members, their widows and orphans, each officer fhall deliver to the treasurer of the ftate-meeting, one month's pay.

SECT. XI.

No donation fhall be received but from the citizens

of the United States.

SECT. XII. The funds of each ftate-meeting fhall be loaned to the ftate, by permiffion of the legislature, and the intereft only, annually be applied for the purposes of the fociety; and if, in procefs of time, difficulties fhould occur in executing the intentions of this fociety, the legislatures of the several states shall be entitled to make fuch equitable difpofition as may be moft correfpondent with the original defign of the conftitution.

SECT. XIII. The subjects of his moft Chriftian majefty, members of this fociety, may hold meetings at their pleasure, and form. regulations for their police, conformable to the objects of the inftitution, and to the fpirit of their government.

SECT. XIV. The fociety fhall have an order; which shall be an eagle of gold, fufpended by a deep blue ribbon, edged with white, defcriptive of the union of America and France, bearing on its breast the emblems defcribed, as follows.

The principal figure to be CINCINNATUS, three fenators prefenting him with a fword and other military enfigns: On a field in the back ground his wife standing at the door of the cottage; near it a plough, and other inftruments of husbandry. Round the whole, omnia reliquit fervare rempublicam. On the reverse, the fun rifing, a city with open gates, and vessels entering the port; Fame crowning Cincinnatus with a wreath, infcribed, virtutis præmium. Below, hands joining, fupporting a heart, with the motto, efto perpetua. Round the whole, Societas Cincinnatorum, inflituta A. D. 1783.

AGRICULTURE.

The three important objects of attention in the United States are agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. The richness of the foil, which amply rewards the industrious husbandman; the temperature of the elimate, which admits of fteady labour; the cheapnefs of land, which tempts the foreigner from his native home, lead us to confider agriculture as the prefent great leading intereft of that country. This furnishes outward cargoes, not only for all their own ships, but for those alfo which foreign nations fend to their ports; or in other words, it pays for all their importations; it fupplies a great part of the clothing of the inhabitants, and food for them and their cattle. What is confumed

VOL. I.

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fumed at home, including the materials, for manufacturing, is four or five times the value of what is exported.

The number of people employed in agriculture, is at least three parts in four of the inhabitants of the United States; fome fay more. It follows of course that they form the body of the militia, who are the bulwark of the nation. The value of their property occupied by agriculture, is many times greater than the property employed in every other way. The fettlement of wafte lands, the fubdivifion of farms, and the numerous improvements in husbandry, annually increase the pre-eminence of the agricultural intereft. The refources they derive from it, are at all times certain and indifpenfably neceffary: befides, the rural life promotes health, by its active nature; and morality, by keeping the people from the luxuries and vices of the populous towns. In short, agriculture is the fpring of their commerce, and the parent of manufac

tures.

COMMERCE.

The vast extent of fea-coaft, which spreads before the confederated ftates; the number of excellent harbours and fea-port towns they poffefs; the numerous creeks and immenfe bays, which indent the coaft; and the rivers, lakes, and canals, which peninfulate the whole country; added to its agricultural advantages and improvements, give this part of America fuperior advantages for trade. Their commerce, including their exports, imports, fhipping, manufactures, and fifheries, may properly be confidered as forming one intereft. This has been confidered as the great object, and the most important intereft of the New England States.

Since commerce has ever been confidered as the handmaid of agri culture, particularly in America, where the agricultural intereft for greatly predominates; and fince neither can flourish without the other, policy and intereft point out the neceffity of fuch a system of commercial and agricultural regulations, as will originate and effectually preferve a proper connection and balance between them.

The confumption of fifh, oil, whale-bone, and other articles obtained through the fifherics, in the towns and counties that are convenient for navigation, has become much greater than is generally fuppofed. It is computed that no lefs than five thoufand barrels of mackarel, falmon, and pickled codfish, are vended annually in the city of Philadelphia: add to them the dried fish, oil, fpermaceti candles, whale-bone, &c. and it will be found that a little fleet of floops and fchooners are employed in the bufinefs.

The

The den and for the forementioned articles is proportionably great in the other parts of the Union, especially in Boston and the large commercial towns that lie along the coaft north-eastward, which enter laely into the fifhing trade, and the veffels employed in tranfporting them proportionably numerous. The increase of their towns and manufactures will increafe the demand for thefe articles, and of course the number of coafting veffels. In the prefent ftate of their navigation, they can be in no doubt of procuring these fupplies by means of their own vefels. This will afford encouragement to the bufinefs of fhip-building, and increase the number of their feamen, who must hereafter form an important part of the defence of their country. Add to these, their profpects from the fur trade of Canada; the vaft fettlements which are making at Pittsburg, Geneffe, and in other parts in the neighbourhood of Canada; the advantages of their inland navigation, by means of the lakes, the northern branches of the Ohio, the Potomack, the Sufquehannah, and the Hudson, with many other circumftances depending not only on the fituation, but likewite on the climate, proximity, &c. muft, in a few years, put a large fhare of this trade into their hands, and procure them, at leaft, a proportionable fhare of the large profits thence arifing, which Canada, fince the year 1763, has enjoyed almost exclusively. These advantages, however, are ftill but in profpect; and muft remain fo until the British, agreeable to the treaty of peace, fhall have evacuated the forts at Niagara, the large fettlements of the Heights, that of Michililmakinak, &c. And although the British, by the treaty of peace, are to enjoy with the Americans the portages of the navigation of the lakes, yet, fhould a dispute arife, it will not be convenient for the former to conteft it; for the northern and north-eastern parts of the continent, included in the British limits, are much colder, more mountainous and poorer than the United States, and have no rivers, but fuch as are full of rapids and falis; confequently, this trade cannot be carried on by the Canadians with the fame facility nor advantage as by the Americans. Still England will have left the exclufive right to the communication from Montreal with the High-lands, through the large river of the Ottawas, which flows into the river St. Lawrence at the lake of the Two Mountains, nine miles from that city; but its rapids and falls render this way, if not impracticable, at least always very expenfive and precarious.

The quantity of fars, deer and elk fkins, annually imported from the northern parts of America to England, is prodigious. In 1784, the amount of fales for furs was more than two hundred and fortyM m 2 five

five thousand pounds. It has not equalled this fum every year fince, but has feldom varied more than from ten to twenty thousand pounds, and this often on the favourable fide. When we confider the num·ber of animals deftroyed to furnish fuch extenfive products, the mind feels itself loft in contemplating the vast tract of country that could af*ford an habitation for them.

The following is a statement of the number of furs, &c. expofed tto fale at the New-York coffee-houfe, in London, in the prefent year, 1794, by the regular brokers :

To these must be added a small quantity of furs, and deer not yet fold; thofe fold in private trade, and a quantity fold public by another hand, amounting to more than fix thousand pounds. In this enumeration, the quantity imported by the Hudson's Bay Company is not noticed. The chief of these furs are paid for in English manufactures.-Not more than a fourth part of them, beaver, rabbit, and deer fkins excepted, if so much, are done any thing more to in England, than beat, forted, and re-packed; a great portion are refhipped to Germany, and difperfed through the various parts of the empire, France, &c. fome are shipped from London direct for France, and fome to Ruflia, China, &c. at immenfe profits.

This valuable trade, which is carried on through Quebec, will a great part of it fall into the hands of the Americans, as foon as the fortifications, which the British poffefs in their northern territories, fhall be restored. To this confideration, rather than to the pretended compaffion for the Royalifts, may be attributed the delay of that ref titution. The period when this reftitution must be made, is however arrived a period which the British government have long anticipated with forrow. Such are fome of the commercial refources and profpects of the United States.

But for various réafons, the advantages for trade which nature has so liberally given the Americans, have never, till fince the establishment of the present government, been properly improved. Before the revolution, Great-Britain claimed an exclufive right to the trade of her

American colonies. This right, which fhe inflexibly maintained, enabled her to fix her own price, as well on the articles which the purchafed from them, as upon thofe of her own manufactures exported for their confumption. The carrying trade, too, was preferved almost exclufively in her own hands, which afforded a temptation to the carriers, that was often too powerful to be withstood, to exact exorbitant commiffions and freights. Although we will not even hazard a conjecture how much Great Britain enriched herself by this exclufive trade with her colonies, yet this we may fay, that by denying them the privilege of carrying their own produce to foreign markets, the deprived them of the opportunity of realizing, in their full extent, the advantages for trade which nature has given them.

The late war, which brought about the feparation from Great Bri tain, threw the commercial affairs of America into great confufion. The powers of the old confederation were unequal to the compleat execution of any measures, calculated effectually to recover them from their deranged fituation. Through want of power in the old Congrefs to collect a revenue for the discharge of their foreign and domestic debt, their credit was destroyed, and trade of confequence greatly embarraffed. Each State, in her defultory regulations of trade, regarded her own intereft, while that of the union was neglected. And fo different were the interests of the several States, that their laws refpecting trade often clashed with each other, and were productive of unhappy confequences. The large commercial States had it in their power to opprefs their neighbours; and in fome inftances this power was directly or indirectly exercifed. Thefe impolitic and unjuftifiable regulations, formed on the impreffion of the moment, and proceeding from no uniform or permanent principles, excited unhappy jealoufies between the clashing States, and occafioned frequent stagnations in their trade, and in some instances, a fecrecy in their commercial policy. But the wife measures which have been adopted by Congress, under the prefent efficient government of the United States, have extricated them almost entirely from thefe embarrassments, and put a new and pleafing face upon their public affairs. Invested with the adequate powers, Congrefs have formed a fyftem of commercial regulations, which enable them to meet the oppofers of their trade upon their own ground; a fyftem which has placed their commerce on a respectable, uniform, and intelligible footing, adapted to promote the general interefts of the union, with the smallest injury to the individual States.

The countries with which the United States have had their chief commercial intercourfe are Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, the

United