But as any body of water may be raised above the level of the surrounding element, if the former has no communication with the latter, so in money, if the communication be cut off by any material or physical impediment (for all laws alone are ineffectual), there may, in such a case, be a very great inequality of money. Thus the immense distance of China, together with the monopolies of our India companies, obstructing the communication, preserve in Europe the gold and silver, especially the latter, in much greater plenty than they are found in that kingdom. But, notwithstanding this great obstruction, the force of the causes above-mentioned is still evident. The skill and ingenuity of Europe in general surpasses perhaps that of China with regard to manual arts and manufactures, yet are we never able to trade thither without great disadvantage; and were it not for the continual recruits which we receive from America, money would very soon sink in Europe and rise in China, till it came nearly to a level in both places. Nor can any reasonable man doubt but that industrious nation, were they as near us as Poland or Barbary, would drain us of the overplus of our specie, and draw to themselves a larger share of the West Indian treasures. We need have no recourse to a physical attraction to explain the necessity of this operation; there is a moral attraction arising from the interests and passions of men which is full as potent and infallible. How is the balance kept in the provinces of every kingdom among themselves but by the force of this principle, which makes it impossible for money to lose its level, and either to rise or sink beyond the proportion of the labour and commodities which is in each province? Did not long experience make people easy on this head, what a fund of gloomy reflections might calculations afford a melancholy Yorkshireman while he computed and magnified the sums drawn to London by taxes, absentees, commodities, and found on comparison the opposite articles so much inferior? And no doubt, had the Heptarchy subsisted in England, the legislature of each state had been continually alarmed by the fear of a wrong balance; and it is probable that the mutual hatred of these states would have been extremely violent on account of their close neighbourhood; they would have loaded and oppressed all commerce by a jealous and superfluous caution. Since the Union has removed the barriers between Scotland and England, which of these nations gains from the other by this free commerce? Or if the former kingdom has received any increase of riches, can it be reasonably accounted for by anything but the increase of its art and industry? It was a common apprehension in England before the Union, as we learn from L’Abbe du Bos, that Scotland would soon drain them of their treasure were an open trade allowed; and on the other side of the Tweed a contrary apprehension prevailed—with what justice in both time has shown.