rect estimate of what is called the Balance of Trade. If one country have a claim on another, the holders of that claim have but two ways of using it, either to leave the amount in the debtor-country as so much capital to be vested there at interest, or employed as they see fit, or to withdraw it. The first is so seldom done, as to have little or no influence on the course of exchange. But no claim can arise from one country on another, (except in tribute or exaction,) which is not founded in some equivalent. An exchange of equivalents is the foundation of all commerce. No nation therefore can permanently export to a greater value than it imports, as far as exports and imports are created by a commercial intercourse with other nations. But a considerable part of British imports is not derived from commerce. From their colonies a large proportion of imports is in the nature of rent remitted in kind to the owners of colonial estates resident in England, to which add the produce of their fisheries, and any portion of their territorial revenue in India, or of the savings of public servants, civil and military in that quarter of the globe, sent home in goods. If these returns were deducted from the sum total of imports, the annual balance of trade, as stated to parliament, would appear still greater in favor of Britain. Yet taken for any length of time, no part of this balance is created by her commerce. For every thing which she receives through that channel, an equivalent is returned, but no more. that she sends out above the amount which is thus returned, is drawn from her by the remittance of the profits of foreign capital vested in Britain, or is to be accounted for under the several heads of her foreign expenditure. A great balance of trade therefore, instead of being the natural criterion of increasing wealth at home, is only a certain indication of a great expenditure abroad. It is an indication of wealth, only in the same way as any other great expenditure, by proving the power and ability

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of the country to sustain it. But although the balance of trade or the excess of exports above imports is not the measure and the realization of the profit derived from foreign commerce, but only capital sent out of the country, for which no capital is returned to it; it by no means follows that this expenditure is without equivalent, though without commercial return, still less that it is not beneficial to the country, or that the sum so expended could be employed in any other manner equally conducive to its interests. Nor is it to be inferred, that the not incurring this expenditure abroad would be any saving. The two great heads of this expenditure are armies and fleets abroad, and subsidies to foreign states. The soldiers and sailors, and all public servants, so far as they are furnished abroad with what is necessary for themselves or their operations, give to those who supply them, assignments upon the produce of Britain. These assignments, like any other bills of exchange are converted into whatever articles the ultimate holders of them find it most to their advantage to export from Britain. If this head of foreign expenditure were reduced by the recall of all public servants, civil, naval, and military, now maintained abroad, and the sume number were to be maintained at home, the real saving to the country would bear no proportion to the reduction in foreign expenditure. The balance of trade would be diminished in proportion to that reduction, but such diminution would be no proof of the declining prosperity of the country. A subsidy to a foreign state is paid for a service to be performed, which is deemed equivalent to the expense incurred, and in whatever mode it be remitted, it augments to its amount the balance of trade in favor of the country which sends the subsidy.

"If commerce be only an exchange of equivalents, and the balance of trade, taken for any length of time, only the measure of foreign expenditure, how is a country enriched by trade?

"What is the internal trade of any country, i. e. the trade carried on between different districts of the same state within the limits of its territory, but an exchange of equivalents? Is it a trade by which one gains and the other loses? By which Yorkshire is enriched at the expense of Kent? If the internal trade be an exchange of equivalents, how does it differ in this respect from foreign trade? The mind and faculties of man are constantly engaged in pursuit of his own happiness, and in multiplying the means of subsistence, comfort and enjoyment. Trade which effects the exchange of a part of the productions of the soil, industry, and talent of any one country, against those of the soil, industry and talent of all other countries, is the great instrument of multiplying these means. By the aid of this exchange not only those natural productions which Providence has distributed abundantly in one portion of the globe, and refused to some other, are rendered common to all, but the soil of every country, and of every portion of every country, is left at liberty to be cultivated principally or wholly in raising those productions for which it is best adapted, those which by experience it has been found to afford of the best quality, in the greatest abundance, and at the least expense of capital and labor. Labor or capital employed in manufactures is enabled to avail itself of local situations and natural advantages, as a stream or a coal mine, &c. and to adapt itself exclusively to those pursuits in which from any peculiar disposition, dexterity, ingenuity, or fortuitous discovery, the people of any particular country, or any particular portion of them, may excel. The advantage derived from the division of labor in any single undertaking, is by the aid of commerce imparted to the whole world. Commerce enables the population of each separate district to make the most of its peculiar advantages, whether derived from nature, or acquired

by the application of industry, talent, and capital, to make the most of them for its own consumption, leaving at the same time the greatest possible remainder or surplus, to be given in exchange for any other commodities produced more easily, more abundantly, or of better quality, in other districts of the world. It is thus that a country is enriched by commerce. Apply this doctrine to Britain. Much is required for the subsistence, comfort, enjoyment, and luxury of her people. If she could not or would not procure salt meat from Ireland, in which, say, from its superior pasture one acre will feed as many cattle as two acres will feed in England, it is evident that if the same quantity of meat be consumed, a larger portion of the soil must be allotted to pasture, and consequently less of corn, hops, or some other article of present growth would be raised. So if Britain resolve, instead of importing sugar, to make it from beet root, sweet maple-tree, or any other vegetables which could be raised at home, she must allot a great portion of her soil to their growth, and after all have very little sugar, and much less of other produce which she now has, with an abundant supply of sugar. The same observation will apply to hemp, or to any other article principally imported from other countries. Every addition to the productions of a country, whether ultimately consumed at home or not, adds equally to its means of commercial exchange with other countries. To improve agriculture therefore is to extend commerce, and every new channel opened to commerce affords additional encouragement to agriculture. It is thus that they both contribute to the wealth of a country, and the improvement of that wealth is most effectually consulted by leaving every part of the world at liberty to raise those productions, for which its soil and climate are best adapted.

"Yet such is the barbarian ignorance or detestable

policy, which presides in the councils of France, and sways those of Continental Europe, that we are boastingly told of whole districts in Italy and Provence, naturally fertile in other rich productions, being devoted to raising at a vast expense a little very bad cotton. We hear of princes in Germany devising wretched substitutes for coffee, or planting forests of sweet-maple, and sinking great capitals in the erection of works for the manufacturing of sugar; and all this, at the same time that the natural productions of their agriculture, those best suited to their soil and climate, in exchange for which sugar and coffee might be procured in abundance, are rotting in the fields for want of a market. If it were in the nature of violent passions and headstrong power to take lessons from experience, Buonaparte would perhaps begin to perceive that the mercantile superiority, for which he envies and hates Britain, grows, not so much out of her commercial regulations, as of her system of Laws, which affords perfect protection to property, admits of no degrading distinctions in society, encourages industry, fosters genius, and excites emulation; and is supported by that moral, manly, and national character of her people, which is only another of the many advantages derived from that system; that the wealth which is employed in commerce is the result of long accumulation uninterrupted by popular violence or arbitrary exactions; that so long as these blessings are continued to her on the one hand, and as on the other his warlike pursuits abroad and capricious regulations at home, conspire to drive commerce from Continental Europe, the capitals engaged in trade must seek protection and employment in England; and that whilst he is thus engaged in adding incalculably to the misery of Europe, by debarring it more and more from the benefits and enjoyments which commercial intercourse affords to mankind, the blow aimed at Britain is coun