strength of yarns by weight, I am not acquainted with that manner of trying; but if a principal sail will make two voyages round Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope, I want no further wear out of it, as it has then more than done its full duty--the mere fact that a vessel with cotton duck sails will sail faster than with any other canvass, is sufficient to cover a great many objections, but I maintain it is cheaper and better in every respect besides the price of the cloths:

Best cotton duck, No. 1, 40 ets. per yard, 22 inches wide, 2, 38

66

I think No. 1 rather too heavy for the navy, as it weighs nearly a pound to the yard of 22 inches wide. I, however, make use of this number for the schooner Yellott's three lower sails. As for cotton rope, I am sorry that it is not in my power to give you any information respecting it, as I have never seen any of it used. As for cotton rope or yarn that is exposed to the air for a length of time, I should think it would do it great injury. Plenty of first quality cotton duck can be had here.

MR. SMITH'S SPEECH. [From the Charleston S. C. Mercury.] We stated yesterday that we were in possession of a copy of the speech delivered by Robert Barnwell Smith, esq. upon the tariff question at the last session of the legislature. We have only room at present for the address to his constituents which is prefixed to it.

To the citizens of St. Bartholomew's parish, Colleton district.

"Fellow-citizens: At any time it would be proper, that you should be acquainted with the course of conduct your representative has pursued, even in matters where your general interests only were involved. It would not be too much, were it practicable, that the constituent should know every word uttered-every vote given by his representative, since the power he uses or abuses is the power of his constituents, the interests he advances or destroys, are the interests of his constituents. This accountability, highly proper at all times, has become imperiously necessary from the present situation of your public affairs, which impels you in duty to yourselves, sternly to exact, and your representative, on the fair principle of honesty and ot honor, frankly to give a "true account of his stewardship." For these reasons and such as these, I present to you the substance of the argument I made as your representative in your state legislature, however unworthy of you to uphold your falling liberties and violated rights.

your will on this one great subject, and who will obey it. Until you shall have done this, hope for nothing as you can expect nothing, from your legislature. When responsibility is great, and alarmingly great, it is too much to expect of your public agents a consistent determined course of policy, unless you for whom they act, will direct, sustain and enforce by your instructions.

Fellow-citizens: I hope in these observations 1 will not be considered as casting reflections upon those who have differed from me-conscientiously differed from me with respect to your situation, and the policy this situation requires. Certainly, sirs, I have no retrospective view in these observations, and have it not in intention to become the gratuitous accuser of any one. In endeavoring to bring your attention to the absolute necessity at the present crisis, in your future elections, of acting for yourselves, I only invoke a discriminating judgment, by which every honorable man would alone wish to stand and would be content to fall. Who would deign to use the power of a people against them, or against their will? --to be their representative, without representing them? All of your representatives have endeavored to do their duty-one not more conscientiously than another; but the question between you and them, is not, have you acted, and will you act conscientiously-but it is, will you act RIGHT? It can be no plea to you for future public confidence, that a representative is conscientious and able, if he is against you: for if he is hostile to your interests, it appears to me that he is so much the worse representative-so much the more noxious instrument, exactly in porportion to his superior ability and conscientiousness. Talent and integrity give power, and if you are to intrust your interests to your foes, the greater knaves and fools you select as your representatives, the wiser will be your conduct, because they will be the less efficient instruments for your destruction.

I will say nothing to you of my gratitude for the tokens of confidence and esteem with which you have repeatedly honored me: I have endeavored to evince my sensibility to your kindness by my actions.

R. BARNWELL SMITII.

[We have a copy of the speech alluded to. It is chiefly an argument concerning the call of a convention, as discussed in the legislature of South Carolina at its last session. The following are the paragraphs more specially referred to in the preceding address]

Mr. Chairman, the conduct of our fathers previous to our revolution, has been repeatedly called up during this discussion to teach us forbearance, and peace, and toleration, and to rebuke the rashness and precipitancy of our councils. Sir, when patience under tyranny is the dogma to be taught, it were well to call up the example of crushed and trampled slaves, who have been only fit for the heel of a despot, by their abject submission to his will, and base apostacy to the liberties of their race; but to refer to the example of the noble patriots of our revolution If I have misrepresented your opinions and your feel- to uphold such doctrines, does indeed appear to me to be ing, if you either think that you labor under no oppres- "strange-passing strange-pitiful, wondrous pitiful.”— sion, or are willing passively to be crushed by it, you will When I read from the page of history, the pure and lofty perceive, that I am not the man you should in future sc- characteristics of these men-their delicate sensitiveness leet as your representative. Lay me aside, and from a to injustice and oppression-their passionate and almost proper regard to your dignity and your conceptions of merphysical love for liberty-their hard, steel-like, allyour own interest, compel your voice to be heard-your conquering energy in the maintainance of their rightswill to be obeyed. But if you believe with me that you their gentleness in courtesy-simplicity in benevolenceare oppressed, wrongfully, grievously, unconstitutionally frank, open-handed hospitality, and more than Norman oppressed-oppressed beyond the toleration of any free heroism in chivalry; and when I turn to the language I people, since the sun rose upon man in the enjoyment of have heard upon this floor, and the strange course of arhis rights and if it is your will to throw off this oppres-gument in which I have been engaged, I do indeed feel sion, and to vindicate your liberties, rest upon no one man or number of men, but rely upon yourselves for self protection. No people were ever yet free, or continued free but by the energy of their own will. Direct, control, command your representatives through the bailot-box; and when the questions made up between you and your government are, whether you shall be made the mere vassals and tributaries to northern speculators, or notwhether your property shall be really yours or notwhether you are to live under a tree grovernment, or shall become victims of a consolidated empire and sectional tyranny-do not trifle with your situation, and select representatives merely to go on with the little purposes of local legislation, but send forth men who know

weighed down with the consciousness that their posterity have fallen. These men threatened not to threaten gam-raved not in words in weak apology for action, but they simply spoke, and the energy of their actions as simply corresponded with their words. They waited not for ten years of grinding oppression, until incumbent ruin should frighten their puny rage, and the goads of pover ty should urge on to mighty efforts in words. No sir! not one year-not one day-not one hour did they subrait, not to oppression but to exaction that might lead to oppression. But let history attest to the correctness of our views.

The stamp act was passed by the British parliament in January, 1765. The courts of justice were immedi

yet seen any satisfactory account of the progress and history of this great effort of genius of the present day, I will state what I know of it, from the lips of the inventor himself.

ately closed-the stamp officers were compelled to resign, and so determined and violent was the opposition evinced by the colonies that in March, 1766, at the very next parliament it was repealed. In the year after, in 1767, the effort of taxing the colonies was agam renewed "In the winter of 1828, a delegation of the Cherokees by parliament, and the tax upon tea, glass, paper and visited the city of Washington, in order to make a treaty colors became a law. The same violent opposition which with the United States, and among them was See-quati had defeated the stamp act, was renewed. Non-import yah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. His Engation and non-consumption resolutions were entered ish name was George Guess, he was a half-blood, but into, and after two years ineffectual struggle to obtain had never, from his own account, spoken a single word submission from the colonies by peaceable means, in 1770 of English up to the time of his invention, nor since, this tax was repealed, with the exception of the small Prompted by my own curiosity, and urged by several tax upon tea. Even this reservation of the insignificant literary friends, I applied to See-quah-yah, through the tax of three pence upon teas on the part of Great Bri- medium of two interpreters--one a half-blood, capt. tain, was a reservation of resistance on the part of Ame- Roger, and the other a full-blood chief, whose assumed rica. Their "resolutions" of non-importation and non- English name was John Maw, to relate to me, as minuteconsumption, still continued with respect to this one arly as possible, the mental operations and all the facts in ticle of luxury, and when, in 1763, it was sent into our his discovery. He cheerfully complied with my request, ports by the East India company, it was violently seized and gave very deliberate and satisfactory answers to and locked up in store houses, that neither the temptation nor opportunity to purchase should be given to the weak every question, and was at the same time careful to know from the interpreter if I distinctly understood his answers. or timid amongst them. Not a cent would they pay to No stoic could have been more grave in his demeanor tribute, but they freely poured forth millions and their than was See-quah-yah; he pondered, according to the blood in the maintenance of one abstract, isolated prin- Indian custom, for a considerable time after each quesciple of liberty. Talk not then of the example of these tion was put, before he made his reply, and often took pure and noble votaries of freedom, when you bid us bow a whiff of his calumet, while reflecting on an answer. the neck to the oppressor's wrong. Let their example The details of the examination are two long for the closbe covered up in the graves of honor in which they lie, if ing paragraph of this lecture; but the substance of it was you can only call it up to pervert and slander its noble That he, (See-quah-yah), was now about sixty-five tendency. If you value the dignity of consistency between your words and actions, imitate them truly. When years old, but could not precisely say-that in early life he was gay and talkative, and although he never attemptyour "hopes that some reaction in public sentiment mighted to speak in council but once, yet was often, from the take place, are all dissipated"—and you too plainly per- strength of his memory, his easy colloquial powers and ceive, that to submit longer to the evils of misrule, found-ready command of his vernacular, a story-teller of the ed on usurpation, can have no other tendency than to invite fresh assumptions of power," strike- and casting all-property, liberty and life, on the hazard of one mighty, uncompromising and decisive struggle, call upon the example of your fathers in exulting imitation. Then sound their glory, and it shall not curdle your blood in humiliation and shame.

One word, sir, before I close, to the friends with whom I have the honor to act. We may tail now in this momentous struggle, and the will of a majority may cast the imputation of blindness, of rashness, and of foily, upon the bold policy we recommend, when compared with their own superior wisdom in forbearance, and superior patience in toleration-but it we are true to ourselves, and true to our country "we'll not fail." Our watchword is the glorious name of liberty, not yet a bye word of pity and contempt. Our cause, is the cause of a people, not yet so ignorant, as not to distinguish between their friends and foes, nor yet so wasted by tyranny, as to be incapable of one great-one glorious, and if it must be, one dying effort for their blood-bought heritage of freedom. Despair we will leave to the weak,-ours will be the energy of those who know that they contend for all that to freemen is worth living for, is worth dying for. We will fight the ship to the very last plank, and still lift the voice of resistance and defiance whilst one rag floats above the waves. But if all must go down-and go down without one struggle-in dishonor-in run-in shame,-"a land of slaves shall ne'er be mine." As a moral agent, I cannot leave my posterity, to that last and heaviest of all calamities, a habitation to those who should be free on a soil that a tyrant can curse and trample on. As a freeman, I will not lay the bones of a slave beside those of a free ancestry, but I will fly to some other land, where at least the transactions of the present, will not continually add misery to the recollections of the past. Our fathers had a wilderness to look to, as their last refoge from an over-powering, all-pervading tyranny. Even this resource is denied to their posterity, but they have still a world before them, and the free mind above a world of slaves.

INVENTION OF INDIAN LETTERS. [From Knapp's Lectures on American literature.) "The Indians themselves are becoming philologists and grammarians, and exciting the wonder of the world by the invention of letters. The invention of the Cherokee alphabet has excited the astonishment of the philosopher in this country and in Europe; but as I have not

convivial party. His reputation for talents of every kind, gave him some distinction when he was quite young, so long ago as St. Clair's defeat. In this campaign, or some one that soon followed it, a letter was found on the person of a prisoner, which was wrongly read by him to the Indians. In some of their deliberations on this subject the question arose among them whether the mysterious power of "the talking leaf" was the gift of the Great Spirit to the white man, or a discovery of the white man himself? Most of his companions were of the former opinion, while he as strenuously maintained the latter.

with him afterwards, as well as many other things which This frequently became a subject of contemplation he knew, or had heard, that the white man could do; but he never sat down seriously to reflect on the subject, until a swelling in his knee confined him to his cabin, and which, at length made him a cripple for life, by shortening the diseased leg. Deprived of the excite ments of war and the pleasures of the chase, in the long night of his confinement his mind was again directed to the mystery of speaking by letters, the very name of which, of course, was not to be found in his language. From the cries of wild beasts, from the talents of the mocking bird, from the voices of his children and his companions, he knew that feelings and passions were conveyed by direct sounds from oae intelligent being to another. The thought struck him to try to ascertain all the sounds in the Cherokee language. His own ear was not remarkably discriminating, and be called to his aid the more acute ears of his wife and children. He found great assistance from them.

When he thought that he had distinguished all the different sounds in their language, he attempted to use pictorial signs, images of birds and beasts, to convey these sounds to others or to mark them in his own mind. He soon dropped this method, as difficult or impossible, and tried arbitrary signs, without any regard to appearances, except such as might assist him in recollecting them, and distinguishing them from each other. At first these signs were very numerous; and when he got so far as to think his invention was nearly accomplished, he had about two hundred characters in his alphabet. By the aid of his daughter, who seemed to enter into the genius of his labers, he reduced them at last, to eighty-six, the number he now uses. He then set to work to make these characters more comely to the eye, and succeeded as yet he had not the knowledge of the pen as an in

strument; but made his characters on a piece of bark, of a rifle; yet he became a white and silver smith, withwith a knife or nail. At this time he sent to the Indian out any instruction, and made spears and silver spoons agent, or some trader in the nation, for paper and pen. with neatness and skill, to the great admiration of the His ink was easily made from some of the bark of the people of the Cherokee nation. See-quah-yah has also forest trees, whose coloring properties he had previous-a great taste for painting. He mixes his colors with skill, ly known and after seeing the construction of the pen, taking all the art and science of his tribe upon the subhe soon learned to make one, but at first he made it ject, he added to it many chemical experiments of his without a slit; this inconvenience was, however, quickly own, and some of them were very successful, and would removed by his sagacity. His next difficulty was to make be worth being known to our painters. For his drawhis invention known to his countrymen; for by this timeings he had no model but what nature furnished, and he he had become so abstracted from his tribe and ther often copied them with astonishing faithfulness. His reusual pursuits, that he was viewed with an eye of suspi-semblances of the human form, it is true, are coarse, cion. His former companious passed his wigwam with- but often spirited and correct, and he gave action and out entering it, and mentioned his name as one who was sometimes grace to his representations of animals. He practising improper spells, for notoriety or mischievous had never seen a camel hair pencil when he made use of purposes, and he seems to think that be should have the hair of wild animals for his brushes. Some of his been hardly dealt with, if his docile and unambitious dis-productions discovered a considerable practical knowposition had not been so generally acknowledged by his ledge of perspective; but he could not have formed rules tribe at length he summoned some of the most distin- for this. The painters in the early ages were many guished of his nation, in order to make his communica- years coming to a knowledge of this part of their art; tion to them-and after giving the best explanation of his and even now they are more successful in the art than discovery that he could, stripping it of all supernatural perfect in the rules of it. The manners of the Ameriinfluence, he proceeded to demonstrate to them in good can Cadmus are the most easy, and his habits those of earnest, that he had made a discovery His daughter, the most assiduous scholar, and his disposition is more who was his only pupil, was ordered to go out of hear- lively than that of any Indian I ever saw. He understood ing, while he requested his friends to name a word or and felt the advantages the white men had long enjoyed, sentiment which he put down and then she was cal- of having the accumulation of every branch of knowledge, led in and read it to them, then the father retired and from generation to generation, by means of a written the daughter wrote, the Indians were wonder-struck; but language, while the red man could only commit his not entirely satisfied. See-quah-yah then proposed that thoughts to uncertam tradition. He reasoned correctly the tribe should select several youths from among then when he urged this to his friends as the cause why the brightest young men, that he might communicate the mys-red man had made so few advances in knowledge in comtery to them. This was at length agreed to, although parison with us, and to remedy this was one of his great there was some lurking suspicion of necromancy in the aims, and one which he has accomplished beyond that of whole business. John Maw, (his Indian name I have for any other man living, or perhaps any other who ever exgotten) a full-blood, with sev ral others, were selected isted in a rude state of nature. for this purpose The tribe watched the youths for seve- "It perhaps may not be known that the government of ral months with anxiety, and when they offered themselves the U States had a fount of type cut for his alphabet, for examination, the feelings of all were wrought up to the and that a newspaper, printed partly in the Cherokee highest pitch. The youths were separated from their language, and partly in the English, has been established master, and from each other, and watched with great at New Echota, and is characterized by decency and care. The uninitiated directed what master and pupil good sense; and thus many of the Cherokees are able to should write to each other, and the tests were viewed in read both languages. After putting these remarks to such a manner as not only to destroy their infidelity, but paper, I had the pleasure of seeing the head chief of the most firmly to fix their faith. The Indians, on this, or- Cherokees, who confirmed the statement of See-quahdered a great feast and made Sex-quah-yah conspicuous yah, and added that he was an Indian of the strictest veat it. How nearly alike is man in every age! Pithagoracity and sobriety. The western wilderness is not only ras did the same on the discovery of an important prin- to blossom like the rose; but there, man has started up ciple in geometry. See-quah-yah became at once school- and proved that he has not degenerated since the primi master, professor, philosopher and a chief. His coun- tive days of Cecrops, and the romantic ages of wonder. trymen were proud of his talents, and hold him in rever-ful effort and god-like renown." ence as one favored by the Great Sp rit. The inventions of early times were shrouded in mystery. Seequah-yah disdained all quackery.

FISHERIES OF MASSACHUSETTS, &c.

[From the Gloucester Telegraph.]

A general account of the fisheries of Massachusetts and its neighboring states from the years 1780 to 1810, made in the year 1815, by a gentleman now deceased, who was well acquainted with the business, and who took very considerable pains to make his statement correct, it hav ing been made by particular request, and for a special purpose. A copy of the estimate here follows:

He did not stop here, but carried his discoveries to numbers. He of course knew nothing of the Arabic digits, nor the power of Roman letters in the science. The Cherokees had metal numerals to one hundred, and had words for all numbers up to that, but they had no signs or characters to assist them in enumerating, add ing, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. He reflected upon this until he had created their elementary princi- "My calculation is, that there were employed in the ples in his mind, but he was at first obliged to make Bank, Labrador and bay Fisheries, in the years above words to express his meaning, and then signs to explain mentioned 1232 vessels yearly, viz. 584 to the Banks, and it. By this process he soon had a clear perception of 648 to the bay of Chaleur and Labrador. I think that the numbers up to a million. His great difficulty was the 584 Bankers may be put down at 36,540 tons, navigated threshold, to fix the powers of his signs according to their by 4617 men and boys, (each vessel carrying one boy.) plates. When this was overcome, his next step was in They take and cure 510,000 quintals of fish; and averag adding up his different numbers in order to put down the ing about three fares a year, and consume annually fraction of the decimal and give the whole number to its 81,170 hogsheads of salt. The average cost of their vesnext place-but when I knew him, he had overcome all sets is about $2000 each-the average price of their fish these difficulties, and was quite a ready arithmetician in at foreign markets, is $6 per quintal. These vessels also the fundamental rules. This was the result of my inter- make from their fish annually, 17,520 barrels of oil, view, and I can safely say that I have seldom met a man which commands about $10 per brl. Their equipments of more shrewdness than See-quah-yah. He adhered to cost about $900 each, annually, exclusive of salt. The all the customs of his country, and when his ascociate 648 vessels that fish at the Labrador and in the bay, I put chiels on the mission, assumed our costume, he was dress-down at 41 600 tons, navigated by 583 men and boys.ed in all respects like an Indian. See-quah-yah is a man They take and cure annually, 548,000 quintals of fishof diversified talents; he passed from metaphysical and philosophical investigation to mechanical occupations, with the greatest ease. The only practical mechanics he was acquainted with, were a few bungling blacksmiths, who could make a rough tomahawk, or tinker the lock

they go but one fare a year, and consume annually 97,200 hogsheads of salt. The average cost of the vessels is about $600, and their equipments, provisions, &c. is $1050 each. This description of vessels is not so valuable as the Bankers, more particularly that class which

goes from the states of Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode | Island, as they are mostly sloops, of no very great value. Most of the vessels cure a part of their fish near the place where they catch them, on the beach, rocks, &c. and the rest after their return home. Several cargoes of dry fish are shipped yearly from the Labrador, directly for Europe. The usual markets for these fish are in the Mediterranean-say Alicant, Leghorn, Naples, Mar. seilles, &c. as small fish are preferred at those markets and the greater part of the fish caught up the bay, and at Labrador, are very small. The average price of these fish, at the foreign market is $5 per quintal. These vessels also make from their fish about 20,000 brls. of oil, which always meets a ready sale at a handsome price, say from 8 to $12 per brl. The most of it is consumed in the United States.

reduced to what afforded the smallest pittance of food upon which life could be supported; as is the case now. Secondly, By a general glut and stagnation of trade, arising from more goods being manufactured than could possibly be sold with a living profit;-as is the case now. Thirdly, By the impossibility of any man's prospering in any new manufacture, trade or project;—as is the case

now.

Fourthly, By the population both of laborers and traders being limited in proportion to the limitation of food, the first by number, the second by bankruptcy;-as is the

case now.

Q. In such a state of things could not able-bodied men support themselves by working?

A. No more than they could support themselves by working in a ship at sea without provisions. Q. Will not the offer of their produce induce the growers to grow more corn?

Recapitulation. 1232 vessels employed in the Bank, bay and Labrador fisheries, measuring, in tons, 85,140; number of men they are navigated by, 10,559; number A. In the same way as more milking will produce more of hhds. of salt they consume, 178,370; number of qtls. milk from a given cow. There may never be a time of fish they take 1,158,700; number bris. of oil made when it is impossible to extract another drop; but no37,520. There is also a description of vessels called jig-body will live upon the difference. gers, being small schooners, of about 30 to 45 tons, which Q. Are not the increased rents of the landlords a mafish in the south channels, on the shoals, and near Cape tional gain? Sable-their number 300, and carry about four or five hands each, say 1200 men, and take about 75,000 qumtals of fish annually, and consume 1200 hhds. of salt, and make about 4000 brls. of oil. Their fish is generally sold for the West Indies, and home consumption.

Q. What is the difference between preventing men from buying food with the produce of their labor, and taking it from them after they have bought it?

A. In the first place, all that they can gain must be taken from somebody else; which can make no national gain. Secondly, the effect is to keep down the wealth and power of the whole community, in the same manner as would take place if the wealth and power of the Their is still another descriptions of fishing vessels, com-community were restricted to what could be supported monly called 'chebucco boats or pink sterns;' their num- on the corn grown in the Isle of Wight, to please the ber is 600, from 10 to 28 tons, and carry two men and a landlords there. boy each, say 1800 hands, and consume annually 15,000 hhds. of salt--they take and cure 120,000 quintals of fish, which are also used for the home and West India markets, except the very first which they take early in the spring, being of an excellant quality, are sent to the Bil-in the other with. boa market, in Spain, where they bring a great price.These vessels measure about 10,800 tons, and make 9,000 brls. of oil. There are also about 200 schooners employed in the mackerel fishery, measuring 8000 tons, carrying 1600 men and boys, take 50,000 brls. mackerel annually, and consume 6000 hhds. of salt. The alewive, shad, salmon, and herring fisheries are immense, and consume a great quantity of salt.

Total-Whole number of fishing vessels of all descriptions,

Measuring in tons,

Number of hhds. of salt consumed,

Number of men employed in them,

Number of quintals fish taken and cured,
Number of barrels of oil,

Number of barrels of mackerel,

A. That in one case they starve without working, and Q. Are not the increased rents of the landlords their property?

A. No more than the increased prices which a shopkeeper might get, if he could forcibly prevent men from buying at any shop but his own.

So far from allowing rents to be increased by forcible means, a nation where the laws were determined only by justice and the good of the community, would allow no taxation to fall upon industry, as long as it was possible 2,332 for it to fall upon rent.

There are many persons who assert that in one year there were at Labrador, and up the bay, more than 1700 vessels, besides the Bankers, but I am very confident that they are much mistaken.

THE CORN LAWS.

From the New York Journal of Commerce. Extract from the seventh edition of a highly popular work, entitled "A Catechism on the corn laws, with the list of fallacies and answers;" the first edition published

in 1827.

Q. What is meant by corn laws?

A. Laws which enact that the laborer shall not ex

change his produce for food, except at certain shops, namely the shops of the land owners.

Q. For whose benefit are these laws?

[After a general view of the subject of political science, and a variety of illustrations of his argument, drawn from the history of ancient and modern governments, the writer closes his essay by a reference to the constitution and history of the United States. This division of his argument occupies ten pages, from which we select the following passages:]

It has been re

"We turn our eyes as well from the examples of antiquity, as from those of more recent ages, to the great political phenomenon of our own times. served for America to call into renewed existence a forin of government, which, among the multiplied parallels of history has scarcely one to command our unmixed approval, or challenge our unqualified applause. But it would be a most uncandid perversion of the truth, were we to

A. Manifestly, of those who support them,-the land extend to the confederacy of the western hemisphere

owners.

Q. What are the effects of these laws?

A. The same in kind, as would arise rom limiting the food consumed in the united empire, to what could be produced in the Isle of Wight.

those censures, which are in different degrees applicable to the federal systems of the old world.

"It is a presumption indeed prior to all positive argument in favor of the American union, that it has avoided the glaring errors of former confederacies. The free

Q. What would be the consequences of such a limita-and enlightened framers of the constitution of 1787, aption.

A. That the manufactures, wealth and power of the united empire, must be limited to something like those of the Isle of Wight.

pear to have studied the models of antiquity, in the true spirit of political wisdom. Uniting their own experience of the manifold and incurable evils of a partial union, to the lessons of history, they directed their whole energies to the establishment of a permanent and effecA. First, by a general distress among the manufactur-tive government. They considered that if the associaing laborers, arising from employment and wages being tion of the states were at all an object, it was clearly one

Q. How would this be brought about?

DISTRESSES IN TRADE.

The London Weekly Messenger of the 16th July, contains an article on the "continuing embarrassments in trade, and decline in the pricesan goods" in Great BriThe writer thus commences, in terms neither pleasant nor flattering:

"Nothing can be a more alarming feature in the present time than the constant declension in the market of industry and the reduction, almost hourly growing worse and worse, in the great staples of the country.

of the most vital and paramount importance. That in all questions, therefore, of co-existing powers, the first point was to settle the national authority upon a secure basis, by placing in its hands every thing which could be conceded consistently with the preservation of the inde-tain. pendence of the state. With this principle for their guide, they proceeded with deliberate caution and consummate sagacity to blend together and adjust an immense mass of complicated and partly conflicting interests. The result of their patriotic labors was that constitution, which, if they never considered it as perfect, "Iron, lead, copper, and tin, and all the produce of our as indeed may easily be gathered from their speeches numerous mines, have fallen in price beyond example. and recorded opinions, was still, unquestionably, the The price of wheat, notwithstanding the scarcity of the best that the views and circumstances of the country last harvest, is far from remunerating the grower and enwould permit, and few men, we should conceive, how-abling him to pay his rents; and our internal manufacever they may doubt its ultimate success, can refuse to tures of all sorts, whether of necessity, elegance, or luxit the tribute of admiration and respect. ury, have become so fearfully reduced in value, that the "We cannot attempt to offer in this place any detail- astonishment is how the looms, machines, and wheels, by ed account of provisions of this famous constitution; but which those fabrics are made, are kept going by any means. must content ourselves with observing, that it partakes From Manchester the accounts are truly appalling; there largely of the national as well as the federative charac-are, and have been, 20,000 hands out of employ since the ter. A government purely federal would have no vested month of March; and although the capitalists have greatpower of control over the individual citizens of the seve-ly reduced the basis of manufacturing, there is no improral states composing the confederacy, but simply over the legislatures of those states. Now, an adherence to this principle is clearly incompatible with a due regard for effective government; and the American acted with temperance and true wisdom, in abandoning an unprofitable independence for the real and tangible advantages of national union.

cracy.

ved demand for goods. Every where there is a stagnation and embarrassment. It is the same in the clothing districts in Leeds, and the west of Yorkshire; and the same in the hardware towns--Birmingham and Sheffield. There is the like monotonous aspect of deolension and district in colonial produce, whether imported from our own colonies or from foreign states. The produce of the "The old confederation, under which the United East and West Indies is alike become a drug; and cotton, Staters had achieved their independence, ceased, natural-formerly worth ten pence or fourteen pence per pound, ly, with the conjunctures of the revolution, which had cannot now command sixpence or seven pence in the first called it into existence. It was not, it is true, an- market. nulled by any formal act: but its insufficiency to answer any good end in the time of peace, had become so mani- cipitation of prices, the country abounds with wealth."In the mean time, and during the downfall and prefest, that no alternative remained but a dissolution of the Never was there more unemployed capital, or greater confederacy, on the one hand, or a union, constructed upon abundance of riches in private hands. The stocks are risentirely new principles, on the other. It was fortunate ing weekly; and money, as appears by our city report, is for America that the sound views and enlightened pa- to be obtained on good bilis at three per cent. Our own triotism of the friends of union prevailed over the sel- fixed opinion is, that the low price of goods is principally fish armbition of men who would fain have reared the to be ascribed to our restricted circulation, and to our edifice of their own power upon the ruins of the confed-obstinate adherence to a metallic currency." "The constitution, then, of 1787, commenced its ca- The writer then proceeds at length, and with great reer under the happiest auspices. The circumstances of force, to show the advantages which would accrue from the country and the people were all favorable to a repub-resorting to a paper currency, and offers an alarming lican form of government and the consolidation of civil estimate of the mischiefs which have arisen from adher and religious liberty. But the extreme difficulty of pro-ing too pertinaciously to a metallic currency. He then viding for an ever varying and increasing country a permanent and settled government could not escape the "Thus, it is evident, that we have paid very dearly statesmen of America. They were well aware that the for the blessings of a metallic currency, which, by impeculiar advantage at that time enjoyed by their republic, poverishing our foreign customers, cost us, in 1827, the in the absence of an impoverished and idle population, enormous sum of fifteen millions sterling. Indeed, no could not in the nature of things continue, for any very very large portion of our circulating medium can conlengthened period, the same and unimpaired. And al- sist in precious metals, without producing indescribable though the facilities for obtaining subsistence, and many embarrassment in all those foreign states where our of the comforts of life, have as yet prevented any very manufactures are principally concerned: and as the presserious evil from the rapid increase of the population, sure will become still greater as we proceed in the course coupled with the extended principle of the elective fran of suppressing our paper currency, we shall witness rechise, it is impossible not to foresee, that, sooner or la-strictive tariff's increasing in severity, and possibly endter, the time must come when the antidote will cease to ing in war, as the consummation of our improvidence. operate, and the poison begin to work; when the repub- "If the measures for re-establishing a metallic curlican constitution, founded upon the basis of equal repre-rency had never been adopted, no such tariffs as that which sentation, will degenerate into the turbulent and ungov-has recently been adopted by the United States would ernable licentiousness of a wild democracy. It will then have been enacted. But the fact is, that the bill of 1819 remain to be seen how far popular election of the chief reduced so much the prices of manufactures in England, magistrate is compatible with the internal quiet and sta- that our manufacturers and merchants were unable to bility of the union. Even at the present day, these elec-hold stocks; and goods were sent to America to be sold, tions give occasion for a display of faction and party hos-either by public auction, or at any price that could be tility, which, in any country o: Europe, possessing a more condensed population, and a standing army, would inevitably terminate in a civil war. In America, the spirit evaporates and dies away, owing to the absence of these

motives to excitement.

goes on

obtained.

To pay for these goods the American merchants were obliged to send silver, gold not being in general circulation in the United States; and that silver, at a considerable expense, was circuitously exchanged on the continent for gold. To prevent this constant drain the tariff was adopted, having for its object to lessen the force of our demands upon the Americans for their metallic wealth.

"England may justly be proud of her child: America may regard her parent with affection and respect: both may concur in displaying to the world the power of enterprise and active industry; the inestimable benefits of po- "These measures in America are undoubtedly designpular representation in government, of equal and impared for the purpose of limiting our money power over the tial laws: both may diffuse over either hemisphere, and, Americans; because our severe currency measures, by if united, with tenfold power, the light of civilization drawing out their precious metals, and thereby contractand the blessings of freedom. ing their cridit and capital, were extracting the vital