The Scripture says, speaking of the riches and glory of the city of Tyre--which was, indeed, at that time, the great port or emporium of the world for foreign commerce, from whence all the silks and fine manufactures of Persia and India were exported all over the western world--'That her merchants were princes;' and, in another place, 'By thy traffic thou hast increased thy riches.' (Ezek.xxviii.

5.) Certain it is, that our traffic has increased our riches; and it is also certain, that the flourishing of our manufactures is the foundation of all our traffic, as well our merchandise as our inland trade.
The inland trade of England is a thing not easily described; it would, in a word, take up a whole book by itself; it is the foundation of all our wealth and greatness; it is the support of all our foreign trade, and of our manufacturing, and, as I have hitherto written, of the tradesmen who carry it on.

I shall proceed with a brief discourse of the trade itself.
FOOTNOTES: [37] [We have here a pleasing trait of the superior sagacity of Defoe, in as far as it was a prevalent notion down to his time, and even later (nor is it, perhaps, altogether extinguished yet), that the prosperity of a country was marked by its excess of exports over imports.

Defoe justly ranks the amount of importation on a level with that of exportation, as indicative of the well-being of the country.].