"But let us turn from these scenes of noise and smoke and deep depravity, and visit the quiet abode of the farmer and the husbandman. What tranquillity reigns here, and order, and peace, and virtue!! Behold the farmer, as he goes forth in the morning to his daily task;--how firm and elastic his step; how cheerful his sun-burnt countenance; how active his athletic arm!! Behold how cheerfully he labours; how the fat valleys around him laugh with corn; how the spacious plains teem with grain, and the ancient forests fall beneath his resounding axe!! Follow him, when the labour of the day is over, follow him to his humble home. See him surrounded by an affectionate, industrious, frugal wife, unsophisticated by the vices and dissipations of the fashionable world, and by a prattling progeny blooming in health, and big with promise of future usefulness. No cankering cares gnaw his peaceful bosom; no uncertain speculation disturbs his quiet slumbers; no revolutions in foreign lands, damming up the channels of trade, cloud the calm serenity of his brow. Oh! if there be a spot on earth, where true happiness is to be found, here is that spot. "But we take a higher and a more extended view of this subject, and regard it in its bearing on political economy. And my first remark is, that no nation can be independent which subsists wholly by commerce. And here let it be observed, once for all, that I use the word independent in a sense altogether distinct from sovereignty. I admit that there may be a temporary prosperity; that so long as peace prevails amongst nations connected by commercial and diplomatic relations,--so long as each acts in perfect faith, and maintains in all their entireness and in all their integrity his treaty stipulations, there may not be felt a want of the necessaries or even of the luxuries of life. There may, perhaps, be a large influx of the precious metals. Nothing, however, could be more fallacious, than to regard this activity as an indication of independence or permanent prosperity. For I remark, in the second place, that so uncertain are the operations of trade--so suddenly are its channels and outlets closed by misunderstandings and ruptures between rival nations--so liable is it to paralysing shocks from intriguing cabinets and wily politicians, the operations of one year scarcely afford any ground for conjecture in regard to the operations of the next. Let us illustrate our position by an humble supposition.