in some degree to prevent the French from attempting to imitate the Romans, when we shew them that a state, whether a whole people, or a single city, exempted from taxes, and living by the tribute of other countries, must, at all events, be dependent on its armies.  In short, military government and tributary revenue are inseparable.  We see how closely they were connected in ancient Rome.  It is fit that its imitators should know at what rate they pay (and in what coin) for those exemptions from taxes, occasioned by the burthens imposed upon other nations.

In general we find, that all nations are inclined to push to the extreme those means by which they have attained wealth or power; and it will also be found that their ruin is thereby brought on with greater rapidity.

—–­ {37} The reader must see the allusion is to England and France; but, in point of time, their situation is absolutely different.  France is farther advanced in luxury than England.  Rome was far behind Carthage.  The Romans exceeded their rivals in perseverance; in following up their plans, and in attention to their liberty.  The contrary is the case with France and England.

The French, indeed, resemble the Romans in restlessness and ambition; but not in their mode of exerting the former, or of gratifying the latter:  the resemblance, therefore, is a very faint one, even where it does hold at all.  The English, in whatever they may resemble the Carthaginians, such as they have been represented, neither do it in their want of faith and honour, nor in their progress towards decline.  The different wars with Rome, in which Carthage came