The crying philosophers of all times have mourned over the pertinacity of men and of nations in clinging to errors through all the sufferings thence arising; the suffering being ascribed to "fate, or Providence, or something,"—to any thing rather than to their favourite errors. The laughing philosophers cannot deny this; but, looking farther, they see that, error by error being exploded at length, there is no return to that which is clearly seen to be the cause of suffering,—unless such an experimental brief return as can only serve to confirm the truth. Commerce has now been instituted for a longer succession of ages than we have any distinct knowledge of;—ever since the first root-digger exchanged his vegetable food for the game of the first sportsman. From that time till now, an error has subsisted among all classes of exchangers which has caused enough of privation, of ill-will, of oppression and fraud, of war, pestilence and famine, to justify the tears of a long train of crying philosophers. But the error has been detected. Philosophers have laid their finger upon it; the press has denounced it; senates are preparing to excommunicate it; and its doom is sealed. This error is,—that commerce is directly productive. Hence arises the belief, that if one party gains by commerce, another must lose; and hence have arisen the efforts of clansmen to confine their exchanges within their own clan; of villagers within their own village; of citizens within their own state; of a nation within its own empire. Hence it arises that the inhabitants of one district have been afraid to enjoy the productions of any other district, and that they have been doomed by their rulers to pine and die in occasional dearth, and to quarrel with occasional superabundance when they might have had plenty in the one case, and an influx of new enjoyments in the other. Hence have arisen some of the most humbling scenes of human vice which have disgraced the species. The atrocious practice of wrecking was formerly pursued, not only as a method of robbery, but as a means of impairing the commercial resources of foreigners. There was connivance at pilots who ran a rich vessel upon rocks; and protection for the country people who gave their exertions to destroy instead of to save. If the cargo went to the bottom, something was supposed to be gained to the country, though those who looked upon the disaster were disappointed of their plunder. Next came the ridiculous and cruel practice of making aliens engaged in commerce answerable for the debts and offences of each other; and as a kind of set-off against the advantages which they were supposed to take from the people among whom they lived, they were compelled to pay much heavier duties than natives for all articles of import and export.