128 Political Economy, 
make them eat more, to replace the waste, and thus to stimulate 
agricultural industry by an increased demand for food ! 
There have been exported from new Spain upwards of two> 
thousand millions of silver dollars, since the first discovery of 
that country, and agriculture flourishes most in the vicinity of the 
mines.* Of what use to the people would have been ail this me- 
tallic treasure if not exported ? — Cochenille, Jesuits-bark, Vanil- 
la, the most valuable spices, are the spontaneous productions of 
the countries whence we receive them. A considerable com- 
merce is carried on in Swallow nests from Cochin China to Chi- 
na.f 
If some nation had as great a fancy for dried oak leaves as 
we have for tea,f and would give us commodities, on which 
we set value, in return for them — ^will any one be so mad as to 
say, that we should gain nothing by their sale abroad ? Would not 
millions of people derive support and comfort from gathering, 
and preparing them for the market ? The country thickly settled, 
and other things remaining unchanged, must they not starve, and 
perish, if their exportation were to cease ?§ 
* Alexander de Humbold, In the work mentioned before, 
f Barrow’s Travels to China. 
4 Do the Chinese need a foreign trade of merchant ships protected by ships 
of war, to sell their tea ? Can any example be more in point, to shew, that if 
you possess commodities of value to give in exchange, the merchants of 
other countries will let you want for nothing ? Still I am no advocate for imi- 
tating the Chinese. Shew me that your foreign trade, yields a reasonable 
profit, after all the expences of the merchant are paid, and all the expences of 
the nation are paid, and then I agree, it is well worth pursuing. If a merchant 
gain 20 per cent, on his capital, and a farmer gain 20 per cent, on his capital, 
the Consumer not only pays the mercantile profit of 20 per cent, but for the 
Piost part of 50 per cent, more to protect the merchant’s speculation. T. C. 
§ I hardly know how to suggest a stronger argument against the encourage-^ 
nient of foreign commerce than this suggestion of Dr. Bollman, in favour of 
it. If manufacturers at home are made absolutely dependant for subsistence, 
on customers abroad, whom accident, caprice, poverty, competition, war, may 
strike off— then shall we frequently behold, as of late years in England, fa-- 
mine pervading the land, and thinning the ranks of that class of the commu- 
nity, who might be made the main strength of the nation. In Great Britain, 
within these six years, at least half a million of wretched manufacturers would 
have starved, if war had not invited them to the wretched alternative she 
holds out. The war itself, in which that nation has been involved, has not 
produced altogether so much evil in other respects, as in making the poor raa- 
manufacturers feel so cruelly, the lot of .those whose bread depends upon fo- 
reign trade. T. C. 
