rges, _invasion_. Such
hateful sentiments cannot fail to degrade, in the opinion of other
nations, the people among whom they prevail, and force those who retain
some love of justice to blush for their country. These are fearful
evils, and it would be enough that the public should have a clear view
of them, to induce them to secure themselves against the plotting of
those who would expose them to such heavy chances. How, then, are they
kept in darkness? How, but by metaphors? The meaning of three or four
words is forced, changed, and depraved--and all is said.

Such is the use made, for instance, of the word _invasion_.

A master of French iron-works, exclaims: Save us from the _invasion_ of
English iron. An English landholder cries; Let us oppose the _invasion_
of French corn. And forthwith all their efforts are bent upon raising
barriers between these two nations. Thence follows isolation; isolation
leads to hatred; hatred to war; and war to _invasion_. What matters it?
say the two _Sophists_; is it not better to expose ourselves to a
possible _invasion_, than to meet a certain one? And the people believe;
and the barriers are kept up.

And yet what analogy can exist between an exchange and an invasion? What
resemblance can possibly be discovered between a man-of-war, vomiting
fire, death, and desolation over our cities--and a merchant vessel,
which comes to offer in free and peaceable exchange, produce for
produce?

Much in the same way has the word _inundation_ been abused. This word is
generally taken in a bad sense; and it is certainly of frequent
occurrence for inundations to ruin fields and sweep away harvests. But
if, as is the case in the inundations of the Nile, they were to leave
upon the soil a superior value to that which they carried away, we
ought, like the Egyptians, to bless and deify them. Would it not be
well, before declaiming against the _inundations_ of foreign produce,
and checking them with expensive and embarrassing obstacles, to certify
ourselves whether these inundations are of the number which desolate, or
of those which fertilize a country? What would we think of Mehemet Ali,
if, instead of constructing, at great expense, dams across the Nile to
increase the extent of its inundations, he were to scatter his piasters
in attempts to deepen its bed, that he might rescue Egypt from the
defilement of the _foreign_ mud which is swept down upon it from the
mountains of the Moon? Exactly such a