hs | a an ; bie. 5) 
‘MONTHLY. COMMERCIAL REPORT. _ | 
OTHING of general concern is, at prefent, more a fubject of dhewcsit and difcourfe - 
with men in trade, than a Comuerrciat. Treaty between Great Bintan and France. 
As it is poflible for two manufacturers liviag in a near neighbourhood, to thwart each 
other exceedingly i in their relpeétive bufineffes ; without mutually, breaking the King’s peace, 
or failing in the civilities of perlonai intercourfe ; fo, two nations, like the people of Great 
Britain, and thofe of hae may, indeed, remain politicaliy at peace, while they fhall re- 
ciprocally avoid as much as poilible, the intercourfe with each other of buying and felling. 
A Treaty of Commence is one, in which the contraéting nations agree to fell to one 
another, and to. buy from one another, as much as they can, in any manner confiltent with 
their refpeétive interefts ; and in-which they mutually declare the conditions on which they 
are willing to buy from one another, and fell to one another, as believing that upon thefe, 
- this traffic 1 may be carried on, without difady antage to either. 
If there be little induftry, and no great variety and abundance of natural produétions 
in any two countries; or, if they be remote from one another, and have no neceflary 
occafions of frequent correfpondence between their refpettive inhabitants, the conditions of 
their trade, being, m this cafe, not neceflarily numerous nor complex, may be, with fuffi- 
cient eafe, included i in a general treaty of amity. . 
But nothing can be more ftrikingly obvious, than that the natural relations of vicinity, 
thoe arifing from the internal cirenmiftances of the two countries, and thofe of trade and _ 
intercourfe, neceflarily {pringing out gf the two former claffes of relations, have not been 
afcertained, adjuftad, and fixed, in the manner the moft beneficial, reciprocally, to French 
and Britifh commerce, by the conditions‘of the Treaty which has lately clofed the war — 
hetween the two eae Nothing can be more clear ‘than that the relative circumftances 
of France and Britam, in refpect of trade, are of that nature which demands the ar- 
rangements of a Treaty of Commerce. ‘They are not two poor countries—they are not 
diftant from each other—they are not without the utmoft occafion for can{tant intercourfe 
between their people—they cannot, as rival governments, mutually embarrafs this inter-- 
courfe, and obf{truét it as much as pofiible, without doing each very great mifchief to itfelf, 
France, in her prefent circumftances, would be infinitely a gainer by an immediate 
Treaty of Commence with Britain. She wants commercial capital, and that capital is, by 
no other means, to be fo feon acquired as by drawing goods from Britain on credit, and by 
giving full {cope to whatever might encourage Britith merchants to throw their capital freely 
into the trade with France. She wants to gain the fkill of our artizans, the perfeétion of our 
machinery; and the advantage of-our beft modes of tranfacting commercial and manufactur- 
ing bufinefs: but thefe would be quickly and yet imperceptibly acquired, if the trading 
intercourfe between France and Britain were made, by a treaty, as convenient as poffible, 
while, to throw obftacles in the way of that intercourte, is, in fa¢t, to take the moft effec- 
tual means of excluding all Britith improvements from France. France muft ever find the 
grandeur, the profperity, the true opulence of her peaceful induftry, im the- culture of her 
interior territories, and in the improvement of thofe arts which are the moft immediately 
and exprefsiv connected with that culture: but thefe cannot be duly advanced, if the Go- 
vernment fhall thwart them, in order rather to turn the moveable capital of the nation 
into a commercial and colonial competition, of which the primary objeét fhall be to hurt 
the trade of Britam. Certain it is thet France never knew a period of her trade more flou- 
rifting than that which paffed under the benefit of the former Commercial f in’ s between 
the two countries. 
Britain muft alfo fffer exceedingly by the continuance, as to trade, of a ftate ‘of nega- 
tive indireét hoftility between this country and France. But after fiourifhing without com- 
mercial intercourfe with France during the war, Britith trade cannot be ruined by any re- 
ftrictions which French jealoufy may fet again{ft it in time of peace. 
Such is the common voice and feeling ‘of. the whole trading werld, in both France and 
Britain, in regard to a Treaty of Commerce. UHoneft and ‘intelligent merchants really con- 
cerned in the commercial profperity of the two countries, liften with contempt and indig- 
nation to the foolifh pretence, that trade will thrive better without a Commercial Treaty 
than under a prudent and equitable one. And itis, at prefent, the general opinion, that 
common fenfe of reciprocal intereft will prevail over the prejudices of national jealonfy, and 
the wild fchemes of projectors, and will fpeedily produce the defired arrangemetes in mat- 
ters of trade between the two governments. 
In the mean time, the French Government zealoully encourages every project promifing 
to raife the French trade to a fuccefsful competition with that of Britain. ‘The French enjoy 
at Gothenburgh, in Sweden, the advaritages of a free-port: and it is projected in France, 
to acquire, by means of this, and of Antwerp, all the principal benefits of the trade frorn 
the middle ports of Europe to the Baltic. They have formed the idea that an Eait India 
Company, having one commercial-houfe at the Ifle of France and another at Marfeilles ; 
and being without privileges or territorial power, might, by leaving to the people of India, 
aid the inhabitants of the Ific of F rance, the care of bringing India goods to that, as a 
common empcrium, and by there making its purchafes for the markets of Europe, thus 
drive a more profitable trade in the importation of Oriental commodities than has been ever 
yet 
