The virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper a… - Adam Smith

III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.

It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interests has been so carefully attended to; and among this later class our merchants and manufactures have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to;and the interest, not so much of the consumers, as that of some other sets of producers, has been sacrificed to it.