at one period, of great service to the English, as that of England now is
to the Americans.

{149} This is not meant to apply to any particular sort of manufacture.
In some, a nation may have a permanent advantage over another; in
others, only a temporary one, and in the greater portion no other
advantage than what arises from superior capital.
-=-

[end of page #180]

in preference to laying out the money in England or Ireland; and they
will give credit, as before explained, to the nation that wants it.

In this manner it is, that the capital of a rich country supplies the want
of it in poorer ones, and that, by degrees, a nation saps the foundation
of its own wealth and greatness, and gives encouragement to them in
others.

It is then that the weight of taxes, the high price of commodities, and
the various causes which encumber those who live in wealthy nations,
begin to produce a pernicious effect. The tendency of industry is to
remove its abode, and the capital of the merchants, who know no
country, but understand arithmetic, and the profits of trade, gives the
industry the means of doing it with more ease and promptitude.

The Dutch, for the last century, employed their capital in this manner,
and, at one time, were the chief carriers, for they secured custom by
paying readily and giving credit largely. They ruined many of their
own manufactures in this manner, but it is impossible to separate the