LONDON, September 5, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY: I have received yours from Laubach, of the 17th of August, N.
S., with the inclosed for Comte Lascaris; which I have given him, and
with which he is extremely pleased, as I am with your account of
Carniola. I am very glad that you attend to, and inform yourself of, the
political objects of the country you go through. Trade and manufactures
are very considerable, not to say the most important ones; for, though
armies and navies are the shining marks of the strength of countries,
they would be very ill paid, and consequently fight very ill, if
manufactures and commerce did not support them. You have certainly
observed in Germany the inefficiency of great powers, with great tracts
of country and swarms of men; which are absolutely useless, if not paid
by other powers who have the resources of manufactures and commerce. This
we have lately experienced to be the case of the two empresses of Germany
and Russia: England, France, and Spain, must pay their respective allies,
or they may as well be without them.

I have not the least objection to your taking, into the bargain, the
observation of natural curiosities; they are very welcome, provided they
do not take up the room of better things. But the forms of government,
the maxims of policy, the strength or weakness, the trade and commerce,
of the several countries you see or hear of are the important objects,
which I recommend to your most minute inquiries, and most serious
attention. I thought that the republic of Venice had by this time laid
aside that silly and frivolous piece of policy, of endeavoring to conceal
their form of government; which anybody may know, pretty nearly, by
taking the pains to read four or five books, which explain all the great
parts of it; and as for some of the little wheels of that machine, the
knowledge of them would be as little useful to others as dangerous to