gold but to purchase other supplies than food? and as they would then have the means to pay, England would be the very country which, of all others, could supply them to advantage.  Whatever was wanted which her own artizans do not produce themselves, they could still supply.  Englishmen would not at all be confined to a direct sale or exchange of their goods with the wheat grower, but can give him the merchandize of India and China, and the fruits of the tropics, for which English manufactures would pay.  If the idle mills and idle laborers of England could at once be set at work to produce food for the people, new activity would be imparted to trade in every part of the world—­from India to the frozen regions of Greenland and Labrador.  But, on the other hand, how is it possible for England to extend her foreign trade while the present restrictions continue?  Even with such a country as India, reduced under British sway, it cannot be done except by diminishing the commerce with other countries to the same extent.  England cannot, in her present condition, greatly increase her consumption of such merchandize as India can furnish, or dispose of such merchandize abroad, to any great extent, for the reasons already given.

[Footnote A:  “Englishmen, reasoning from a restricted course of trade, are constantly prone to the belief that the purchase of foreign corn, from some unexplained necessity, must take away their gold.  Americans, from the same cause, reason in the same manner respecting the purchase of foreign goods.  Under the action of the restrictive system, there may be some truth in the reasonings of each party, but they certainly form a beautiful running commentary upon each other.”]

“As to any proposed gain by the Colonial trade, it is the very thing rejected by the restrictions on the trade with the United States.  What are these States but the greatest colonies ever planted by Great Britain? and their independence does not at all prevent England from deriving all the advantage from them ever to be derived from colonies.  The only good which England can derive from her extensive colonization is not to be gained by swaying a barren sceptre over distant colonies, but by spreading abroad her race, her language, her civilization, and thus enlarging the sphere of her commerce.  Under a free system of intercourse England would not derive less benefit, at present, from the United States than if they had remained a part of the British dominions, for if trade were free, they would not trade the less because of their independence, or furnish less food, or at higher prices.  England, however, seems determined to sacrifice all the advantages which naturally accrue to her from having colonized the finest part of the New World, and to refuse the abundance and relief thus providentially prepared by her own offspring.”

The great importance of these extracts is the best apology for their length—­but