The picture of the colony which I have presented, aggravated as it is, faithfully delineates the different descending gradations by which it has sunk to its present abyss of misery, and is of itself sufficiently demonstrative of the radical defect that there is in its polity, and of the necessity for an alteration in it:  nevertheless, it may not be altogether inexpedient to dive a little into futurity, and to view through the mirror of the imagination the further results which the experience of the past may convince us that a perseverance in the same course of restriction and disability will infallibly lead to.  It requires not the gift of divination to foresee that the manufacturing system, which has already taken such deep root, and so rapidly shot up towards maturity, will still further confirm and consolidate itself with the increasing poverty of the community.  For several years the importation of British manufactures, particularly of cottons, has been comparatively speaking on the decline, in consequence of the competition occasioned by large importations of those articles from India; which though in general of inferior quality, have been more adapted to the circumstances of the colonists from their inferior price.  The consumption of hats and woollen cloths has also been diminished, but not to the same considerable extent by the colonial manufactures of the same denomination, which are likewise much inferior to the British, but have the two-fold advantage of being cheaper, and to be obtained for wool, grain, meat, etc. without the intervention of money, which it is generally out of the power of the consumers to furnish.

This system of barter, which has materially favoured their growth, and must necessarily still further encourage and extend it, is not, as might at first be imagined, prejudicial to the manufacturer; since the wool which he thus receives in exchange for his commodity is the raw material required for its reproduction, and therefore saves him the trouble of seeking it in other quarters; and the meat, grain, etc. are distributed among his workmen at the market prices of the day, and free him from the necessity of paying the full value of their labour in money, which under existing circumstances would most probably be impracticable.  The system itself, therefore, seems to have been engendered by events, and to be peculiarly adapted to the present state of poverty and wretchedness, to which the great mass of the colonists are reduced.  And although in other countries, and even in this, if its agricultural powers were unfettered, the workmen employed in the fabrication of these manufactures would not perhaps consent to receive this mixed compensation for their labour, yet amidst the actual difficulties of procuring a subsistence, and possessed as they are of trades, for which till lately there was no demand whatever, and for which at the present moment there is far from an active competition, they are not only glad to accept