ived from the spinning-machine
may, at first sight, appear the greater national advantage of the two;
but it is not so in reality, for the spinning-machine only manufactures
a raw material, brought from another country, cheaper than before;
whereas, the steam-engine enables us to obtain raw materials from our
own soil cheaper; a thing more important, more permanent, and of
which we were more in want: besides this, the steam-engine is
extending the scope of its utility every day; whereas, the spinning
machines can go little farther. But to leave this digression, which is
not altogether foreign to the purpose, and return to the facility with
which inventors are followed, it is a fact, that in almost every country
in Europe, money can be got by any adventurer who will propose to
establish either a cotton spinning machine, or a manufactory of steam-
engines; and it is a fact, that immense sums have been, and are still
given, for those purposes.

{165} Slitting-mills, saw-mills, the art of imitating porcelain, and of
making good earthen-ware, and paper, together with a vast number of
other inventions, were imported from Holland; in every one of which
we have gone beyond the Dutch, just as they got the better of the
Flemings in the art of curing herrings. Priority of invention is not then
a permanent tenure.
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[end of page #203]

tion, this nation cannot be expected long to maintain its superiority
over others, in the degree it at present enjoys.

The American market, {166} and the Russian (in a smaller degree,)
however, hold out a prospect of increased commerce to us, from
external causes, that we cannot flatter ourselves with in the internal
ones. It is to those we must look, and to those only, for the extension
of the sale of our manufactures; but, even in this case, we must use
efforts, for it is very seldom that a good end is effected by accident, or
without a view towards its accomplishment.

Having now taken a view of the situation of this country, and seen
that, though it is not likely to be deprived of its commerce by
conquest, like Babylon, Tyre, or Alexandria, or by a new discovery in
geography and the art of navigation, like Venice and Genoa; though,
indeed, it has no great appearance of sharing the fate of Spain,
Portugal, or Holland, yet there are other causes that may stop its
career. If it is exempt from the dangers they laboured under, it is
subject to others from which they were free.

We have al