fufpended by a deep blue ribband edged with white, descriptive of the union of America and France.

The motives which originally induced the officers of the American army to form themfelves into a fociety of friends, are fummed up in a masterly manner in their circular letter. Having,' fay they, lived in the ftrictest habits of amity through the various ftages of a war, unparalleled in many of its circumftances, having feen the objects for which we have contended, happily attained; in the moment of triumph and feparation, when we were about to act the last pleafing melancholy fcene in our military drama-pleafing, because we were to leave our country poffeffed of independence and peace-melancholy, because we were to part, perhaps never to meet again; while every breaft was penetrated with feelings which can be more easily conceived than defcribed; while every little act of tenderness recurred fresh to the recollection, it was impoffible not to wish our friendships fhould be continued; it was extremely natural to defire they might be perpetuated by our pofterity to the remoteft ages. With these impreffions, and with fuch fentiments, we candidly confefs we figned the inflitution. We know our motives were irreproachable"

They reft their inftitution upon the two great pillars of FRIENDSHIP and CHARITY. Their benevolent intentions are, to diffufe comfort and fupport to any of their unfortunate companions who have seen better days, and merited a milder fate; to wipe the tear from the eye of the widow, who must have been configned, with her helpless infants, to indigence and wretchednefs, but for this charitable inftitution-to fuccour the fatherlefs to rescue the female orphan from destruction, and to enable the fon to emulate the virtues of the father. 'Let us then,' they conclude, 'profecute with ardour what we have inftituted in fincerity; let Heaven and our own confciences approve our conduct; let our actions be our best comment on our words; and let us leave a leffon to pofterity, THAT THE GLORY OF SOLDIERS CANNOT BE COMPLETED WITHOUT ACTING WELL THE PART OF CITIZENS.'

Agriculture, Commerce and Manufactures.] The two important objects of attention in the United States, are agriculture and commerce. The richness of the foil, which amply rewards the induftrious hufbandman ; the temperature of the climate, which admits of steady labour; the cheapnefs of land, which tempts the foreigner from his native home, lead us to fix on agriculture as the great leading intereft of this country. This furnishes outward cargoes not only for all our own fhips, but for thofe alfo which foreign nations fend to our ports; or in other words, it pays for all our importations; it fupplies a great part of the clothing of the inhabitants, and food for them and their cattle. What is comfumed at

with a fword and other military enfigns: On a field in the back ground bis wife ftanding at the door of their cottage; near it a plough and other inftruments of bufbandry. Round the whole, omnia reliquit fervare rempublicam. On the reverfe, the fun rifing, a city with open gates, and veffels entering the port; fame crowning Cincinnatus with a wreath, infcribed, virtutis præmium. Below, hands joining, fupporting a beart, with the motto, efto perpetua. Round the whole, Societas Cincinnatorum, inftituta, A. D. 1783.

home, including the materials for manufacturing, is four or five times the value of what is exported.

The number of people employed in agriculture, is at least nine parts in ten of the inhabitants of the United States. It follows of courfe that they form the body of the militia, who are the bulwark of the nation. The value of the property occupied by agriculture, is many times greater than the property employed in every other way. The fettlement of wafte lands, the fuld vifion of farms, and the numerous improvements in hufbandry, annually increafe the pre-eminence of the agricultural interest. The refources we derive from it, are at all times certain and indifpenfibly neceffary. Befides, the rural life promotes health, by its active nature, and morality, by keeping people from the luxuries and vices of the populous towns. In short, agriculture is the fpring of our commerce, and the parent of our manufactures.

The vast extent of fea coaft, which spreads before thefe confederated ftates; the number of excellent harbours and fea-port towns; the numerous creeks and immenfe bays, which indent the coaft; and the rivers, lakes and canals, which peninsulate the whole country; added to its agricultural advantages and improvements, give this part of the world fuperior advantages for trade. Our commerce, including our exports, imports, fhipping, manufactures and fifheries, may properly be confidered as forming one intereft. This has been confidered as the great object, and the most important intereft of the New England ftates; but erroneously, for, according to the beft calculations which have been made, the proportion of property, and the number of men employed in manufactures, fisheries, navigation and trade, do not, even in this commercial part of the union, amount to one-eighth of the property and people occupied in agriculture. In this estimate fuitable deductions are made from the value and population of the large towns, for the idle and diffipated, for those who live upon their incomes, and for fupernumerary domeftic fervants. But taking the union at large, the difproportion is much greater. The timber, iron, cordage, and many other articles neceffary for building fhips to fish or trade ; nine parts in ten of their cargoes; the fubfiftence of the manufactures, and a great part of their raw materials, are the produce of our lands.

Since commercé has ever been confidered as the handmaid of agriculture, particularly in this country, where the agricultural intereft fo greatly predominates; and fince neither can flourish without the other, policy and intereft point out the neceffity of fuch a fyftem of commercial and agricultural regulations, as will originate and effectually preferve a proper connection and balance between them.

The confumption of fith, oil, whale-bone and other articles, obtained through the fisheries, in the towns and counties that are convenient to navigation, has become much greater than is generally fuppofed. It is computed that no less than five thousand barrels of mackarel, falmon, and pickled codfish, are vended annually in the city of Philadelphia: Add to them the dried fish, oil, fpermaceti candles, whale-bone, &c. and it will be found that a little fleet of floops and fchooners are employed in the bufinefs. The number of coafting veffels entered at the custom-houfe of Philadelphia in the year 1785, was five hundred and fixty-feven; all the

other

other entries of fea veffels in the fame year were five hundred and one. The demand for the forementioned articles is proportionably great in other parts of the union, (efpecially in Bofton and the large commercial towns that lie along the coalt north-eastward, which enter largely into the fishing trade, and the veffels employed in tranfporting them proportionably numerous. These increase of our towns and manufactures will increase the demand for these articles, and of course the number of coafting veffels. In the prefent ftate of our navigation, we can be in no doubt of procuring the fupplies by means of our own veffels. This will afford encouragement to the business of fhip-building, and encrease the number of our feamen, who must hereafter form an important part of the defence of our country. Add to these our profpects from the fur trade of Canada. The vast fettlements which are making at Pittsburg and in other parts in the neighbourhood of Canada; the advantages of our inland navigation, by means of the lakes, the northern branches of the Ohio, the Patomnak, the Sufquehannah, and the Hudfon, with many other circumftances, depending not only on the fituation but likewife on the climate, proximity, &c. muft in a few years put a large share of this fur trade into our hands, and procure us at leaft, our proportionable fhare of the large profits thence arifing, which Canada, fince the year 1763, has enjoyed almost exclufively. These advantages, however, are ftill but in profpect; and muft remain fo until the British agreeably to treatry, fhall have evacuated the forts of Niagara, the large fettlements of the Heights, and that of Michillimakinak. Although the British, by the treaty of peace, are to enjoy with us the portages of the navigation of the lakes, yet fhould a difpute arife, it will not be convenient for them to contend with us: for the northern and north-eastern parts of the continent included in the British limits, are much colder, more mountainous, and poorer than the United States; and have no rivers, but fuch as are full of rapids and fails; consequently, this trade cannot be carried on by the Canadians with the fame facility nor advantage as by us. Still they will have left the exclufive right to the cummunication from Montreal with the high-iands, through the large river of the Owtawas which flows into the river St. Lawrence at the lake of the two mountains, nine miles from that city; bat its rapids, or rather its furies, and everlasting falls, will render this way, if not impracticable, at least always very expensive and precarions.

The quantity of fur exported from the northern parts of America to Great-Britain, have amounted yearly to about forty-one thousand pounds fterling, eftimated from the freight during the year 1768, 1769 and 1770. The export of buck-fkins amounted to upwards of thirty-three thoufand pounds. The fales of fur, which take place in London every fpring, produced, in 1782, four thousand seven hundred pounds. It was a little increated in 1783, and in 1784 it exceeded two hundred and forty-five thousand pounds. All this fur is paid for by English manufactures; and a fourth part of it is worked in England, where its worth is doubled, This valuable trade, which is carried on through Quebec, muft unavoidably fall into our hands, as foon as the fortifications which the British ftill poffefs in our northern territories fhall be reftored to us. To this confideration, rather than to the pretended compaffion for the Royalist, may

be attributed the delay of that reflitution. The period when this reftitution must be made, the British anticipate with forrow. Such are some of the commercial refources and profpects of this country.

But for various reafons, the advantages for trade which nature has fo Hiberally given us, have never yet been properly improved. Before the revolution, Great-Britain claimed an exclufive right to the trade of her American colonies. This right, which the inflexibly maintained, enabled her to fix her own price, as well on the articles which the purchased from us, as upon thofe of her own manufactures exported for our confumption. The carrying trade too, was preferved almoft exclufively in her own hands. which afforded a temptation to the carriers, that was often too powerful to be withstood, to exact exhorbitant commiffions and freights. Although we will not even hazard a conjecture how much Great-Britain enriched herfelf by this exclufive trade with her colonies, yet this we may fay, that by denying us the priviledge of carrying our produce to foreign markets, the deprived us of the opportunity of realizing, in their full extent, the advantages for trade which nature has given us.

The late war, which brought about our separation from Great-Britain, threw our commercial affairs into great confufion. The powers of our national government have hitherto been unequal to the complete execution of any measures, calculated effectually to recover them from their deranged fituation. Through want of power in Congrefs to collect a revenue for the discharge of our foreign and domeftic debt, our credit is destroyed, and trade of confequence greatly embarraffed. Each ftate, hitherto, in her defultory regulations of trade, has regarded her own intereft, while that of the union has been neglected. And fo different are the interefts of the several states, that their laws refpecting trade, have often clashed with each other, and been productive of unhappy confequences. The large commercial ftates have had it in their power to opprefs their neighbours; and in fome inftances this power has been directly or indirectly exercifed. Thefe impolitic and unjuftifiable regulations, formed on the impreffion of the moment, and proceeding from no uniform or permanent principles, have excited unhappy jealoufies between the clashing itates, and occafioned frequent stagnations in their trade, and in fome inftances, a fecrecy in their commercial policy. This laft mentioned circumflance together with the inconveniencies in fome ftates, want of proper regulations in others, and impoffibility in the reft of preferving compleat accounts of their annual exports and imports, render it impoffible, at present, to give fuch an accurate statement of the trade of the United States, as to determine on which fide the balance lies; whether for or against us.

The British parliament, too well acquainted with our deranged and defenceless fituation, have improved the favourable juncture to fhaskle our trade with every poffible embarraffment. In their late act for regulating the trade between the United States and the West India Islands, they have enacted, That no goods or commodities whatever fhall be imported or brought from any of the territories of the faid United States of America, into any of his Majefty's Weft-India Islands, (in which defcription the Bahama Islands, and the Bermuda, or Somer's Iflands, are included) under penalty of the forfeiture thereof, and alfo of the fhip or veffel, in which

the

the fame fhall be fo imported or brought, together with all her guns, furniture, ammunition, tackle and apparel, except tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, hemp, flax, mafts, yards, bowfprits, ftaves, heading, boards, timber, fhingles, and lumber of any fort; horfes, neat cattle, fheep, hogs, poultry and live ftock of any fort; bread, biscuit, flour, beans, peas, potatoes, wheat, rice, oats, barley, and grain of any fort; fuch commodities refpectively being the growth or production of any of the territories of the faid United States of America.'

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None of thefe commodities enumerated, according to the act, are to be imported into any of the faid islands from the United States, under the like forfeiture as above-mentioned, except by British fubjects, in British built fhips, owned by his majefty's fubjects, and navigated according to law.'

All fuch goods or commodities, as are not by law prohibited to be exported to any foreign country, may by virtue of this act, be exported from the Weft- India Islands, in British veffels only, to any part of the United States. Salt from Turks Island is the only exception. This article may be brought away by American veffels going in ballaft, not otherwife, on paying a tonnage duty of two fhillings and fix-pence fterling for every ton.

This act also prohibits the importation of any of the forementioned articles, such as tobacco, pitch, tar, &c. into any island, under the dominion of his majesty, in the Weft-Indies, from any island in the Weft-Indies, under the dominion of any foreign European fovereign, or ftate, upon the penalty of the forfeiture of the veffel and cargo; except in cafes of public emergency and diftrefs.

The trade of the United States, carried on with the provinces of NovaScotia, New-Brunswick, the Iflands of Cape-Breton, St. John's, Newfoundland, and the province of Quebec, is fubject to the forementioned regulations and restrictions. In regard to the province of Quebec, however, it must be here observed, that Lord Dorchester, in an ordinance iffued April 17, 1788, has enacted, That all goods, wares, and merchandifes (beaver peltries and furs excepted) of the growth and manufacture or product of this province, or of any other the dominions of Great-Britain, and fuch as may lawfully be imported into this province by fea, may be exported therefrom by land or inland navigation, to any of the neighbouring ftates, free from duty, impoft or restraint. And there fhall be the like freedom of importation from the faid ftates into this province, if the fame be made by the route, or communication of Lake Champlain and the river Sorel or Richelieu, and not otherwise, of the following enumerated articles, that is to say. mafts, yards, bowfprits, fpars, plank, boards, knees, futtocks, or any kind of fhip-timber; hoops, ftaves, fhingles, clapboards, trees, wood, lumber, pitch, tar, turpentine, tallow, hemp, flax, and any kind of naval ftores; feeds, wheat, rye, Indian corn, beans, peas, potatoes, rice, oats, barley, and all other grains; butter, cheefe, honey, horfes, neat cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, and other live ftock, and live provifions, and fresh fish; and whatsoever is of the growth of the faid ftates; and gold or filver coin or bullion.'

In this ordinance it is further enacted, That the importation by land or by inland navigation into this province, of rum, fpirits, copper, coin,

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and