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In all the different employments of stock, the ordinary rate of

profit varies more or less with the certainty or uncertainty of

the returns. These are, in general, less uncertain in the inland

than in the foreign trade, and in some branches of foreign trade

than in others; in the trade to North America, for example, than

in that to Jamaica. The ordinary rate of profit always rises more

or less with the risk. It does not, however, seem to rise in

proportion to it, or so as to compensate it completely.

Bankruptcies are most frequent in the most hazardous trades. The

most hazardous of all trades, that of a smuggler, though, when

the adventure succeeds, it is likewise the most profitable, is

the infallible road to bankruptcy. The presumptuous hope of

success seems to act here as upon all other occasions, and to

entice so many adventurers into those hazardous trades, that

their competition reduces the profit below what is sufficient to

compensate the risk.