order to dispose of their overflowing produce to advantage.

The favourable situation of this people, during a long war in which they have almost always enjoyed the advantage of neutrality, has been the means of turning their attention, their industry, and capitals, far too exclusively to external and maritime commerce. The Americans are enterprising; their voyages are cheaply performed; they have introduced into navigation long courses, and various expeditious manoeuvres, which shorten voyages, reduce their expenses, and correspond with those improvements in the arts which diminish the costs of production; in short, the Americans have drawn to themselves all the maritime commerce which the English have not been able to engross; they have, for many years, been the intermediate agents between all the Continental powers of Europe and the rest of the world. Their success has even exceeded that of the English wherever those nations have been competitors, as in China. What has been the result? An excessive abundance of those commodities which are obtained by commercial and maritime industry; and when the general peace at length opened the highway of the ocean to all nations, the French and Dutch ships crowded with a kind of madness into the midst of a career thus newly opened to them; and in their ignorance of the actual state of countries beyond seatheir agriculture, arts, population, and resources for buying and consuming these ships, escaped from a tedious detention, carried in abundance the produce of the Continent of Europe to all ports, presuming that the other nations of the globe would be eager to possess those commodities after their long separation from Europe.

But in order to purchase this extraordinary supply, it would have been requisite for these countries to create immediately extraordinary quantities of produce of their own; for the difficulty at New York, at Baltimore, the Havanna, Rio-Janeiro, or Buenos-Ayres, is not to consume, but to purchase European manufactures. But the Europeans required payment in cottons, tobaccos, sugars, and rice; and this demand even enhanced the prices: and as, notwithstanding the dearness of these merchandizes, and of money, which is also merchandize, it was necessary to take them or return without payment, these very articles, thus rendered, scarce in their

original country, became more abundant in Europe, and at length so completely overstocked the European mar kets, that a fair price could not be ob tained for them, although the consump tion of Europe has greatly increased since the peace: hence the disadvantageous returns which we have witnessed. But suppose for an instant that the agricultural and manufactured produce of both North and South America had suddenly become very considerable at the time of the peace, in that case the people of those countries, being more numerous, and producing more, would easily have purchased all the European cargoes, and furnished a variety of returns at a cheap rate.

This effect will, I doubt not, take place with respect to the United States, when they are enabled to add to the objects of exchange furnished by their maritime commerce, a greater quantity of their agricultural produce, and perhaps some articles of manufacture also, Their cultivation is extending, their manufactures multiply, and their population, in the natural order of things, increases with astonishing rapidity. In a few years the combination of their varied industry will form a mass of produce amongst which will be found more articles calculated to furnish profitable returns, or at least profits of which the Americans will employ a part in the purchase of European merchandize.

Merchandize produced by Europeans at a less expense than it can be made for in America will be carried to the United States; and goods which the soil and industry of America produce cheaper than they can be had elsewhere, will be carried home in exchange. The nature of demands will determine the nature of productions; each nation will prefer engaging in that kind of production in which it succeeds best, and the result will be exchanges mutually and permanently advantageous. But these commercial ameliorations can only be brought about by time. The talents and experience requisite for the practice of the arts are not acquired in a few months; years are necessary for their attainment. The Americans will not discover in what manufactures they can succeed until after several attempts. When

* The manufactures which a new nation may execute to the greatest advantage, are, in general, those which consist in preparing raw materials of their own growth, or imported at a small expense. It is not pro

productions, hence recourse ruinous means-hence crse is had to tablishments are overthrown.

es

At the same time I must remark, that although the evil is great, it probably seems greater than it is. The commodities which overstock all the markets in the world, may strike the eye by their magnitude in a mass, terrify the commercial world by their depreciation in value, and yet constitute only a very small part of the merchandizes of every sort made and consumed. There is no warehouse but would speedily be emptied, if every species of production of which its contents are made up were to cease simultaneously in every part of the world. Besides, it has been observed, that the slightest excess of supply beyond the demand is sufficient to produce a considerable alteration in price. It is remarked in the Spectator (No 200) 'that when the harvest exceeds by a tenth what is ordinarily consumed, the corn falls to half its price. Dalrymple * makes an an analogous observation. We must not then be surprised if a slight excess should be frequently represented as an excessive superabundance.

This superabundance, as I have already remarked, is also occasioned in part by the ignorance of producers or traders on the nature and extent of the demand in the places to which goods are consigned. Of late years there have been many hazardous speculations, because there have been many new relations between nations. Data were every where wanting to serve as the foundation of good calculations; but does it follow because many affairs have been ill-managed, that others might not be well conducted, if well understood. I will venture to predict that as new relations shall grow old, and reciprocal wants be more justly appreciated, the markets will cease to be glutted, and permanent relations of mutual profit

will be established.

But at the same time it is expedient to diminish gradually, and as far as the circumstances of every state will allow, the general and permanent inconveniencies which spring from too expensive a

we

productive system. It is necessary that should be firmly convinced that the more others gain, the more easily we shall sell our produce; that there is only one way to gain, namely, to produce, either by one's own labour, or by that of the capital or lands one may possess; that unproductive consumers are only men substituted for productive consumers; that the more producers, the more consumers there are; that, by the same rule, every nation is interested in the prosperity of others, and that all are interested in having the easiest communications with each other, for every difficulty is equivalent to an increase of expense.

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Such is the doctrine established sin my writings, and which, I acknowledge, does not appear to me to have been shaken. I took up my pen to defend it, not because it is mine (the self-love of an author would be contemptible where such great interests are concerned), but because it is eminently social, and points out to mankind the sources of true wealth and the danger of drying them up. The rest of this doctrine is no less useful, because it teaches that capital and land are only productive when they are become respected property; that the poor man is interested in defending the property of the rich; that he is consequently interested in the preservation of good order, because a revolution, which could only yield him a temporary plunder, would deprive him of a permanent income. When one studies political economy as it ought to be studied, and perceives that the most useful truths rest on the most certain principles, one naturally feels exceedingly anxious to place these principles within the reach of every understanding. Let us not augment their difficulties by useless abstraction; let us not recommence the folly of the economists of the 18th century by endless discussions on the net produce of lands; let us describe the manner in which facts occur, and expose the chain which connects them; then our writings will be of great practical utility, and the publie will be truly indebted to writers who are like you, Sir, possessed of such ample means of affording information

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pelled propter vitam vivendi perdere the

classes of society, oh the matter is ten times worse. Do we not see the beauteous harmony and combination of organs, the wondrous adaptation of the instruments of sense to the proper ties of surrounding nature, the incessant flowing of the fountains of life, the lightning-like rapidity of volition, the untraceable complexity of nutrition, the unfathomable profundity of mind, all conspiring to produce a machine to grind or to take snuff? to make black and red marks on pieces of paste-board, or to distribute and collect them on a green table? to arrange words in metre, or to elicit vibrations from an extended cat-gut? or to walk straight forward, "left leg foremost," to turn "eyes right" eyes left," and in the levelling of a musket, to destroy from the face of the earth some thousands of living combinations, as useful and as important personages to nature and to society, as the destroyer?

and "

These considerations very much overcame, I confess it, the awful respect with which I had recently addressed you; for even you, Sir, are but a machine, unravelling this month what you wove the last. For you know one φύλλων γενέη, τοιήδε καὶ Μαγαζίνων, onejour. nal drives off another, and the race which exists blots out the memory of that which is passed; so that at the end of a long life your whole importance will be locked up in your last production, that is, unless you bind your numbers. Do not, however, let this consideration mortify your vanity; for there are a vast many personages very much our superiors in public estimation, the sum of whose utility will be pretty closely bounded to the quantity of materials they shall have afforded to the reproductive force of nature; or as Swift would say, whose merits are commensurate with their excretions: unless indeed to be the immediate cause of many horses breaking their wind, many ladies breaking their hearts, and many tailors breaking their clothiers, be accounted

of service in the scheme of nature. Nay, you my secret, are ambassadors of much credit, the merit of whose diplomacy I would circum scribe within the diamond snuff-boxes they import, on their returning home; and there are other machines of "high consideration" I could name, mounted exclusively to say ay and no; and this they do so out of all time and season, that their utility even within this limited sphere is more than questionable. Indeed I am almost ashamed of my ques rulousness in thus lamenting the efforts I have made to keep afloat in society, and preserve life and soul together, when I think of the unwearied patience with which I have seen a man of rank and fortune walk away whole days be tween the Opera-house and the hosier's shop at the corner of St. James's-street, seeing the same faces, the same carriages, the same eternal_caricatures at the print-shop and on the pavement, merely to wear out two pieces of boots leather, and restore their elements to their primitive freedom. I am very sure that there is less exertion in a hard day's labour at an handicraft trade, and much less risk of life and limb, than are required to kill a fox or to bag a few brace of partridges; while the efforts of volition which put an unwieldy Apicius into motion on his daily sacrifice of exercise in search of appetite, are more than on a par with those which neces sity induces in us poor devils in our search for a dinner. Still, however, the great question remains unanswered, why, in the endless chain of causations, the aforesaid noble should be compelled! to pass his life in wearing out boots, or the aforesaid sportsman in decomposing gun-powder and destroying existences more innocent and useful than his own? or why I should be necessitated to waste my time, and your reader's, with this account of a waking dream? I must, therefore, content myself with the hope of a sufficing reason on the creditor side of your books, which will always be an adequate cause for the best exertions of, Sir, Yours, &c. &c.

PHILOSOPHERS in all ages have disputed whether a state of nature or of civilization is more favourable to the production of f virtue. By some it has been asserted, that the simplicity and ignorance of savage life afford the only opportunity for its practice; while others

f

have as strenuously insisted that nothing but the cultivation of the arts of polished society can give birth to any of the qualities which raise man above, the level of the brute creation. As usual in such disputes upon general principles, both parties have been car