Remarks on an Essay on Commerce. 207 



what uniformly results from undivided care and diligent re- 

 gard to any particular object of employment. With respect 

 to the natural resources of a country, it is impossible to say 

 how far they may extend ; because commerce, by intro- 

 ducing articles from abroad, applicable to useful purposes,^ 

 renders the seeking of them, or substitutes for them, un— ' 

 necessary at home; and prejudices people with an idea that; 

 none other will answer equally well the purposes to which 

 they are applied : whereas, it has repeatedly been discovered, 

 in this and other countries, when prevented from importing 

 certain articles, that many of them are more serviceable if 

 cultivated at home, and that several of them are less so than 

 others indigenous to such countries, the superior use of 

 ■which would never have been known, but from the circum- 

 stance of the importation being prevented. 



As mv only view, in troubling you with these remarks, 

 (which, however familiar to Mr. Graham, seem to have 

 been overlooked by him, as applicable to the question,) was 

 to point out, what I conceive to be, an error in his funda- 

 mental statement. I should be trespassing too much upon 

 your attention to extend them any further, although, were it 

 nectsbary, I think I could assign other reasons than he has 

 done for the decline of commerce, — a circumstance which I 

 deplore equally with himself. Many of these reasons, de- 

 tailed in a full and masterly manner, are to be found in the 

 works of Lord Bacon and Mr. Locke, both of whom were 

 staunch advocates for commerce, and able writers in its de- 

 fence. Mr. Graham's motives, however, are laudable in 

 the extreme; his observations are, generally, instructive; and 

 since his abilities and experience are far superior to mine, I 

 trust that the remarks which I have made will be indulgently 

 received, and operate rather as an inducement to others to 

 examine into the subject, than be considered as oflered by 

 mc under an idea of their being accurate or conclusive. 

 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



William Lapis, 



Cork, 

 July 1808. 



XXXVIIL Ana- 



