Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/243

233 an improper ſample. The people of the trading towns may be rich and luxurious, while the country poſſeſſes all the virtues that tend to promote happineſs and public proſperity. Thoſe towns are not much regarded by the country; they are hardly conſidered as an eſſential part of the States; and the experience of the laſt war has ſhewn, that their being in the poſſeſſion of the enemy did not neceſſarily draw on the ſubjection of the country; which bravely continued to maintain its freedom and independence notwithſtanding.

It has been computed by ſome political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work for four hours each day on ſomething uſeful, that labour would produce ſufficient to procure all the neceſſaries and comforts of life; want and miſery would be baniſhed out of the world, and the reſt of the twenty-four hours might be leiſure and pleaſure. What occaſions then ſo much want and miſery? It is the employment of men and women in works that produce neither the neceſſaries nor conveniences of life, who, with thoſe who do nothing, conſume neceſſaries raiſed by the laborious. To explain this:

The firſt elements of wealth are obtained by labour, from the earth and waters. I have land, and raiſe corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing, my corn will be conſumed, and at the end of the year I ſhall be no richer than I was at the beginning. But if, while I feed them, I employ them, ſome in ſpinning, others in making bricks, &c. for building, the value of my corn will be arreſted and remain with me, and at the end of the year we may all be better clothed and better lodged. And if, inſtead of employing a man I feed in making