our factories the best workmen
of Europe, attracted less by the temptation of wages, than by
the desire to leave liberty and land as the inheritance of their
children. But it would take a long time to build up a
manufacturing interest adequate to supply the wants of the
Northwest, or to consume the produce of these wide fields; and
the burden of taxation for internal improvements, uncompleted
and unproductive, would be very heavy and hard to bear: and all
the population that is concentrated upon manufactures, is so
much kept back from the occupation of that noble domain; and the
national treasury would feel the effects of the curtailment of
imports and the cessation of land sales; and the amount of
misery which the loss of the American market would occasion to
the starving operatives and factory children on the other side
of the Atlantic, is worthy to be taken into the account, by
every statesman who has not forgotten that he is a man."

If we refuse the Americans as customers, we compel them to become our
rivals; and, after supplying their own wants, they will compete with us
for the trade of the world, on more than equal terms. Our statesmen may
yet employ America to build up the prosperity of our country whilst
increasing her own, or they may suffer its rapidly developing and
gigantic resources to work out our ruin: the alternative is before them
and before the country--but decision must be prompt, for there is no
pause in the march of events. However unwise the policy, we cannot be
surprised that the American and Continental manufacturer are each
applying to his government to follow our example, and protect home trade
by fiscal regulations.

This question of trade with America has also most important anti-slavery
bearings--and here, again, I find my own views anticipated by the able
writer already quoted:

"The present policy of restricting the traffic with America so
closely to cotton, gives a deceitful appearance to the stated
imports and exports. From these statements there should, in
fairness, be deducted the value of all the raw cotton which is
returned to America; and, in fact, if the true exchange trade
would be seen, all should be deducted that is exported from
England. That portion of cotton goods which is of English
origin, that is, their value above the raw material out of which
they were made, is, in f