taught any habits and any sentiments; and that these, with the bodily and mental propensities and faculties existing at birth in each individual, combined with the general circumstances in which he is placed, constitute the whole character of the mau.

It is thence evident that human nature can be improved and formed into the character which it is for the interest and happiness of all it should possess, solely by directing the attention of mankind to the adoption of legislative measures judiciously calculated to give the best habits, and most just and useful sentiments to the rising generation;-and in an especial manner to those who are placed in situations, which, without such measures, render them liable to be taught the worst habits, and the most useless and injùrious sentiments.

I ask those who have studied the science of government upon those enlightened principles which alone ought to influence the statesman, What is the difference, in a national view, between an individual trained in habits which give him health, temperance, industry, correct principles of judging, foresight, and general good conduct; and one trained in ignorance, idleness, intemperance, defective powers of judging, and in general vicious habits? Is not one of the former of more real worth and political strength to the state than many of the latter?

Are there not millions in the British dominions on whom this difference can be made? And if a change, which so essentially affects the well-being of those individuals, and, through them, of every member of the empire, may be made, is it not the first duty of the government and the country to put into immediate practice the means which can effect the change?

⚫ Shall then such important measures be waived, and the best interests of this country compromised, because one party wishes its own peculiar principles to be forced on the young mind; or because another is afraid that the advantages to be derived from this improved system of legislation will be so great as to give too much popularity and influence to the ministers who shall introduce it?

The termination of such errors in practice is, I trust, near at hand, and then Government will be no longer compelled to sacrifice the well-doing and the well-being of the great mass of the people

and of the empire, to the prejudices of comparatively a few individuals, trained to mistake even their own security and interests.

Surely a measure most obviously calculated to render a greater benefit to millions of our fellow-creatures than any other ever yet adopted, cannot be much longer suspended, because one party in the state may erroneously suppose it would weaken their influence over the public mind, unless that party shall alone direct the plan, but which direction, it is most obvious, the intelligence of the age will not commit to any party exclusively. Or because others, trained in very opposite principles, may imagine that a national system of education for the poor and lower orders, under the sanction of Government, but superintended and directed in its details by the country, would place a dangerous power in the hands of ministers of the Crown.

Such sentiments as these cannot exist in minds divested of party considerations, who sincerely desire to benefit their fellow-men, who have no private views to accomplish, and who wish to support and strengthen the Government, that the Government may be be the better enabled to adopt decisive and effectual measures for the general amelioration of the people.

I now therefore, in the name of the millions of the neglected poor and ignorant, whose habits and sentiments have been hitherto formed to render them wretched, call upon the British government and the British nation to unite their efforts, to arrange a system to train and instruct those, who for any good or useful purpose, are now untrained and uninstructed; and to arrest by a clear, easy, and practical system of prevention, the ignorance and consequent poverty, vice and misery, which are rapidly increasing throughout the empire; for, "Train up a child in the way he should when he is old he will not depart from it."

go,

and

CONSIDERATIONS

ON THE

British Commerce,

WITH REFERENCE

PARTICULARLY TO

BRITISH INDIA,

THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

AND

THE SLAVE TRADE.

LONDON.

1817.

ADVERTISEMENT.

SINCE the following argument was framed, the East-India, Gibraltar, and Malta Trade Bill has passed the Legislature.—That Bill is of great consequence, and is in agreement with the principles laid down in this Essay; but, being only partial in operation, does not preclude the consideration of the subject at large. The duty on Rice has also been rescinded, but, being a measure of temporary and exigent regulation, does not affect the general course of the argument.

CONSIDERATIONS,

&c. &c. &c.

THE causes which tend to the decline of rich and powerful States, are counteracted in the instance of Great Britain :

First.-By her Social Institutions, which dispense to industry and talent the rewards of wealth and distinction, and consequently assure to the community a constant succession of active and able members.

Second. In her Trans-Marine Dominions, which not only constitute an extension of her agriculture and give increase to her trade, but by the direct and relative employment of seamen, contribute most of the advantages, without the expence and civil evils of a standing military force for defence.

Relatively to those dominions, chiefly, it is now purposed to examine some of the particulars of the British Commerce; the inquiry leads to remarks on the trade of the United States of America, and also brings the Slave Trade into a point of view in which it does not appear to have been hitherto considered.

Europe depends upon the Countries within and adjacent to the Tropics, for vast supplies of Agricultural produce.

A Tropical, or other Trans-marine Farm, within the British Dominions, is, in effect, a British Farm, with the advantage common to every other British Farm, of producing that within the Empire, for which a Foreign Nation must otherwise be paid; with the further advantage of employing the mariners who convey the produce to market.

The British Tropical Dependencies exceed in the production of most of their staple articles, the home consumption; they of themselves, give to Great Britain, the character of an export country, and her power will be in proportion to her independence of Supply from other nations, for her own consumption, and to the extent of