beginning of the Revolution. The agents of France 

 were employed, both in Europe and America, in pur- 

 chasing Corn and hiring neutral vessels to convey ii 

 to France ; paying but little regard to the price they 

 gave for it, or to the rate of freight at which it could 

 be transported. Holland, which scarcely has ever 

 grown Corn sufficient for its own consumption, felt a 

 great want, owing to its internal sources of supply 

 from Germany and Flanders being diverted from tlie 

 usual channels by the circumstances of the war. 



Sweden for many years had looked for some supply 

 from Prussia, not, indeed, of Wheat to any extent. 

 but chiefly of Rye. During the period we are now 

 considering, that country had been afflicted with 

 several successive deficient harvests ; and such was.' the 

 distress from want of Corn, that a large part of the 

 population had been compelled to use the Bark of 

 Trees as a substitute for Rye. That kingdom thus 

 became a market which could take as much as her 

 poverty could find the means of paying for. In addi- 

 tion to these external circumstances, the land in Poland 

 was less burthened with taxes than it is at present. 

 The tenth Groschen war-tax was not then enacted. 

 Some other taxes, then imposed, have not been since 

 abandoned. In Prussia, likewise, taxation is higher 

 now than from 1801 to 1805. 



These combined circumstances gave to the agricul- 

 ture of Poland and Prussia a portion of capital and 

 motives to exertion, which produced the vast surplus 

 that was exported from 1801 to 1805. Ten years of 

 unexampled prosperity were, however, needed to reach 

 the point which those years exhibit, and it was only 

 by gradual steps that it was attained. 



The impulse given by the open markets, and by 

 the high prices which had opened them, acted with 

 accumulated force in the next five years, and raised 

 the surplus, as we have seen, somewhat higher. 



If the same powerful stimulus could now be applied 



