operation in consequence
of peace. The regular markets had been destroyed, the channels of trade
broken up, the high road of the seas infested with robbers of every
nation, and the attention of the world called to other objects. Those
interruptions have ceased, and peace has restored the deranged condition
of things to their proper order.*[25] It is worth remarking that every
nation reckons the balance of trade in its own favour; and therefore
something must be irregular in the common ideas upon this subject. The
fact, however, is true, according to what is called a balance; and it
is from this cause that commerce is universally supported. Every nation
feels the advantage, or it would abandon the practice: but the deception
lies in the mode of making up the accounts, and in attributing what are
called profits to a wrong cause. Mr. Pitt has sometimes amused himself,
by showing what he called a balance of trade from the custom-house
books. This mode of calculating 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