“It appears,” as the committee has very justly and satisfactorily observed, “by the accounts of the value of the imports and exports for the last twenty years, produced by Mr. Irving, Inspector-General of Imports and Exports, that the demands for cash to be sent abroad” (which, by the way, including the loan to the Emperor, was nearly one third less sent to the Continent of Europe than in the Seven Years’ War) ... “was greatly compensated by a very large balance of commerce in favor of this kingdom,—­greater than was ever known in any preceding period.  The value of the exports of the last year amounted, according to the valuation on which the accounts of the Inspector-General are founded, to 30,424,184_l._, which is more than double what it was in any year of the American war, and one third more than it was on an average during the last peace, previous to the year 1792; and though the value of the imports to this country has during the same period greatly increased, the excess of the value of the exports above that of the imports, which constitutes the balance of trade, has augmented even in a greater proportion.”  These observations might perhaps be branched out into other points of view, but I shall leave them to your own active and ingenious mind.  There is another and still more important light in which, the Inspector-General’s information may be seen,—­and that is, as affording a comparison of some circumstances in this war with the commercial history of all our other wars in the present century.

In all former hostilities, our exports gradually declined in value, and then (with one single exception) ascended again, till they reached and passed the level of the preceding peace.  But this was a work of time, sometimes more, sometimes less slow.  In Queen Anne’s war, which began in 1702, it was an interval of ten years before this was effected.  Nine years only were necessary, in the war of 1739, for the same operation.  The Seven Years’ War saw the period much shortened:  hostilities began in 1755; and in 1758, the fourth year of the war, the exports mounted above the peace-mark.  There was, however, a distinguishing feature of that war,—­that our tonnage, to the very last moment, was in a state of great depression, while our commerce was chiefly carried on by foreign vessels.  The American war was darkened with singular and peculiar adversity.  Our exports never came near to their peaceful elevation, and our tonnage continued, with very little fluctuation, to subside lower and lower.[57] On the other hand, the present war, with regard to our commerce, has the white mark of as singular felicity.  If, from internal causes, as well as the consequence of hostilities, the tide ebbed in 1793, it rushed back again with a bore in the following year, and from that time has continued to swell and run every successive year higher and higher into all our ports.  The value of our exports last year above the year 1792 (the mere increase of our commerce during the war) is equal to the average value of all the exports during the wars of William and Anne.