and professions required for producing, manufacturing, and transporting all the articles of necessity, comfort, and luxury of the world, that she will not only pay for, and import, all the articles required in the support of that country, to the growth or fabrication of which her climate is not adapted; but by way of return values for her exports, shall receive the public securities or stocks of foreign governments. And this I take to be the situation of England at this time. That nation not only pays for, and imports, an immense quantity of foreign articles, with its manufactures, but has accumulated the public securities, or stocks of foreign governments, it is said, to the amount of nearly two hundred million of pounds sterling; and she is notoriously a large holder in the stocks of this country.

The question, as it relates to this country, is, shall we profit from the example of England? That we may do so under advantages and prospects altogether more favourable, and to greater effect than England ever did, is most certain. To arrive at the same point of elevation, and that comparatively soon, we have only to adopt the measures which England did, and to avoid her unnecessary wars.

Great Britain, had she adopted her present course of measures at an earlier day, in relation to her manufactures and trade, and avoided unnecessary wars, might probably have attained to her present elevated condition, in any one of the centuries since the thirteenth.

It is maintained that our population is not sufficiently numerous, to commence manufacturing; that we have not the hands to spare from other more profitable and healthful employments; that if we had, this surplus population would take to manufactures as a matter of course.

It may be remarked that this objection is usually made, wherever manufactures are not extensively carried on. It was so in some of the old countries. It is so at this time in Poland; in this and many other countries; and will probably be so in every country, until manufactures are commenced in that country.

The labourers of this country are mostly confined to the land, from which many might be beneficially withdrawn ; for they are earning but very little there. But they have not the necessary knowledge of any other calling; and those who have grown old in labours upon the land, cannot easily be taught a new trade: nor is it believed to be necessary, or desirable that they should be. Manufactures, if they can find protection, will be carried on, and supplied with hands, who will come to us already taught, from the countries from which we have obtained our manufactured articles, or be made from the younger and growing population of this country,-By giving to the younger and growing population, business at home, we shall prevent them from strolling into Canada or Michigan, in search of new places of resi dence; and the strength and wealth of the old settled states will be augmented by retaining them, and giving them opportunities, as artizans, of obtaining comfortable livings.

In our rage for growing bread-stuffs and provisions for foreign markets, nearly all the lands in this state, of a good quality, with much of the poorer grades, have been settled. The canals, which have, to an incalculable extent, advanced the general wealth of the state,

have, with the benefits conferred, furnished a cheap and expeditious means of getting out of it: and we may calculate that this means of getting out of the state into others, or into Canada, will be improved to a very great extent, by many, who find themselves without employments affording some prospect of profit, and the canals thereby, and to that extent, become a mean of lessening, instead of augmenting, our numbers, as was expected.

But it is believed that hands could easily be obtained, without difficulty or prejudice to any other branch of business. They would, like all other apprentices, the most of them be unlearned, it is admited. We did not feel the loss of the hands, nor of the capital, which was drawn into the cotton manufactories. Hands, employed as manufacturers, are not of the description of labourers deemed most profitable at out door work. Seven-tenths of the hands employed in our cotton mills, would have earned little or nothing, but at some such employment. It may be furthermore remarked, that, at the commencement of manufactures in most countries, there is a seeming want of hands; but if manufactories had not been established, the hands employed in them might not have been in existence.

By establishing manufactories, you enable the hands, required to work them, to accumulate to an extent which they never could have done but for their establishment. The population of England must have remained vastly less, and that of Flanders, much greater, had England been content to continue her former practice of sending her wool to Flanders, there to be worked into cloths, and the cloths sent back to England, in exchange for more wool. The population of England has, no doubt, been vastly enlarged, by changing this policy. Retaining her wool, and refusing to receive cloths from abroad, the artizans of Flanders had less to do; but it made room, and gave employment for artizans in England; to which the artizans of Flanders, and other parts of the continent, found their way; or they were soon raised in England to the required number. By adopting the same policy, we shall find that a like cause will produce the same effect in this country. This change in the policy of England, may have occasioned some dissatisfaction at first.-The persons by whose agency the former intercourse had been conducted, may have apprehended the loss of their business, and the gentry may have been dissatisfied at paying, for a short time, enhanced prices for less fashionable goods; but it raised England to an elevation in wealth, strength, and politi cal and civil consideration, to which she never could have attained, without that change in her policy. She soon found that her number of people; her internal and external trade; the style of cultivating, and the rent of her land; and, above all, the revenue derived from her importations from abroad, were greatly increased and enlarged, and are still found to go on increasing. She had to grope her way to wealth and eminence, without the aid of the numerous precedents and examples, which, by the history of her rise, and that of other countries, are now afforded to us. She made some errors in her progress, which, by these lights, we may avoid. It is worthy of remark, however, that her statesmen never for a moment thought of following the plausible theories of the Adam Smiths, and M. Says, of the day.

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They looked to the practical operations and results of measures. When they found them prejudicial, they changed them; and left the speculations of these gentlemen to be studied and followed by us, and such other nations as thought proper to follow them, to the benefit of England, and to their own individual ruin.

Had the double duties imposed during the late war, remained upon those articles of which we had commenced the manufacture, the slaughter which took place among the sheep in 1818, 19, and 20, would never have happened. Our hills at this time would have been covered with sheep; extensive manufactories of woollen and cotton goods would have been in operation, with probably many others-the prices, like those of coarse cotton cloths, would at this time have been as low, or lower, than the imported-there would now be many articles, upon which the farmer might rely for money to pay his taxes and other demands.

If we had been permitted to supply the southern states with Negro cloths, in exchange for their cotton, it would have afforded some relief to the farmer, who would have furnished the wool and provisions required for their manufacture, and placed them nearer on a level with their brethren, the cotton-growers. But, withdrawing the shield of government in those double duties, and thereby placing our newbeginners in competition with the larger capitals and better learned artizans of England, they were broken down. For want of such protection, as shall inspire full confidence in the manufacture of woollen cloths, another defeat of the wool-growing business may be apprehended. England having the artizans for converting foreign wool into articles of the most approved fashion, has thereby the means of throwing foreign wool into our markets, to the exclusion of our own, in a shape so acceptable to the tastes of our people, as to insure its being taken in preference to that raised here: and the same may be said of many other articles. The farmer is, moreover, for want of that protection and encouragement to the required artizans, deprived of many, and the most profitable applications of his land and labour, and compelled to drudge on in the old track, in poverty.

The mechanic arts are not only the handmaids of agriculture, and its principal support, but they are powerful auxiliaries to each other, and to the pursuits of science generally.

Encouragement to the introduction from abroad, or growth within the country, of a population for the purpose of converting raw materials into manufactured articles, and making home markets for the consumption of agricultural productions; and this by duties on, or prohibitions of, foreign goods, is further objected to, on the ground of licy; and the writers before mentioned, Smith and M. Say, are cited as authorities. It is maintained by foreign commercial agents in this country-by our importing merchants-by the shipping interest generally, and the cotton-growers of the south, that the prevailing opinion in England, and the acts of the English government are in accordance with the theories of these gentlemen-that the English are doing away their protection to manufactures and trade, as far, and as fast as practicable-that they have finally become convinced that their protection, by way of prohibitions, bounties and duties, have

been of more injury than benefit to them-that their manufactures and trade have arrived to their unexampled state of prosperity, not by the aid, but in despite of these regulations. The books of these gentlemen are in the hands of almost every body; still it may be well very briefly to state their leading theories, and to inquire how far the allegations, that England has become sick of her protections and restraints, is founded in fact. To do this, however, within any thing like reasonable bounds, but little more can be said than to state facts and refer to authorities.

The leading principles of these gentlemen, are claimed to be based upon the natural progress of man from the savage to the most civilized state. That men at first subsist by hunting, fishing, and on natural productions, without labour: from that state they pass to that of shepherds or herdsmen; from that to the division and cultivation of land: after which, manufactures are commenced as a distinct profession. When the cultivation of the land and manufactures are filled with capital and labour to overflowing, the next branch of business to be taken up is that of external commerce, with navigation. The next in succession, is that of carrying the productions of one foreign country to that of another. After all these several branches of business are overdone, then emigration and the establishment of foreign colonies commence: internal commerce being incidental to every stage. Another maxim of the authors above referred to, is, that the patronage and protection of government, should never be extended to any one branch of business over that of another, nor to the labour, ingenuity, or enterprise of the citizen or subject, over that of the foreigner; but that all, as well citizens as foreigners, should possess equal rights, and purchase where they can cheapest, and sell where they can dearest, without duties or impediments.

The English nation, with some temporary exceptions, practised for a long time, in the early part of their history, nearly upon these principles; giving sometimes to the stranger, and sometimes to the subject, the advantage; and, like all other nations which still continue that practice, were poor; depending upon foreigners for manufactured articles, and for markets for their raw materials. Their numbers were comparatively few; their lands were badly cultivated, and unproductive; their foreign commerce and revenue from duties on imported articles, insignificant. But the English, disregarding theories like those just mentioned, changed this policy. From time to time, they prohibited positively, or, virtually, by high duties, one list of manufactured articles after another, until the chief of them were virtually excluded. They put in operation their celebrated navigation act; protected their manufactures, shipping interest and trade, from the interference of foreigners; and thereby drew into, or raised in their country, their existing overpowering stock of artizans and seamen ; made good and certain home markets for all their raw ma

* The maxims of these writers allow of some very few exceptions to this rule; but they are so limited and qualified, as not to alter the general principle. Their theories, in other respects, are not complained of; but in this, they are in direct opposition to the policy which has given to the manufacturing and commercial nations of Europe, their present ascendency, and which is indispensable to the prosperity of this country.

terials and agricultural productions; and raised their revenue, shipping, mercantile and landed interests, far above those of any other country.

It is somewhat remarkable that our first congress disregarded the order of time, in which the several professions should naturally, according to the foregoing theories, rise and succeed each other. They passed over manufactures, with but a slight notice in the preamble of a bill, and determined that the country, whether it had any thing else or not, should have a competent stock of ships and seamen ; and to that end, and looking to foreign countries for markets for agricultural productions, and for a supply of manufactured articles, gave to the shipping interest a powerful protection, which, with favourable incidental circumstances, raised it to its present state of prosperity.

As the fact of protection to the shipping interest of this country is notorious, and only incidentally mentioned here, it is not deemed necessary to cite all the particular incidents in which, to maintain its just rights, the landed interest has suffered. The dispute, however, with England, whether the ships of this country, should, on equal terms with their own, transport plaster from, and rye and Indian corn to Nova Scotia; and rum and molasses from, and corn, flour, and lumber to, the West Indies, was mainly the cause of the extreme depression of flour, in the years 1820 and 21. England was willing to take our Indian meal and flour in their own ships, to feed their Negroes and fishermen, but not if taken in ours. Congress, to maintain the just rights of our shipping, refused to let these articles be taken out of the country, if to be transported in English ships exclusively to their provinces; but would permit them to be taken, to be transported in the ships of the two nations, without preference to either. The articles could not be sold unless taken in one or the other, and whether taken in the one or the other, it was immaterial to the landed interest; but pending the dispute, these articles remained on hand, and fell below any former price since the revolution. England, in the course of the dispute, granted permission to our vessels to take them to England, there to be warehoused, until their vessels found it convenient to take them to the West Indies; but would not suffer that part of the flour which soured in their warehouses, to be used as sizing for the muslins and callicoes which they were making for our markets, and which, with their other manufactures, we have continued to take from them, until, having nothing else which they would take in payment, they have drawn from us a large proportion of our public stocks as remittances for these articles. But to return.

Anderson's History of Commerce, in 6 volumes, McPherson's Annals of Commerce, Holt's Administration of the Affairs of Great Britain and Ireland, and Howe's present state of England, are referred to, for the particular incidents of protection granted by the British government to the manufactures and trade of that country, from the 11th century to the present time, and for the improvements and benefits derived thereby, to the landed interest and revenue of that country, and in support of the policy which it is advisable for this country to adopt.

Pope's British Customs, will show what were the regulations of