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division of labor ■wliicli nature has instituted between difterent climes, a 



corresponding division of labor between the industrious agents who 

 inhabit them, and a mutual exchange of products, through the channels' 

 of commerce. 



Under the mistaken impression, that commercial industry was so much 

 labor lost to the world, and especially to the community engaged in it, 

 various expedients have been resorted to, both in ancient and modern 

 times, to circumscribe its limits, or to dispense with it entirely. Many 

 of the ancient nations repudiated commerce altogether, and confined their 

 enjoyments to the products of their own climes respectively ; and some 

 modern nations still adhere to the same narrow policy. But this policy 

 is fast giving way to a more enlightened public sentiment, and clearer 

 conceptions of the true interests of mankind, and their right, upon fair 

 and honorable terms, to share in all the sources of enjoyment Avhich the 

 wide realm of nature affords. Indeed, it is becoming a serious question, 

 amongst the most enlightened statesmen, whether any nation has the 

 right to exclude the rest of mankind from all participation in the products 

 peculiar to their oSvn clime, and which the[_bountiful Father of nature so 

 manifesly intended should be shared by the whole family of man ; and 

 whether a dogged refmsal to allow an equitable interchange of products 

 with other nations, will not justify a resort to compulsory measures. 



Another expedient to avoid what has been regarded as the wasteful 

 expense of commerce, is, to force products out of their native climate. 

 "Whilst the Creator has divided the surface of our globe into different 

 and distant climes, and brought in change of season and modifications 

 to each, by means of those wonderful and complicated arrangements, , 

 already noticed, and assigned to each its appropriate task in the work of 

 production, man has divided it into separate political communities, and 

 fancied he could compel the powers of nature to conform their products 

 to arbitrary lines and treaty stipulations, and yield him whatsoever his 

 soul desired, from the same soil and climate ! And the effect has been 

 to defraud himself of half the bounties which nature was ready to pour 

 into his lap, if he would but consent to receive them upon her own terms. 

 But instead of acceding to those terms, he has been wont to insist that 

 the temperate latitudes shall yield him, upon some terms or other, the 

 products of the tropics ; or an extremely variable climate, the products 

 of a more uniform one ; or, a colder clime the products of a warmer, 

 and vice versa. But all such experiments have resulted in loss to those 



