there is no way of preventing this evil, which goes to the destruction of all our agriculture, and of that part of our internal commerce which touches our agriculture the most nearly, as well as the safety and very being of government, but manfully to resist the very first idea, speculative or practical, that it is within the competence of government, taken as government, or even of the rich, as rich, to supply to the poor those necessaries which it has pleased the Divine Providence for a while to withhold from them.  We, the people, ought to be made sensible that it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of Nature, and consequently the laws of God, that we are to place our hope of softening the Divine displeasure to remove any calamity under which we suffer or which hangs over us.

So far as to the principles of general policy.

As to the state of things which is urged as a reason to deviate from them, these are the circumstances of the harvest of 1794 and 1795.  With regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to the noblest grain, wheat, it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively,—­and in quality, for the seven-and-twenty years during which I have been a farmer, I never remember wheat to have been so good.  The world were, however, deceived in their speculations upon it,—­the farmer as well as the dealer.  Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond anything I can remember:  for at one time of the year I sold my wheat at 14_l._ a load, (I sold off all I had, as I thought this was a reasonable price,) when at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell, I might have got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain.  I sold all that I had, as I said, at a comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price, compared with what I thought the general produce of the harvest; but when I came to consider what my own total was, I found that the quantity had not answered my expectation.  It must be remembered that this year of produce, (the year 1794,) short, but excellent, followed a year which was not extraordinary in production, nor of a superior quality, and left but little in store.  At first, this was not felt, because the harvest came in unusually early,—­earlier than common by a full month.

The winter, at the end of 1794 and beginning of 1795, was more than usually unfavorable both to corn and grass, owing to the sudden relaxation of very rigorous frosts, followed by rains, which were again rapidly succeeded by frosts of still greater rigor than the first.

Much wheat was utterly destroyed.  The clover-grass suffered in many places.  What I never observed before, the rye-grass, or coarse bent, suffered more than the clover.  Even the meadow-grass in some places was killed to the very roots.  In the spring appearances were better than we expected.  All the early sown grain recovered itself, and came up with great vigor; but that which was late sown was