Had the views, desires, and habits of mankind, and especially of the inhabitants of Europe and the United States, continued as they were fifty years ago, it is absolutely impossible that one half of the goods manufactured in Great Britain could have been disposed of; and unless these additional and enlarged views, desires, and habits, had been accompanied with commensurate means of gratifying them, our manufactures and commerce could not have advanced as they have done.  Minutely and universally divided as human labour is, no one country can render its industry and skill additionally productive, without, at the same time, the industry and skill of other countries also advance.  No one nation can acquire additional wealth, unless additional wealth is also acquired in other nations.  Before an additional quantity of commodities can be sold, additional means to purchase them must be obtained; or, in other words, increased commerce, supposes increased wealth, not only in that country in which commerce is increased, but also in that where the buyers and consumers live.

4.  Since the termination of the American war, Britain has been placed in circumstances favourable to her commerce:  the human mind cannot long be depressed; there is an elasticity about it which prevents this.  Perhaps it is rather disposed to rebound, in proportion to the degree and time of its restraint.  It is certain, however, that the exhaustion produced by the American war speedily gave place to wonderful activity in our manufactures and commerce; and that, at the commencement of the first French revolutionary war, they had both taken wonderful and rapid strides.  The circumstances, indeed, of such a country as Britain, and such a people as the British, must be essentially changed,—­changed to a degree, and in a manner, which we can hardly suppose to be brought about by any natural causes,—­before its real wealth can be annihilated, or even greatly or permanently diminished.  The climate and the soil, and all the improvements and ameliorations which agriculture has produced on the soil, must remain:  the knowledge and skill, and real capital of the inhabitants, are beyond the reach of any destroying cause:  interest must always operate and apply this knowledge and skill, unless we can suppose, what seems as unlikely to happen as the change of our climate and soil, the annihilation of our knowledge and skill, or that interest should cease to be the stimulating cause of industry; unless we can suppose that political and civil freedom should be rooted out, and individual property no longer secure.