southern sea-board without its fevers, the salubrity of the northern without its sterility. You have the mildest climate and the most genial soil on earth.

And are the people smiling as their land, and happy as their climate? I wish I could answer this question in the affirmative. But the fact is, that in this delightful garden, and in the full possession of freedom which has no parallel in the history of the world, these people are not happy. The demon Ennui, which in other countries is confined to the higher orders, and poisons the enjoyments of the rich, the tædium vitæ, the want of occupation, is the prevailing disease of these pleasant regions, and the remedies resorted to are worse than the disease. It was the contemplation of this want, which led me to express to you the wish, that manufactures might be organized here, and the opinion, so contrary to the prevailing one, that they could be established with effect.-You call upon me to defend that opinion, and I obey.

It is generally thought that our country is not yet ready for engaging in manufactures with success.-This notion was uttered by some of our ablest writers, at the time when our present government was formed, and was, then, perfectly correct. Their authority gives currency to that opinion now, when the circumstances of the country are totally altered; it gains easy credit among a people of farmers and merchants, whose habits have led the first to cultivate raw materials for a distant market, and the latter to find a profitable employment, in exchanging those materials, for the productions of foreign industry. This was the necessary course of things at that period. A distant market was, without doubt, better than no market at all; and it was certainly desirable to obtain the objects of our wants, from beyond the Atlantic, rather than not have them. But it is not less evident that a near market, is better than a distant one, for the productions of our soil, and that it is our interest to obtain the return for those productions, from our own country even at our doors, rather than from foreigners three thousand miles distant. To you who are familiar with all the best authors on political economy, and who have your Adam Smith at your fingers ends, I need not enter into detail to prove the truth of this assertion. You will readily admit, that with a view even to mercantile profits, short voyages are better than long ones, that more frequent returns of capital are better than less frequent, and consequently an internal better than an external trade, and that if the operation of exchanging commodities be profitable to each of the parties engaged in it, that country to

which they both belong, must derive double benefit from it, if it can be completed at home. I figure to myself the smile with which you read this if, this little word of such great importance, to the speculations and actions of men.-Should my hints lead you into a new train of reflection on this subject, and end in producing that conviction in your mind which exists in my own, then will the cause of truth have acquired an advocate, whose activity and enterprise may induce him to follow up a good theory, by efficient practice-and if I have taken a wrong view of the subject, then will my error soon be dispelled, by the discriminating intelligence and superior information of my friend.

For a country to succeed in manufactures, it is necessary that provisions should be abundant, that the requisite labour should be cheap, and that skill should be ready for organizing and directing that labour. Now, I am perfectly satisfied, from the evidence which my extensive rambles through this country have given me, that all those circumstances exist in the United States in an eminent degree; in a degree which is not conceived by those who object to the manufacturing system, and not suspected even by its most sanguine advocates. Provisions are abundant in every part of our country.-Even in the seaport towns where they are dearest, a common labourer can earn enough in one day, to purchase provisions for a weekBut in the New States, I have frequently known a barrel of corn, containing five bushels, to be sold for a quarter of a dol lar. This you will allow to be not only cheap, but far too cheap, for the happiness even of the purchasers. The necessary consequence is a habit of idleness, and a very short acquaintance with them would convince you, that the old maxim is true, which declares" idleness the mother of vice."

The evil proceeds from the want of a market. As you cannot carry the provisions to a market, you ought to bring a market to the provisions, and this can be most effectually and easily done, by a manufacturing establishment in the midst of them.—I will not enlarge on the abundance of provisions; it is useless to bring proofs of that which no one will deny.

Let us proceed to the next point, that of manufacturing labour, the scarcity and dearness of which, are represented as an insuperable objection to the success of manufactures, in the present state of our society.-Now, there is no object whose price varies so much, as that of labour in the various portions of the United States. Along the Atlantic coast, in the large towns and their neighbourhood; in short, wherever VOL. IV. 3 A

the access to a market is easy, a particular kind of labour is dear, namely that of man.-Even there, the labour of women is not so high, as to preclude their advantageous employment in manufactures. But remove to the mountainous districts of the southern states, where the climate is healthy, and the white population numerous, and you will find that labour is neither difficult to be found, nor high in price.

Pass the Potomac, the northern boundary of Virginia, and keeping the Blue Ridge within your sight, traverse North and South Carolina, and reach the upper districts of Georgia; then return along the western side of the Ridge, through the beautiful valley which takes its name from the river Shenandoaha finer country is not lighted by the sun. Prolong your stay from time to time, in the numerous villages, which are strown along the road.-Observe the groups of strong, healthy, well looking men, at the corners of the streets, at the taverns and the stores let there be a horse race, or a cock fight, or a public sale, or a camp meeting of a week's duration, and notice the multitudes of able bodied individuals who attend them; and

who gape and yawn, and smoke, and drink whisky, and talk politics, and show every mark of an unhappy want of occupa tion:-behold the children who pour forth from the cottages by dozens, health in their cheeks, intelligence in their eyes, who are destined to a life of idleness, and who might be trained to industry, wealth, and happiness.-At the end of your journey, I think you will conclude with me, that in these regions upon which nature has smiled, there is a redundance of physical force; that there is a want of employment, a want of that stimulus to action, which nothing would so effectually create as a well directed factory.

A factory of what? Why a factory for working up any of the materials, which the earth produces in its choicest portions.Enter into conversation with these people, interrogate them concerning their occupations, and you will find that they raise more provisions for themselves than they can use. Why don't you raise hemp, flax, wool? so we do for our own consumption-and they will show you enough to convince you, that there is not a finer wool country, or linen country in the world. The other day when I had finished my breakfast, with a very intelligent and communicative old couple in North Carolina, I was expressing my admiration at a fine field of flax before their door, and my sorrow, that they should not have people who could work it up into linen. Judge of my surprise when they told me, that within a few miles of them, there was a

populous neighbourhood of descendants from Irish settlers, who had preserved the skill of their parents, and who could spin and weave flax, to any degree of fineness that was desired. They then entered into a detail about hundreds, and reels and cuts, which was gibberish to me, but they ended by informing me, that I might, for two dollars a month, hire as many good spinners and weavers as I pleased to employ, who would bind themselves to execute work in the manner above mentioned.

In this part of the country then, it is not therefore the dearness of labour which precludes the establishment of manufac tures-and I am perfectly satisfied, 1st, that all the demand for linen, which has hitherto been supplied from Ireland, might be equally well and more cheaply supplied from this quarter; and 2dly, that an enterprising individual, who understood the business, would make a fortune by undertaking it. After all, cheapness of labour, though an important consideration, is not as essential now as it was formerly. The introduction of machinery has taken much from the importance of manual labour, and machines can no where be more easily erected, than in our mountainous districts, which abound with the finest streams and falls of water-in fact, it is the labour of the head, more than of the hands that we need. We want a few Du Ponts to make us as flourishing in manufactures, as we have been in agriculture, by judiciously calling into action, my third requisite, viz. the skill already in our country.

In the Old World, skill in manufactures has always been a fruit of slow growth; it came late to maturity, and required to be fostered by the overflowing population, and abundant capital of long established and flourishing societies.-Not so in our country. This fruit has been shaken by the convulsions of Europe, from the stock on which it had ripened-if we stretch out our arms to receive it, it will fall in full maturity, into our possession-much of it has already reached our shores; it requires only that we should raise it from the earth, recover it from the bruises it has received in its fall, cherish it with care, and enjoy it in all the perfection which it has attained, by the culture and experience of ages.

You must be well convinced of this; for you will remember the walks which, eight months ago, we took together through the streets and alleys of Philadelphia, and the surprise with which we witnessed the multitudes of intelligent workmen who, notwithstanding the severe laws of England prohibiting the departure of her mechanics, had found their way into your flourishing capital. I have since been informed that Baltimore,

New-York, Boston, Providence, and indeed all the northern sea-ports, abound with manufacturers of all descriptions, able and willing to give a permanent establishment to their skill, in this country, by exerting it themselves, and teaching it to our children. It has several times happened to me in my conversations with these adventurous people, to receive offers from them, of returning to England, and at the risque of all the penalties with which they are threatened, bringing out their relations and acquaintance, for the purpose of establishing a manufacturing colony.-How often have I regretted my want of talent and of means, to turn these offers to account! how often have I wished of late, that our government would exchange its hopeless war of bayonets and muskets, from which I foresee nothing but defeat and disgrace, for a war of looms and shuttles, which while it would produce incalculable benefits to ourselves, would be ten thousand times more efficacious, than the most successful battles, in inflicting evil upon our enemies.

I hope you are satisfied that on the score of provisions, labour and skill, no valid objection exists, to the establishment of manufactures in our conutry. I shall now state to you some few of my reasons for thinking that it is the policy of our government, to support them, and the interest of our people to engage in them. Let us look back to the time of Mr. Jefferson's embargo, a period rendered memorable to us all, as the commencement of heavy misfortunes public and private.How immediate was the stop put by that measure, to our agricultural as well as commercial prosperity, and how deplorably has each subsequent day, added to the evil? What would have been our situation, if at that time, a system of internal regulations calculated to encourage manufactures, had been adopted and persevered in, instead of the ruinous, inefficient and deceitful measures, which, temporary only in name while they were intended to be permanent, the administration with characteristic ill faith, imposed upon us, and thus by the delusive prospect of a speedy return to our old habits of industry, effectually precluded our resorting to new ones?

We should have become independent of foreign commerce, we should have witnessed factories established in every part of our country, concentering and permanently fixing on our own soil, that wealth which has fallen a prey to the rapacity of foreign nations. In the southern and western states, many and more lucrative objects of culture, would have taken place of the old.-Instead of cotton and tobacco, we should