injustice of subjecting
the inhabitants of the East, in their own country, in a way that, at the
worst, is not very rigorous, join cordially in robbing Africa of its
inhabitants, to make them slaves in America, in a way, that, at the
best, is very rigorous.

Such are the baneful effects of sordid interest acting on the mind of
man! But our business is not here to investigate opinions, but their
result; and, in the present instance, we find that to admit participation
in criminality is the only way to avoid envy and offence.

The third cause for envy is likewise wanting. The commerce with the
West Indies is but of a recent date, and no nation has ever owed its
greatness or decline to that single source. {161} It is not like the
Asiatic trade, a sort of hereditary cause of quarrel; a species of
heirloom, entailing upon the possessor the envy and enmity of all
other nations.

The envy occasioned by the West India trade is farther diminished by
the circumstance that the plantations have been raised with the money
of the persons by whom they are possessed; and that if they had no
original right to the soil in its barren state, the cultivation at least is
owing to their capital and industry.

The most solid and secure portion of our trade is that which con-

---
{161} France was the nation that, before the revolution, gained the
most by this trade; indeed, no nation has, to this date, gained so much
as it did.
-=-

[end of page #199]

sists of our manufactures at home. In those, though we excite envy,
we excite no other of the hateful passions. Emulation is natural, and
admiration is unavoidable, on seeing the vast progress that arts and
industry have made in this country; so that England is absolutely
considered as the first country in the world for manufactures.

This cause of greatness and wealth operates in a more uniform and
durable manner; though, like others, it has its bounds, yet the nature of
them is not easily ascertained.

In this there are two things essential,--the procuring a market, and the
means of supplying it. We have always yet found the means of
supplying every market we have got; but we have not always been
able to extend our market so much as it might have been wished.

America and Russia offer new markets, as has already been observed,
but, to extend our old markets, we must either reduce the price,
improve the quality, or extend the credit, and invention is the only
means by which these