How, then, have the manufacturers gained by free trade? On the one hand, they have not been able, by inviting and giving every facility to imports, to increase the quantity of their export; on the other, they have closed up several of their surest markets. The full extent of our egregious folly has not yet become visible to the public. The manufacturers, by a sort of retributive justice, are the persons who are feeling it the most, and ere long they will be compelled to acknowledge it. It is seriously affecting the trade and commerce of our greatest cities. The number of vessels which have cleared out of the Clyde from the port of Glasgow during the last nine months, is in the proportion of 382 to 602 for the same period in the previous year! Glasgow, as every one knows, owed its rise and opulence to its connexion with the colonies, more especially the West Indies; and here is the heaviest blow which probably was ever heard of in the history of commerce, struck, through free trade, at the second city of Britain. It is good that we should know these things; better if, by revolving them, we can turn experience to advantage. Let the electors throughout the kingdom, more especially in the towns, meditate seriously before they are again called on to use their political franchise; let them reflect on their own diminished prosperity, and beware of that hollow liberalism combined with quackery which is the stain and the curse of the age. To this position we have been brought by a bad commercial policy, originated by mean and mercenary men, and most unhappily adopted by a minister who became a convert towards the close of a long official life. We have seen and felt the system as it works; and the only question now for our consideration is, whether we are to suffer it to endure? If we do so, it is vain to deny that we are on the verge of general ruin. There is not a symptom of improvement. Day by day the cry of distress waxes louder, and yet we hesitate to take the necessary steps for effecting our own emancipation. There is hardly one man in the country--the bailie of Blairgowrie perhaps excepted--who can have, or feels, the slightest confidence in the abilities of Lord John Russell. Such a cabinet as this, in point of political decrepitude and imbecility, was never yet formed; and it could not live for an hour save for the unseemly dissensions in the Conservative camp. These cannot be permitted to last. There is no merit in personal devotion when pushed beyond its proper sphere; and the best service which Sir Robert Peel can render to his sovereign, is utterly to abjure all pretension of ever returning to power. Surely he can have no wish to head a reactionary movement, or expose himself to the obloquy of recanting the last edition of his views.