1792* *" trade and manufactures. 2 6 J 



how high these prices may be raised y^r a time; — as high no 

 doubt as pofsible I For as to the afsertion that the company- 

 will sell these goods as cheap as at present, we can only 

 consider it as a lure held out to blindfold simpletons. 

 What manufacturer or merchant will not, in every case, 

 take as high a price for his goods as he can get at market ? 

 The prices being thus raised, the very manufacturers who 

 sold the cloth may be glad to buy it back again at an ad- 

 vanced price, trusting to the high price of callicoes conti- 

 nuing ; but, in consequence of that high price, great exer- 

 tions will be made to supply the demand 5 much cotton wool 

 will be produced, much white cloth will be made, and 

 a diminilaed sale of printed cloths, both at home and a- 

 broad, must be the consequences of the advance of price. 

 All these circumstances combined, must first produce a 

 stagnation in the sale, then a fall of price. Sales must be 

 forced below prime cost-, and bankruptcies and distrefs, 

 to a prodigious extent, must be the Inevitable consequences. 

 The company v.'ho bsgan all this, may, however, chance to 

 escape, if they Ihall have had acutcuefs, and moderation 

 enough to avail themselves only of the first sp^irt that their 

 artificial operations (hall have occasioned j but they are 

 like men v/al'dng above a min« of gunpowder, to which a 

 match may be set in a moment that will drive them all to 

 destruction. Wretched, indeed, must that country be, 

 whose manufacturers aie gamblers I A faro table is but a 

 childifti gai.ie to a stake of this nature, which must unfor- 

 tunately involve in its consequences many millions of in- 

 dustrious and innocent people. 



From all this it ought naturally to be inferred, that 

 those who are in pofsefsion of marketable goods at pre- 

 sent, will probably serve their own interest most effectu- 

 ally, by not being tempted by offers, which, though ap- 

 parently advantaglous for them, may be, in the end, high- 

 ly detrimental. They ought to consider, that if they at 



