European and rival states. The two former methods, having been found not to answer the expectations entertained of them, have been in a great measure given up. Whether the latter is productive of more really good effects, is now to be examined.
Manufacturers are the different articles worked up of the raw materials the land produces, as wool, cotton, metals, glass, hides, and are the subjects, or articles as they are called, of trade and commerce; of which the former is carried on within the dominions of a state, the latter with some other nation or people.
Trade and commerce consist in the exchange of one commodity for another, either by the intervention of money, or immediately by barter. In both cases it is really the interchanging one commodity for another. For, though a people dispose of their goods at home or abroad, without receiving anything but money, the same money is again laid out in some article which they find is wanted; they therefore do receive, though not immediately, other articles in exchange for their articles. It is, therefore, in effect, barter.
Now, as trade consists in the exchange of one article for another, the advantage or disadvantage of it must depend on this simple circumstance, namely, whether the thing received is more useful
