OF THE BALANCE OF TRADE.

distance, where great funds are possessed by foreigners, there naturally follows from these causes a diminution of the specie. But these, we may observe, are violent and forcible methods of carrying away money, and are in time commonly attended with the transport of people and industry; but where these remain, and the drain is not continued, the money always finds its way back again, by a hundred canals of which we have no notion or suspicion. What immense treasures have been spent, by so many nations, in Flanders since the revolution, in the course of three long wars! More money perhaps than the half of what is at present in all Europe. But what has now become of it? Is it in the narrow compass of the Austrian provinces? No, surely; it has most of it returned to the several countries whence it came, and has followed that art and industry by which at first it was acquired. For above a thousand years the money of Europe has been flowing to Rome by an open and sensible current; but it has been emptied by many secret and insensible canals, and the want of industry and commerce renders at present the papal dominions the poorest territories in all Italy.