Note 2 — REMARKS. (continued 4)

Since the first edition of this book, several have attacked me with demonstrations of the certain ruin, which excessive luxury must bring upon all nations, who yet were soon answered, when I showed them the limits within which I had confined it; and therefore, that no reader for the future may misconstrue me on this head, I shall point at the cautions I have given, and the provisos I have made in the former, as well as this present impression, and which, if not overlooked, must prevent all rational censure, and obviate several objections that otherwise might be made against me. I have laid down as maxims never to be departed from, that the2 poor should be kept strictly to work, and that it was prudence to relieve their wants, but folly to cure them; that agriculture3 and fishery should be promoted in all their branches, in order to render provisions, and consequently labour cheap. I have named4 ignorance as a necessary ingredient in the mixture of society: from all which it is manifest that I could never have imagined, that luxury was to be made general through every part of a kingdom. I have likewise required5 that property should be well secured, justice impartially administered, and in every thing the interest of the nation taken care of: but what I have insisted on the most, and repeated more than once, is the great regard that is to be had to the balance of trade, and the care the legislature ought to take, that the yearly6 imports never exceed the exports; and where this is observed, and the other things I spoke of are not neglected, I still continue to assert that no foreign luxury can undo a country: the height of it is never seen but in nations that are vastly populous, and there only in the upper part of it, and the greater, that is, the larger still in proportion must be the lowest, the basis that supports all, the multitude of working poor.