Suppose a prince, upon the failure of his foreign trade, to increase his army, in proportion as he finds his industrious hands laid idle by a deficiency of demand for their labour; and let him fill his magazines for their subsistence by foreign importation, leaving the produce of his country to feed the rest of his subjects. By such a plan, every body will remain employed, and also provided for, and such a prince may be looked upon as a most humane governor. This I willingly agree to. I should love such a prince; but the more I loved him, the more I should regret that his project must fail, from a physical impossibility of its being long supported; and when it comes to fail by the exhausting of his wealth, it will not be his regrets which will give bread to his soldiers, nor employment to his industrious subjects, who will no longer find an equivalent for their labour. Let this suffice at present, upon the general principles which influence the stop necessary to be put to the importation of foreign commodities, and to the diminution of national wealth, in the case we have had before us. Next as to the articles of exportation. The most profitable branches of exportation are those of work, the less profitable those of pure natural produce. When work cannot be exported in all its perfection, because of its high price, it is better to export it with a moderate degree of perfection, than not at all; and if even this cannot be done to advantage, then will a people be obliged to renounce working except for themselves: and then, if domestic consumption does not increase in proportion to the deficiency of foreign demand, a certain number of hands will be idle, and a certain quantity of natural produce will remain upon hand. The first must disappear in a short time; they will starve or desert; the last will become an article of exportation. Here then is a new species of trade which takes place upon the extinction of the other. When a nation has been forced to reduce her exportations to articles of pure natural produce, in conformity to the principles we have been laying down, then the plan proposed in the title of this chapter is executed. She is then brought as low in point of trade as she can be, but at the same time, she may enjoy her natural advantages in spite of fortune; and in proportion to them, she may, with a good government and frugality, retain a balance of trade in her favour, which will constantly go on in augmenting her national wealth. There is, therefore, a period at which foreign trade may stop in every article, but in natural produce. I do not know whether this period be at a great distance, when the state of trade is considered relatively to certain nations of Europe.