Charles V his rival Fran' is I., and Henry VIII., who wished to hold the balance between therm had engaged in expenses beyond their incomes; the ambition of their suc cessors, and the obstinacy of the house of Austria, which continued to maintain a destructive system of warfare dur ing more titan a hundred years, caused those expenses, in spite 'f the public poverty, to go on increasing But as the suffering became more general, the friends of huma nity felt more deeply the obligation laid on them to under take the defence of the poor. By an order of sequence opposite to the natural progress of ideas, the science of political economy sprung from that of finance. Philoso phers wished to shield the people from the speculations of absolute power. They felt that, to obtain a hearing from kings, they must speak to them of royal interests, not of justice or duty. They investigated the nature and causes of national wealth, to show governments how it might be shared without being destroyed.
Too little liberty existed in Europe to allow those who first occupied themselves with political economy to pre sent their speculations to the world; and finances were en veloped in too profound a secrecy to admit of men, not en gaged in public business, knowing facts enough to lOrm the basis of general rules. Hence the study of political econo my began with ministers, when once it had happened that kings put men at the head of their finances, who combined talents with justice and love of the public weal. Two great French ministers, Sully under Henry IV., and Colbert under Louis XIV., were the first who threw any light on a subject till then regarded as a secret of state, in which mystery had engendered and concealed the greatest absurdities. Yet, in spite of all their genius and authority, it was a task beyond their power to introduce any thing like order, precision, or uniformity into this branch of government. Both of them, however, not only repressed the frightful spoliations of the revenue farmers, and by their protection communicated some degree of se curity to private fortunes; hut likewise dimly perceived the true sources of national prosperity, and busied them selves with efforts to make them flow more abundantly. Sully gave his chief protection to agricuhure. He used to say that pasturage and husbandry were the two breasts of the state. t olbert, descended from a family engaged in the cloth trade, studied above all to encourage manufac tures and commerce. He furnished himself with the opi _ V IT/ 11.
nion of merchants, and asked their advice on all emergen cies. Both statesmen opened roads and canals to facilitate the exchange of commodities: both protected the spirit of enterprise, and honoured the industrious activity which diffused plenty over their country.
Colbert, the latter or the two, was greatly prior to any of the writers who have treated political economy as a science, and reduced it to a body of doctrines. Ile had a system, however, in regard to national wealth : he required one to give uniformity to his plans, and delineate clearly before his view the object he wished to attain. His sys tem was probably suggested by the merchants whom he consulted. It is now generally known by the epithet mer cantile, sometimes also by the name Colbertism. Not that Colbert was its author, or unfolded it in any publication ; but because he was beyond comparison the most illustrious of its professors; because, notwithstanding the errors of his theory, the applications he deduced from it were highly advantageous; and because, among the numerous writers who have maintained the same opinion, there is not one who has shown enough of talent even to fix his name in the reader's memory. It is but just, however, to sepa rate the mercantile system altogether from the name of Colbert. It was a system invented by trading subjects, not by citizens ; it was a system adopted by all the ministers of absolute governments, when they happened to take the trouble of thinking on finance, and Colbert had no other share in the matter than that of having followed it without reforming it.
After long treating commerce with haughty contempt, governments had at length discovered in it one of the most abundant sources of national wealth. All the great fortunes in their states did not indeed belong exclusively to merchants ; but when, overtaken by sudden necessity, they wished to levy large sums at once, merchants alone could supply them. Proprietors of land might possess immense revenues, manufacturers might cause immense labours to be executed ; but neither of them could dispose of any more than their income or annual produce. In a case of need merchants alone offered their whole fortune to the government. As their capital was entirely represented by commodities already prepared for consumption, by merchandise destined for the immediate use of the market to which it had been carried, they could sell it at an hour's warning, and realise the required sum with smaller loss than any other class of citizens. Merchants therefore found means to make themselves be listened to, because they 'tad in some sort the command of all the money in the state, and were at the same time nearly independent of authori ty—being able, in general, to hide from tho attacks of des potism a property of unknown amount, and transport it, with their persons, to a foreign country, at a moment's no tice.