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Their quantity, therefore, must have increased there as in other

places, and nearly in the same proportion to the annual produce

of its land and labour. This increase of the quantity of those

metals, however, has not, it seems, increased that annual

produce, has neither improved the manufactures and agriculture of

the country, nor mended the circumstances of its inhabitants.

Spain and Portugal, the countries which possess the mines, are,

after Poland, perhaps the two most beggarly countries in Europe.

The value of the precious metals, however, must be lower in Spain

and Portugal than in any other part of Europe, as they come from

those countries to all other parts of Europe, loaded, not only

with a freight and an insurance, but with the expense of

smuggling, their exportation being either prohibited or subjected

to a duty.