"Many countries are watching with anxiety the selection you may make. Determine for 'Advance,' and it will be the watchword which will animate and encourage in every state the friends of liberal commercial policy. Sardinia has taken the lead. Naples is relaxing her protective duties, and favouring British produce. Prussia is shaken in her adherence to restriction. The government of France will be strengthened; and, backed by the intelligence of the reflecting, and by conviction of the real welfare of the great body of the community, will perhaps ultimately prevail over the self-interest of the commercial and manufacturing aristocracy which now predominates in her Chambers. Can you doubt that the United States will soon relax her hostile tariff, and that the friends of a freer commercial intercourse--the friends of peace between the two countries--will hail with satisfaction the example of England?" How strangely did this remarkable man, whose career in all time coming will be a warning to the aspiring statesman, misunderstand the true nature of his country's position! In order to tempt reciprocity he opened the British ports--that is, he conceded gratuitously the only condition by which we ever could have hoped to insure it! At the expense of the British agriculturist he opened the British market to the foreigner, in the expectation, as he expressly declared, that the boon would be repaid by measures which would prevent the rise of manufactures abroad, and restrain other nations from employing capital profitably, from entering into rivalry with Britain, and from using those natural advantages which were ready to their hand; and which, if used, could not fail to add to their wealth, and to furnish employment for millions of their increasing population! Most egregious was the blunder, and terrible is the penalty which we are certain to pay for it, if we do not retrace our steps. It is always useful to know what intelligent men of other countries think of our system. They survey and examine it without those prejudices which are apt to beset all of us, and are better able than ourselves to determine with what degree of favour it will be received, or is received, by those who are removed beyond the scope of our immediate observation. Certainly, of all others, from their affinity to ourselves, and their proverbially shrewd acuteness in all matters of commercial detail, the Americans are most likely to form an accurate estimate both of our position and our prospects in regard to foreign trade. It is well worth our while to read and consider the following opinion of Mr Carey, the most distinguished Transatlantic writer on points of political economy. It occurs in his work entitled _The Harmony of Interests_, published in America so late as December 1849.