we have exterior causes for
hope that no nation ever yet had.

The advancement of other nations, their enmity and envy, are full as
likely to operate against this nation as against any other that ever
existed; but as we owe none of our superiority to geographical situa-
[end of page #192] tion like the Greek islands, the Delta of Egypt, and
borders of the Mediterranean Sea, we run no risk of any discovery in
geography, or in navigation, operating much to our disadvantage.

We are not so far advanced before other nations in arts as to have any
great reason to dread that their advancement will be our ruin; but still
we must allow, that a number of external causes may combine to bring
us to their level, when the effects of our present wealth may soon
operate in reducing us under it.

Since, then, commerce is the foundation of our wealth, and since our
power, which is naval, is built upon commerce, let us begin with
taking a view of its present situation.

The increase of the trade of Britain to foreign parts, within these last
fifteen years, though a very natural effect of the causes that have
operated during that period, is not itself a natural increase, because the
causes that produced it are uncommon, temporary, and unnatural.

The East and West India trades have been both lost to France and
Holland. The French, before the revolution, had a greater share of the
West India trade than ever we had, and they could undersell us in
foreign markets.

The Dutch and French together had a very great share of the
commerce of the East; this partly accounts for the rapid increase of
English commerce since they lost theirs. Besides, the French nation
itself, which formerly consumed scarcely any English manufactures,
and supplied Germany, and many parts of Europe, with its own, has
been employed for several years in consuming its manufactured stock,
eating up its capital, and ruining its own manufactories; so that France
itself, Germany, and a great portion of the continent, have been
obliged to apply to Britain, both for manufactures and colonial
produce, as well as for the goods that come from India.

Add to this, that capital on the continent of Europe has suffered an
unexampled diminution, from a variety of causes. A great part has
been consumed in France, and in all the countries into which her
armies have penetrated, particularly in Holland; and that confidence,
[end of page #193] which serves in place of capital, has b