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was originally private and intended to remain so. And, in order to accomplish this object, he, the author, has endeavoured not to swell out a book, but rather to compress his collection of facts within a limited compass, and exhibit them in such reciprocal bearings and connexion, as would be likely to attract the most attention, both to them and to any brief but interesting hints, which the writer could at the same time throw out;-hints of a nature to excite public enquiry, and bring forward superior talents, upon topics, which, by the actual circumstances of this country, and the actual circumstances of the world at large, are rendered, at the present day, of superlative importance; and of course, are more and more intrinsically interesting, as the whole subject is more closely viewed, and critically searched into.

The author trusts that he has now sufficiently explained and apologized; and would hope, that the motive may be received, as sufficient to atone for all deficiencies and faults in the execution. All the merit he would presume herein to claim, arises out of the effort he has made, in obedience to the motive, to bring important matter forward, and introduce it to public scrutiny.

Philadelphia, June, 1824.

THE AUTHOR.

LETTERS IN DECEMBER, 1822,

AND CONTINUED IN 1823.

DEAR SIR,

Philadelphia, Dec. 8th, 1822.

I met, the other day, with a London work, on the "State of the British Nation" at the commencement of the present year.

The writer of it appears to have talent, and, so far as I can judge, to be well enough supplied with information at home, but, with respect to things locally distant, even on occasions when and where correct information is easily accessible, you no doubt have many times been entertained in remarking what mistakes men of ability are apt to slide into when theory is in question: with what readiness, in order to build up and establish a theory, the mind permits itself to be satisfied with almost any unexamined statement of things, as premises to reason from. Do but produce facts as they are, and the whole of them, and you often sadly interfere with conclusions drawn from a spurious, or only partial source;-a distorted or imperfect authority. Touch but the key-stone with more violence than the builder calculated on, and the

edifice falls; the chain of a supposed analogy is at once broken, and perchance a favourite hypothesis upset amid the ruins.

The following extract will show the matter I am led to speak of.

"London, 1822.

"Of all the nations in the world, America has suffered most, by the return of peace. Her commerce, her customs, and her total revenue have been diminished at certain periods since the peace, by more than one half. In the year 1815, the net produce of her customs exceeded thirty-six millions* of dollars. In the year 1819, the produce of the same duties was only seventeen millions, being a diminution of nineteen out of thirty-six. Her total revenue in 1815, was, in round figures, forty-nine and a half millions of dollars. In 1819, her total revenue was not twenty-one and a half. This diminution was chiefly in her customs, which declined from the cessation of her carrying-trade, and the resumption by foreign nations of their own commerce.

"These circumstances in her situation are of so much more importance to us, as they at once explain the cause which, in a less degree, affected ourselves, and as the operation in both countries has been, in kind, the same. As England, during the war, manufactured for the world, America in a very great degree, was the carrier of the world: even her raw produce was raised to an immense price, by the demand for it in the Continent of Europe. There was

* Not war, but peace itself caused this high amount of customs, from a superabundant importation of goods into the United States. It took place after that a war with Great Britain had exhausted the country of British and other goods.

a constant exportation of her flour to England, on an average exceeding five hundred thousand barrels, and in the years 1801, 1802, 1811, it exceeded a million of barrels each. Her flour, cotton, tobacco, and whatever else she exported of raw produce, thus attained a price, exceeding in all articles, one third, and in many, double its present amount. Her freights, her shipping, her navy,-her price of land, her amount of circulating currency, her wages of labour, and her returns of capital;-in a word-her agriculture, her navigation, her commerce, her internal industry, and improvements, and whatever she possessed of rough domestic manufactures, increased in the same general rate as amongst ourselves. Under the general competition of one branch of employment with another, added to a universal demand for labour, and the abundance of money in paper and cash, prices rose throughout all commodities, and in every division of industry.

"The general peace overtook America in this state of things. Her commerce immediately fell; and fell by nearly one half. Her circulating capital, her paper currency, was necessarily called in, or forced back in the same proportion. Most of her banks, trading only on accommodation, broke up,

*Not so. That state of things had ceased to exist in the United States more than seven years. In December 1807 a restrictive system commenced relative to commerce; which, variously modified, was continued down to the declaration of war against England in 1812.