No. 216.] 571 



prints, to amount to abont 300 millions of dollars per annum. The 

 premiums on bills of exchange, to bring home these balances — ■ 

 other than the profits on her shipments — are equal to the whole 

 amount of the ordinary expenses of the American Government. 

 This illustrates strongly the effect of, and the distinction in, the con. 

 dition between a creditor and a debtor country. To keep things in 

 this condition for the last thirty years, England has practiced en- 

 couragement and protection to the Labor and Productions of her 

 own country — while she has loudly proclaimed and preached Free 

 Trade to other nations ; which she kept thereby in the condition of 

 debtor countries. 



Free Trade never has, it never can exist, under any state of so- 

 ciety : ii is an ignis J at uus to delude and ruin. What would the 

 honest farmers of our land say to the man who should propose 

 free pasturage over 1heir fertile fields? Would they not arrest and 

 care for him as a being incapable of self-preservation? Can the 

 laws of Society be overthrown, the rights of property be abolished, 

 and our citizens attempt to live in common ! It is madness to dis- 

 cuss such themes. 



" Equality in trade and equality in rights," is the motto for the 

 American People. '^Taxation without the right of Representation," 

 was the principle and the cause of the American Revolution. We 

 surrender it all, if, with all our Agricultural and Commercial enter- 

 prise, we servilely submit perpetually to stand as the debtor coun- 

 try — enduring the sacrifices of the transmission (at our expense) of 

 the balances of trade to another country ! Allow me to ask — be- 

 fore the late destitution in Europe occasioned our breadstuffs to be 

 received — how much it would have cost a farmer of Ohio or any 

 State to pay a jBIOOO bond due from him to a creditor at London ? 

 As England had hitherto refused to take American Breadstuffs, his 

 only mode of payment was by the transmission of specie, or by the 

 purchase of a bill of exchange. Th-e price of specie and the pre- 

 mium on bills bear a usual proportion to each other. To ship specie 

 requires a premium on its purchase, expense of shipment, insurance, 

 agencies, commissions, interest on the time of transmission, and, 

 therefore, it is apparent that he mu'-t make large additions to the 

 .£1000 collected, in order to pay the ^£1000. subject to all these de- 

 ductions, at London. If he buys a bill to make a transmission, 

 besides its being subject to the hazard of bankruptcies, the now 



