1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against Misrule. Preliminary Explanations

Ch. Bashaws Inducements ?.2. Extra-regarding

As to water, whether it be to be excluded by draining, or occasionally

introduced for the purpose of irrigation, capital, to an amount more or less

considerable, must it is evident be expended: capital, the returns for which

will be more or less distant and uncertain.

Now as to fences. Some animals there may be, for the sufficient exclusion of

which, in some situations and circumstances, no very considerable expenditure of

capital may be necessary. But in other instances the expenditure necessary for

this purpose, even where this is the only one, may be very great.

As to human beings, of expences sufficient for the exclusion of depredators and

deteriorators in this shape, the amount can not, in any situation, fail of being

very considerable. For the effectual exclusion of them, if absolutely determined

to gain entrance, no expence, how vast soever, can, it is evident, be

sufficient. In the making of fences in this view, a sort of calculation

sufficiently obvious, is of course made: on the one side, is set down the

estimated value of the damage apprehended from such intrusion, on the other

hand, the estimated expence of such fence as will in general be sufficient:

sufficient to overbalance the net profit looked for by an intruder after

deduction of the value of the burthen, composed of the labour and physical

hazard of the enterprize, combined with the eventual evil apprehended in the

case of detection and punishment.