the variation of things a balance is
preserved: That provisions have not advanced in price, but are more
plentiful: And that the lower class of men have found in trade, that
intricate, but beneficial clue, which guides them into the confines
of luxury.

Provisions and the manufactures, like a pair of scales, will not
preponderate together; but as weight is applied to the one, the other
will advance.

As labour is irksome to the body, a man will perform no more of it than
necessity obliges him; it follows, that in those times when plenty
preponderates, the manufactures tend to decay: For if a man can support
his family with three days labour, he will not work six.

As the generality of men will perform no more work than produces a
maintenance, reduce that maintenance to half the price, and they will
perform but half the work: Hence half the commerce of a nation is
destroyed at one blow, and what is lost by one kingdom will be recovered
by another, in rivalship.

A commercial people, therefore, will endeavour to keep provisions at a
superior rate, yet within reach of the poor.

It follows also, that luxury is no way detrimental to trade; for we
frequently observe ability and industry exerted to support it.

The practice of the Birmingham manufacturer, for, perhaps, a hundred
generations, was to keep within the warmth of his own forge.

The foreign customer, therefore, applied to him for the execution of
orders, and regularly made his appearance twice a year; and though this
mode of business is not totally extinguished, yet a very different one
is adopted.

The merchant stands at the head of the manufacturer, purchases his
produce, and travels the whole island to promote the sale: A practice
that would have astonished our fore fathers. The commercial spirit of
the age, hath also penetrated beyond the confines of Britain, and
explored the whole continent of Europe; nor does it stop there, for the
West-Indies, and the American world, are intimately acquainted with the
Birmingham merchant; and nothing but the exclusive command of the
East-India Company, over the Asiatic trade, prevents our riders from
treading upon the heels of each other, in the streets of Calcutta.

To this modern conduct of Birmingham, in sending her sons to the foreign
market, I ascribe the chief cause of her rapid increase.

By the poor's books it appears, there are not three thousand houses in
Birmingham, that pay the parochial rates; whils