20.6. 6. Some Effects of an extensive Navigation.
It sometimes happens
that a nation, when engaged in an economical commerce, having need of
the merchandise of one country, which serves as a capital or stock for
procuring the commodities of another, is satisfied with making very
little profit, and frequently none at all, in trading with the former,
in expectation of gaining greatly by the latter. Thus, when the Dutch
were almost the only nation that carried on the trade from the south to
the north of Europe; the French wines which they imported to the north
were in some measure only a capital or stock for conducting their
commerce in that part of the world.
It is a known fact that there are some kinds of merchandise in
Holland which, though imported from afar, sell for very little more than
they cost upon the spot. They account for it thus: a captain who has
occasion to ballast his ship will load it with marble; if he wants wood
for stowage, he will buy it; and, provided he loses nothing by the
bargain, he will think himself a gainer. Thus it is that Holland has its
quarries and its forests.
Further, it may happen so that not only a commerce which brings in
nothing shall be useful, but even a losing trade shall be beneficial. I
have heard it affirmed in Holland that the whale fishery in general does
not answer the expense; but it must be observed that the persons
employed in building the ships, as also those who furnish the rigging
and provisions, are jointly concerned in the fishery. Should they happen
to lose in the voyage, they have had a profit in fitting out the vessel.
This commerce, in short, is a kind of lottery, and every one is allured
with the hopes of a prize. Mankind are generally fond of gaming; and
even the most prudent have no aversion to it, when the disagreeable
circumstances attending it, such as dissipation, anxiety, passion, loss
of time, and even of life and fortune, are concealed from their view.
