nourishing and supporting each other; instead of an hundred and seventy
thousand indolent and inactive citizens of a town, painfully dependent
on foreign supplies for bread, and on foreign gold for the means of
purchasing it.

Disastrous as have been the consequences of a free trade in grain to the
Roman States, alike in ancient and modern times, it was introduced by
its rulers in antiquity under the influence of noble and enlightened
principles. The whole civilized world was then one state; the banks of
the Nile and the plains of Lybia acknowledged the sway of the emperors,
as much as the shores of the Tiber or the fields of the Campagna. When
the Roman government, ruling so mighty a dominion, permitted the
harvests of Africa and the Ukraine to supplant those of Italy and
Greece, they did no more than justice to their varied subjects.
Magnanimously overlooking local interests and desires, they extended
their vision over the whole civilized world, and

"View'd with equal eyes, as lords of all,"

their subjects, whether in Italy, Spain, Egypt, or Lybia. Though the
seat of government was locally on the Tiber, they administered for the
interest of the whole civilized world, alike far and near. If the
Campagna was ruined, the Delta of Egypt flourished! If the plains of
Umbria were desolate, those of Lybia and Spain, equally parts of the
empire, were waving with grain. But can the same be said of England, now
proclaiming a free trade in grain, not merely with her colonies or
distant provinces, but with her rivals or her enemies? Not merely with
Canada and Hindostan, but with Russia and America? With countries
jealous of her power, envious of her fame, covetous of her riches. What
should we have said of the wisdom of the Romans, if they had sacrificed
Italian to African agriculture in the days of Hannibal? If they had put
it into the power of the Carthaginian Senate to have said, "We will not
arm our galleys; we will not levy armies; we will prohibit the
importation of African grain, and starve you into submission?" How is
England to maintain her independence, if the autocrat of Russia, by
issuing his orders from St Petersburg, can at any moment stop the
importation of ten millions of quarters of foreign grain, that is, a
sixth of our whole annual consumption? And are we to render penniless
our home customers, not in order to promote the interest of the distant
parts of our empire, but in order to enrich and vivify our e