Political Economy, 14S 
made up by British labour, or British surplus, 90 much clear ac- 
cession to national gain. Those, whose labour is thus engaged^ 
may be fairly considered as in foreign pay j and, since the people 
of England could not possibly consume themselves all their tin, 
all their copper, all their wool, &c. if you take away their expor- 
tation, there will be unquestionably so much diminution of the an- 
nual increase of national wealth. 
What is the number of those concerned in the raising, or 
growth, of so much surplus produce exported, or the number of 
the workmen, whose consolidated labour contributes the principal 
value of the manufactured goods sent abroad ? 
W nat numbers, again, live by providing those with the neces» 
saries and comforts of life ? 
How many articles are consumed in constructing, improving^, 
and keeping in repair, the labour saving machines, which the fo- 
reign trade employs all over the kingdom ? 
How much industry is kept in motion on high roads, rail roads, 
canals, and rivers, by foreign intercourse ? How much in the 
towns, by furnishing employment to agents, brokers, underwriters, 
carriers, and the tribe of clerks ? How many husbandmen are at 
their ease, and exist in comfort, by feeding all these feeders on fo- 
reign commerce, together with their train, who give value to coun- 
try produce by consuming it. 
What similar effects are produced by the imports — to an equal 
amount — -the returns from abroad for the commodities sent out f 
The foreign trade, you say, requires the navy. Place before 
your mind’s eye all the navy of Great Britain, ready for sea, and 
ask yourself— what talent, what labour, what industry was neces- 
sary to bring this prodigy into existence What amount of these 
would become useless, were it no longer wanted I 
Beware of the mistake— if there was no navy those talents, that 
industry, would be better employed !■ — Of all our superfluities in 
food and apparel, of all our luxuries of every denomination, you 
might say as much. Yet cannot the savage, with his few wants, 
with his rags and jerked venison, people the wilderness, which 
disappears before civilized man. 
* la my opinion, tlie man who would devise the means of surely, speedily, 
and permanently patting cza of existence, every navy, of every power, in every 
part of the globe, would the greatest benefactor to the human race that 
mankind have yet known. half a dozen merchants in London excite a na- 
tional clamour that their commerce is in danger, and the British navy carries 
dovasta' ion and deaUt to every corner of the globe. T. C. 
VoL IL T 
