It is reasonable, therefore, that in Europe the wages of mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, should be somewhat higher than those of common labourers.
The lowest order of artificers, journeymen tailors, accordingly, earn their half-a-crown a-day, though eighteen pence may be reckoned the wages of common labour.
Small bodies of soldiers, quartered in trading and manufacturing towns, and seldom removed from those quarters, became themselves trades men, artificers, and manufacturers.
The few artificers among them are said to have been all maintained by the sovereign, the nobles, and the priests, and were probably their servants or slaves.
Thirdly, it seems, upon every supposition, improper to say, that the labour of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants, does not increase the real revenue of the society.
The second class are taxed at seventy; the third at fifty; and the fourth, comprehending artificers in villages, and the lowest class of those in towns, at twenty-five florins.