Production is the only source of national wealth that can be depended upon. The home market, even to the most commercial nations, is of many times the amount of the foreign one. The former is not easily effected, except by a self-mistaken policy; but the latter is as capricious as the winds, and beyond our control. Speculation does not create value--the purchase and sale of a million's worth of goods does not improve their quality or add to their quantity, to the amount of a cent. A change of commodities between different countries, may increase their value to the extent of the labour expended in transporting them; and it is generally convenient, if not advantageous, when exchanges are made on equal terms. But poverty must be the lot of every society which barters the labour of two or more of its members for that of one person in another society. Employment is the best preservative of health and morals. Things should be so that every person willing to labour for his living, should find labour to do, and live plentifully. If it is otherwise, an error has been committed that ought to be corrected immediately, for it is pregnant with the greatest evils. It is the chief check to population, and more powerful than the sword to destroy the liberties of nations. Nations and individuals are spendthrifts of the worst description when they purchase that which they can make from the spare labour at home. Who will give away a hundred dollars and their interest for ever, for the sake of receiving twenty dollars of his own money as a premium? Yet thus a nation acts when, for the sake of the duties on imports, it accepts of another nation any commodity which it might supply itself with, without detriment to its other branches of industry. Agriculture is the noblest and best occupation of man; and in a country like the United States, where land is plenty and labour scarce, it will always be pushed to the extent which a profitable market demands. Yet if none worked but those who laboured in the field, society could not exist long. We should perish with cold and hunger. It is by an association of the arts that we live--and our comfort materially depends on their respective perfections. Only about one fifth of a population are fitted for agricultural labours, in general. The other four fifths, if idle would consume the whole amount of value produced, and send the labourers supperless to bed. It is the capacity of production in the most numerous body that must be brought into action, if families and nations would prosper and be happy. If they purchase any thing which their lost time might be applied to the fabrication of--they might as well throw its cost into the sea.