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 few- 
ness 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 com- 
fortable 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, com- 
pared 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 through- 
out these States, where the cultivator works for him- 
self, and supports his family in decent plenty, will, 
methinks, see abundant reason to bless Divine Provi- 
dence 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 par- 
ties and discords: but let us look back, and ask if we