: 
| 
| 
1823.) 
can dictate, itappears to me, that, should 
Britain fail in any manner in giving sa- 
tisfaction by the employment of these 
prudent and equitable means, innume- 
rable obstacles would be seen to impede 
the success of her navigation, to stint 
and cramp her present enlarged and im- 
" portant resources, in spite of her charac- 
ter, policy, and great power, naval and 
military. 
Some advantage may be derived from 
farther observing and penetrating into 
the genius of a state which, while in 
others it has remained torpid and inac- 
tive, or has been exerted in but few pur- 
snits, has been here aspiring to eminence 
by several roads. Britain’s sons are 
neither statesmen, nor soldiers, nor 
sailors, nor mechanics, exclusively. Her 
exertions are divided, but are not there- 
fore the less successful. - With the dis- 
advantage ofa small population, a great- 
er proportion of her subjects are engaged 
* inactive employments than those of any 
other nation. With physical means so 
small, and with pursnits so various and 
complex, there is but little room for 
idlers. Her resources are the riches of 
’ all nations, which she knows how to ap- 
eciate and turn to her own account. 
he hopes of Incre only must give a 
tinge of meanness to the mind and man- 
ners, but in England the incitements to 
commerce operate assisted by nobler 
motives. One main spring of action is 
a portion of public spirit generated by 
the excellence of public order, and by 
the inviolable protection of the laws. 
In individuals we observe an irresist- 
ible ardour, an insatiable excitement to 
ontstrip every rival, and especially. to 
beat down forcign competition, personal 
and national. <A steady, methodical, 
and even frigid, activity; a well coiicert- 
ed audacity, which, in the speculator, at- 
tempts whatever a provident calculation 
(I had almost said divination) of chances, 
can offer for suceess, and to meet re- 
verses. 'To these moral causes, may be 
added, rules of political and domestic 
ceconomy, operating favourably for all 
interests, and as a stimulus and encou- 
ragement for industry and talents of 
every description. 
- With respect to material causes, we 
may rank, in the first place, that of 
ready communications by means of 
public ie and the requisite establish- 
ments and depots to facilitate the trans- 
port of articles, as well in the interior 
asin the vicinity of the coasts. In this 
very business of transportation, and in 
that of the exchanges effected by it, 
Monrucy Mag. No. 386. 
Commerce of England. 
153 
there is no small art employed. The 
subject-matter of these exchanges are 
the productions that industry creates. 
A: pacific competition is incessantly 
carried on between the commerce of 
England and that of other nations. 
Of these, one shall rise to distinction, 
by premeditated -schemes of prudence 
and economy, another by the delicatesse 
and good taste of its productions, ano- 
ther by its audacity and activity. But 
they are’ separately overmatched by not 
possessing and exercising the influence. 
of these strong means in combination- 
It is in the labours of the interior that 
the example of England should be, pri- 
marily, copied by France. In the be- 
ginning ofthe 17th century, England had 
but few practicable roads, and no canals; 
and, in the ports, art had added nothing 
to the bounties of nature; queen Eliza- 
beth, however, had already established 
an India company, and in her time the 
globebad heen circumnavigated by Drake 
—one of those illustrious voyagers who 
routed the Spanish Armada. | This was. 
the education of commerce; but what 
foresight could have predicted the ho- 
nours and the advantages since’ result- 
ing from and attributable to it? 
Under the ministry of Lord Chatham, 
in the course of the seven-years’ war, the 
first stimulus was given to afew experi- 
ments, by which commercial business 
was so advanced, as to give rise to a 
brilliant assemblage of judicious and 
beautiful works, public and private, the 
execution and character of which every 
foreigner must now look at with as much 
interest as admiration. Under that 
splendid ministry commerce and inter- 
nal industry flourished more during’ a 
most momentous period of war than in 
any other preceding period of peace to 
which they could be traced. 
An individual of no obscure character, 
the Duke of Bridgewater, enters hear- 
tily into the spirit of the general impul- 
sion given to the stock of national acti- 
vity, by forming the subject of an under- 
taking, then thought romantic, but since 
illustrated as of great celebrity, and so 
conspicuous as to be distinguished in 
the page of history. ‘This was by exea- 
vating a canal by which the produce of 
his mines might be conveyed to Man- 
chester. It forms a complete and at- 
tractive view of art triumphing over pa- 
ture. 
Soon after was projected a highly res~ 
pectable performance in every point of 
view, a work eminently caleulated to 
promote the purposes of navigation, by. 
xX esta- 
