TRADE. 
rd under the previous treaty with America 
between that country and our settlements 
in the East Indies, either direct or by way 
of Europe. 
If a man contract, oven for a good consi- 
deration, not to exercise a certain trade 
generally, such an agreement is void, as be- 
ing ill restraint of trade ; but an agreement 
not to exercise a certain trade within a cer- 
tain town, to the prejudice of another, is 
valid. 
By the statute 5 Elizabetli, c. 4, none 
shall use any manual occupation then used 
in the realm, unless he has been brought up 
in it as an apprentice for seven years, under 
a penalty of 40s. per month. This statute 
has by some been considered as impolitic, 
and in general may be considered as a very 
slight restraint upon one who is successful 
in the trade. It has received a very liberal 
construction, so that, if a man has worked 
as a journeyman or master for seven years, 
he is considered to have served as an ap- 
prentice; and a person who is qualified, 
and directs the business, may have another 
in partnership who is not qualified. A trade 
is not transmissible, so as to go to executors; 
for if they carry it on, they must be per- 
sonally liable. 
The principal restraint upon trade which 
now exists is by the statutes respecting lite- 
raiy property(see that article), and the exclu- 
sive rights of inventors, under a patent for 
a limited time. These letters patent must 
be for the invention of new manufactures or 
machines, and are to be granted only for 
fourteen years from the date of the patent. 
Statute 21 James I. c. 3. In order to 
render such a patent valid, it must be under 
the great seal, and must be inrolled, and a 
specification of the particular process, or 
invention, must he inrolled in Chancery 
within six monflis. It is upon the novelty 
of the manufacture, as it respects England, 
and the fidelity of the specification, that the 
validity of the patent depends ; for if a pro- 
cess is not fully and fairly described, or is 
described with any degree of b aud or con- 
cealment, the patentee cannot enforce the 
Irenefit of his invention, and the patent may 
be repealed upon application to the Ciian- 
cellor by scire facias. Although an inven- 
tion is not new abroad, yet if it has not been 
used here, a patent may be taken for it. 
See Patent. 
The aggregate gain which individuals 
engaged in foreign trade derive from it, 
can by no means be considered as shew- 
ing the accession of wealth which the na» 
tion receives from this source. Many cir- 
cumstances may concur to diminish, or even 
wholly to destroy, the profit of foreign trade 
in this point of view, by which the gains of* 
the merchant, and others, by whom it is 
carried on, are not in the least affected; 
thus, the payments made to other countries 
for the dividends on the share foreigne,rs 
hold of our public debts; remittances of 
subsidies, or for the maintenance of troops ; 
and the money spenf abroad by British sub- 
jects occasionally resident there, all operate 
to the reduction of the actual wealth which 
this country would otherwise derive from 
its intercourse with other nations, which may 
therefore be very different from the general 
profit derived from trade, as a sum equal to 
the greater [lart, or even the whole, of the 
commercial gain may . animally, or occa- 
sionally, be sent out of the country in the 
various ways just mentioned. 
The balance of trade in favour of this 
country has usually been estimated from the 
excess of the exports beyond the imports, 
and a comparatively small amount of the 
latter has Iieen always considered highly 
desirable. This is a concise mode of deter- 
mining a very important point; but it is 
certainly very erroneous ; for, in this vifew, 
the wliole of the imports are considered as 
if they were paid for ; whereas, in fact, a 
very large part of the imports never require 
to be paid for at all, and instead of tending 
to draw money out of the country, ought to 
be considered as an annual accession of 
wealth. This particularly refers to the im- 
ports from India, as far as they are pur- 
chased by the territorial revenues of tliat 
country, or by the private capitals of indivi- 
duals acquired there ; to sucE proportion of 
the imports from the West Indies as are re- 
mittances from the income of individuals 
residing here; and to the profits arising from 
fisheries carried on in different parts of the 
world by subjects of this country ordinarily 
residing here. Besides the evident impos- 
sibility of making this distinction in the 
account of imports, the custom house state- 
ments, both of the imporis and exports, are 
totally inadequate to show even their com- 
parative amounts, as almost every article 
of merchandize is tliere rated at a value en- 
tirely different from its present actual value ; 
but even if these accounts of the exports 
and imports were far better adapted to 
•show on which side the balance really 
lies than they are, it will be easily proved 
that all the statements founded on tliem, in 
which the annual gain of the country from 
