muggling, which then becomes a very lucrative employment: and it's
natural and most reasonable punishment, _viz._ confiscation of the
commodity, is in such cases quite ineffectual; the intrinsic value of
the goods, which is all that the smuggler has paid, and therefore all
that he can lose, being very inconsiderable when compared with his
prospect of advantage in evading the duty. Recourse must therefore be
had to extraordinary punishments to prevent it; perhaps even to
capital ones: which destroys all proportion of punishment[f], and puts
murderers upon an equal footing with such as are really guilty of no
natural, but merely a positive offence.

[Footnote e: Hist. l. 13.]

[Footnote f: Montesqu. Sp. L. b. 13. c. 8.]

THERE is also another ill consequence attending high imports on
merchandize, not frequently considered, but indisputably certain; that
the earlier any tax is laid on a commodity, the heavier it falls upon
the consumer in the end: for every trader, through whose hands it
passes, must have a profit, not only upon the raw material and his own
labour and time in preparing it, but also upon the very tax itself,
which he advances to the government; otherwise he loses the use and
interest of the money which he so advances. To instance in the article
of foreign paper. The merchant pays a duty upon importation, which he
does not receive again till he sells the commodity, perhaps at the end
of three months. He is therefore equally entitled to a profit upon
that duty which he pays at the customhouse, as to a profit upon the
original price which he pays to the manufacturer abroad; and considers
it accordingly in the price he demands of the stationer. When the
stationer sells it again, he requires a profit of the printer or
bookseller upon the whole sum advanced by him to the merchant: and the
bookseller does not forget to charge the full proportion to the
student or ultimate consumer; who therefore does not only pay the
original duty, but the profits of these three intermediate traders,
who have successively advanced it for him. This might be carried much
farther in any mechanical, or more complicated, branch of trade.

II. DIRECTLY opposite in it's nature to this is the excise duty; which
is an inland imposition, paid sometimes upon the consumption of the
commodity, or frequently upon the retail sale, which is the last stage
before the consumption. This is doubtless, impartially speaking, the
most oeconomical wa