NATIONAL BANK, 
71 
Fatowmac to each of these towns, and the 
people in Jibe country are beginning to look 
thither in return for a part of their supply of 
foreign manufactures. It has been maintained, 
therefore, that these two places, already in 
the practice of trading with the back settlers, 
will draw the greater part of the country 
trade to themselves, to the prejudice of the 
federal city. Both these towns have as great 
advantages in point of situation as the city; 
the interests of the three places therefore must 
unquestionably for a time clash together. It 
can hardly be doubted, however, but that the 
federal city will in a few years completely 
eclipse the other two. George Town can fur- 
nish the people of the back country with fo¬ 
reign manufactures, at second hand only, from 
Baltimore and Philadelphia; Alexandria im¬ 
ports directly from Europe, but on a very con¬ 
tracted scale : more than two thirds of the 
goods which arc sent from thence to the back 
country are procured in the same manner as 
at George Town. In neither place are there 
merchants with large capitals; nor have the 
banks, of which there is one in each town, 
sufficient funds to afford them much assistance ; 
but merchants with large capitals are pre¬ 
paring to move to the city. As soon also as 
the seat of government is fixed there, the na¬ 
tional bank, or at least a large branch of it. 
