Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/141

 specie. Foreign capitalists, who engage their funds in American speculations, must also have the dividends, or profits on their stock, paid in the precious metals. The grain raised by the American farmer is sent abroad, but the price is greatly reduced by expense and risk incurred by a voyage, also by the profits of merchants on both sides of the Atlantic. The cotton and the wool are sent to Europe under similar disadvantages, and a repetition of them in reconveying the manufactured goods to America. A few facts will set this impolicy in a strong light. Cotton, which now sells in the United States for a few cents per pound, is, in certain cases, sent to England, and returned to the wearer at nearly as many dollars. A gentleman from Mount Sterling, about thirty miles east of this place, told me that a good coat of English manufacture, costs there thirty-six dollars. Indian corn sells at twenty-five cents per bushel. The farmer, then, who wears such a coat, must pay a hundred and forty-four bushels for it,—a quantity sufficient to be bread for twelve men for a whole year. One pound of good tea costs twelve bushels,—bread for one man for a year. A chemical manufacturer, at Pittsburg, buys saltpetre imported from India, cheaper than he can procure the spontaneous product from the {111} caverns of Kentucky. Although most of the metallic and earthy substances, useful in manufacture, are abundant in America, she imports jewellery, cutlery, glass, crystal, earthen and porcelain wares. By this means the republic discourages her own artizans, and pays the taxes of foreign monarchies. Under the present money system it is in vain that nature has diffused her mineral resources over the New World. In vain will the government impose the highest restrictive duties on imported goods, while every