2-i AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL 



more certain support in being employed in a productive 

 pursuit. All these become a heavy tax on the produc- 

 tive population. There must always be merchants, and 

 the more articles there will be produced, the more mer- 

 chants will be benefited. But to say we must take silk, 

 tea, coffee, &c., from China, when we can produce them 

 for less than one-fifth the expense of importing them, is 

 folly. 



But besides the wisdom of our producing these things 

 ourselves, there is another reason to urge us to do so, 

 viz : to suppress one of the vilest and most fiendish 

 trades that could be invented or suggested by the com- 

 mon enemy of the human race. I mean that foul, accursed 

 opium trade, which is fast demoralizing and depopu- 

 lating the Eastern world. Americans ! in your trading 

 with China you aid in perpetrating that wrong on the 

 human kind. But more of this hereafter. 



