IV. BOOK coining, though every body advances the tax, nobody finally pays it; because every body gets it back in the advanced value of the coin. in of A MODERATE feignorage, therefore, would not any cafe augment the expence of the bank, or any other private persons who carry their bullion to the mint in order to be coined, and the want of a moderate feignorage does not in any cafe diminish it. Whether there is or is not a feignorage, if the currency contains its full ftandard weight, the coinage cofts nothing to any body, and if it is fhort of that weight, the coinage muft always coft the difference between the quantity of bullion which ought to be contained in it, and that which actually is contained in it. THE government, therefore, when it defrays the expence of coinage, not only incurs fome fmall expence, but lofes fome fmall revenue which it might get by a proper duty; and neither the bank nor any other private perfons are in the smallest degree benefited by this useless piece of public generofity. THE directors of the bank, however, would probably be unwilling to agree to the impofition of a feignorage upon the authority of a speculation which promises them no gain, but only pretends to infure them from any lofs. In the prefent ftate of the gold coin, and as long as it continues to be received by weight, they certainly would gain nothing by fuch a change. But if the cuftom of weighing the gold coin fhould ever go into disuse, as it is very likely to do, and if the gold coin fhould ever fall into the same state of degradation 1 VI. degradation in which it was before the late re- c HA P. coinage, the gain, or more properly the favings of the bank, in confequence of the impofition of a feignorage, would probably be very confiderable. The bank of England is the only company which fends any confiderable quantity of bullion to the mint, and the burden of the annual coinage falls entirely, or almost entirely, upon it. If this annual coinage had nothing to do but to repair the unavoidable loffes and neceffary wear and tear of the coin, it could feldom exceed fifty thousand or at moft a hundred thoufand pounds. But when the coin is degraded below its standard weight, the annual coinage muft, besides this, fill up the large vacuities which exportation and the melting pot are continually making in the current coin. It was upon this account that during the ten or twelve years immediately preceding the late reformation of the gold coin, the annual coinage amounted at an average to more than eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. But if there had been a feignorage of four or five per cent. upon the gold coin, it would probably, even in the state in which things then were, have put an effectual stop to the business both of exportation and of the melting pot. The bank, instead of lofing every year about two and a half per cent. upon the bullion which was to be coined into more than eight hundred and fifty thoufand pounds, or incurring an annual lofs of more than twenty-one thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, Z3 BOOK pounds, would not probably have incurred the part of that lofs. IV. tenth THE revenue allotted by parliament for defraying the expence of the coinage is but fourteen thousand pounds a year, and the real expence which it cofts the government, or the fees of the officers of the mint, do not upon ordinary occafions, I am affured, exceed the half of that fum. The faving of fo very small a fum, or even the gaining of another which could not well be much larger, are objects too inconfiderable, it may be thought, to deserve the ferious attention of government. But the faving of eighteen or twenty thousand pounds a year in cafe of an event which is not improbable, which has frequently happened before, and which is very likely to happen again, is furely an object which well deferves the ferious attention even of fo great a company as the bank of England. SOME of the foregoing reafonings and obfervations might perhaps have been more properly placed in those chapters of the firft book which treat of the origin and use of money, and of the difference between the real and the nominal price of commodities. But as the law for the encouragement of coinage derives its origin from thofe vulgar prejudices which have been introduced by the mercantile fyftem; I judged it more proper to referve them for this chapter. Nothing could be more agreeable to the fpirit of that fyftem than a fort of bounty upon the production of money, the very thing which, it fup poses, VI. pofes, conftitutes the wealth of every nation. It c HAP. is one of its many admirable expedients for enriching the country. CHAP. VII. Of Colonies. PART FIRST. Of the Motives for establishing new Colonies. THE interest which occafioned the first set- Weft Indies, was not altodiftinct as that which directed the establishment of thofe of ancient Greece and Rome. ALL the different ftates of ancient Greece poffeffed, each of them, but a very small territory, and when the people in any one of them multiplied beyond what that territory could eafily maintain, a part of them were fent in queft of a new habitation in fome remote and distant part of the world; the warlike neighbours who furrounded them on all fides, rendering it difficult for any of them to enlarge very much its territory at home. The colonies of the Dorians reforted chiefly to Italy and Sicily, which, in the times preceding the foundation of Rome, were inhabited by barbarous and uncivilized nations: BOOK those of the Ionians and Eolians, the two other IV. great tribes of the Greeks, to Afia Minor and the islands of the Egean Sea, of which the inhabitants feem at that time to have been pretty much in the same state as thofe of Sicily and Italy. The mother city, though fhe confidered the colony as a child, at all times entitled to great favour and affiftance, and owing in return much gratitude and refpect, yet confidered it as an emancipated child, over whom the pretended to claim no direct authority or jurisdiction. The colony fettled its own form of government, enacted its own laws, elected its own magiftrates, and made peace or war with its neighbours as an independent ftate, which had no occafion to wait for the approbation or confent of the mother city. Nothing can be more plain and distinct than the intereft which directed every fuch eftablishment. ROME, like most of the other ancient republics, was originally founded upon an Agrarian law, which divided the public territory in a certain proportion among the different citizens who compofed the ftate. The courfe of human affairs, by marriage, by fucceffion, and by alienation, neceffarily deranged this original division, and frequently threw the lands, which had been allotted for the maintenance of many different families into the poffeffion of a fingle perfon. To remedy this disorder, for fuch it was fuppofed to be, a law was made, reftricting the quantity of land which any citizen could poffefs to five hundred jugera, about three hundred and |