qual her
capital; importations will be nothing, and our gain will be, all which
the ocean will have swallowed up.

You are joking, the protectionists will reply. You know that it is
impossible that we should utter such absurdities. Nevertheless, I
answer, you do utter them, and what is more, you give them life, you
exercise them practically upon your fellow-citizens, as much, at
least, as is in your power to do.

But lest even Mr. T's books may not be deemed of sufficient weight to
counterbalance the convictions of the Horace Greeley school of
prohibition, I shall proceed to furnish a table exhibiting various
classes of commercial transactions, embracing most of the classes
usually effected by importing and exporting houses, all of which may
result in undoubted profits to the parties engaged in them, and to the
country at large, and yet which, as they appear in the annual Commerce
and Navigation Reports issued by the government, would be made to
prove by Mr. Greeley that the result has in each case been a loss to
the country. The sums are all stated in gold:

A, represents one hundred merchants, who shipped to London beef, boots
and shoes, butter, cheese, cotton, hams and bacon, flour, Indian corn,
lard, lumber, machinery, oils, pork, staves, tallow, tobacco and
cigars, worth in New York, in the aggregate, ten millions of dollars,
gold, but worth in London plus the cost of transportation, &c., eleven
millions of dollars, gold, in bond. After being sold in London, the
proceeds (eleven millions) were invested in British goods, worth
eleven millions in London, but worth twelve millions in bond in New
York, and plus the cost of transportation, &c. After having these
goods sold in New York, a net profit of two millions was the result of
the whole transaction, a profit both to the merchants and the country;
yet, according to the Commerce and Navigation Returns, the exports
were ten millions, and the imports eleven millions (valued at the
foreign place of production as the law directs), showing, according to
Mr. Greeley's solitary point of view, a loss to the country of one
million.

B, owned a gold mine in Nevada, and had no capital with which to
develop it. He proceeded to France, sold his mine to C for a million,
which he invested in French muslin-de-laines, buttons, and glassware,
worth a million in France, but worth $1,100,000 in Philadelphia, ex
duty and plus transportation, &c. These sold, B netted an undoubted
pr