Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/238

228 Having often ſeen ſoup, when put upon the table at ſea in broad flat diſhes, thrown out on every ſide by the rolling of the veſſel, I have wiſhed that our tin-men would make our ſoup-baſons with diviſions or compartments; forming fmall plates, proper, for containing ſoup for one perſon only. By this diſpoſition, the ſoup, in an extraordinary roll, would not be thrown out of the plate, and would not fall into the breads of thoſe who are at table, and ſcald them.—Having entertained you with theſe things of little importance, permit me now to conclude with ſome general reflections upon navigation.

When navigation is employed only for tranſporting neceſſary proviſions from one country, where they abound, to another where they are wanting; when by this it prevents famines which were ſo frequent and ſo fatal before it was invented and became ſo common; we cannot help conſidering it as one of thoſe arts which contribute moſt to the happineſs of mankind.—But when it is employed to tranſport things of no utility, or articles merely of luxury, it is uncertain whether the advantages reſulting from it are ſufficient to counterbalance the misfortunes it occaſions, by expoſing the lives of ſo many individuals upon the vaſt ocean. And when it is uſed to plunder veſſels and tranſport ſlaves, it is evidently only the dreadful means of increaſing thoſe calamities which afflict human nature.

One is aſtoniſhed to think on the number of veſſels and men who are daily expoſed in going to bring tea from China, coffee from Arabia, and ſugar and tobacco from America; all commodities which our anceſtors lived very well without. The ſugar trade employs nearly a thouſand veſſels; and that of tobacco almoſt the ſame