An Essaij on Commercial Policy. 107 



tions on trade ought to extend no further than so to press 

 against the commercial systems of other countries as to give 

 them a bias opposite to our own. When more is attempted, 

 the consequences will revert upon ourselves in losses which 

 can neither be calculattd nor by any after lenity remedied. 

 But a few facts will more clearly illustrate this truth than 

 any general reasoning, especially if a series can be produced 

 that "obviously originated in an act of government. Let us, 

 however, previously consider some of those instances of the 

 foUv of partial restrictions on trade, of which the conse- 

 quences have not been distinctly ascertained, and of which 

 the records are more imperfect. 



During a long period the principal trade of Scotland was 

 its fisheries; and the acts of the Scottish legislature, com- 

 mencing with the reign of the first James of that kingdom, 

 exhibit the unremitted attention which the fisheries received 

 from the government. It would be inconsistent with the 

 limits of an essay to It-ace here the various effects produced 

 by the different laws which were deemed essential to the 

 improvement of the fisheries : but it is not foreign to the 

 purpose to call the attention of the reader to .some of those 

 steps by which the Scottish nation advanced towards that 

 great commercial enterprise the Darien expedition. 



From 1424, in which a tax was imprudently levied on 

 the exportation of herrmgs, till 1493, the Scots appear to 

 have regularly, and with different degrees of success, pro- 

 secuted their fisheries. In the year 1493, the naval spirit 

 of that adventurous prince Jatiies IV. prompted him to 

 undertake a variety of plans to raise seamen for the navy 

 which he was then building ; and, among others, to obta;u 

 an act perhaps the most extraordinary in its provisions that 

 ever passed the legislature of any state. Although the 49th 

 cap. of James IV. did not, and indeed could not, produce 

 such a sudden increase of mariners as his impatient genius 

 demanded for its projects, it must be regarded as one of 

 those bold interpositions of authority that gene: ate a suc- 

 cessive train of consequences, and become epochs in the 

 history of the affairs to which they relate. By it the bo- 

 roughs and towns were commandexl to build busses and 

 vessels for the fisheries, and to send all idle persons on 

 board. How far this preposterous law was carried into exe- 

 cution is not our present business to examine; it is how- 

 ever well known, that ia the reign orjlinies IV., animated 

 by his example and inilucnce, the Scots had reached a high 

 degree of maritime power. We may then-fore, without 

 adverting to what may have been done before, presume to 



say 



