and their
importance to the King's revenues, has been placed on a separate line,
and considered separately. I will now ask permission to bring that
subject under your consideration.

The mutual extension of their commerce was among the fairest advantages
to be derived to France and the United States, from the independence of
the latter. An exportation of eighty millions, chiefly in raw
materials, is supposed to constitute the present limits of the commerce
of the United States with the nations of Europe; limits, however, which
extend as their population increases. To draw the best proportion of
this into the ports of France, rather than of any other nation, is
believed to be the wish and interest of both. Of these eighty millions,
thirty are constituted by the single article of tobacco. Could the
whole of this be brought into the ports of France, to satisfy its own
demands, and the residue to be re-vended to other nations, it would be
a powerful link of commercial connection. But we are far from this.
Even her own consumption, supposed to be nine millions, under the
administration of the monopoly to which it is farmed, enters little, as
an article of exchange, into the commerce of the two nations. When this
article was first put into Farm, perhaps it did not injure the
commercial interests of the kingdom; because nothing but British
manufactures were then allowed to be given in return for American
tobaccos. The laying the trade open, then, to all the subjects of
France, could not have relieved her from a payment in money.
Circumstances are changed; yet the old institution remains. The body to
which this monopoly was given, was not mercantile. Their object is to
simplify as much as possible, the administration of their affairs. They
sell for cash; they purchase, therefore, with cash. Their interest,
their principles and their practice, seem opposed to the general
interest of the kingdom, which would require, that this capital article
should be laid open to a free exchange for the productions of this
country. So far does the spirit of simplifying their operations govern
this body, that relinquishing the advantages to be derived from a
competition of sellers, they contracted some time ago with a single
person (Mr. Morris), for three years' supplies of American tobacco, to
be paid for in cash. They obliged themselves too, expressly, to employ
no other person to purchase in America, during that term. In
consequence of this