things can be done; and there is no possibility
of knowing where to set bounds to invention, aided by capital and the
division of labour. We are, however, not to forget that priority in point
of time being one of the causes of a nation's rise, and being of a nature
to be destroyed in the course of years, the superiority we enjoy may
leave us, as it did other nations in former times.

When a country produces the raw material, and labour is cheap, and
the art established, we might suppose the superiority secure; but it is
not. The cotton trade was first established in the East Indies, where the
material grows, where the labour is not a tenth of the price that it is in
England, and the quality of the manufactured article is good; yet
machinery and capital have transplanted it to England. But the same
machinery may give a superiority, or at least an equality, to some
other country; it is, therefore, our business to persevere in encouraging
invention, by the means that have hitherto been found so successful.
{162}

---
{162} The law of patents, and the premiums offered by the Society of
Arts, suggest improvements, and reward them when made. To those,
to the security of property, and nature of the government, we chiefly
owe the great improvements made in England.
-=-

[end of page #200]

The most necessary thing for our commerce is the support of
mercantile credit, without which it is in vain to expect that trade will
be carried on to any great amount. In 1772, when a great failure
occasioned want of confidence, the exports of the country fell off
above three millions, but its imports fell off very little. {163} In 1793,
when the internal credit of the mercantile people was staggered,
precisely the same effect was produced. These are the only two
instances of individual credit being staggered to such a degree, as to
prevent mercantile men from putting confidence in each other; and
they are the only two instances of any very great falling off in the
exports in one year, except during the American war, when the chief
branches of trade in the country were cut off or diminished.

The falling off, in exports, in 1803, which was very great indeed,
(being no less than one-third of the whole,) was not occasioned by the
same cause, but appears to have been owing to three others of a
different nature.

First, the French had actually shut us out from a great extent of coast,
and this occasioned a diminution of exports, which w