Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/88

78 equality with the most speculating and active. Spain has nothing to envy any other nation in the world: her topographical situation, the fertility of her soil, the excellence of her productions, the abundance of all raw materials, and of every thing necessary to life, or useful for pleasure, afford her the natural means of becoming the first nation in Europe. All acknowledge this truth; and nothing is wanting but to adopt adequate and proper measures to realize it. These are very obvious, and the great Jovillanos points them out in one word, in his Agrarian law: to respect the right of property, and let every one manage it as it suits him. In fact, of what use is it to the labourer to toil for a plentiful harvest, if he is not permitted to export and sell his wheat how and where it suits him? Of what use is it to the manufacturer to spend immense sums in perfecting his art, if when he has brought it to the highest state of perfection, there comes an exclusive privilege, or a diminution of duties upon the same foreign goods, and thus entirely destroys the fruits of his industry? Commerce, like water, always seeks its level, and wherever there is a scarcity of one commodity or produce, there the merchant will carry it without being solicited to do so. If Spain Avould sell her wheat to the English, Portuguese, or French, on terms which are needed in Spain, the Americans, English, French, and Portuguese, would flock to Spain with their overplus, and the