Political Arithmetic , 
17 5 
trality has afforded, during these seven years of continental war 
(1793 to 1800) for illicit trade, for jealousy, for complaint, for at- 
tack, for real and for pretended retaliation. 
From all these objections, the home trade is free. The home 
trader is fixed ; he has his all at stake in the country he lives in * 
he can have no interest out of it ; he can be counted upon ; foreign 
interests, and foreign governments have no hold on him ; he has 
neither the temptation, the means, the opportunity, or the inclina- 
tion of doing national mischief, or giving cause for national offence* 
or giving rise to national quarrels ; in the common course of things* 
and necessarily, his interests and his country’s interests are coin- 
cident ; his gains are his country’s gains ; whatever capital he 
employs, stimulates not foreign but home industry ; it is employ- 
ed in, and upon, and for, his own nation and national territory ; all 
his affections and associations are connected with home, and cen- 
tre there. 
lOthly, Commerce has never paid the interest of the expensive 
roars it has induced. It is useless to examine this question by the 
example of many of the maritime countries of Europe. The in- 
ferences from British facts, will suffice : ex lino disce omnes . 
- Sir John Sinclair states the commercial wars of George II. 
and George III. (2 Hist, of the public revenue, 99) as follows* 
war of 1739, 46,418,689/. : war of 1756, 111,271,996/.: American 
war, 1 39,1 7 1 ,876/. : Russian and Spanish armaments, 2,311 ,385/. : 
Total, 299, 173,946, or, in round numbers, 300 millions sterling. 
Government has borrowed at rates from 4 1-2 to 5 1-2 per cent. 
Now I should be glad, if any advocate of the commercial system 
could point out to me, when Great Britain ever made, or when she 
is likely to make 15 millions’ profit on a year’s export l 
But ; the fifteen million annual taxes thus permanently saddled 
«n the country in support of the commercial system, is not all. On 
the 20th of Dec. 1792 , parliament granted as supplies for the 
navy, for 1793, somewhat above 4 millions sterling. A sum that 
has annually encreased ever since that time : but I confine myself 
to the peace establishment. I well know that a navy is necessary 
to Great Britain as a means of defence, but not such a navy : Her 
navy is not employed in home defence, nor a fourth part of it 
Tae East Indies, the West Indies, the Mediterranean, the whole 
world dotted over with her commercial colonies, call for it. I am 
greatly within bounds, if I state, that two of the four millions is to be 
regularly charged to her commercial system. Look into the mis- 
