The plan we have proposed, of continuing the present duty for a limited time, is consistent with the policy of all civilized nations, who do not hesitate to grant monopolies for definite periods to the inventers of new processes in the arts, and most of whom give equal encouragement to those who merely introduce them. Our government, indeed, has never adopted the latter principle, but it may well be questioned whether it have not in this way prevented the introduction of many important branches of manufacture. The former has been adopted in its full extent, and its utility is unquestioned. If, then, it be sound and highly profitable policy, to grant a monopoly to individuals for limited periods, thereby excluding our own citizens from advantages which in most cases lie open to foreign countries, much more will it be politic and profitable, to protect a whole class of our own artificers from external competition for a similar period, leaving the price to be lessened by the competition that security, from a change of system, will infallibly create. The usual limit of a patent right having been found efficient in drawing forth inventive talent, an equal duration of protecting duty might be depended upon as sufficient to induce the investment of capital in a business whose processes are understood, and in relation to which strict calculations can be made. But these protecting duties must not suddenly cease; for if they do, a spirit of speculation, both on our part and on that of foreign merchants, would infallibly throw into the market an excess of the article from abroad; and although the importer might not be exempted wholly from the ruinous consequence of the over trade, infallible destruction would visit our own establishments. Such was the case in 1816 and 1817. The losses on the iron trade were not confined to our own manufacturers, but visited the importers, whether British or American, and reached in their remote consequences, but with diminished effect, the forges and furnaces of England. The latter were, however, protected by the whole capital of the merchant, which was annihilated before the ruin could reach them, while the American establishments were directly exposed to it. The adventurous spirit of British commerce, in fact, produced on this occasion an effect similar to that which the people of the continent have erroneously ascribed to the government of that country. New markets are no sooner opened, than loads of British fabrics are thrown in, and necessarily sacrificed; those who see no more than their own domestic misfortunes, naturally ascribe to the policy of the nation, what is in fact the misjudged enterprise of rash individuals. The effect has, however, been in many cases the same, as if the act had been the result of a deliberate national system; for the foreign industry has been often prostrated, while the capital of the British has enabled it to bear the momentary shock, and then to replace its losses by the undivided