A LETTER, &c. &c. SIR, IT is one of the privileges of Englishmen freely to address men in office when they have grievances to state, or when they conceive errors to exist, which affect the interests of their country. I address you, Sir, therefore, with the assurance that you are ever anxious to attend to the interests of the commercial community, which, from your long intimacy with them, you, perhaps, more than many others, understand. My objects are to press upon you the importance of acknowledging, without delay, the independence of the S. American States, in order that we may derive our full share of the benefits of their progressive improvement; and to show you that our commerce with Europe is so circumscribed, that we cannot defer, without serious prejudice, a measure which would not only insure its existence, but its increase. It would be unnecessary to attempt to show, that prosperity in any class of society must produce a corresponding state in the other classes. It is with nations as with individuals; wealth must create demand, and this will produce industry: where this is not the case, errors must manifestly exist in the system, and all will retrograde, if all attempt to live in independence. Indigence, misery, and despair, will be the inevitable consequences; and ignorance and demoralisation will supplant freedom, until the quiet pursuits of life shall be disturbed by the inroads of tyranny or arbitrary power. Former ages exemplify this truth; but, if we want any further proof, we shall find it in those countries where the arts and religion are not known beyond the providing for existence by the chase, or the intuitive perceptions of a future state; or, where the first advances to knowledge have generated bigotry and superstition. The characteristic feeling of commerce is a love of gain; and it is that principle which leads to bold enterprise and action. It has done more to civilise the world than all the efforts of men, who, from religious zeal, have penetrated the regions of barbarity, and traversed the lands of the Brahmin and the Turk, to plant the standard of the cross, at the peril of their existence. The science of commerce administers universally to our wants; and there is, in truth, no object in the policy of states, whether for ambition, power, or aggrandisement, which does not involve measures to influence it by improvement, or the contrary. The arts can only progress with freedom of commerce; they have a tendency to preserve, if not produce, a free government, and cannot permanently prosper under a bad one. With Englishmen the question of trade involves considerations of such magnitude, that we enter on it with those feelings which men must have when they are considering of their means of existence; for England cannot exist in prosperity without commerce, much less support the burdens which press on her, and which form the legacies of those wars which are only just terminated. One of the motives which was powerfully set forth during the late contentions, to excite this country patiently to bear the sacrifices it made, was to subvert a power whose professed object was to destroy our trade and rob us of existence as a nation. The inroads made on the peace and tranquillity of other nations, disturbed all those pursuits which contributed to the happiness of individuals; and nations submitted to a disgraceful yoke, until it became so galling as to excite a spirit, which seemed, until then, to lie dormant. England alone, at one period, maintained her station, when all around seemed to fall into a chaos of disorder, confusion, and tyranny. The sons of Britain bled profusely in the cause, and shed a lustre over the annals of England, not to be tarnished by envy, nor sullied by detraction. When peace was proclaimed, we were intoxicated with joy, and our ideas centred in the gratifying prospect of harmony and good-fellowship we hoped that, as we had been fighting for the same cause, we should, at least, remove the evils which an unnatural war had inflicted on us. These hopes have ended in disappointment; and although promises were made, by continental governments to their people, the system now pursued contains only this difference from that of Bonaparte, that he professed to reign arbitrarily, and the present governors add to the same system all the bitterness of disappointment and broken faith. In Prussia, a constitution was distinctly promised to the people. Lately, when a king and a people entered into mutual and sacred conventions, with tranquillity and apparent good-faith, each seeming to rejoice that laws are enacted to secure the due liberties of the other, armies are poured down on them from the north, and a synod of emperors and kings is held to direct the weak mortals whom they govern, and to prevent their minds from wandering into the mazes of forbidden knowledge. This is precisely the tyranny of Bonaparte, with more form, and, like it, it must and will have an end. If the war was continued with a view to any public good, what has occurred in peace to lessen the evils which it professed to remedy? And can that, in commerce, be called public good which would place nations, like the stars in the hemisphere, existing, but having no communication with one another? England cannot, surely, be a party to an alliance for so unhallowed a purpose, so completely at variance with all our notions, the spirit of our government, and all that we consider necessary to our happiness. Enjoying as we do the benefit of equal laws, jealous as we are of unrestrained power, and, I may add, successful as we are in establishing a sense of mutual right, without impairing the dignity of the aristocracy, we are, in this country, too apt to measure the justice of these complaints abroad by what it would be in England. Even the high party of this country, knowing by experience, the laws and their administration in foreign states, would shrink at the simple notion of being a link in a chain forged to subvert every rising spirit which would demand, without violence, a participation in social rights. The despotic ideas which govern the continent induce governments to look on Englishmen, when amongst them, as dangerous to their policy; and the liberal productions in this country, calculated to enlighten the mind, correct the feeling, and give value to our political existence, are condemned as violent and seditious. The free expression of thought which we enjoy, would be considered, by them, without more licentiousness than we have in the use of it, as the shield of treachery and insubordination. Englishmen may differ in shades of opinion, but all are unanimous in one strong wish,-that men should be protected in the fair exercise of the only privilege which can give life value, and sweeten existence by a due share of liberty. Our aristocracy is not the less respected, or is its dignity diminished, by being forced to sustain a comparison with the lower orders; and the homage we pay to it arises from a pure respect for rank mingled with all our rights, and adding to its lustre, by intelligence, talent, and common feeling. Do you feel, Sir, that, because you are the Minister of such a people, your office is less honorable than if you were the instrument of arbitrary power? Do you not, on the contrary, feel, that a dependence on public opinion gives to it a splendor which it would otherwise not have? The freedom of our institutions is a positive good, and it would be palpably inconsistent in us to be one of an alliance to make war against opinions and the promulgation of laws and institutions like our own. We fought, Sir, for objects wholly different from those which appear to characterize the end of the war; the valorous spirit was not exercised, sacrifices were not made, our treasures were not emptied, to change one tyranny for another. If all this be true, Sir,-if it be inconsistent in Englishmen to enthral others, is there any thing which can imperatively call on us to sacrifice, on the score of policy, any positive good which is at present within our reach? I have thus far attempted to show, on general grounds, that we have no interest to seek in politics with the continental powers, which would not be quite consistent with our own institutions : and let us now slightly glance at our position in a commercial point of view. It is very true that we have ourselves, by adopting a limited system, brought on many of the evils of a restricted commerce; but the virulent commercial jealousy which exists of us abroad, has subverted that beautiful order which Providence seems to have ordained by the varieties of climate and soil, and the forge and the smith are placed where only the ploughshare and the husbandman ought to be known. The war of commerce has been carried to a length quite inconsistent with sound policy and that good feeling to which we looked forward with delight: from the north to the south, trade in our manufactures is quite as difficult as it was during the worst period of Bonaparte's reign; and as it was then, so it continues to be almost universally, a commerce of contraband. Without claiming any thing as gratitude for our services and sacrifices, have we even so much freedom for our trade as enables us to send our manufactures to market with fair competition? We have shown no wish to overwhelm the industry of our neighbors, and have sought no preference, except that to which more art, more perseverance, or the advantages which Providence has granted us, might fairly intitle us. Bonaparte attacked our commerce as our vital part, and inflicted on us such misery for a time, as threatened us with that horrible state of things, when the relations of life become a dependence on one another, by making us only debtors and creditors; the rich fearing to become poor, and the poor without any cheering hope of amelioration; and yet, during his sway, more of our manufac tures found their way to the continent than now, when in a state of peace, when we are laboring under difficulties brought on us by VOL. XXI. NO. XLII. Pam. 2 D |