h each other.

The Phoenicians were the only commercial people of antiquity.
Carthage was the colony, and received the Indian produce at second
hand. It was in no way a rival.

When Solomon mounted on the throne of his father David, he applied
himself to commerce; but the wisdom and power he possessed were
such as bore down all opposition during his reign. Having married the
daughter of the King of Egypt, who assisted him in several conquests,
he founded the city of Palmyra, or Tadmore in the Wilderness, for the
greater conveniency of the Eastern trade. The King of Tyre was his
ally, but he was so, most probably, from necessity, for the alliance was
very unnatural; and, soon after the death of Solomon, the Tyrians
excited the King of Babylon to destroy Jerusalem: so, that if there had
been, in ancient times, more people concerned in commerce, there is
no doubt there would likewise have been more envy and rivality.
=sic=

The cities of Italy, the Dutch, the Flemish, the English, and the
French, have been incessantly struggling to supplant each other in
manufactures and commerce; and the war of custom-house duties and
drawbacks has become very active and formidable.

This modern species of warfare is not only less bloody, but the object
is more legitimate, and the consequences neither so sudden nor so
fatal as open force; to which is to be added, that if a nation will but
determine to be industrious, it never can be greatly injured. If it
enjoyed any peculiarly great advantages, those may, indeed, be
wrested from it, but that is only taking away what it has no right to
possess, and what it may always do without. [end of page #177]

The intention of this inquiry is not to discover a method by which a
nation may engross the trade that ought to belong to others, it is only
to enable it, by industry and other means, to guard against the
approaches of adversity, which tend to sink it far below its level,
thereby making way for the elevation of some other nation, on the
ruins of its greatness.

As, in the interior causes of decline, we have traced the most part to
the manners and habits of the people, so, in the exterior causes, it will
be found that much depends upon the conduct of the government. [end
of page #178]

CHAP. XI.

_Why the Intercourse between Nations is ultimately in Favour of the
poorer one, though not so at first_.

In all commercial intercourse with each other, (or competition in
selling t