The nature of this series of events, it is too easy to foresee. The continent reposing in peace will put forth its energies. France will once more become what she was during the greater part of the last century, our rival in trade. No advantages of capital and machinery (and even these will not long be peculiar to us) will be sufficient to render us successful in our competition, when we purchase corn at a price double of that which it bears in the general market of Europe. Our manufactures will be supplanted in every foreign country; our immense establishments will fall into decay; our riches will make unto themselves wings and depart from us; our population left unemployed will soon diminish; and the result of all will be a ruined commerce and a ruined agriculture. When the period of this mournful consummation shall have arrived, corn will again be cheap; but its cheapness will have come too late for the revival of our expiring commerce. Some, who might be disposed to allow, that this anticipation of the future fortunes of England would be just if violent measures were adopted, may yet alledge that the schemes of restriction which have been proposed in parliament are of too gentle a nature to operate so fatally. To those who entertain such sentiments let me reply, that, whether prohibitory enactments be gentle or violent in their provisions, the chain of consequences which we have just deduced must remain unaltered. If there is a vast inequality between the price of grain in the general market of Europe, and that which it must bear in the British market; and if this inequality, instead of being permitted to be removed by the operation of a free trade, calls upon us to restrain importation; then all the consequences which we have mentioned must follow by a moral necessity. The greater or less degrees of violence which may belong to the measures that shall be adopted, may hasten or retard our progress, but cannot change its direction. Let us suppose on the other hand, that the commerce in grain is left practically free, and that the immediate results of this policy are as alarming as the committee apprehend; England will be a centre towards which corn will rush from every part of Europe. Our markets will be glutted, our farmers will be impoverished, our poor lands will cease to be cultivated, and the capital invested in agriculture will seek some more profitable employment. Well: No. VII. Pam. VOL. IV. P let this calamity be endured, (I have not softened its features,) and look to the order of things which will afterwards arise. The reduction in the price of corn having once taken place, our agriculture will commence a new career. The British cultivator, enjoying the advantages which the home-grower must always possess, and freed from the pressure of heavy rents and enormous money prices of labor and farming stock, will no longer dread foreign competition. Our manufacturers will at the same time be enabled to derive the full benefit of their capital and machinery, of the freedom and security which they owe to their constitution, of their skill, their industry, and their enterprize. Thus our trade will not only remain unimpaired, but will increase with the increasing riches of Europe. Our taxes, though their absolute amount were to be little diminished, will be rendered less burdensome by being apportioned among a greater number of contributors and drawn from a larger accumulation of wealth. Our prosperity will be permanent for there will be no germ of corruption within, and no cause to apprehend any destructive tempest from without. Agriculture and manufactures will go hand in hand; and England will shine with greater glory than ever, so that her past splendor, dazzling as it is, will disappear before the brilliance of the future. The question at issue, therefore, according to the opinions and principles avowed by the committee themselves, is this :-Shall we, to secure the permanent prosperity of our commerce and agriculture, expose our tillage to the hazard of a temporary check? or shall we, to avoid this hazard, draw down upon ourselves the certain and irretrievable ruin of every branch of industry which is either directly or mediately dependent on foreign trade ? A few Suggestions, &c. WHEN men of the most opposite principles happen to agree upon any important question, nothing short of complete evidence can produce their coincidence. Now it happens that the man of the greatest reputation as a Statesman in this country, the man most renowned for religious principles, and the fiercest republican in France, shall I say Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mirabeau, have been advocates for the Abolition of the Slave Trade: and against such authorities who will venture to defend it? How comes it to pass that even the continuation of it for five years has been allowed by the able minister who has negociated the late treaty of peace? Men of warm imagination and strong feeling may for a moment, in the ardor of their zeal for humanity, think the war itself had better have been continued, till the abolition was allowed as a leading article in the treaty; but cooler heads will suggest the question, who do you mean to go to war with? Is it with the good French king? Is it with our magnanimous Allies? Is it with the mass of the French nation? They all disapprove of the Slave Trade. Why then allow it to continue for a moment? Without attempting to search too deeply into the secrets of diplomatic negociation, when we observe how much has been done, and in so short a time, and in such important matters; we may allow the plenipotentiaries some credit, for perhaps not being able to accomplish at once every object of their wishes. What then? Is the abolition a bubble, a tub thrown to the whale, to amuse minor politicians, and take off their attention from deeper operations? No. A great deal has been done, but a great deal still remains to do. With the powers of a regular and well-established government, in the highest perfection of social order, directed by pure religion and sound morality, how many years elapsed before the Legislature of this country could bring about this important measure? And do we wonder that in the distracted state in which the allies found the French nation, they could not accomplish at once, what we had been so long in bringing into effect. But the treaty is ratified, and we must abide by it. And so we are bound to obey acts of parliament-till they are repealed. Treaties as well as laws are subject to modifications, explanations, restrictions, which give full employment to statesmen during the intervals of peace: and these operations have perhaps already begun. The opinion of this country has been loudly proclaimed, by respectful Addresses to both Houses of Parliament, and they have already had some success. The publication of our sentiments in the French papers may soften some of the prejudices which oppose us, and lead the way to a fuller discussion in the approaching Congress of Vienna, and bring the business to a more favorable issue. Thank God, we are at peace with France: a time must come, and I hope soon, when we shall be at peace with |