Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/135

Rh in the month of October 1778; but could not be carried into general effect until the year 1783, on the conclusion of the peace. As, in the first fervour of novelty, the speculations were multiplied to the extraordinary degree already noticed, the impracticability of the sales and returns occasioned the failure of many merchants, who were obliged to stop payment.

These mischiefs were not, however, precisely owing to a free trade; but arose in a great measure from the defect of not combining, studiously and methodically, the enterprizes with the results that were to be expected from them. As the profession of the merchant depends on the caprices of men, and on a thousand complicated incidents, it requires, to be successfully pursued, a superior spirit of vigilance and attention, such as was certainly not displayed in Peru in the years 1785 and 1786, when the augmented number of importers surcharged with merchandizes, of the value of twenty-four millions of piastres, a kingdom which consumes annually the amount of four only. This excess occasioned so great a stagnation, as entirely to interrupt the course of trade.

To undertake to regulate it by particular laws, and by a fixed number of tons of shippings is to oppose tea transitory evil a constant destruction. Hold out to all the subjects of a state the hope of acquiring, as well as of enjoying the fruit of their labour; and their reverses will render them more circumspect; in the means they will embrace. Agriculture and commerce are, in common with all the arts, advanced by two principles, namely, interest and liberty. The direction of these principles belongs to the government; but the citizen being once placed in the road which leads to the common city,