e in the real or labour price of
commodities, than the additional quantity of labour required to convey
them to the various markets where they were to be sold.

Experience however shews, that the fancied or real insecurity of
capital, when not under the immediate control of its owner, together
with the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country
of his birth and connexions, and intrust himself with all his habits
fixed, to a strange government and new laws, check the emigration of
capital. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce
most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in
their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for
their wealth in foreign nations.

Gold and silver having been chosen for the general medium of
circulation, they are, by the competition of commerce, distributed in
such proportions amongst the different countries of the world, as to
accommodate themselves to the natural traffic which would take place if
no such metals existed, and the trade between countries were purely a
trade of barter.

Thus, cloth cannot be imported into Portugal, unless it sell there for
more gold than it cost in the country from which it was imported; and
wine cannot be imported into England, unless it will sell for more there
than it cost in Portugal. If the trade were purely a trade of barter, it
could only continue whilst England could make cloth so cheap as to
obtain a greater quantity of wine with a given quantity of labour, by
manufacturing cloth than by growing vines; and also whilst the industry
of Portugal were attended by the reverse effects. Now suppose England
to discover a process for making wine, so that it should become her
interest rather to grow it than import it: she would naturally divert a
portion of her capital from the foreign trade to the home trade; she
would cease to manufacture cloth for exportation, and would grow wine
for herself. The money price of these commodities would be regulated
accordingly; wine would fall here while cloth continued at its former
price, and in Portugal no alteration would take place in the price of
either commodity. Cloth would continue for some time to be exported from
this country, because its price would continue to be higher in Portugal
than here; but money instead of wine would be given in exchange for it,
till the accumulation of money here, and its diminution abroad, should
so opera