Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/285

275 which it is hoped may be equally advantageous; and the demand is conſtantly increaſing for their ſpermaceti candles, which therefore bear a much higher price than formerly.

There remain the merchants and ſhopkeepers. Of theſe, though they make but a ſmall part of the whole nation, the number is conſiderable, too great indeed for the buſineſs they are employed in; for the conſumption of goods in every country has its limits; the faculties of the people, that is, their ability to buy and pay, is equal only to a certain quantity of merchandize. If merchants calculate amiſs on this proportion, and import too much, they will of courſe find the ſale dull for the overplus, and ſome of them will ſay that trade languiſhes. They ſhould, and doubtleſs will, grow wiſer by experience, and import leſs. If too many artificers in town, and farmers from the country, flattering themſelves with the idea of leading eaſier lives, turn ſhopkeepers, the whole natural quantity of that buſineſs divided among them all may afford too ſmall a ſhare for each, and occaſion complaints that trading is dead; theſe may alſo ſuppoſe that it is owing to ſcarcity of money, while, in fact, it is not ſo much from the fewneſs of buyers, as from the exceſſive number of ſellers, that the miſchief ariſes; and, if every ſhopkeeping farmer and mechanic would return to the uſe of his plough and working tools, there would remain of widows, and other women, ſhopkeepers ſufficient for the buſineſs, which might then afford them a comfortable maintenance.

Whoever has travelled through the various parts of Europe, and obſerved how ſmall is the proportion of the people in affluence or eaſy circumſtances there, compared with thoſe in poverty and miſery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the