The Path to Riches

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chain of confidence and friendship throughout the world- To hasten this important and glorious event, nothing is needed but a spirit of commercial enterprise, conducted with fairness, and unshaken integrity. Commerce had its origin in the superfluous produce of countries, aided by a prevailing taste of the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chain of confidence and friendship throughout the world- To hasten this important and glorious event, nothing is needed but a spirit of commercial enterprise, conducted with fairness, and unshaken integrity. Commerce had its origin in the superfluous produce of countries, aided by a prevailing taste of the inhabitants of each particular climate, for the produce of foreign soils. This important negociation, no doubt, began by exchanging one article for another: a desire of gain, promoted and supported by a curiosity and emulation, existing naturally in the bosom of the people of all nations, brought it to that height of perfection, where we now contemplate it. Agriculture, and the arts, pursued with unabating industry, must give support to commerce; for, without this, there never can be a superfluous produce to export, or an enticing mixture of the arts, with the exported articles of produce, to tempt foreign nations to a consumption of them. Originally, there could be no settled rule for the measure of exchanging one commodity for another, or for appreciating or settling a fixed value upon the articles offered in exchange. Their value was founded in the necessity of the receiver, and the abundance of the deliverer's stock on hand, with the probable prospect of plenty, or scarcity of the article, and the expenses of preserving it to a future period. The value of each article was estimated by the eyes, which gave the measure of quantity, upon a view of the bulk of the commodity under the power of the transfer. This may be fairly concluded from the practice of uncivilized nations more recently discovered. Recuel, in his history of the voyages of the Dutch East-India company, assures us, that in the island of Formosa, when first discovered, the inhabitants had no other way ...