Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/253

Rh chuſe to bring into our ports, and aſking the ſame in theirs. Never was ſo much falſe arithmetic employed on any ſubject, as that which has been employed to perſuade nations that it is their intereſt to go to war. Where the money which it has coſt to gain, at the cloſe of a long war, a little town, or a little territory, the right to cut wood here, or catch fiſh there, expended in improving what they already poſſeſs, in making roads, opening rivers, building ports, improving the arts, and finding employment for their idle poor, it would render them much ſtronger, much wealthier and happier. This I hope will be our wiſdom. And, perhaps, to remove as much as poſſible the occaſions of making war. It might be better for us to abondon the ocean altogether, that being the element whereon we ſhall be principally expoſed to joſtle with other nations; to leave to others to bring what we ſhall want, and to carry what we can ſpare. This would make us invulnerable to Europe, by offering none of our property to their prize, and would turn all our citizens to the cultivation of the earth; and, I repeat it again, cultivators of the earth are the moſt virtuous and independent citizens. It might be time enough to ſeek employment for them at ſea, when the land no longer offers it. But the actual habits of our countrymen attach them to commerce. They will exerciſe it for themſelves. Wars then muſt ſometimes be our lot; and all the wiſe can do, will be to avoid that half of them which would be produced by our own follies and our own acts of injuſtices; and to make for the other half the beſt preparations we can. Of what nature ſhould theſe be? A land army would be uſeleſs for offence, and not the beſt nor