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It affords us the greatest satisfaction, that a gentleman is placed at the head of this Commonwealth who is so particularly acquainted with the interests of the country, and on whose integrity, wisdom, and decision we can confidently rely.

Your Excellency's disposition to encourage the manufactures of this country (the embarrassed state of which has not escaped your notice) gives us the most pleasing expectation of your patronage and support, and we anticipate the fond idea that measures will soon be adopted by this State fully adequate to the removal of the difficulties under which we at present labor.

The unanimity which so generally prevails throughout the several branches of the legislature, we conceive a happy presage of those national blessings so earnestly desired by every sincere friend to the independence of America.

May your administration be happy. May union and stability prevail in all our public counsels. And may your Excellency, by a faithful discharge of the important duties of your station, ever receive the warmest acknowledgments of the people over whom you preside.

To which his Excellency made the following reply:

GENTLEMEN,I am greatly indebted to the worthy body of tradesmen and manufacturers in the town of Boston for their congratulations, and in particular to you, Gentlemen, for the obliging manner in which you have communicated them.

You certainly are not mistaken in your idea of my disposition to encourage the manufactures of this country, and for that purpose I hope to see measures adopted fully adequate to the removal of the difficulties under which the several classes of my fellow-citizens do at present unhappily labor. To the forwarding and completing of such adequate measures, I shall be happy to contribute.

I thank you for your good wishes, and especially for the wish that my administration may be happy. Be assured, Gentlemen, it shall be my endeavor to make it so to every class of citizens throughout the Commonwealth, and particularly to the tradesmen and manufacturers of Boston, whose prosperity it will give me great pleasure to see, but much greater to promote.

JAMES BOWDOIN.

No. III.-P. 178.

Statement of Manufactures in Virginia.

COTTON.-Three cotton manufactories, which have 14,200 spindles, 263 looms, and employ 610 hands or operatives. They consume

$153,000 of raw material, and turn out $378,000 in value of cotton fabrics per annum, with a capital of $ 477,500.

IRON.-There are two rolling-mills, one nail factory, three extensive iron founderies, two saw and axe manufactories, and three extensive establishments for the manufacture of agricultural implements, in which is a greater or less amount of castings. The capital invested in these is about $ 500,000; they employ about 325 men, many of them with families, and consume about $200,000 worth of iron and $50,000 worth of coal, and turn out fabrics now to the value of about $700,000.

Besides the above, which embraces cotton and iron alone, there is an extensive paper-mill, a woollen manufactory, flouring-mills that manufacture about 100,000 barrels of flour per annum, upward of $ 1,000,000 of tobacco manufactured into chewing tobacco per annum, and in addition coach factories, manufactories of boots and shoes, guns and locks, one of pianos, brass founderies, &c., &c.

Just previous to the adoption of the present tariff, the manufacturing operations of Richmond, Petersburg, and other places throughout the State, were curtailed one half. They gradually recovered during the first six months after the passage of the tariff, and most rapidly during the last eight months; so that they are all doing a fair business now, while some of them, the cotton factories, are pushed to their utmost to supply the demand, which they are scarcely able to do.

Richmond memorialized Congress for the passage of that tariff, and so did Petersburg, I believe. The memorial sent from Richmond, which had the largest number of signatures ever put to a paper in the city, asserted these propositions :

That

"That duties should be adequate to the purposes of revenue. they should be discriminating also, not only with a view to favor domestic productions, but to benefit the consumer by enlarging the supply, and by adding domestic competition, which is always active, to foreign competition, which is sometimes inefficient, and never regular and constant."

It was also further asserted, that, "under the tariff policies of different civilized nations, the only mode of relieving or aiding agriculture was by diverting to other occupations a portion of the labor applied to it, and by increasing, at the same time, the domestic market for its prod. ucts; and that therefore no branch of industry in the country has a clearer interest in the due encouragement and support of home manufactures than the agricultural."

The total capital invested in the more important manufactures of Richmond is about $5,000,000.

The town of Petersburg has eight cotton manufacturing establishments now in full operation. She has leased three flouring-mills, a paper-mill, a woollen factory, &c., with a fixed capital of near

$1,000,000 in cotton manufactories, $ 125,000 in flouring-mills, and $1,000,000 in tobacco manufactories.

Wheeling, with a population of over 10,000 inhabitants, has 136 establishments for the manufacture of domestic goods, raising annually 1,243,000 bushels of coal, and giving employment to more than 1,700 persons, yielding an annual product worth $2,000,000. Her chief manufactures are iron castings, bar iron, and glass. Near Wheeling, and in the vicinity of Richmond, 7,000,000 bushels of coal are raised annually. Near Richmond alone, the quantity raised exceeds 5,000,000 bushels.

The small town of Fredericksburg has several iron and woollen manufactories, which, with flouring and other mills, employ a capital of about $250,000.

Lynchburg. This large and flourishing town, with near 7,000 inhabitants, is a place of large operations in the manufacture of tobacco, iron, flour, cotton, &c., amounting to several millions of dollars annually.

From other places where manufactories are in operation, I have no particular information.

General Estimate.

In Wheeling, Petersburg, Richmond, Lynchburg, Fredericksburg, and Kanawha County, there are more than $11,000,000 employed in the leading manufactures of these places. There are, besides, cotton manufactories, blast furnaces, and founderies, in many of the counties. Virginia has every element and every advantage for manufacturing. Cotton, iron, lead, hemp, and wool are diffused in each of her four grand divisions, and salt in the Southwest. Her water power is not excelled, and I doubt whether it is equalled, in any other State in the Union. The importance of her manufactures is far better appreciated among her citizens than formerly. I doubt whether so rapid, so general, and so great a change in favor of this object has taken place anywhere else in the United States as has occurred in this old Commonwealth during the last two years. She was the tobacco State a few years ago; now, the West, but for the peculiar excellence of her tobacco, would crowd her out of foreign markets, or put the price down so low that the cost of its productions, and the advantage of more profitable pursuits she enjoys by reason of her position, would induce her perhaps to abandon entirely, certainly in a great degree, its culture in a few years.

Last year there were received at the port of New Orleans, from the tobacco regions of the West, more than twice as many hogsheads of tobacco as the entire crop of Virginia, while a large portion of the Western crop was via Pennsylvania to Baltimore and elsewhere. This is

an important fact regarding the destinies of Virginia. She must become a manufacturing State.

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The people generally are fast giving up their old notions on the tariff, or those notions which were once regarded as peculiarly Virginian. majority may now be found in favor of the tariff views, as advocated by the people of Richmond in their memorial adverted to in the early part of this review.

Hurried as I am, I deem it of importance to give you this additional sketch, showing the probable amount of raw cotton manufactured or used by our factories in Virginia.

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New York, 6th November, 1843.

MY DEAR SIR, — In conformity with my promise on Saturday last, I now send you the annexed statement of prices of articles of American manufacture in this city, in the months of July, August, and September of 1842, and the corresponding months of 1843.

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Since August, 1842, there have been but very few, if any, nails manufactured in this country of imported iron. Prior to January, 1842, the bulk of nails sold in this market were from Swedes' iron, when the wholesale price of that description of iron seldom reached so low a point as $80 per ton. Since August, 1842, the price has ranged from $ 70 to $75 per ton. Competition among American manufacturers (aided, probably, by low prices in Europe) has reduced the prices of bar iron and nails in this country. Prices of iron in Europe have been depressed in consequence of our tariff, and consequently it is the operation of the tariff alone which now enables the consumer to purchase these articles at their present reduced rates. I have long been satisfied that English iron, particularly, could be afforded to us even under the present tariff; the prices in England being regulated rather by what the articles would command here, than the cost of production there. If this be true, the reduction of duties designed by the compromise tariff was defeated, and the benefit accrued to the foreign producers.

Since writing the above, a friend has furnished me with the following facts relative to the prices of Scotch pig-iron in this city, and also in Scotland, in August, 1842, and August, 1843:

Say-In August, 1842, the price in this city was,

In August, 1843,

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$25.00 per ton. $23.50 per ton.

Say-In August, 1842, the price of same iron in Scotland was £2 15s. per ton. In August, 1843, it would be,

£2 per ton.

No. V.- Page 179.

Extract from an Address to the States, adopted by Congress on the 24th of April, 1783, on the Report of a Committee consisting of Messrs. Madison, Hamilton, and Ellsworth.

IF other motives than those of justice be requisite on this occasion, no nation could ever feel stronger; for to whom are the debts to be paid?

To an ally, in the first place, who, to the exertion of his arms in support of our cause, has added the succor of his treasure; who, to his important loans, has added liberal donations; and whose loans themselves carry the impression of his magnanimity and friendship.

To individuals in a foreign country, in the next place, who were the first to give so precious a token of their confidence in our justice, and of their friendship for our cause, and who are members of a republic which was second in espousing our rank among nations.

Another class of creditors is that illustrious and patriotic band of our fellow-citizens, whose blood and whose bravery have defended the liberties of their country; who have patiently borne, among other dis

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