184 The Currency and the Batd -. of England. [FEB. 



repeal of the many restrictive laws upon our trade, is the only policy 

 by which the future affairs of this country can now be carried on with- 

 out vast and furious convulsions. All interference with our trade is 

 needless, impolitic, and unjust; for commerce consists of an infinitude 

 of small wheels, each best directed by the judgment, industry, and 

 skill of individuals. These will always harmonize and combine into 

 one self-regulating engine, which no ministry can ever adjust, but 

 which all their measures inevitably tend to derange. Our whole com- 

 mercial policy, monopolies, bounties, and prohibitory duties, are at 

 variance with natural liberty, reason, and good policy ; they all coun- 

 teract themselves, waste millions of the public money, and disorganize 

 the course of trade. The capital and labour of nations should be 

 allowed to flow, without interruption, in the channels which nature 

 opens peculiarly in all countries ; for governments are not instituted to 

 superintend the common transactions of the people ; and it is a maxim 

 given to us by Burke, that after the authorities have repressed violence 

 and discountenanced fraud, the less that they interfere with the affairs 

 of mankind the better. This is a just sentiment it embodies the 

 whole origin, objects, and duties of human government. In an en- 

 lightened condition of society, mankind require but little government 

 at all ; and to establish a pure administration of justice, and to defend 

 the country from foreign invasion, is all that the public should usually 

 yield to the powers that be. Freedom of person is only the half of 

 liberty ; free trade is included in the security of property, and without 

 an unfettered right to pursue the course of commerce where we will, 

 our freedom is a shadow. There is the liberty of conscience, the 

 liberty of the press, and the liberty of trade. We ought to be deter- 

 mined upon real commercial liberty, because upon that all other liberty 

 depends. A restrictive commercial policy has destroyed the commerce, 

 wealth, and liberty of every great, prosperous, and powerful nation. 

 Venice, Spain, and Holland, have all fallen beneath the weight of 

 tyrannical restrictive chains, and destroying monopolies are fast hurry- 

 ing England into the condition of the states of modern Italy ; a land 

 of palaces and of hovels of nobles and of slaves. Self-preservation, 

 therefore, requires that the government of England should no longer 

 oppose an extension of commercial liberty; nor, with all our suberabun- 

 dance of the blessings of life, can we enjoy comfort or repose, till our 

 ministers shall learn that their wisdom is folly, and that our legislation 

 is the curse of the country. 



Certain it is, that by a repeal of the one pound note act, and the 

 abolition of the Bank of England, the government may soon mitigate 

 the public misery, and render England once again a peaceful, a con- 

 tented, and a loyal nation. This must be the work of a Reformed 

 Parliament. 



