245 Benjamin Franklin [1784
encouragement to increase building, which gives, employment
 to an abundance of workmen, as does also
the increased luxury and splendor of living of the
inhabitants thus made richer. These workmen all
demand and obtain much higher wages than any
other part of the world would afford them, and are
paid in ready money. This class of people therefore
do not, or ought not, to complain of hard times;
and they make a very considerable part of the city
inhabitants.
At the distance I live from our American fisheries,
I cannot speak of them with any degree of certainty;
but I have not heard that the labor of the valuable
race of men employed in them is worse paid, or that
they meet with less success, than before the Revolution.
 The whalemen, indeed, have been deprived of
one market for their oil; but another, I hear, is
opening for them which it is hoped may be equally
advantageous, and the demand is constantly increasing
 for their spermaceti candles, which therefore bear
a much higher price than formerly.
There remain the merchants and shopkeepers. Of
these, though they make but a small part of the
whole nation, the number is considerable, too great
indeed for the business they are employed in; for
the consumption of goods in every country has its
limits, the faculties of the people—that is, their ability
 to buy and pay—being equal only to a certain
quantity of merchandise. If merchants calculate
amiss on this proportion and import too much, they
will of course find the sale dull for the overplus, and
some of them will say that trade languishes. They

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