at debate here, having no occasion to take up the little
space allowed me in anything remote from my design. But I will propose it
as I really believe it to be: namely, that we are rather in a state of
balance between both, a middle between the extremes; I hope we are not
much declined, and I fear we are not much advanced. But I must add, that
if we do not immediately set about some new methods for altering this
depending condition, we shall soon decline; and on the contrary, if we
should exert ourselves, we have before us infinite advantages of improving
and advancing our commerce, and that to a great degree.

This is stating it to the meanest understanding; there is no mystery at
all in the thing; if you will apply, you will rise; if you will remain
indolent and inactive, you will sink and starve. Trade in England, at this
time, is like a ship at sea, that has sprung a leak in sight of the shore,
or within a few days' sail of it; if the crew will ply their pump and work
hard, they may not only keep her above water, but will bring her safe into
port; whereas if they neglect the pump, or do not exert their strength,
the water grows upon them and they are in apparent danger of sinking
before they reach the shore.

Or, if you will have a coarser comparison, take the pump room in the
rasp-house, or house of correction, at Amsterdam; where the slothful
person is put into a good, dry, and wholesome room, with a pump at one
side and a spring or water-pipe at the other; if he pleases to work, he
may live and keep the water down, but if he sleeps he drowns.

The moral is exactly the same in both cases, and suits with the present
circumstances of our trade in England most exactly, only with this
difference to the advantage of the latter; namely, that the application
which I call upon the people of England to exert themselves in, is not a
mere labour of the hand; I do not tax the poor with mere sloth and
negligence, idly lying still when they should work, that is not our
grievance at present; for though there may be too much of that sort too,
among a few of the drunken, loitering part of mankind, and they suffer for
it sufficiently in their poverty, yet that, I say, is not the point,
idleness is not here a national crime, the English are not naturally a
slothful, indolent, or lazy people.

But it is an application proper to the method of business which is wanting
among us, and in this we shall find room for reproof on one hand,