fully supported, or would be patiently
endured, either in respect to subjects against subjects, or particular
countries against the rest of the world, seems to have passed away.
Commerce, to continue undisturbed and secure, must be, as it was
intended to be, a source of reciprocal amity between nations, and an
interchange of productions to promote the industry, the wealth, and the
happiness of mankind." In moving for the re-appointment of the committee
in February, 1823, the same gentleman said: "We must also get rid of
that feeling of appropriation which exhibited itself in a disposition to
produce every thing necessary for our own consumption, and to render
ourselves independent of the world. No notion could be more absurd or
mischievous; it led, even in peace, to an animosity and rancor greater
than existed in time of war. Undoubtedly there would be great prejudices
to combat, both in this country and elsewhere, in the attempt to remove
the difficulties which are most obnoxious. It would be impossible to
forget the attention which was in some respects due to the present
system of protections, although that attention ought certainly not to be
carried beyond the absolute necessity of the case." And in a second
report of the committee, drawn by the same gentleman, in that part of it
which proposes a diminution of duties on timber from the North of
Europe, and the policy of giving a legislative preference to the
importation of such timber in the log, and a discouragement of the
importation of deals, it is stated that the committee reject this
policy, because, among other reasons, "it is founded on a principle of
exclusion, which they are most averse to see brought into operation, in
any _new instance_, without the warrant of some evident and great
political expediency." And on many subsequent occasions the same
gentleman has taken occasion to observe, that he differed from those who
thought that manufactures could not nourish without restrictions on
trade; that old prejudices of that sort were dying away, and that more
liberal and just sentiments were taking their place.

These sentiments appear to have been followed by important legal
provisions, calculated to remove restrictions and prohibitions where
they were most severely felt; that is to say, in several branches of
navigation and trade. They have relaxed their colonial system, they have
opened the ports of their islands, and have done away the restriction
which lim