abundance of those things the use of which is so necessary to sustain the life of man, that they cannot at all be dispensed with" (p. 26). "It is the lower class of the people that by its labor and its commerce, and by that which it pays to the king, enriches both him and all his kingdom.… It is they who make all the commerce and the manufactures of the kingdom; who furnish all the laborers, vine-dressers, and tillers of the fields; who tend the cattle; who sow the corn and harvest it; who tend the vine, and make the wine; in short, it is they who do all things great and small in the country and in the towns. Such is this portion of the nation, so useful and so despised, who have suffered, and who still suffer so much" (p. 21).
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the extreme mercantile theory had wellnigh succumbed to the various attacks made upon it. The last English exponent of Mercantilism, pure and simple, was John Gee, who wrote "Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered," the second edition of which was published in 1730. In this he laments that: "So mistaken are many people, that they cannot see the difference between having a vast treasure of Silver and Gold in the Kingdom, and the Mint employed in coining Money, the only true token of Treasure and Riches, and having it carried away; but they say Money is a Commodity like other things, and think themselves never the poorer for what the nation daily exports" (p. 8).
Although, however, the mercantile theory was practically destroyed, the policy which had been based upon it continued to subsist even after the time of Adam Smith. This policy was the endeavor, by legislation or other arbitrary means, to secure a balance of trade in favor of a particular nation—its classical heroes being the great statesmen
