If ’tis ask’t how a Dutch merchant trades who has only 500 lib. stock? he restricts his expence so as he can afford to trade at 10 per cent profit: or money being in greater quantity in Holland, whereby it is easier borrowed, and at less use; he gets credit for more at 3 or 4 per cent, by which he gains 6 or 7. and unless money be in greater quantity in Scotland, or expence retrench’d, we cannot trade so cheap as the Dutch; tho’ we have advantages for trade that they have not, and tho’ they be under disadvantages we are not lyable to. by a greater quantity of money and oeconomy, the Dutch monopolize the trades of carriage even from the English. The 4th branch of foreign trade, bringing home the product of other countries, and exporting it in manufacture, depends on the quantity of money. we are so far from competing with the Dutch in this trade, that our wooll was sent to Holland, and imported from thence in manufacture; under the difficulty of a prohibition on the export of the wooll, and on the import of the manufacture. yet besides the advantages already named, which we have for trade over the Dutch, the material is the product of our country, and greater privileges are granted to manufacturers here, than in Holland. ’Tis alledged, if the prohibition had continued, manufactures might have come to perfection. The advantage some men made by manufacture, may have occasion’d the setting up of more, while the money has been diminishing; but that money so imployed, has been taken from some other use it was before imploy’d in: for money cannot serve in two places at one time. ’Tis alledged, that the allowing the wooll to be exported, occasioned the exportation of the money. that at one time 5000 lib. was sent to England to buy wooll. ’tis askt what became of that wooll? they answer, it was sent to France for wine. then, as 5000 lib. of English wooll may be worth 8 or 10 thousand pound in France; so the 5000 lib. sent to England, saved the sending out of 8 or 10000 lib. to France. To those who don’t throughly examine the state of this country, it may seem odd that wooll should be allowed by law to be exported: but if the product of Scotland cannot be manufactur’d with less than 50000 people, and the money that can be spar’d to manufacture, be only capable to employ 25000, one half of the product will be lost if it is not allowed to be exported. The 5th branch, the freighting or hireing out ships, depends on the money, and the other branches of trade. where ships are in use to be freighted by strangers, and supported by a great demand for their own trade; there all sorts of ships are to be hired cheaper than in other places; and merchants are sure of such ships as are proper for the goods they load with, and the countries they trade to.