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In that highly improved country, every active purfuit has been carried to fuch extent, that enormous capital and animated enterprise feek new fields of action. Before the political convulfion of France, establishments in that country were meditated, and fome actually commenced by enterprising Englishmen. Even in this tremendous war, fo has the course of events concurred with the ability and spirit of Britain, that her wealth and her enriching fources have increased beyond all former experience or hope. Confider then the circumftances of Ireland. Our climate as good and our foil fuperiour; the means of fubfiftence more eafily raised than in almost any other country; a hardy and numerous people capable of furnishing, at moderate rate, a prodigious quantity of ufeful labour, to all the arts of life; and a coaft fuperabundantly supplied with commodious havens for all the purposes of ready export and import. Think alfo of the fituation of Great Britain. The national principal stock fwelled to enormous amount, by the acceffion of emigrated property, and by the profits of enlarged commerce; the fum of wealth employed in war returning, on the establishment of peace, into the bofom of an already incalculable capital; and her people active and experienced in every induftrious and enriching occupation, acute to discern where and how advantages are to be purfued, and bent upon enterprife beyond all other nations. Thus circumftanced these kingdoms become perfectly united, whereby all feparate intereft is annihilated, distinct nationability is loft in the entirenefs of the one confolidated state, the fame fupreme authority flowing from the whole prefides over and regulates the whole of both countries, and the fame laws equally controul, encourage,

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and fecure, all the inhabitants of the united kingdom What must naturally follow? No longer confidered as a distinct or hostile country, but as a district of their own country, and bleffed with fuperiour advantages, enterprising Englishmen, not yet fixed in permanent eftablishments, with a fuperfluity of capital open to their ufe, muft occafionally gratify the fpirit of adventure in a comparatively new and unoccupied field. Frequent fuccefs cannot but operate to encourage new undertakings; and our various advantages, whatever they are, must confequently become better understood and more fuccefsfully purfued, whether in agriculture, in long established manufacture, or in rifing or in new undertakings. It is ftrange to fay, that all this muft fail because we have not the cheap fuel with which Great Britáin, raising it within herself, is furnished; and at the fame moment to inform us, that if urged to it we can raise abundance in our own country. No doubt we can, and it will naturally make a useful part of our progrefs, to raise that valuable article in abundance, and to fupply it at cheap price to all the arts in which it is employed. In the meantime, the difference of the price of fuel makes fo fmall a part of the coft of moft manufactures, compared with that of many other materials employed, bur particularly with the cost of labour, and is fo fully compenfated by the prefent duties, which are to remain for a confiderable though limited time, and afterwards to be continued or gradually diminished as publick good may require, that no real difcouragement takes place or can rationally operate.* The circuitous means by which

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It is material to observe, that the flourishing state of manufactures, depends not so much upon the rate of profit as upon the ex

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fo many of the raw materials are obtained by this country, enhanced in price by additional profit, freight, infurance, and other expences, contributes more perhaps than any other circumftance, to retard thofe manufactures in which we have not eminently excelled; and the low state of industry among our people, which prevents the extension of home confumption adds to the difcouragement. The fmallness of capital employed in foreign trade and in agriculture is the caufe of both these deficiencies. Let men poffeffed of property, or capable of obtaining the enlarged use of it, in the fifter kingdom, and ardent for active employment, fee this happily circumftanced country, no longer governed through the medium of an interefted and doubtful oligarchy, no longer liable to be regulated by laws diftinct from their own, no longer influenced by feparate or incompatible interefts, and no longer, by the very nature of a distinct ftate, and in the daily proceedings of its separate legiflature, cherishing and bringing into action invidious and alienating principles, but in every particular of intereft government and regulation the fame; then, apprehenfion and difcouragement removed, all our natural advan

tenfion of fale, which extension of sale is best promoted by skill and capital. A manufacture making only ten per cent. on the capital employed may be far more flourishing than one making fifteen per cent. on account of the far greater quantity of bufinefs done by the former than the latter. In feveral manufactures in Ireland, at this moment, the rate of profit is greater than in thofe of the fame kind in Great Britain; but the greater capital employed, and the greater extent of sale, make those in Great Britain generally more flourishing and productive, Under the encouragement of duties, fixed for a limited but confiderable ome, and afterwards to be gradually diminished, Ireland will have full opportunity, to improve her skill, increase her capital, and extend her fale, fo as with a lefs rate of profit, to flourish more eminently in all the arts, for the enlarged cultivation of which nature may have endowed her.

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tages are left at liberty to operate, with full force of motive, upon every active energy to be found in any part of the united whole. We may therefore confidently expect that the skill in every branch of agriculture, now arrived at fuch a height in Great Britain, and ftill cultivated with a degree of ardour pregnant with future bleffings, will, with the affiftance of overflowing capital, reach the rich and extenfive tracts in Ireland, which may be obtained upon terms far inferior to those on which the naturally inferior lands of Britain are farmed; and that the commodious ports of our finely indented coaft, will from time to time invite many to make establishments or take part in establishments, for the purpose of supplying foreign nations with our productions, and of importing the variour articles useful at home or fit to be easily distributed to other countries.

Should fuch infances be at first but few, fhould they multiply but by flow degrees, yet ftill the effects would be happy. Men of condition and property in this country would occafionally imitate the example, and in their own exertions, or in directing the attention of their fons to useful employment, would promote individual and collective intereft. Hence, motives to industry would be multiplied; hence, fkill and enterprife would follow; hence, our people would be more generally employed and confequently ameliorated; and hence, in the enjoyment of the fruits of iudustry, a tafte for the comforts of civilized life would be created, and every active purfuit invigorated.

To a foreign ftate the fuperflux of capital is not eafily trufted; in a foreign ftate the apprehenfive ftrarger is

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not confident of protection: therefore the advantages of a foreign ftate are neither fought nor cultivated. But in the fame ftate, where fecurity of property and protection of the individual are maintained and guarded by the fame univerfally pervading authority, the subject is confident in every part of the common territory, and confequently the numbers are greatly increased of those who, ftimulated by the defire of acquifition, fearch for the means of improving their fortune, and in the fearch, multiply the probabilities of discovering the natural, and improving the cultivated fources, of individual gain and national profperity. Ireland has been in material refpects as a foreign ftate. The fupreme authority which regulates all its important concerns is different: the debates in the legislature are conftantly grounded on an oppofition of interefts; and jealousy and rivalry maintain and extend an unfortunate religious and national antipathy. But the two kingdoms, on the plan of Union, are no longer to be foreign in any respect; the oppofition of interefts can only be that of the united state and of foreign or hoftile nations; jealoufy and rivalry being removed, and the one fuperiour legislature directing its attention to the healing of differences, Union of fentiment and affection will confequently by degrees follow Union of political conftitution. Hence with confidence we infer, that eafy and free communication among all the fubjects of the common ftate, and more enlarged and various interchange of benefits, will greatly increase the profperity and happiness of the whole.

The plan of the economists of France for eftablishing a free, unburthened and uncontrouled intercourfe of nations in the interchange of their peculiar benefits,

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