from the English custom-house books, for we had then no records of our own. "Imports into England, £749,345;" "Exports to the U. S., £3,679,467." And again, in the year 1790-"Imports, £1,191,071;” “Exports, £ 3,431,778." From these amounts we learn, first, the exhausted condition of our country from the war, an enormous import, and exports but to one-fifth of that amount, and less than one-half in value of what they had been ten years before; and secondly, we learn the still more important lesson, and one which we trust will not be too soon forgotten-how slow was our advancement, (if not absolutely retrograde,) until UNION had given us vigour. But to look at these statements in another light, as bearing again upon the colonial question. England chiefly valued her colonial system, as forcing us to buy from her instead of foreign manufacturers. She feared our independence, lest she should lose our custom. Now, what do we learn from the returns above given? Why, that she deserted our markets, and not we hers-sixteen years after the separation we are found buying from her to the amount of about $4,000,000 more than we did before it, while she purchases from us at least $2,000,000 LESS. Verily, one would think that the commercial shackles had been taken off from her instead of us.

Into our author's statements of the financial and commercial bankruptcy which marked the sad interval between the years 1784 and 1789, we have not time to enter, but again recommend their perusal to all nullifiers of that Union which saved us from them. They are justly and forcibly given, though the colonial part would have been improved by a reference to our own early writers more especially to Governor Pownal's tracts, and the politico-economical pamphlets of Franklin. A country residence, we would take the liberty to suggest, is not favourable to an author's power of research. A statistician more especially, (we beg leave to adopt from the French a term long needed,) should live in libraries, and be surrounded by sources of information, living and dead, such as can hardly be found out of our great commercial cities.

We cannot pass by, however, one false point of political economy, to which, p. 31, our author seems to lend his sanction. "The influx of goods," says he, " draining the United States of a great part of the specie, therefore Congress in vain made requisition upon the states to fill the public treasury." The italics in this quotation are our own-we have marked them for condemnation. Does the wealth of the country, we would ask, consist in its specie? Are there fewer exchangeable values in it because we want the counters to mark them? And does our author mean that the treasury vaults were to be literally filled with that material commodity? Surely not-he cannot think so. But if not, why, by his language, give currency to such exploded prejudices? VOL. XVII.-No. 34.

63

Why add the weight of his name to errors which, however venial in theory, are yet fatal in their operation? It is this thoughtless adoption, we must say, of the language of popular error on the part of one whose word has weight in the community, that tends so long to perpetuate them-it choaks as it were the channels by which truth flows into practice.

From Chapter III. to Chapter VI. inclusive, is devoted to the main subject of the work-the trade of the United States, as exhibited in its exports and imports. In our examination we shall take up the subjects as they present themselves. Our author begins as is natural with the Exports. "At an early period of the present government, provision was made at the Treasury department to ascertain the quantity as well as value of all the Exports of the country; but in the general accounts no discrimination between the value of domestic and foreign articles, until 1802. To ascertain the value of the Exports, the several collectors were (then) directed by the Treasury department to add in their quarterly returns the quantity of the various articles exported, and also their value at the places of exportation." P. 34. To this general statement we would only annex the names of the two secretaries to whose talents and labours we are indebted for the whole system—the fathers, as they may justly be termed, of this most important department-these are, Alexander Hamilton in 1791, and Albert Gallatin in 1802. To the first belongs the merit of adopting a system of accounts so simple and yet so efficient, that every departure from it has been found injurious-and in answer to a recent call upon the department, its various bureaux all united though without concert in recommending alterations, which, upon examination, were found to be but a return to what Hamilton had originally made it. This fact, though coming from a private source, may yet be depended upon, and is worthy of note, as tending to confirm our admiration of the varied talents of Hamilton, at once the soldier, the statesman, the jurist, the orator, and the financier. To Gallatin again we are indebted for the whole system of Treasury reports an addition highly important as a means of information, and in a popular government invaluable as a source of public confidence. The knowledge obtained in English returns by the adoption of "official custom-house values," he secured by a direct report of quantities, and by the classification again of the Exports of domestic origin into the produce of, 1. the Sea, 2. the Forest, 3. Agriculture, 4. Manufactures-he gave to that branch of the subject a clearness and simplicity which its multifarious character greatly needed. We would further add, on private authority, that its adoption was the result of a visit made him in 1801, by that intelligent traveller, Alexander Humboldt. The method adopted by him to simplify to a foreigner the subject of our Exports, has been the means of making it clearer both to citizen and foreigner ever since.

1. The Products of the Sea. Our great fisheries are cod and whale, to which may be added the Seal, though not here enumerated by our author. Scientifically speaking, neither it nor the whale are fish-yet in common parlance we know not where else he would place it. Of all departments of American enterprise, none strikes us with greater admiration than that of the pursuit of the whale. The length and distance of the voyage, the peril of the occupation, the hardihood it demands amid frozen seas and on rocky, unknown coasts-and then when we regard the character of the men who engage in it-not the reckless, drunken sailor, but men prudent and temperate as well as brave, all having a stake and share in the common success; carrying out with them nothing but their own brawny arms, and bringing back loads of wealth to the value of at least $4,000,000 per annum; when we look too at the barren rock or beach of Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard, that sends them forth, and then learn that they have almost driven from the trade all foreign competitors, it is not easy to set bounds to our estimate of American enterprise and hardihood. Verily, if with Hobbes, we term the sea and land "the two breasts of our common mother," we must admit that we her children have sucked thereout, from one at least, no stinted nourishment. Of this trade Mr. P. gives an interesting sketch. It commenced in the island of Nantucket, in boats from the shore, as early as the year 1690. At that time, the whale was their neighbour, for he knew them not as an enemy. Now they must search for him in his hiding-places, under polar ice. In 1715, six sloops of thirty-eight tons each were employed in the fishery from that island. For many years these adventurers were confined to their own coast; but as whales grew scarce, which was about 1750, their cruises were extended first to the Western Islands, then to the Brazils, and at length in our own day to the Northern and Southern Oceans. The annual produce of this fishery before the Revolution amounted to $1,160,000. During the war it was totally destroyed. On the return of peace it recovered by degrees, until it now stands reported by our author as follows

381 ships, 50 barques, &c. engaged in the fishery, value $10,130,000. Tonnage, 136,000, being one-tenth of the whole tonnage of the United States.

Whole number of men employed, 10,900.

Value of oil, whalebone, &c., from $3,500,000 to $4,000,000 a year.

Enormous as this statement of our author appears of a form of American industry, of which we see and hear so little, we must raise it yet higher. On reference to the Congressional documents of the present year, more especially to the report of Mr. Pearce, (H. of Rep. Feb. 7, 1835,) in favour of a government voyage of

discovery into the high southern latitudes frequented by the whalers, we find the following estimate given of the present amount of the trade.

From New Bedford, Nantucket, and New London alone,

tonnage,

Men,

Including the more recent ports that have en

132,000

10,000

tered into it, together with the oil ships that tonnage, 170,000 transport the same to Europe,

Capital invested,

Annual value of proceeds,

men,

12,000 $12,000,000 4,000,000

Thus making the tonnage employed one-eighth, instead of onetenth of the whole. A fact also recorded in the report alluded to is worthy of remark—it is, that no whaling ship has ever been lost in doubling Cape Horn; the source of their security is evidently the character of their men. They are temperate as well as skilful. Out of 181 whaling vessels sailing out of New Bedford in April, 1834, 168 carried no spirituous liquors except for the medicine chest. Three-tenths of the earnings of the ship are the share of the seamen. This too adds to their security How near we come to a monopoly of these hazardous voyages may be judged of by the fact, that the whole number of British vessels employed in the whale fishery in 1830 was less by 60 than sailed out of the single port of New Bedford; the former being 121, the latter 181.

In the search for the Seal also, American enterprise stands conspicuous if not alone. It is carried on mainly by the inhabitants of Stonington, a little village in Connecticut, the very name of which is scarcely known beyond the limits of the state. In their little barques, from fifty to eighty tons, these hardy and adventurous men push their way through mountains of floating ice, to find the object of their search in the highest Antarctic latitudes, amid all the perils of an unknown and hazardous navigation. But their zeal has already greatly exhausted the supply. About thirty years ago, when the business was at its height, seal skins were taken to Canton, which was their great market, to the annual value of near $400,000-at present it is greatly diminished. Nor is the cod fishery by any means of the same relative importance it once was. At the period of the Revolution it was struggled for as a vital question, as one of the great staples of our country. At present among our exports it stands in a low rank, having fallen off instead of increasing during the last forty years, the export in 1833 being less than in 1791, and not one-third of that in 1804. All this, however, is but a question of export-perhaps, after all, we love the fish too well at home to let it go abroad. This we acknowledge is but a guess-the amount consumed not being given.

2. Products of the Forest. "Lumber of various kinds, naval stores, pot and pearl ashes, skins and furs, ginsing, oak bark, and other dyes, constitute what are usually called the products of the American forest." The exportation of lumber from a wooded country must obviously have commenced with the first settlements. As with other forms of raw produce, it is a trade which grows up to a certain point, and then decreases with the increasing wealth of the country. This phenomenon is clearly seen in the case of lumber. In 1770, the official value exported amounted to $686,588-from 1803 to 1807 was its maximum-it then averaged over $2,500,000 per annum; while from 1820 to 1830 it has averaged only $1,784,000. With naval stores also the principle is the same, though the amount of those exported is more variable, as being dependant on the political relations of Europe. For a state of universal peace, our exports during the last few years have been extraordinarily large, which looks at least like prospective wisdom on the part of our foreign purchasers. It is worthy of note, that our maximum shipment of naval stores took place in 1811, slipping out in breach of our non-intercourse laws, and supplying doubtless the means of a naval warfare against ourselves.

In 1770, the value exported amounted to $144,000-from 1805 to 1811 it averaged about $500,000-from 1820 to 1830, a little over $400,000. Pot and pearl ashes before the Revolution were encouraged by bounties from the government, and stimulated by premiums from learned societies. Under this patronage the export amounted in 1770 to $290,000. Since that time, the arts and freedom have been their only patrons, and yet the export of them has continued to advance the average from 1803 to 1807 being about $914,000, and from 1825 to 1830 about $1,164,000 -for the last four years, however, it has not reached that average.

For furs and peltry our country must now be considered rather as a place of transit than the source of supply-Canada and the Hudson Bay Company's regions furnishing the forests whence they are all derived. The quantity and value, however, is considerable. In 1770, the export from the colonies (Canada included) amounted to $670,000-from 1804 to 1807, $823,000from 1820 to 1830, about $600,000-while the recent fashion of furs has, among other causes, again swelled the supply of 1833 to $841,933. Ginsing is a root which possesses, it appears, a flavour highly grateful to a Chinese palate; now, China is a country where a popular taste creates a large market; the result is, that we annually ship of this innocent vegetable to that country to the value of about $150,000-in 1833 it amounted to $183,194. Oak bark and our other forms of tannin, judging from the tables, must have been always" a feast or a famine." In 1803, the export amounted in value to $225,000; five years after it had sunk to one-twentyfifth, viz., $5000. In 1813, it stood $118,000-the next year

"a