—–­ {101} Invention has nearly the same effect in commerce that the introduction of gunpowder and artillery have on the art of war.  Wealth is rendered more necessary to carry them on.  Every new improvement that is made, in either the personal strength and energy of man becomes of less importance.

{102} Some of the greatest proprietors in this kingdom, much to their honour, are the most exemplary men in it, with respect to their conduct to their tenantry; but though the instances are honourable and splendid, they are not general; nor is it in the nature of things that they can be general.  In France, matters were in general different; and the inattention of the nobility to their duty was one cause of the revolution; they had forgot, that, if they neglected or oppressed the industrious, they must ruin themselves. -=-

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find that the chance of being born half an hour sooner or later makes one man the proprietor of 50,000 acres and another little better than a beggar; when we consider that, by means of industry, he never may be able to purchase a garden to grow cabbages for his family, it loosens our attachment to the order of things we see before us, it hurts our ideas of moral equity.  A man of reflection wishes the evil to be silently counteracted, and if he is violent, and has any disposition to try a change, it furnishes him with arguments and abettors.

When the Romans (with whose history we are tolerably well acquainted) {103} grew rich, the division of property became very unequal, and the attachment of the people for their government declined, the middle classes lost their importance, and the lower orders of free citizens became a mere rabble.  When Rome was poor, the people did not cry for bread, but when the brick buildings were turned into marble palaces, when a lamprey was sold for fifty-six pounds, {104} the people became a degraded populace, not much better, or less disorderly than the Lazzeroni of Naples.  A donation of corn was a bribe to a Roman citizen; {105} though there is not, perhaps, an order of peasantry in the most remote corner of Europe, who would consider such a donation in ordinary times as an object either worthy of clamour or deserving of thanks. {106}

The Romans, at the time when Cincinatus held the plough, and the conquerors of nations roasted their own turnips, would have thought themselves degraded by eating bread obtained by such means; but it was different with the Romans after they had conquered the world.

In a more recent example, we may trace a similar effect, arising from a cause not very different.

—–­ {103} We know better about the laws and manners of the Romans 2000 years ago, in the time of the first Punic War, than about those of England, in the time of Henry the Fourth.  They had fixed laws, their state was young, and the division of property tolerably equal.

{104} See Arbuthnot on Coins.