Nothing is more certain than that the actual and prospective depression of Virginia is to be referred to the fall in the value of her landed property, and in that of the staple products of the land. And it is not less certain that the fall in both cases is the inevitable effect of the redundancy in the market of land and of its products. The vast amount of fertile land offered at 125 cents per acre in the West and S. West could not fail to have the effect already experienced, of reducing the land here to half its value; and when the labour that will here produce one hogshead of tobacco and ten barrels of flour will there produce two hhd and twenty barrels, now so cheaply transportable to the destined outlets, a like effect on these articles must necessarily ensue. Already more tobacco is sent to New Orleans than is exported from Virginia to foreign markets; whilst the article of flour, exceeding for the most part the demand for it, is in a course of rapid increase from new sources as boundless as they are productive. The great staples of Virginia have but a limited market, which is easily glutted. They have in fact sunk more in price, and have a more threatening prospect, than the more southern staples of cotton and rice. The case is believed to be the same with her landed property. That it is so with her slaves is proved by the purchases made here for the market there. The reflections suggested by this aspect of things will be more appropriate in your hands than in mine. They are also beyond the tether of my subject, which I fear I have already overstrained. I hasten, therefore, to conclude, with a tender of the high respect and cordial regards which I pray you to accept.[22] TO HENRY CLAY June, 1833.