As we have been employed in explaining of terms, it will not be amiss to say a word concerning those which stand in the title of this chapter. The term _expence_, when simply expressed, without any particular relation, is always understood to be relative to money. This kind I distinguish under the three heads, of _private_, _public_, and _national_. 1. _Private_ expence is, what a private person, or private society, lays out, either to provide articles of consumption, or something more permanent, which may be conducive to their ease, convenience, or advantage. Thus we say, _a large domestic expence_, relative to one who spends a great income. We say, a merchant has been at _great expence_ for magazines, for living, for clerks, &c. but never that he has been at any in buying goods. In the same way a manufacturer may expend for building, machines, horses, and carriages, but never for the matter he manufactures. When a thing is bought, in order to be sold again, the sum employed is called money _advanced_; when it is bought not to be sold, it may be said to be _expended_. 2. _Public expence_ is, the employment of that money, which has been contributed by individuals, for the current service of the state. The contribution, or gathering it together, represents the effects of many articles of _private expence_; the laying it out when collected, is _public expence_. 3. _National expence_, is what is expended out of the country: this is what diminishes national wealth. The principal distinction to be here attended to, is between _public expence_, or the laying out of public money, and _national expence_, which is the alienating the nation’s wealth in favour of strangers. Thus the greatest _public expence_ imaginable, may be no national expence; because the money may remain at home. On the other hand, the smallest _public_, or even _private expence_, may be a national expence; because the money may go abroad. _Profit_, and _loss_, I divide into _positive_, _relative_, and _compound_. _Positive profit_, implies no loss to any body; it results from an augmentation of labour, industry, or ingenuity, and has the effect of swelling or augmenting the public good. _Positive loss_, implies no profit to any body; it is what results from the cessation of the former, or of the effects resulting from it, and may be said to diminish the public good. _Relative profit_, is what implies a loss to some body; it marks a vibration of the balance of wealth between parties, but implies no addition to the general stock. _Relative loss_, is what, on the contrary, implies a profit to some body; it also marks a vibration of the balance, but takes nothing from the general stock. The _compound_ is easily understood; it is that species of profit and loss which is partly _relative_, and partly _positive_. I call it compound, because both kinds may subsist inseparably in the same transaction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------