1784] Essays 249
should, and doubtless will, grow wiser by experience
and import less. If too many artificers in town, and
farmers from the country, flattering themselves with
the idea of leading easier lives, turn shopkeepers, the
whole natural quantity of that business divided
among them all may afford too small a share for each,
and occasion complaints that trade is dead; these
may also suppose that it is owing to scarcity of
money, while in fact it is not so much from the fewness
 of buyers as from the excessive number of sellers
that the mischief arises; and if every shop-keeping
farmer and mechanic would return to the use of
his plow and working-tools, there would remain of
widows and other women shopkeepers sufficient for
the business, which might then afford them a comfortable
 maintenance.
Whoever has travelled through the various parts of
Europe, and observed how small is the proportion of
people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compared
 with those in poverty and misery; the few rich
and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject,
rack-rented, tithe-paying tenants and half-paid and
half-starved ragged laborers; and views here the
happy mediocrity that so generally prevails throughout
 these States, where the cultivator works for himself,
 and supports his family in decent plenty, will,
methinks, see abundant reason to bless Divine Providence
 for the evident and great difference in our
favor, and be convinced that no nation known to us
enjoys a greater share of human felicity.
It is true that in some of the States there are parties
 and discords: but let us look back, and ask if we