166 LAND AND LABOR. 



manufactures during the late war, and for sonic time after the 

 peace, may serve us an illustration of what has just been said." 

 Wealth of Nations. 



Never were the manufacturers and working classes 

 of England more prosperous than during the Napole- 

 onic wars, except for the period in 1810-11, when 

 British commerce was shut out from the continent, 

 and also when excluded from the United States. But 

 the close of the war, in 1815, was followed by a long 

 period of the greatest industrial and trade distress. 

 In our own country, previous to 1837, there had for 

 years been developing a rapid change in all our meth- 

 ods of production, with growth hi idleness and in- 

 crease of speculation, credit, and business failures, 

 which culminated in the great panic of that year and 

 a general suspension of specie payments. After that 

 panic, notwithstanding the many financial devices and 

 political schemes, the idleness and distress increased 

 until the commencement of the Mexican war, when 

 the roar of the first gun fired at Palo Alto awoke our 

 people to activity and industry. The idlers, in tens 

 of thousands, were enrolled in the armies and sent to 

 the front, and other tens of thousands found employ- 

 ment in supplying and sustaining the forces at home 

 and abroad. The wheels of industry were set in mo- 

 tion throughout the country; our people generally 

 found employment, and general prosperity attended 

 every business. But when that war closed the men 

 employed in the armies, and the persons who had 

 been i-ni^'d in supplying war material and suste- 

 nance, found their occupations gone, and they were 

 again, as before the war, compelled to depend upon 



