not only affords no rule that is true,
but one that is false. In the first place, Every cargo that departs from
the custom-house appears on the books as an export; and, according to
the custom-house balance, the losses at sea, and by foreign failures,
are all reckoned on the side of profit because they appear as exports.

Secondly, Because the importation by the smuggling trade does not appear
on the custom-house books, to arrange against the exports.

No balance, therefore, as applying to superior advantages, can be
drawn from these documents; and if we examine the natural operation of
commerce, the idea is fallacious; and if true, would soon be injurious.
The great support of commerce consists in the balance being a level of
benefits among all nations.

Two merchants of different nations trading together, will both become
rich, and each makes the balance in his own favour; consequently, they
do not get rich of each other; and it is the same with respect to the
nations in which they reside. The case must be, that each nation must
get rich out of its own means, and increases that riches by something
which it procures from another in exchange.

If a merchant in England sends an article of English manufacture abroad
which costs him a shilling at home, and imports something which sells
for two, he makes a balance of one shilling in his favour; but this is
not gained out of the foreign nation or the foreign merchant, for he
also does the same by the articles he receives, and neither has the
advantage upon the other. The original value of the two articles in
their proper countries was but two shillings; but by changing their
places, they acquire a new idea of value, equal to double what they had
first, and that increased value is equally divided.

There is no otherwise a balance on foreign than on domestic commerce.
The merchants of London and Newcastle trade on the same principles, as
if they resided in different nations, and make their balances in the
same manner: yet London does not get rich out of Newcastle, any more
than Newcastle out of London: but coals, the merchandize of Newcastle,
have an additional value at London, and London merchandize has the same
at Newcastle.

Though the principle of all commerce is the same, the domestic, in a
national view, is the part the most beneficial; because the whole of the
advantages, an both sides, rests within the nation; whereas, in foreign
commerce, it is only a participa