This law appears to me a very prudent one; with some mitigation it might be of service, even in our countries. I should very much approve, that all citizens invested with honourable functions, either at court, in the army, in the church, or in the magistracy, should be suspended whenever they should be legally sued by a creditor, and that they should be unremittingly deprived of their rank whenever they should be declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the characteristic of the national manners. The annual productions of the Danish islands are reduced to a small quantity of coffee, to a great deal of cotton, to seventeen or eighteen millions weight of raw sugar, and to a proportionate quantity of rum. Part of these commodities are delivered to the English, who are proprietors of the best plantations, and in possession of the slave trade. We have before us at present, very authentic accounts, which prove that from 1756 to 1773, that nation hath sold in the Danish settlements of the New World, to the amount of 2,307,686 livres 11 sols (96,153l. 125.1-1/2d.). and carried off to the value of 3,197,047 livres 5 sols 6 deniers (133,210l. 6s. 0-3/4d.). North America receives likewise some of these productions in exchange for its cattle, for its wood, and for its flour. The remainder is conveyed to the mother-country upon forty ships of one hundred, and from that to four hundred tons burden. The greatest part is consumed in Denmark, and there is scarcely sold in Germany, or in the Baltic, for more than the value of one million of livres (41,661l. 13s. 4d.). The lands susceptible of cultivation in the Danish islands are not all tilled, and those which are, might be improved. According to the opinion of the best-in-formed men, the produce of these possessions might easily be increased by one third, or perhaps by one half. One great obstacle to this increase of riches, is the extremely narrow circumstances of the colonists. They owe 4,500,000 livres (187,500l.) to the government, 1,200,000 livres (50,000l.) to the trade of the mother-country, and 26,630,170 livres (1,109,590l. 8s. 4d.) to the Dutch, who, from the immensity of their capitals, and the impossibility of employing them all themselves, necessarily become the creditors of all nations.