While a people are fed with the produce of their own lands, the preservation of their numbers is quite consistent with the preservation of their wealth. If, therefore, in such a case, their numbers should be diminished upon a decay of foreign trade, either by their food’s being exported, or by their lands becoming uncultivated, I should never hesitate to lay the blame upon the statesman’s administration. But an industrious people may (as has been said) carry their numbers far beyond the proportion of their own subsistence. The deficiency must be supplied from abroad, and must be paid with the balance of the trade in their favour. Now when this balance comes to turn against them, and when, consequently, a stop is put to the disadvantageous foreign trade, upon the principles we have been laying down, the statesman is reduced to this alternative; either annually to allow a part of the wealth already got, to be exported, in order to buy subsistence for the _surplus_ of his people, as I may call them, or to reduce their numbers by degrees, either by encouragements given to their leaving the country, or by establishing colonies, &c. until they are brought down to the just proportion of national subsistence. If he prefers the first, supposing the execution of such a plan to be possible, the consequence will be, that so soon as all the wealth is spent, the whole society, except the proprietors of the lands, and these who cultivate them, must go to destruction. If he prefers the second, he remains independent of all the world with respect to the inhabitants he preserves. They remain in a capacity of maintaining themselves, and he may alter the plan of his political oeconomy as best suits his circumstances, relatively to other nations. While all his subjects are employed and provided for, he will remain at the head of a flourishing and happy people. It may be here objected, that the first alternative is an impossible supposition. I allow it to be so, if you suppose it to be carried the length to which I have traced it; because no power whatsoever in a statesman, can go so far as to preserve numbers at the expence of the whole riches of his people. But I can very easily suppose a case, where numbers may be supported at an eminent loss to a state which finds itself in the situation in which we have represented it in our supposition.