[959 ] 
The great perfection and extent to which our com- 
merce has recently attained, have led fome to con- 
clude, that itis in fa& approaching to its fammit . 
and that it muft from thence experience a degrada- 
tion and fa//. This, however, it muft be allowed, 
would be reckoning without our hoft, and reafon- 
ing from no other data than what is on record of 
the fate of other antecedent ftates, that may have 
been in fome circumftances,’ not necefjarily involving 
fuch a conclufion, fimilar to our own. So far are 
improvements in fuch of the arts, as are allowed to 
be requifite to human fupport, from being under a 
neceflity of involving, and thence, as probably, 
approximating to, a ne-plus-ultra, that it may for the 
moft part be obferved, that one difcovery therein 
only ferves to afford a view of, and thence to lead - 
to, the attainment of another; and as the poffeffion 
of a fuper-abundance of certain neceffaries in life 
awakens a fenfe of, and, in like manner, by a chain 
of caufes and events, leads to the attainment of all 
others; the defirable, and, under Divine Providence, 
very certain refult of fuch general abundance, will 
be an increafe of population, and of which the ex- 
perience of fome few paft years has afforded us very 
ample proof. And hence, (as, by a very expreflive 
metaphor, was faid of the late Marquis pr TurBILLy, 
who, by the moft mafterly improvements over his 
very extenfive domains, gave birth to 20,000 la- 
bourers and occupiers thereon) the improvement of 
$ 2 the 
