24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Lord Stanley, the great advocate of emancipation, in Parlia- 

 ment, in his speech, May 14, 1833, also referred to this same 

 fact, and complained that the AVest India planters, by the 

 monopoly which tiiey enjoyed, were constantly glutting the 

 Englisli market with their sugar, and embarrassing the trade 

 of the country. And he appealed to the house to know whether 

 " they would encourage and support a system by which this 

 extent and amount of production was kept up." 



In a struggle for supremacy in the markets of England, the 

 agriculture of Brazil overcame the agriculture of Jamaica — 

 and the consequences you all know. 



A striking illustration of this point may be found in the sad 

 and astounding events which are passing immediately before us. 

 Less than two years ago, the commercial relations existing be- 

 tween ourselves and Great Britain, had involved an amount of 

 property almost beyond estimate. On our part, we offered the 

 most diversified and extended agriculture ; and on her part, she 

 presented the products of as large, and skilful, and industrious 

 a class of manufacturers as the world has ever known. The 

 surplus products of our north-western prairies, of the rich val- 

 leys of the Ohio and Kentucky, of southern savannahs, of the 

 plains of the south-west, furnished us with the means of securing 

 tlie balance of trade, and gave to England support for the 

 thronging populatioii of her towns and cities. With entire con- 

 fidence, the farmer of Illinois put in his luuidreds of acres of 

 wheat, for he knew the market that required and could pay for 

 all that was not used by consumers nearer home. The southern 

 planter enlarged his cotton-fields, aware that millions of busy 

 spindles were waiting across the Atlantic, to receive what was 

 not woven upon the looms of the North. The peaceful influ- 

 ences of trade were felt throughout the world, as long as this 

 interchange continued between the United States and England, 

 the two most powerful, controlling forces among nations. For 

 ourselves, wliat a power it gave us. No foreign threats alarmed, 

 no foreign diplomacy bewildered a nation, whose vigor and 

 strength, whose enterprise and industry, gave all the force of 

 armies and navies to its simple declarations. Without interfer- 

 ence wc pushed our way into Mexico and occupied the Pacific 

 coast, with a rich, and thriving, and free state — one of the 

 brightest stars in our constellation. Our citizens demanded a 



