make a present of it to foreign nations. They will exchange it for foreign
goods of some kind or another, in order to supply the consumption either of
some other foreign country, or of their own.

If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign country, in order to
supply the consumption of another, or in what is called the carrying trade,
whatever profit they make will be in addition to the neat revenue of their
own country. It is like a new fund, created for carrying on a new trade;
domestic business being now transacted by paper, and the gold and silver
being converted into a fund for this new trade.

If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they may
either, first, purchase such goods as are likely to be consumed by idle
people, who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks, etc. ;
or, secondly, they may purchase an additional stock of materials, tools, and
provisions, in order to maintain and employ an additional number of
industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, the value of their annual
consumption.

So far as it is employed in the first way, it promotes prodigality,
increases expense and consumption, without increasing production, or
establishing any permanent fund for supporting that expense, and is in every
respect hurtful to the society.

So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes industry ; and
though it increases the consumption of the society, it provides a permanent
fund for supporting that consumption; the people who consume reproducing,
with a profit, the whole value of their annual consumption. The gross
revenue of the society, the annual produce of their land and labour, is
increased by the whole value which the labour of those workmen adds to the