n, they must buy of us, and buy at a higher price: in
this case, if we have corn more than enough for ourselves, we are again
benefited by supplying them.

But they may want when we have no superfluity. When our markets rise,
the bounty ceases; and, therefore, produces no evil. They cannot buy our
corn but at a higher rate than it is sold at home. If their necessities,
as now has happened, force them to give a higher price, that event is no
longer to be charged upon the bounty. We may then stop our corn in our
ports, and pour it back upon our own markets.

It is, in all cases, to be considered, what events are physical and
certain, and what are political and arbitrary.

The first effect of the bounty is the increase of agriculture, and, by
consequence, the promotion of plenty. This is an effect physically good,
and morally certain. While men are desirous to be rich, where there is
profit there will be diligence. If much corn can be sold, much will be
raised.

The second effect of the bounty is the diminution by exportation of that
product which it occasioned. But this effect is political and arbitrary;
we have it wholly in our own hands; we can prescribe its limits, and
regulate its quantity. Whenever we feel want, or fear it, we retain our
corn, and feed ourselves upon that which was sown and raised to feed
other nations.

It is, perhaps, impossible for human wisdom to go further, than to
contrive a law of which the good is certain and uniform, and the evil,
though possible in itself, yet always subject to certain and effectual
restraints.

This is the true state of the bounty upon corn: it certainly and
necessarily increases our crops, and can never lessen them but by our
own permission.

That, notwithstanding the bounty, there have been, from time to time,
years of scarcity, cannot be denied. But who can regulate the seasons?
In the dearest years we owe to the bounty that they have not been
dearer. We must always suppose part of our ground sown for our own
consumption, and part in hope of a foreign sale. The time sometimes
comes, when the product of all this land is scarcely sufficient: but if
the whole be too little, how great would have been the deficiency, if we
had sown only that part which was designed for ourselves!

"But, perhaps, if exportation were less encouraged, the superfluous
stores of plentiful years might be laid up by the farmer against years
of scarcity."

This may be justly answered by