From this alternative we discover the principle which directs the conduct of a statesman under such circumstances, viz. To forbid the importation of every foreign manufacture whatsoever; to submit to the hardships necessarily implied in the circumstances of the nation; and to pay freely what balance may be owing upon natural produce imported for the uses of subsistence, or manufacture. This is a plan more rational and more easily executed, than a general prohibition to export the metals; because with good regulations, properly executed, you may prevent the importation of manufactures; but it is hardly possible to prevent the exportation of the metals necessary to pay for what you have bought from strangers, by the permission of government: and on the other hand, suppose you do effectually prevent the exportation of the metals, the consequence will be, to put an end to all foreign trade even in natural produce. What nation will trade with another who can pay only by barter? All credit will then be cut off; for who will exchange by bills, with a place which cannot pay, either in their own currency, or with the metals, the debts which they reciprocally owe? The maxim therefore, here, is to prevent the contracting of debts with strangers; but when you allow them to be contracted, to facilitate the payment of them. This reasoning is only calculated to direct a statesman who finds himself at the head of a rich luxurious nobility, and an idle or ill instructed common people, surrounded by industrious neighbours, whose assistance may be necessary upon many occasions, to provide subsistence, or the materials of manufacture, to his people; and this while he is forming a scheme of introducing industry at home, as a basis for afterwards establishing a proper foreign commerce. But in this subject combinations are infinite, and the smallest change of circumstances throws the decision of a question on a different principle. I will not therefore say, that in every case which can be supposed, certain restrictions upon the exportation of bullion or coin are contrary to good policy. This proposition I confine to the flourishing trading nations of our own time. To set this matter in a fair light, and as an exercise upon principles, I shall borrow two combinations, one from history, and another from a recent example in France, in which a clog upon the exportation of the metals and coin were very politically laid on. We learn from the history of Henry VII. of England, a sagacious Prince, that he established very severe laws against the exportation of bullion; and obliged the merchants who imported foreign commodities into his dominions, to invest their returns in the natural produce of England, which at that time consisted principally in wool and in grain. The circumstances of the times in which that Prince lived, must therefore be examined, before we can justly find fault with this step of his political oeconomy.