12 THE IMPORTANCE OF 



men of the highest respectabihty in England, that the raw 

 produce of the Island might be well-nigh doubled, with- 

 out any greater proportional expense being incurred in its 

 production ; that is to say, 35,000,000 people might 

 draw their subsistence from that one little speck in the 

 ocean ! Now ive have a territory more than fifteen times 

 as large as the island of Great Britain ; and what should 

 hinder it, when it comes to be brought under no higher 

 cultivation than some parts of England and Scotland, 

 from sustaining a population of five or six hundred mil- 

 lions of people ? This would give to Virginia something 

 like thirty millions ; to Illinois and Missouri, about the 

 same number each ; to New^-York near twenty-five mil- 

 lions, and so on in proportion to the other States. I am 

 quite aware that this estimate will be regarded as ex- 

 tremely visionary and incredible, by many of your read- 

 ers ; but not more so than it would have been thought in 

 the middle of the last century, that England, Scotland, 

 and Wales could ever be made to sustain thirty- five, or 

 even thirty millions." 



A city may flourish by foreign commerce — by becom- 

 ing the carrier of other nations, as Venice and Genoa have 

 once done ; — till foreign aggression, or foreign rivalship — 

 contingencies of no unfrequent occurrence in the history 

 of nations — shall blast its prospects, and reduce it, like 

 the cities we have named, to ostentatious beggary, or 

 consign it, like Tyre, Persepolis, Petra, and other cities 

 of the East, to ruin and oblivion. 



A toivn or district may flourish by its manufacturing 

 industry, as many have done in ancient and modern times, 

 as long as it can exchange its merchandise for the means of 

 subsistence and of wealth ; but if its dependance for these 

 contingencies is upon foreign lands, its prosperity is unsta- 

 ble. The interchange may be interrupted or destroyed 

 by war, by the want of a demand for its commodities, or 

 a failure in a supply of the necessaries of life. 



A country can only continue long prosperous, and be 

 truly independent, when it is sustained by agricultural intel- 

 ligence, agricultural industry, and agricultural w^ealth. 

 Though its commerce maybe swept from the ocean — and 



