134

Extract of a letter from Benjamin Austin.

found, either out of the manufacture itself, or from some other object which may be deemed more convenient.”

To fill up the chasm here, we annex the opinions of the expresident, Mr. Jefferson, on the same subject, given in reply to a letter from Benjamin Austin, Esq. of Boston. Extract of a letter from Benjamin Austin, Esq. to the Hon. Thomas Jefferson.

December 9, 1815.

'As the present state of our country demands extraordinary efforts in congress to bring forward the agricultural and manufacturing interests of the United States, I am induced to mention a plea often used by the friends of England, that the work-shops of Europe are recommended by you as the most proper to furnish articles of manufacture to the citizens of the United States, by which they infer that it is your opinion, that the MANUFACTURES of this country are not proper objects for congressional protection. They frequently enlarge on this idea as corresponding with your sentiments, and endeavour to weaken our exertions in this particular, by quoting you as the advocate of foreign manufactures, to the exclusion of domestic. Not that these persons have any friendly motive towards you: but they think it will answer their purposes if such sentiments can be promulgated with an appearance of respect to your opinion. I am sensible that many of these persons mean to misrepresent your real intentions; being convinced that the latitude they take with your remarks on manufactures, is far beyond what you contemplated at the period they were written. The purity of your mind could not lead you to anticipate the perfidy of foreign nations, which has since taken place.-If you had, it is impossible that you would have discouraged the manufactures of a nation, whose fields have since been abundantly covered with merino sheep, flax and cotton; or depended on looms at 6000 miles distance, to furnish the citizens with clothing, when their internal resources were adequate to produce such necessaries by their domestic industry.

You will pardon my remarks, and excuse my freedom in writing you on this subject. But it would be an essential service at this crisis, when the subject of manufactures will come so powerfully before congress, by petitions from

Extract of a letter from Benjamin Austin. 135

various establishments, if you would condescend to express more minutely your idea of the workshops of Europe, in the supply of such articles as can be manufactured among ourselves. An explanation from you on this subject would greatly contribute to the advancement of those manufactures, which have risen during the late war to a respectable state of maturity and improvement. Domestic manufactures are the object contemplated; instead of establishments under the sole control of capitalists, our children may be educated under the inspection of their parents while the habits of industry may be duly inculcated.

If the general idea should prevail that you prefer foreign work-shops to domestic, the high character you sustain among the friends of our country, may lead them to a discouragement of that enterprize which is viewed by many as an essential object of our national independence. I should not have taken the freedom of suggesting my ideas, but being convinced of your patriotism, and devotedness to the good of your country, I am urged to make the foregoing observations; your candour will excuse me if they wrong.'

Extract from Mr. Jefferson's answer.

are

January 9th. 1816.

'You tell me I am quoted by those who wish to continue our dependence on England for manufactures. There was a time when I might have been so quoted with more candour. But within the thirty years which have since elapsed, how are circumstances changed? We were then in peace -our independent place among nations was acknowledged. A commerce which offered the raw materials in exchange for the same material, after receiving the last touch of industry was worthy the attention of all nations. It was expected, that those especially to whom manufacturing industry, was important, would cherish the friendship of such customers by every favour, and particularly cultivate their peace by every act of justice and friendship. Under this prospect the question seemed legitimate, whether with such an immensity of unimproved land, courting the hand of husbandry, the industry of agriculture or that of manufactures, would add most to the national wealth? And the doubt on the utility of American manufactures was entertained on this consideration chiefly, that to the labour of the husbandman a vast addition is made by the spontaneous

energies of the earth on which it is employed. For one grain of wheat committed to the earth, she renders 20, 30, and even 50 fold.-Whereas the labour of the manufacturer falls in most instances vastly below this profit. Pounds of flax in his hands, yield but penny weights of lace. This exchange, too, laborious as it might seem, what a field did it promise for the occupation of the ocean-what a nursery for that class of citizens who were to exercise and maintain our equal rights on that element?-This was the state of things in 1785, when the Notes on Virginia were first published; when the ocean being open to all nations, and their common rights on it acknowledged and exercised under regulations sanctioned by the assent and usages of all, it was thought that the doubt might claim some consideration. But who, in 1785, could foresee the rapid depravity which was to render the close of that century a disgrace to the history of civilized society? Who could have imagined that the two most distinguished in the rank of nations, for science and civilization, would have suddenly descended from that honourable eminence, and setting at defiance all those laws established by the Author of Nature between nation and nation, as between man and man, would cover earth and sea with robberies and piracies, merely because strong enough to do it with temporal impunity; and that under this disbandment of nations from social order, we should have been despoiled of a thousand ships, and have thousands of our citizens reduced to Algerine slavery? And all this has taken place. The British interdicted to our vessels all harbours of the globe, without having first proceeded to some one of theirs, there paid a tribute proportioned to the cargo, and obtained a license to proceed to the port of destination. The French declared

them to be lawful prize if they had touched at a port, or been visited by a ship, of the enemy nation. Compare this state of things with that of '85, and say whether an opinion founded in the circumstances of that day, can be fairly applied to those of the present. We have experienced what we did not then believe, that there exists both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations; that to be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist. The former question is suppressed, or rather assumes a new form. The grand inquiry now is, shall we

make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us either to a dependence on that nation, or to be clothed in skins and to live like wild beasts, in dens and caverns.-I am proud to say, I AM NOT ONE OF THESE. Experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort---and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign, where an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not have a supply at home equal to our demand, and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has so long wantonly wielded it. If it shall be proposed to go beyond our own supply, the question of '85 will then recur, viz.: Will our surplus labour be then inore beneficially employed in the culture of the earth, or in the fabrications of art? We have time yet for consideration, before that question will press upon us; and the maxim to be applied will depend on the circumstances which shall then exist. For in so complicated a science as political economy, no one maxim can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances. Inattention to this is what has called for this explanation, to answer the cavils of the uncandid, who use my former opinion only as a stalking-horse to keep us in eternal vassalage to a foreign and unfriendly nation,'

NO. X.

Philadelphia, June 18, 1819. AN idea appears to be entertained by many persons that our views lead to great innovations, and to advocate visionary and new formed projects, of which the results may be pernicious. The extracts from the report of Alexander Hamilton, on manufactures, contained in our last address, ought to remove all doubt on this subject. That most excellent document presented to the United States a plan of policy which embraced, on the most liberal scale, that protection of the manufacturing industry of the United States, of which we are endeavouring, with our feeble ef forts, to prove the necessity.

We now lay before you two important reports of the committee of commerce and manufactures of the congress of 1816—that congress by which was enacted the tariff that has produced the present calamitous state of affairs. These documents fully prove, that the subject had been duly considered, and was fully understood by that committee, whose wise counsels, unfortunately, were over-ruled by the disciples of Adam Smith, those gentlemen, whose maxim is to buy where articles can be had cheapest"a maxim, we repeat, to the utter rejection of which Great Britain owes the great mass of her wealth, power, and resources-a maxim which has never failed to ruin any nation by which it has been adopted.

A cursory view of these reports will evince the sagacity of the gentlemen by whom they were drawn up. Their predictions have unhappily become history. The present impoverishment of the country, obviously resulting from the neglect of protecting domestic manufactures, was as clearly foretold by them, in 1816, as it can now be described by the most accurate pencil. In an ill hour, the admonitions of the committee were disregarded-and heavily the nation at present pays the forfeit.

We annex to these reports the petition of the cotton manufacturers of Oneida county, in the state of New York, presented to congress in the year 1818, a pathetic appeal to their fellow citizens for protection---an appeal to which no attention whatever was paid. They were consigned to ruin, without the least attempt to interpose in their favour.

Report of the committee of commerce and manufactures, to

which were referred the memorials and petitions of the manufacturers of cotton wool.-February 13, 1816. "The committee of commerce and manufactures, to which were referred the memorials and petitions of the manufacturers of cotton wool, respectfully submit the fol. lowing REPORT...

"The committee were conscious, that they had no ordinary duty to perform, when the house of representatives referred to their consideration, the memorials and petitions · of the manufacturers of cotton wool. In obedience to the instructions of the house, they have given great attention to the subject, and beg leave to present the result of their de liberations.