chap, in.] WEST INDIES. 229 
s'ible encouragement ought undoubtedly to be 
given to our own shipwrights, and every discou¬ 
ragement to the participation of foreigners in the 
ship building trade: but it is the interest of the 
merchant to get his freight as cheap as possible 5 it 
is equally so of the manufacturer; because every 
increase in the price of shipping and freight, ope¬ 
rates as a tax upon the commodities shipped, and 
affects the foreign demand in proportion. If there¬ 
fore, from progressive improvements in our agricul¬ 
ture and manufactures, the two great founders and 
employers of shipping, the maritime commerce of 
all the British dominions shall, at any time, require a 
greater number of ships than Great Britain and her 
dependencies can furnish on any saving terms, 
either recourse must be had to foreign vehicles, or 
our trade, like the victims of Procrustes, must be 
lopped and shortened to make it suit the measure 
of our own.* 
Navigation and naval power are the children, 
not the parents, of commerce; for if agriculture 
* “ Can it be reconciled to common sense to assert, that if the 
Americans, or any other people, were to offer us 500 sail of vessels 
every year gratis, it would be against the interest of the nation (as a 
nation) to accept them, because it might prove detrimental to some in¬ 
dividuals among us (our shipwrights, &c.)? If the argument will 
not hold good, considered in this extended light, it can never, by pa¬ 
rity of reason, be admitted in cases where vessels can be purchased at 
one-half the price it would cost to build them.”—Vide a short Ad¬ 
dress from a Manufacturer, on the Importance of the Trade of 
Great Britain with the United States of America.—-Printed for Stock- 
dale, 178/;. 
