[ 4°2 ] 



mon-place reafo?iings of fpeculative poli- 

 ticians. 



But thefe writers tell us further, that the 

 price of labour has rifen fo high among our 

 manufacturers, that foreigners beat us out 

 of mod articles of trade, by under-felling us. 

 This, by the way, is a mere alTertion, but 

 never proved : The intelligence I received, 

 at our principal manufacturing towns, was 

 directly contrary : All the mailer manufac- 

 turers I talked with allured me, they under- 

 fold the French at every market they met ; 

 this was particularly the cafe with thofe at 

 Mafic heft er, and alfo at Sheffield, Birming- 

 ham y Leeds, &c. &c. And, to recur from 

 fuch particular information to hifloric facts; 

 Do we not know that the French, in thofe 

 trades in which they rival us, have done it 

 merely by their intrigue, and family-alliances 

 between crowned heads, and not by fairly 

 under-felling us ? This has been the cafe, 

 in one inllance, at Conjiantinople; and in 

 the other, in Spain. But reafon would 

 furely tell us, that this mull neceffarily be 

 the fact : Can it be fuppofed that a nation 

 like the French, that have been driven arti- 

 ficially to manufactures ; that are fubject to 

 arbitrary power -, among whom trade and 

 manufacture are a difgrace j but never open 

 to the fame honour and cenfequence as the 

 noblefle ; profefTing the catholique religion ; 



and 



