302 Manufactures * 
lives, or at death, been insolvent. The introduction of manufac- 
tures greatly alters this state of things, by affording employment 
for all kinds of genius, and any amount of capital ; draws the super- 
abundance of men and money employed in commerce, into manu- 
factures; and bringing the consumer into the farmer’s neighbour- 
hood, can afford to pay him a higher price than he has heretofore 
received from the merchant ; and at the same time, the consumer 
buys every thing at a price much below what it would have cost, 
had he resided in Manchester or Glasgow ; in short, between them 
they save all the costs and charges incident to land and water 
transportation, agencies, commission, insurance, custom-house 
fees, and the whole list of direct and indirect foreign taxation ; 
it is introducing into society the labour-saving principles, now w-ell 
understood in manufactories. It would be unnecessary employ- 
ment to enquire into the pro’s and con’s on the policy of manufac 
tilling, urged twenty or thirty years ago. The astonishing im- 
provement of arts and sciences has settled the question. 
The propriety of manufacturing, might be questioned when 
the whole power of one individual was employed in making a sin- 
gle thread ; when human beings carried on their backs, coals and 
minerals from the bottom of mines. A whole day was required 
by one man to make 10 or 12ibs. of nails. But every thing is 
changed. Now, all the powers of gravity and expansion, the ele- 
ments of fire, air, water, &c. &c. are placed under the controul of 
jiian, and rendered equally subservient to his objects, whether de- 
licately minute, or ponderous and bulky. A fibre of cotton or a 
bar of copper, are managed with equal facility, and the ends in 
view attained with the same accuracy. Capital employed in form- 
ing a dam, race, and saw mill, places a little ripple or a great 
stream, under the command of afew men, and makes it perform the 
labour of hundreds, at no expense of food, lodging or raiment. 
The same observation applies to the steam, and all other engines; 
so that manufactures are to nations, equivalent to encreasing their 
population. On reflecting upon these great improvements, the 
mind is struck with surprize, that no discoveries have been made 
to abridge the manual labour of husbandry. After the threshing- 
mill and cradle scythe, there is nothing of any consequence ; nor 
from the nature of agricultural operation, is there a prospect of 
much alteration ; and it is very probable that the United States, 
in exchanging her agricultural products with some of the Euro- 
pean nations for their goods manufactured by the agency of machi- 
nery, give the labour of four farmers for one manufacturer* 
