COMMERCE. 



133 



direcSlion of Baron Northenflicht, holds out a prospe6l of the 

 highest improvements. If, as there can be little doubt, it 

 should realize the flattering expectations the public has formed, 

 it will not ameliorate the condition of the miner, without, at 

 the same time, giving prosperity both to commerce and 

 agriculture. 



The latter ought not, on any consideration, to be aban- 

 doned. We have inculcated the preference that should be 

 bestowed on the working of the mines, which must engage 

 our particular attention, because they are the sources of our 

 riches ; but we ought not to negledl the precautions to which 

 our plains are entitled. To know how to profit by them ; to 

 better their .quality ; to give them the advantages of irrigation ; 

 and to facihtate the transport of their productions ; such are 

 the principles of the prosperity of our agriculture, from which 

 greater advantages may be derived than our commerce can be 

 made to afford. 



The criticism, or applause, of all the ideas exposed in this 

 Dissertation, we leave to the opinion and judgment of our 

 readers. It belongs to the chief magistrate to combine them ; 

 to analyze them ; and either to stamp them with the seal of 

 his approbation, or to reje6l and lay them aside. This ope- 

 ration is appropriate to the supreme authority, which, in 

 calculating the abuses and benefits, destroys the former, 

 while it preserves in its integrity each profitable establishment. 

 It is the result of those rapid and delicate perceptions, which 

 at the same time discover the end and the means, the resources 

 and the obstacles, the facilities and the inconveniences, and 

 which, being the efFe6t of a natural talent, are not to be ac- 

 quired by precepts. 



