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France, though no doubt a richer country than Scotland, seems not

to be going forward so fast. It is a common and even a popular

opinion in the country, that it is going backwards; an opinion

which I apprehend, is ill-founded, even with regard to France,

but which nobody can possibly entertain with regard to Scotland,

who sees the country now, and who saw it twenty or thirty years

ago.

The province of Holland, on the other hand, in proportion to the

extent of its territory and the number of its people, is a richer

country than England. The government there borrow at two per

cent. and private people of good credit at three. The wages of

labour are said to be higher in Holland than in England, and the

Dutch, it is well known, trade upon lower profits than any people

in Europe. The trade of Holland, it has been pretended by some

people, is decaying, and it may perhaps be true that some

particular branches of it are so; but these symptoms seem to

indicate sufficiently that there is no general decay. When profit

diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays,

though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its

prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than

before. During the late war, the Dutch gained the whole carrying

trade of France, of which they still retain a very large share.