No. 216.] 489 



It will be observed, that the charter enjoins the promotion an(3 

 encouragement of domestic agriculture, domestic commerce, domestic 

 manufactures and domestic arts, evidently with a view that we may 

 be less dependent upon those which are foreign than we heretofore 

 have been. 



Agriculture is placed in the first rank, and justly so. Throughout 

 the civilized world, agriculture is considered the most important pur- 

 suit of man. No nation that receives from abroad a large portion of 

 the food necessary for the support of her population can be truly in- 

 dependent, unless, indeed, she can draw her supplies from subject or 

 conquered provinces, as was sometimes the case with the Roman 

 empire. Of this important truth, no nation is more sensible than 

 Great Britain. Hence have arisen her regulations for the encourage- 

 ment of agriculture. Hence her corn laws, which, for many years, 

 have been carried to such excess as to bp highly injurious to all kinds 

 of industry, except that of agriculture ; and so oppressive to the poor 

 and laboring classes, that in the opinion of those well acquainted 

 with the subject, they have brought to an untimely grave twenty 

 thousand human beings a year. Nor have those laws been abandon- 

 ed or suspended, even during the famine of the past or present year, 

 till the poor of Ireland, Scotland, and even England, were perishing 

 of hunger, in numbers still more appalling. 



The corn laws, such as they have been in times past, can never be 

 re-established in Great Britain ; but her agricultural interests will 

 continue to be protected in preierence to all others. So it will be 

 with France, and all other nations of Europe with which we have 

 commercial relations. All of them will avoid, as far as possible, the 

 necessity of depending upon foreign supplies for the food required 

 for the subsistence of their people. And in common years, the agri- 

 cultural products of all Europe will be equal, or nearly equal, to their 

 wants. They will require but little of us. 



It is true, the United States might be considered as the granary of 

 Europe, if the nations of Europe would so consider us, and neg- 

 lecting their own agriculture, depend upon us for their daily bread ; 

 but that they will never do when they can avoid it; they will never 

 depend upon foreign supplies, but when their own crops fail, as du- 

 ring the last year. And generally the West Indies will afford us a 

 more valuable market for our breadstuffs than all Europe put together. 

 The encouragement of agriculture is of vastly more importance in 

 nations where the utmost exertions are required to produce the food 



