"From the theories and systems I turned my attention to passing events and recorded facts: I saw the West Indies prostrated; Canada thrown into a state of revolt, succeeded by a smothered feeling of discontent; Ireland depopulated; the magnificent resources of India undeveloped; and the British farmer reduced to the dire necessity of paying rent out of capital. I also perceived that the change in our commercial policy had substituted a cosmopolitan cant in the place of patriotism and nationality. To become the friend of every country but his own had become the pride and the glory of statesmanship. Foreign goods were admitted, duty free, into our ports, in the vain hope of reciprocity being established; but our manufactures were subjected to heavy imposts on the Continent of Europe, and in the United States. China, unversed in the mysteries of political economy, only levies five per cent upon our goods, whilst, in direct contravention of our pet notions of Free Trade and reciprocity, we impose a tax of 300 per cent upon her teas. OUR HOPES HAVE BEEN DISAPPOINTED, OUR CALCULATIONS FALSIFIED. WE ARE THE DUPES OF OUR OWN FANTASTIC IDEAS AND QUIXOTIC CONCESSIONS. We are the laughing-stock of the Old and the New Worlds. The Germanic Zollverein shuns our overtures; the American excludes our ships from his seaboard." Can these things be controverted? We defy the ingenuity of mankind to do it.