Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/132

106, and the scarcity of the specie which should bestow on it vigour and activity; a persuasion being entertained, that these pernicious results are precisely the effect of a free trade.

These vague and unfounded complaints, which confine the view solely to the particular interest of the merchant, instead of extending it to the advantages produced by the different compensations of all the united objects, are to be condemned as contrary to the common felicity and general welfare of the nation.

Foreigners, aware of the advantages which may result from the new regulations, have had recourse to subtleties and sophisms, to bring into discredit this very useful system. Spain, they observe, being but thinly peopled in proportion to her territory, ought not to augment the facilities and resources of the sea-ports, which, by embracing profits at once more prompt, more secure, and more multiplied, cherish commerce, to the prejudice both of agriculture, and of the population. Cadiz, on account of its limited space, being incapable of receiving and maintaining a greater number of inhabitants, the productions were sent thither for traffic, but the families remained on their possessions: hence resulted the double utility of the funds being first circulated, and afterwards remitted into the interior, for the support of the lands on which the proprietors resided. In that port, the number of vessels trading to the Indies is infinitely greater than in any other; consequently, there is a greater opportunity to divide the risks, a necessary stimulus to the merchant, who cannot consent to expose the whole of his property to one fortuitous event. The different speculations, relatively to the scarcity or abundance of certain articles of commerce, which it is easy