re deeply, and rendered the change from one set of opinions
to another still more difficult. Universally it will be found, that in
regard to the social concerns of men, which are so closely interwoven with
our habits, interests, and affections, the transition from error to truth
can rarely be accomplished by any intellect, how powerful soever, which
has not imbibed, in part at least, the maxims of foreign states. New
ideas, like lightning, are produced by the blending of two streams of
thought, wafted from different ages or parts of the world. The French
political revolution was brought about by the meeting of new-born French
fervour with long-established English ideas: the Anglomania which
immediately preceded that convulsion is the proof of it. The English
social revolution has proceeded from the same cause: it is the junction of
British practical habits with French speculative views which has produced
the political economy of modern times: and the whole doctrines of
free-trade which Adam Smith matured, and recent times have reduced to
practice, are to be found in the _Physiocratie_ of Dupont de Nemours, and
the political pamphlets of Turgot.

It was in the year 1775 that these doctrines, imported from France, were
first broached in this country by the publication of the _Wealth of
Nations_; and it took half a century for them to pass from the solitary
meditation of the recluse into the cabinets of statesmen and the hustings
of the populace. Now, however, this transformation of thought is general,
at least in a considerable part of the mercantile and manufacturing
portions of the community. Few in the great cities of the empire think of
doubting the doctrines of free-trade: fewer still, if they doubt them,
venture to give publicity to their opinions. The reason of this general
concurrence among commercial men, and of this, in social matters, rapid
conversion of general thought, is to be found in the circumstance, that
the new opinions fell in with the interests, or at least the immediate
interests, of the leaders and influential men among the mercantile
classes. The remainder, not understanding the subject, yielded by degrees
to what they were told, by their superiors in wealth and intelligence,
were incontrovertible propositions. Manufacturers who enjoyed the
advantages of coal, ironstone, canals, railroads, and harbours at their
doors, very readily embraced the doctrine, that all restrictions on
commercial intercours