Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/86

76 as these people are to such luxury, and to such an enormous consumption, they cannot at once abolish the one nor the other; and hence the embarrassments in which the country finds itself. I have before pointed out some of the other causes which have contributed, and still contribute to this decline, and ruinous obstruction, under which the Anglo-American commerce labours. The other causes are obvious, resulting from the very elements of the federal constitution, and from the contradiction and contrariety of interests and of ideas, among the different States of which the Union is composed.

The mercantile speculators, who have disposable funds, dare not undertake any thing, with the gloomy prospect which commercial transactions now present. I say, those who have disposable funds, for there are many who have them not disposable, who have not been able to realize them, in consequence of the severe losses they have lately sustained in all their expeditions; and there are others, who although they have saved a considerable estate from the bankruptcies they have made, conceal it by affecting to be left without means. The number of the latter is very considerable, in all the ports and cities of the Union. Of a hundred bankruptcies, there will be scarcely one that is not fraudulent; there are few countries in which speculation and traffick are carried on with so much stratagem, and fraud, and scandal. Good faith is a