COMMERCE. 



promulgated in the month of 06lober 1778 ; but could not 

 be carried into general efFe6l until the year 1783, on the con- 

 clusion of the peace. As, in the first fervour of novelty, the 

 speculations were multiplied to the extraordinary degree al- 

 ready noticed, the impradticability of the sales and returns 

 occasioned the failure of many merchants, who were obliged 

 to stop payment. 



These mischiefs were not, however, precisely owing to a 

 free trade ; but arose in a great measure from the defe6t of 

 not combining, studiously and methodically, the enterprizes 

 with the results that were to be expe6ted from them. As the 

 profession of the merchant depends on the caprices of men, 

 and on a thousand complicated incidents, it requires, to be 

 successfully pursued, a superior spirit of vigilance and atten- 

 tion, such as was certainly not displayed in Peru in the years 

 1785 and 1786, when the augmented number of importers 

 surcharged with merchandizes, of the value of twenty-four 

 millions of piastres, a kingdom which consumes annually the 

 amount of four only. This excess occasioned so great a stag- 

 nation, as entirely to interrupt the course of trade. 



To undertake to regulate it by particular laws, and by a 

 fixed number of tons of shipping, is to oppose to a transitory 

 evil a constant destru6lion. Hold out to all the subje6ts of 

 a state the hope of acquiring, as well as of enjoying the fruit 

 of their labour ; and their reverses will render them more cir- 

 eumspedl in the means they will embrace. Agriculture and 

 commerce are, in common with all the arts, advanced by two 

 principles, namely, interest and liberty. The dire6tion of 

 these principles belongs to the government ; but the citizen 

 being once placed in the road which leads to the common feli- 

 city, 



