cial returns show us only what is the amount of our
direct trade with her ports. But then we all know that the proceeds of
another portion of our exports go to the same market, though indirectly.
We send our own products, for example, to Cuba, or to Brazil; we there
exchange them for the sugar and the coffee of those countries, and these
articles we carry to St. Petersburg, and there sell them. Again; our
exports to Holland and Hamburg are connected directly or indirectly with
our imports from Russia. What difference does it make, in sense or
reason, whether a cargo of iron be bought at St. Petersburg, by the
exchange of a cargo of tobacco, or whether the tobacco has been sold on
the way, in a better market, in a port of Holland, the money remitted to
England, and the iron paid for by a bill on London? There might indeed
have been an augmented freight, there might have been some saving of
commissions, if tobacco had been in brisk demand in the Russian market.
But still there is nothing to show that the whole voyage may not have
been highly profitable. That depends upon the original cost of the
article here, the amount of freight and insurance to Holland, the price
obtained there, the rate of exchange between Holland and England, the
expense, then, of proceeding to St. Petersburg, the price of iron there,
the rate of exchange between that place and England, the amount of
freight and insurance at home, and, finally, the value of the iron when
brought to our own market. These are the calculations which determine
the fortune of the adventure; and nothing can be judged of it, one way
or the other, by the relative state of our imports or exports with
Holland, England, or Russia.

I would not be understood to deny, that it may often be our interest to
cultivate a trade with countries that require most of such commodities
as we can furnish, and which are capable also of directly supplying our
own wants. This is the original and the simplest form of all commerce,
and is no doubt highly beneficial. Some countries are so situated, that
commerce, in this original form, or something near it, may be all that
they can, without considerable inconvenience, carry on. Our trade, for
example, with Madeira and the Western Islands has been useful to the
country, as furnishing a demand for some portion of our agricultural
products, which probably could not have been bought had we not received
their products in return. Countries situated still