th. The
scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the
pole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the
diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan.

If we consider our own country in its natural prospect, without any of
the benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren and
uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! Natural historians
tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, besides hips and
haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicacies of the {58} like
nature; that our climate of itself, and without the assistance of art,
can make no further advances towards a plum than to a sloe, and carries
an apple to no greater a perfection than a crab; that our melons, our
peaches, our figs, our apricots and cherries, are strangers among us,
imported in different ages, and naturalised in our English gardens; and
that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own
country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the
mercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable
world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our
ships are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables are
stored with spices and oils and wines. Our rooms are filled with
pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan. Our
morning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth.
We repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselves
under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of
France our gardens; the spice-islands, our hot-beds; the Persians our
silk-weavers, and the Chinese our potters. Nature indeed furnishes us
with the bare necessaries of life, but traffic gives us a great variety
of what is useful, and at the same time supplies us with everything
that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of this
our happiness, that whilst we enjoy the remotest products of the north
and south, we are free from those extremities of weather which give
them birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of
Britain, at the same time that our palates are feasted with fruits that
rise between the tropics.

{59} For these reasons there are not more useful members in a
commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual
intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work
for the poor, add wealth to the rich,