effect and the evidence of our prosperity. Prices would again get up; the former value of property would be restored. And those embarrassed persons who have not been already overwhelmed by the times, would suddenly find, in the augmented value of their property, and the renewal of their business, ample means to extricate themselves from all their difficulties. The greatest want of civilized society is a market for the sale and exchange of the surplus of the produce of the labor of its members. This market may exist at home or abroad, or both; but it must exist somewhere, if society prospers; and wherever it does exist, it should be competent to the absorption of the entire surplus of production. It is most desirable that there should be both a home and a foreign market. But, with respect to their relative superiority, I cannot entertain a doubt. The home market is first in order, and paramount in importance. The object of the bill, under consideration, is to create this home market, and to lay the foundations of a genuine American policy. It is opposed, and it is incumbent upon the partisans of the foreign policy (terms which I shall use without any invidious intent) to demonstrate that the foreign market is an adequate vent for the surplus produce of our labor. But is it so? 1. Foreign nations cannot, if they would, take our surplus produce. If the source of supply, no matter of what, increases in a greater ratio than the demand for that supply, a glut of the market is inevitable, even if we suppose both to remain perfectly unobstructed. The duplication of our population takes place in terms of about twenty-five years. The term will be more and more extended as our numbers multiply. But it will be a sufficient approximation to assume this ratio for the present. We increase, therefore, in population, at the rate of about four per centum per annum. Supposing the increase of our production to be in the same ratio, we should, every succeeding year, have of surplus produce, four per centum more than that of the preceding year, without taking into the account the differences of seasons which neutralize each other. If, therefore, we are to rely upon the foreign market exclusively, foreign consumption ought to be shown to be increasing in the same ratio of four per centum per annum, if it be an adequate vent for our surplus produce. But, as I have supposed the measure of our increasing production to be furnished by that of our increasing population, so the measure of their power of consumption must be determined by that of the increase of their population. Now, the total foreign population, who consume our surplus produce, upon an average, do not double

their aggregate number in a shorter term than that of about one hundred years. Our powers of production increase then in a ratio four times greater than their powers of consumption. And hence their utter inability to receive from us our surplus produce.

But, secondly. If they could, they will not. The policy of all Europe is adverse to the reception of our agricultural produce, so far as it comes into collision with its own; and under that limitation we are absolutely forbid to enter their ports, except under circumstances which deprive them of all value as a steady market. The policy of all Europe rejects those great staples of our country, which consist of objects of human subsistence. The policy of all Europe/ refuses to receive from us any thing but those raw materials of smaller value, essential to their manufactures, to which they can give a higher value, with the exception of tobacco and rice, which they cannot produce. Even Great Britain, to which we are its best customer, and from which we receive nearly one half in value of our whole imports, will not take from us articles of subsistence produced in our country cheaper than can be produced in Great Britain. In adopting this exclusive policy, the states of Europe do not inquire what is best for us, but what suits themselves respectively; they do not take jurisdiction of the question of our interests, but limit the object of their legislation to that of the conservation of their own peculiar interests, leaving us free to prosecute ours as we please. They do not guide themselves by that romantic philanthropy which we see displayed here, and which invokes us to continue to purchase the produce of foreign industry, without regard to the state or prosperity of our own, that foreigners may be pleased to purchase the few remaining articles of ours, which their restricted policy has not yet absolutely excluded from their consumption. What sort of a figure would a member of the British parliament have made-what sort of a reception would his opposition have obtained, if he had remonstrated against the passage of the corn law, by which British consumption is limited to the bread-stuffs of British production, to the entire exclusion of American, and stated that America could not and would not buy British manufactures, if Britain did not buy American flour?

Both the inability and the policy of foreign powers, then, forbid us to rely upon the foreign market as being an adequate vent for the surplus produce of American labor. Now, let us see if this general

reasoning is not fortified and confirmed by the actual experience of this country. If the foreign market may be safely relied upon, as furnishing an adequate demand for our surplus produce, then the official documents will show a progressive increase, from year to year, in the exports of our native produce, in a proportion equal to that which I have suggested. If, on the contrary, we shall find from them that, for a long term of past years, some of our most valuable staples have retrograded, some remained stationary, and others advanced but little, if any, in amount, with the exception of cotton, the deductions of reason and the lessons of experience will alike command us to withdraw our confidence in the competency of the foreign market The total amount of all our exports of domestic produce for the year beginning in 1795, and ending on the thirtieth September, 1796, was forty millions seven hundred and sixty-four thousand and ninety-seven. Estimating the increase according to the ratio of the increase of our population, that is, at four per centum per annum, the amount of the exports of the same produce, in the year ending on the thirtieth September last, ought to have been eighty-five millions four hundred and twenty thousand eight hundred and sixty-one. It was It was in fact only forty-seven millions one hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight. Taking the average of five years, from 1803 to 1807, inclusive, the amount of native produce exported was forty-three millions two hundred and two thousand seven hundred and fifty-one for each of those years. Estimating what it ought to have been, during the last year, applying the principle suggested to that amount, there should have been exported seventy-seven millions seven hundred and sixty-six thousand seven hundred and fifty-one, instead of forty seven millions one hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight. If these comparative amounts of the aggregate actual exports, and what they ought to have been, be discouraging, we shall find, on descending into particulars, still less cause of satisfaction. The export of tobacco in 1791, was one hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-eight hogsheads. That was the year of the largest exportation of that article; but it is the only instance in which I have selected the maximum of exportation. The amount of what we ought to have exported last year, estimated according to the scale of increase which I have used, is two hundred and sixty-six thousand three hundred and thirty-two hogsheads. The actual export was nenety-nine thousand and nine hogsheads. We exported in 1803, the quantity of one million three hundred and eleven thousand eight

hundred and fifty three barrels of flour; and ought to have exported last year two millions three hundred and sixty-one thousand three hundred and thirty-three barrels. We, in fact, exported only seven hundred and fifty-six thousand seven hundred and two barrels. Of that quantity we sent to South America one hundred and fifty thousand barrels, according to a statement furnished me by the diligence of a friend near me, (Mr. Poinsett,) to whose valuable mass of accurate information, in regard to that interesting quarter of the world, I have had occasion frequently to apply. But that demand is temporary, growing out of the existing state of war. Whenever peace is restored to it, and I now hope that the day is not distant when its independence will be generally acknowledged, there cannot be a doubt that it will supply its own consumption. In all parts of it the soil, either from climate or from elevation, is well adapted to the culture of wheat; and nowhere can better wheat be produced than in some portions of Mexico and Chili. Still the market of South America is one which, on other accounts, deserves the greatest consideration. And I congratulate you, the committee, and the country, on the recent adoption of a more auspicious policy towards it.

We exported in 1803, Indian corn to the amount of two millions seventy-four thousand six hundred and eight bushels. The quantity should have been, in 1823, three millions seven hundred and thirtyfour thousand two hundred and eighty-eight bushels. The actual quantity exported, was seven hundred and forty-nine thousand and thirty-four bushels, or about one-fifth of what it should have been, and a little more than one-third of what it was more than twenty years ago. We ought not then to be surprised at the extreme depression of the price of that article, of which I have heard my honorable friend (Mr. Bassett) complain, nor of the distress of the corn-growing districts adjacent to the Chesapeake bay. We exported seventy-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-four barrels of beef in 1803, and last year but sixty-one thousand four hundred and eighteen, instead of one hundred and forty thousand two hundred and seventy-four barrels. In the same year (1803) we exported ninety-six thousand six hundred and two barrels of pork, and last year fifty-five thousand five hundred and twenty-nine, instead of one hundred and seventy-three thousand eight hundred and eighty-two barrels. Rice has not advanced by any means in the proportion which it ought to have done. All the small articles, such as cheese, butter, candles, &c., too minute

to detail, but important in their aggregate, have also materially diminished. Cotton alone has advanced. But, while the quantity of it is augmented, its actual value is considerably diminished. The total quantity last year exceeded that of the preceding year by nearly thirty millions of pounds. And yet the total value of the year of smaller exportation exceeded that of the last year by upwards of three and a half millions of dollars. If this article, the capacity of our country to produce which was scarcely known in 1790, were subtracted from the mass of our exports, the value of the residue would only be a little upwards of twenty-seven millions during the last year. The distribution of the articles of our exports throughout the United States, cannot fail to fix the attention of the committee. Of the forty-seven millions one hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and eight, to which they amounted last year, three articles alone (cotton, rice, and tobacco) composed together twenty-eight millions five hundred and forty-nine thousand one hundred and seventy-seven. Now these articles are chiefly produced to the south. And if we estimate that portion of our population who are actually engaged in their culture, it would probably not exceed two millions. [Thus, then, less than one-fifth of the whole population of the United States produced upwards of one-half, nearly two-thirds, of the entire value of the exports of the last year.

Is this foreign market, so incompetent at present, and which, limited as its demands are, operates so unequally upon the productive labor of our country, likely to improve in future? If I am correct in the views which I have presented to the committee, it must become worse and worse. What can improve it? Europe will not abandon her own agriculture to foster ours. We may even anticipate that she will more and more enter into competition with us in the supply of the West India market. That of South America, for articles of subsistence, will probably soon vanish. The value of our exports, for the future, may remain at about what it was last year. But if we do not create some new market-if we persevere in the existing pursuits of agriculture, the inevitable consequence must be, to augment greatly the quantity of our produce, and to lessen its value in the foreign market. Can there be a doubt on this point? Take the article of cotton, for example, which is almost the only article that now remunerates labor and capital. A certain description of labor is powerfully attracted towards the cotton-growing country. The cultivation will