POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES. 289 



very serious position in which you stand. Population 

 increasing at an unparalleled rate, and exports and all 

 your leading staples declining. These 200 men were 

 poor ; they would live wholly on the produce of the field ; 

 they would require but plain clothing, and of American 

 manufacture ; fifty cents a week supports a slave, that 

 would support them, or nearly so and the labor in the 

 field of these 200 men would support 1,200 American 

 citizens ; by allowing them to retire from these States, 

 you so far cripple your own power. You see, in the 

 very fact of their deportation, that the rusts and damps 

 of your indifference to the fundamental interest are cor- 

 roding the main-spring of prosperity. You see your- 

 selves retrograding 200 steps backwards. It has pleased 

 God to place on the shoulders of other nations the ex- 

 pense of raising laborers for you, and, by a want of good 

 management, or rather by gross neglect, you do not 

 avail yourselves of the blessings held out to you. 



I will very briefly recapitulate those staples, of the 

 introduction of which I will respectfully urge the practi- 

 cability and necessity. First is tea. 



I have treated in the foregoing pages of the quantity 

 consumed. There can be hardly less in tea and in sub- 

 stitutes of other leaves for tea than 1,140,000,000 Ibs. 

 consumed in China. No one need be doubtful of this. 

 Tea is the usual beverage of the Chinese at and between 

 meals. There must be some 500,000,000 inhabitants in 

 China, unless the people did not increase the last half 

 century. However, say 367,000,000 consume that 

 quantity of tea ; we know that 23,000,000 of Americana 

 o.iiMimc 144,936,892 Ibs. of coffee, and 20,000,000 Ibs. 

 of tea; therefore, the consumption of so much tea in 



