tion out their esteem to other
qualities than usefulness, agriculture still maintained its reputation,
and was taught by the polite and elegant Celsus among the other arts.

The usefulness of agriculture I have already shown; I shall now,
therefore, prove its necessity: and, having before declared, that it
produces the chief riches of a nation, I shall proceed to show, that it
gives its only riches, the only riches which we can call our own, and of
which we need not fear either deprivation or diminution.

Of nations, as of individuals, the first blessing is independence.
Neither the man nor the people can be happy to whom any human power can
deny the necessaries or conveniencies of life. There is no way of living
without the need of foreign assistance, but by the product of our own
land, improved by our own labour. Every other source of plenty is
perishable or casual.

Trade and manufactures must be confessed often to enrich countries; and
we ourselves are indebted to them for those ships by which we now
command the sea from the equator to the poles, and for those sums with
which we have shown ourselves able to arm the nations of the north in
defence of regions in the western hemisphere. But trade and
manufactures, however profitable, must yield to the cultivation of lands
in usefulness and dignity.

Commerce, however we may please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is
one of the daughters of Fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother;
she chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her
abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled. Who
can read of the present distresses of the Genoese, whose only choice now
remaining is, from what monarch they shall solicit protection? Who can
see the Hanseatick towns in ruins, where, perhaps, the inhabitants do
not always equal the number of the houses, but he will say to himself,
these are the cities, whose trade enabled them once to give laws to the
world, to whose merchants princes sent their jewels in pawn, from whose
treasuries armies were paid, and navies supplied? And who can then
forbear to consider trade as a weak and uncertain basis of power, and
wish to his own country greatness more solid, and felicity more durable?

It is apparent, that every trading nation flourishes, while it can be
said to flourish, by the courtesy of others. We cannot compel any people
to buy from us, or to sell to us. A thousand accidents may prejudice