156 Political Economy, 
sunk in value, in consequence of that event, as much as it has 
risen ; even if the price of their saltpetre instead of an augmenta^ 
tion from 12^ cents per pound to 40 cents, should have experienc- 
ed a proportionate depression. But let us look to Europe. 
The recent pages of French diplomacy ring with splendid 
sentences in defence of neutral commerce. The philanthropic Na- 
poleon steps forth the champion of injured maritime rights.* He, 
who knoAvs no law but his will, is the great expounder of the 
law of nations ; he, who respects no nation on terra lirma, insists 
that the most insignificant should be respected at sea ; and a Tus- 
can.^ his sword still reeking with the slaughter of pious fanatics, 
attempts to insult our government for not joining witli sufficient 
alacrity in the common cause ! 
Is it the less true that J^afioleon hates, and must hate. Great 
Britain j that he only seeks to destroy her supremacy on the ocean 
to be able to assume it himself 
The commercial intercourse between nations, on an extensive 
scale, is pf recent origin. Was antiquity less drenched in blood, 
because then such intercourse was unknown ?— -The Romans were 
not commercial— and they desolated the world. The Tartar 
tribes, with their herds, and their milk, subdued in their turn the 
Romans. The sword of the Turks spread devastation in Asia and 
Europe. Millions perished in the crusades. Religious feuds, 
subsequently, swallowed up a Avhoie generation.— -Yet, you would 
attribute the sufferings of nations in our times, to the sublime, 
though still imperfect policy, of linking a.11 by ties of mutual use*,i 
fulness ! 
“ The modern system of foreign commerce is the most firoduc^ 
live source of human misery. 
We have enjoyed foreign commerce, and we have to bear our 
share of human misery — -it is granted. But misery bore not less 
hard on the human race before our time.| — You wish for the de- 
* If Dr. Boilman will look at the state papers and manifestoes of the Euro- 
pean powers at the time when Russia proposed the armed neutrality, he will 
find that Free ships, free goods, was then adopted as a principle of maritime 
law, by every maritime nation of Europe except Great Britain. I do not un- 
dertake the impossible task of defending Buonaparte, but he will not siiffei'! 
by a comparison with his European contemporaries. T. C. 
•f An American ought to have no objection to these two powers worrying 
^ach other, till neither is tibie to usurp this hateful supremacy. T. C. 
± Manj' of the antient sources of war, are done away. Is it absolutely 
that p^orr.aittile jealousy should f.iTrush others to supply their place ? 
T. g. 
