AT a period when peace is happily

established, and mankind have lei. fure and opportunity to contemplate their relative fituation in the calm lights of philofophy, there is (faith an author who wrote foon after the American War), perhaps, reafon to expect that fuch cultivated nations as England and France will be the first to instruct the world, by their example, in the advantages of a more liberal fyftem of policy. They will meafure their interets on a lefs contracted fcale, and, in commercial ftipulations, rife fuperior to thofe national preju dices, which, to the detriment of both countries, have been cherished for ages.

Thefe fanguine expectations, though founded upon the broad bafis of felfevident principles, are easy in fpeculation, but the event has thown, like many other theories, extremely difficult in practice; Natural Philofophy may, nay muft, be applied to commerce, or rather to the manufactures upon which it is erected; but I fear that it is next to impoffible to bend Moral Philofophy to its dictates. When we confider the

thirst for extenfion and domination too frequently visible in the rulers of kingdoms and ftates, and mercantile jealoufy too frequently ready to take the alarm upon every change in the politics, upon every alteration in the circunftances, of rival nations; who fhall fay that thete paflions, like animal instinct, are not implanted in the humen bofom for wife, though, perhaps, with refpect to the firft, infcrutable purposes? Who fhall aver, that it is not both proper and neceffary to ufe the fame precaution, to endeavour to make the fame advantage of our fitua tion in the commercial as in the po lical world? Therefore, if upon this principle it does appear that trade in general, or any particular branch of it, is likely to be fubject to a mutation, and that our neighbours, instead of opening their ports and inviting to an amicable interchange of commodities, mean to adopt in peace the warlike expedient of prohibiting the exportation of thofe fupplies which might caufe the arts of peace to flourith; fearful that our manufactures fhould rival, and probably outvie, theirs, it is cer

tainly our duty to endeavour to foil and counteract them with fuch weapons as Providence has put into our hands. There is little doubt, as my esteemed friend Mr. Colquhoun (when writing on the fubject of the Cotton Manufacture in the year 1789) has most ably and accurately stated, but, with the means in our poffeffion, the improvements in contemplation, the new channels into which it had been and was till about to be turned, and the new markets about to be opened, by the medium of which piece goods, the produce of Indoftan, might, with the fabrics of England, find a circulation from the fouth to the north poles, from the torrid to the frigid zones; that, under proper regulations, our ingenuity and refources of materials would be equal to any demands made upon them; fo that our national revenue and 'individual wealth would be increased to a degree which, at the time that it established our commercial fuperiority upon the best and fureft foundation, would difcourage and deter other nations from attempts to counteract us, by the uncertainty of their fuccefs.

Thefe fpeculations have, notwithtanding the many difadvantages, both local and general, which the adventurers in this branch have had to encounter, been fully verified. The Cotton Manufactory, fubject to thofe accidents and changes to which all human exertions are fubjećt, has been progreffively fuccefsful. The attempt that was made to eftablish works of the fame nature in Switzerland, and I do not think that it was an attempt which indicated any traits of the ufual pru dence of the natives of Helvetia, would, had not the projectors been counter. acted by political events, long before this period have been crushed by its own weight that thofe establishments were fome years fince in a very languid ftate, I have reafon to believe. The only branch of them that flourished was the printing, which was kept alive by large fupplies of plain piece goods purchafed in this country, which the taste of the Swifs induced them to or nament by tamping upon them very beautiful, though they would here be termed broad and glaring, patterns.

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The French, in this refpect more cautious than their neighbours (I am orry now to fay than their fubjects), tove not very confpicuoufly exerted

felves to rival us in the Cotton

Manufactory. A compages of efforts, of which, when I contemplate all the fubordinate parts; the easy operation of diverfified and apparently complex machinery; the different preparations of materials diffimilar in their natures, properties, and uses; the various proceffes through which the fabrics pafs in their transformation from the raw fubftance, till they come from the hands of the calenderer, or other finishing workmas; with the infinite variety of articles produced; they feem to compole fuch a ftupendous fyltem of inventive power, art, and ingenuity, that the mind is loft in attempting to difcriminate the integral principle, and independant or dependantly to trace the progrefs of the whole.

In the Silk Manufactory, our Gallie rivals have been more fuccesful, and have, as has been already shown in these papers, eftablished that kind of monopoly that depends rather upon celebrity than folidity, and has its refidence in the human mind, where, by the influence of fashion and falfe tafte on that organ, it has been divided into two branches; the firit of which was a prejudice in favour of the productions of French looms, which was not, at a former period, to be repreffed even by a conviction of its futility; and the fecond, in favour of the fame kind of materials, i. e. French and Italian filks, which, I am forry to obferve, fill exists in the opinions of the artificers, and which, I fear, nothing but the circumftances of the times is likely to eradicate.

That the circumftances of the times, to which I allude, has caused a mott enormous advance in the price of the Raw, or Organzined Silk of Italy, is too well known to the Manufacturers in this country, to require any illuftration; and, from this article being drawn into, and centring in France, where, from fome late tranfactions, it is apparent that every nerve will be trained, and every mean exerted, to encourage and ftimulate the artificers, and to create and exercile a monopoly over the unwrought material, the reafon for witholding it is equally 2pparent.

What has lately been the motives which induced the Chief Conful to vifit the Manufacturing Cities Certainly to inspect their different branches; to give to the workmen employed af furances both of protection and reward;