ands that produce this commodity, he would not have feen the fugar fimply Spotted with blood, he would have beheld it entirely tinged with it.

These wars make the maritime powers of Europe, and the inhabitants of Paris and London, pay much dearer for their fugar than thofe of Vienna, though they are almost three hundred leagues diftant from the fea. A pound of fugar, indeed, costs the former not only the price which they give for it, but also what they pay in taxes neceffary to fupport thofe fleets and armies which ferve to defend and protect the countries that produce it.

On LUXURY, IDLENESS, and INDUSTRY. FROM A LELTER TO BENJAMIN VAUGHAN, Esq. WRITTEN IN 1784.

It is wonderful how propofteroufly the affairs of this

world are managed. Naturally one would imagine that the interest of a few individuals fhould give way to general intereft; but individuals manage their affairs with fo much more application, industry and address, than the public do theirs, that general intereft most commonly gives way to particular. We affemble parliaments and councils, to have the benefit of their collected wifdom; but we neceffarily have, at the fame time, the inconvenience of their collected paffions, prejudices, and private interefts. By the help of thefe, artful men overpower their wifdom, and dupe its poffeffors; and if we may judge by the acts, arrets, and edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an affembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth.

I have not yet, indeed, thought of a remedy for luxury. I am not sure that in a great ftate it is capable of a remedy; nor that the evil is in itfelf always fo great as it is reprefented. Suppose we include in the definition of luxury all unneceffary expence, and then let us confider whether laws to prevent fuch expence are poflible to be executed in a great country, and whether, if they could be executed, our people generally would be happier, or even richer. Is not the

hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries, a great fpur to labour and industry? May luxury therefore produce more than it confumes, if, without fuch a spur, people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to to be, lazy and indolent?. To this purpose I remember a circumftance. The skipper of a fhallop, employed between Cape-May and Philadelphia, had done us fome small fervice, for which he refused to be paid. My wife underflanding that he had a daughter, fent her a prefent of a new fashioned cap. Three years after, this skipper being at my house with an old farmer of Cape-May, his paffenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleafed with it. "But (faid he) it proved a dear cap to our congregation."" How fo ?" When my daughter appeared with it in meeting, it was fo much admired, that all the girls refolved to get fuch caps from Philadelphia; · and my wife and I computed that the whole could not have coft left than a hundred pounds"- "True, (faid the farmer) but you do not tell all the story. I think the cap was nevertheless an advantage to us; for it was the first thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for fale at. Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there; and you know that that industry has continued, and is likely to continue and increase to a much greater value, and anfwer much better purposes."-Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little piece of luxury, fince not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps, but the Philidelphians by the fupply of warm mittens.

In our commercial towns upon the fea-coaft, fortunes will occafionly be made. Some of those who grow rich will be prudent, live within bounds, and preferve what they have gained for their pofterity: others, fond of fhewing their wealth, will be extravagant and ruin themselves. Laws cannot prevent this: and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public. A fhilling fpent idly by a fool, may be picked up by a wifer perfon, who knows better what to do with it. It is therefore not loft. A vain, filly fellow builds a fine houfe, furnishes it richly, lives in it expenfively, and in a few years ruins himself: but the mafons, carpenters, fmiths, and other honeft tradefmen, have been

by his employ assisted in maintaining and raifing their fami lies; the farmer has been paid for his labour, and encou raged, and the eftate is now in better hands. In fome ca fes, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public evil, in the manner as it is a private one. If there be a nation, for inftance, that exports its beef and linen, to pay for the importation of claret and porter, while a great part of its people live upon potatoes and wear no fhirts; wherein does it differ from the fot who lets his family starve, and fells his cloths to buy drink? Our American commerce is I confefs, a little in this way. We fell our victuals to the Ilands for rum and fugar; the fubftantial neceffaries of life for fuperfluities. But we have plenty, and live well nevertheless, though, by being soberer, we might be richer.

The vast quantity of foreft land we have yet to clear, and put in order for cultivation, will for a long time keep the body of our nation laborious and frugal. Forming an opi nion of our people and their manners, by what is seen among the inhabitants of the fea ports, is judging from an improper fample. The people of the trading towns may be rich and luxurious, while the country poffeffes all the vir tues that tend to promote happiness and public prosperity. Thofe towns are not much regarded by the country; they are hardly confidered as an effential part of the ftates; and the experience of the laft war has fhewn, that their being in the poffeffion of the enemy did not neceffarily draw on the fubjection of the country; which bravely continued to maintain its freedom and independence notwithstanding.

It has been computed by fome political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work for four hours each day on fomething ufelul, that labour would produce fufficient to procure all the neceflaries and comforts of life; want and mifery would be banished out of the world, and the rest of the twenty-four hours might be leisure and pleafure.

What occafions then fo much want and mifery P. It is the employment of men aud women in works that pro duce neither the neceffaries or conveniences of life, who, with those that do nothing, confume neceffaries raised by the laborious. To explain this;

The first elements of wealth are obtained by labour, from the earth and waters. I have land, and raise corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing, my corn will be confumed, and at the end of the year I shall be no richer than I was at the beginning. But if while I feed them, I employ them, fome in fpinning, others in making bricks &c. for building, the value of my corn will be arrested and remain with me, and at the end of the year we may be all better clothed and better lodged. And if, in ftead of employing a man I feed in making bricks, I employ him in fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, and no part of his manufacture remains to augment the wealth and convenience of the family; I fhall therefore be the poorer for this fiddling man, unless the rest of my family work more, or eat lefs, to make up the deficiency he oc cafions.

Look round the world, and fee the millions employed in doing nothing, or in fomething that amounts to nothing, when the neceffaries and conveniencies of life are in queftion. What is the bulk of commerce, for which we fight and destroy each other, but the toil of millions for fuperfluities, to the great hazard and lofs of many lives, by the conftant dangers of the sea ? How much labour is spent in building and fitting great fhips, to go to China and Arabia for tea and coffee, to the Weft-Indies for fugar, to America for tobacco ? These things cannot be called the neceffaries of life, for our ancestors lived very comfortably without them.

A question may be afked: Could all these people now employed in raifing, making, or carrying fuperfluities, be fubfifted by raising neceffaries? think they might. The world is large; and a great part of it ftill uncultivated. Many hundred millions of acres in Asia, Africa, and America, are still in a forest, and a great deal even in Europe. On a hundred acres of this forest, a man might become a substantial farmer; and a hundred thousand men employed in clearing each his hundred acres, would hardly brighten a fpot big enough to be vefible from the moon, unless with Herschel's telescope; fo vaft are the regions ftill in wood.

It is however fome comfort to reflect, that, upon the whole, the quantity of industry and pradence among man

kind exceeds the quantity of idleness and folly. Hence the increase of good buildings, farms cultivated, and populous cities filled with wealth, all over Europe, which a few years fince were only to be found on the coafts of the Mediterranean; and this notwiflanding the mad wars continually raging, by which are often deitroyed in one year the works of many years peace. So that we may hope, the luxury of a few merchants on the coaft will not be the ruin of America.

pence

One reflection more, and I will end this long rambling letter. Almoft all the parts of our bodies require fome exThe feet demand fhoes; the legs ftockings; the reft of the body cloathing; and the belly a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, tho' exceedingly ufeful, afk, when reafonable, only the cheap affiftance of fpectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I fhould want neither fine cloathes, fine houses, ner Ane furniture.

READING in the newspapers the fpeech of Mr Jackfon

in congress, against meddling with the affair of slavery, or attempting to mend the condition of flaves, it put me in mind of a fimilar fpeech, made about an hundred years fince, by Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, a member of the divan of Algiers, which may be feen in Martins's account of his confulship, 1687. It was against granting the petition of the fect called Erika or Purifls, who prayed for the abolition of piracy and flavery; as being unjust.—Mr. Jackfon does quote it; perhaps he has not feen it. If, therefore, fome of its reafonings are to be found in his eloquent speech, it may only fhew that men's intereft operate, and are operated on, with furprizing fimilarity, in all countries and climates, when ever they are under fimilar circumftances. The African fpeech, as tranflaten, is as follows:

"Alla Bifmillah, &c. God is grert, and Mahomet is Lis prophet.