The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (the best motivational books .TXT) 📕

This note appears first in ed. 3, ed. 2 has the following note: “This would be exactly true if those masters never had any other interest but that which belongs to them as Proprietors of India stock. But they frequently have another of much greater importance. Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of moderate fortune, is willing to give thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds (the present price of a thousand pounds share in India stock) merely for the influence which he expects to acquire by a vote in the Court of Proprietors. It gives him a share, though not in the plunder, yet in the appointment of the plunderers of India; the Directors, though they make those appointments, being necessarily more or less under the influence of the Court of Proprietors, which not only elects them, but sometimes overrules their appointments. A man of great or even a man of moderate fortune, provided he can enjoy this influence for a few years, and thereby get a certain number of his friends appointed to employments in India, frequently cares little about the dividend which he can expect from so small a capital, or even about the improvement or loss of the capital itself upon which his vote is founded. About the prosperity or ruin of the great empire, in the government of which that vote gives him a share, he seldom cares at all. No other sovereigns ever were, or from the nature of things ever could be, so perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their subjects, the improvement or waste of their dominions, the glory or disgrace of their administration, as, from irresistible moral causes, the greater part of the Proprietors of such a mercantile Company are, and necessarily must be.” This matter with some slight alterations reappears in the portion of bk. v, chap. i, part iii, art. 1st, which was added in ed. 3 below, p. 243. —⁠Cannan ↩

Ed. 1 reads “ignorance only.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads “have commonly been well meaning.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads “if.” ↩

Eds. 1 and 2 read “were.” ↩

This chapter appears first in Additions and Corrections and ed. 3. ↩

C. 4. ↩

C. 14. ↩

3 Car. I, c. 4; 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 19. ↩

From Ireland, 12 Geo. II, c. 21; 26 Geo. II, c. 8. Spanish wool for clothing and Spanish felt wool. —⁠Saxby, British Customs, p. 263 ↩

6 Geo. III, c. 52, § 20. ↩

4 Geo. II, c. 27. ↩

8 Geo. I, c. 15, § 10; see below, here. ↩

9 Geo. III, c. 39, § 1, continued by 14 Geo. III, c. 86, § 11, and 21 Geo. III, c. 29, § 3. ↩

15 Geo. III, c. 31, § 10. ↩

Above, here. ↩

Smith has here inadvertently given the rates at which the articles were valued in the “Book of Rates,” 12 Car. II, c. 4, instead of the duties, which would be 20 percent on the rates. See below, here. ↩

Above, here. ↩

10 Geo. III, c. 38, and 19 Geo. III, c. 27. ↩

3 and 4 Ann, c. 10. —⁠Anderson, Commerce, AD 1703 ↩

Masting-timber (and also tar, pitch and rosin), under 12 Ann, st. 1, c. 9, and masting-timber only under 2 Geo. II, c. 35, § 12. The encouragement of the growth of hemp in Scotland is mentioned in the preamble of 8 Geo. I, c. 12, and is presumably to be read into the enacting portion. ↩

8 Geo. I, c. 12; 2 Geo. II, c. 35, §§ 3, 11. ↩

3 Geo. III, c. 25. ↩

Additions and Corrections omits “that.” ↩

The third bounty. ↩

William Hawkins, Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, 4th ed., 1762, bk. i, chap. 52. ↩

So far from doing so, it expressly provides that any greater penalties already prescribed shall remain in force. ↩

12 Car. II, c. 32. ↩

4 Geo. I, c. 11, § 6. ↩

Presumably the reference is to 10 and 11 W. III, c. 10, § 18, but this applies to the commander of a king’s ship conniving at the offence, not to the master of the offending vessel. ↩

12 Geo. II, c. 21, § 10. ↩

13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, § 9, forbade removal of wool in any part of the country between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. from March to September, and 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. from October to February. 7 and 8 W. III, c. 28, § 8, taking no notice of this, enacted the provision quoted in the text. The provision of 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, was repealed by 20 Geo. III, c. 55, which takes no notice of 7 and 8 W. III, c. 28. ↩

All these provisions are from 7 and 8 W. III, c. 28. ↩

9 and 10 W. III, c. 40. ↩

The quotation is not verbatim. ↩

“It is well known that the real very superfine cloth everywhere must be entirely of Spanish wool.” —⁠Anderson, Commerce, AD 1669 ↩

Above,