504 CURSOR YY PHOUGEH TS Adam Smith, which in many other articles is much to be relied on, had been mifled by the fafcinating charm of an attachment to a favourite fyftem; and I take notice of it here merely to put the reader upon his guard againft being mifled by an attachment to that great name, fo jufily re- fpeCted in general in this country.

That a well regulated bounty on the exporta- tion of corn, and duty on it’s importation, would tend to encourage the agriculture of this country, and to moderate, not to enhance, the price of corn, is evident, not only from abftract reafoning, but well-eftablifhed facts, the reader will be fatisfied, if he fhall confult the works above quoted. And although the corn laws of Britain, from the re- volution, when the bounty on corn was firft adopt- ed, till the year 1773, were defeCtive in feveral ef- fential particulars, fo as to operate in a very im- perfect manner, compared’ to what they might have done; yet, even under that defeétive appli- cation of them, and notwithftanding the other difcouragements to agriculture, developped in the firft effay in the prefent volume, this nation was found to be capable of not a fupplying it’s own confumption of corn entirely, but of fpar- ing annually a coni fiderable Areeplls to other na

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tions. Whereas, fince the year 1757, when the

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