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ergy to commerce, and to supply a circulating medium equal to its wants. They want, however, that confidence and stability which old established commercial countries afford, and which can only render banks useful to a country. In America, therefore, the system has been tried, but in so far as it was intended to supply every commercial want, it has completely failed. America has been taught by experience, that she is still too young a country to benefit, to any extent, by banking establishments, and that the different interests which reign in her territories, will, in all probability, prevent her from ever deriving any advantage from pursuing the plan. The consequence of what we have attempted to detail, has occasioned great commercial distress throughout the chief commercial States of the Union. Numerous and extensive failures are daily taking place-confidence is shaken -money is not to be had, and mercantile concerns wear a most unfavourable aspect throughout the Maritime States of America. The best informed consider this distress as not yet at its height. The consequences must in some measure be felt in this country, but not to the degree may at first be supposed, because we receive in cotton, &c. double the value that the United States take from us in goods, and therefore our merchants have always more American property in their hands, than the American merchants has of theirs.

Whilst our former great and lucrative trade with Spanish South America remains subjected to the greatest vexations, vicissitudes, and uncertainty, from the nature of the sanguinary and destructive warfare there carried on, and principally supported by daring adventurers from all parts of the world, a great and increasing trade is carrying on betwixt this country and New Orleans. This city, from its geographical situation, commands, and must ever command, the trade of the largest tract of country, and greatest extent of territory of any place-in America, or perhaps in the world. All the people or tribes of men who at present inhabit, or who may in future inhabit, the mighty and extensive banks of the Mississippi, the Missoure, Ohio, and their tributary streams, can only find an outlet for the produce of their labours, and an inlet for all their more necessary supplies, through the medium of the port of New Orleans. These regions are peopling fast. The facilities which these navigable rivers afford for transporting their produce, will greatly facilitate the spreading of agriculture and commeree on their banks. Steam-boats are al ready numerous on the Mississippi. There is at present constructing in Glasgow, two engines of forty horse power each, for one steam-boat, of about 700 tons burden, to be employed in carrying goods and passengers from and to New Orleans, on the Mississippi. From the nature of the exports from, and imports to, this place, a great portion of the trade must remain in the hands of British merchants. During last year, there was exported from New Orleans, and chiefly to Great Britian, above 80,000 bales of Cotton, which may serve to give our readers some idea of the trade of this place.

British commerce also is daily extending itself up the Mediterranean, and along its populous shores. The Turkish power is now so much humiliated and broken, that however anxious the followers of Mahomet may be to promote the extension of commercial communications, and, consequently, the introduction of more liberal and enlightened ideas with Europeans, still these are no longer able to oppose any formidable barrier to the extension of trade. Any quarrel with the American powers, must only give the latter a surer footing in the Mediterranean and its interesting shores. The power of Russia, guided by her present enlightened policy, is surrounding the Black Sea, and opening up with the interior of her vast dominions, by this road, a trade once unknown to the west of Europe. Let any one look at Odessa, and see what a few years has accomplished. The trade or Britain, therefore, in every part connected with the Mediterranean, must continue to increase and expand. Her name is too well known, and her capital and influence too widely felt, to dread the power of any rival to supplant her in the greatest share of this trade.

From the banks of the Ganges, a British trade is begun with the Russian possessions in Kamtchatka, and the port of Ochotsk. This we hinted at in a former Number, as being only begun, and we are happy to find it continuing to be pressed with vigour, and under every encouragement. This trade opens a wide field indeed for the general advantage and improvement of countries and people, hitherto barely known to civilized Europe.

The British possessions in New Holland and Van Dieman's land, are daily rising in commercial importance and prosperity. The trade to the Cape of Good Hope is also increasing, and affords a prospect of becoming eminently advantageous to this country, and the coast of Africa, along the Gulph of Guinea, and in the territory of Benen (the most advantageous for trade and settlements), are beginning to reap the advantages arising from a peaceful mercantile intercourse with Great Britain; and it is to be hoped that a few years will open the eyes of the Sovereigns of those parts to the use of the advantages they possess, and that their interests are not to sell their subjects as slaves, but to make industrious men of them.

On which ever side we turn our eyes, or to whatever quarter of the globe we extend our researches, there we see British skill, capital, industry, and honour, exerting themselves in a way, which, while it adds to the wealth and security of their country, must also prove eminently beneficial to mankind at large.

We subjoin the following important Tables of the Exports and Imports of Great Britain, during the year 1818, and our readers may rely on their general accuracy.

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(a) of this quantity 213,507 bags were from the United States; 168,498 bags, &c. from the Brazils; 41,919 bales, &c. from the British West Indies; 222,786 bags, &c. from the East Indies; and 8,941 bags, &c. the remainder, from European and Irish ports.

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(a) of this quantity, 117 tierces and 3552 cases were from the Brazils and South America; 184 cases and 105,642 bags from the East Indies; the remainder from our West India colonies.

Sugar exported in 1818 from all ports-24,025 tons, about 30,000 hhds.

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(a) This quantity is uncertain-it is supposed to be equal to the quantity imported, as very little is exported from these ports to foreign countries.

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a) We have not the accurate returns for these ports, but it cannot be less, as the ret presently to be mentioned will shew.

Rum exported to all parts, 1818-27,501 puns. of 110 galls. each.

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(a) of this quantity, 267 hhds. and 13,181 barrels and bags, were from the Brazils and South America; 16,522 barrels and bags from the East Indies, and the remainder from our West India colonies.

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Although, in the previous enumeration, we are without a very great number of articles, to give an accurate idea of the enormous foreign trade of Great Britain, still what we have given, may prove useful, and be deemed curious by our readers, and serve to give them some idea of the trade of their native country.

On the tables here given but few remarks are necessary. The import of Cotton has last year greatly increased, from the East Indies, the Brazils, and the United States of America. The total increase is 178,478 bags; and it appears that the consumpt has increased also.

Upon casting his eye over the tables, the reader will be at no loss to perceive the prodigious weight which our much injured and calumniated West India colonies hold in every thing that concerns the trade and revenues of the country. The value of the Sugar, Rum, Coffee, and Cotton, alone, exclusive of duties, cannot be less than from £16 to £17,000,000 Sterling. The duties paid on the articles, the growth and produce of these colonies, cannot be less than £6,000,000. The Sugar and Rum alone here enumerated, as paid duties upon, would yield £5,350,000; yet these are the possessions which James Stephen, Esq. asserts in his audacious publications to the people of Great Britain, "sink every century more of our commercial capital than they are worth."-(Mr Stephen's Speech, page 30). Such is the extent, the value, and demand for a trade, which the same gentleman's equally wise and accurate co-adjutors, the critics in the Edinburgh Review, insist should be greatly lessened, in order to save Great Britain from ruin; for, say they, as the quantity of Sugar paid duties for in Great Britain, in 1775, was 1,533,421 cwts.-(Edinburgh Review, vol. 11th, page 160, consequently, the quantity raised in these latter times, is far beyond the demand for it. "We have endeavoured to shew," said they, "that there was an excess of Sugars, not merely in the British markets, but in the market of the world;

and that America made more Sugar than Europe and America could consume."—(Review, vol. 13th, &c.) Well, the consumpt of Great Britain is increased from their standard by which they meant to plant and cultivate, viz. 1,533,421 cwts., as in 1775, to the quantity, as we have shewn, of 3,354,820 cwts. in 1818; and yet these gentlemen, to lessen the ruinous excess of the quantity of Sugar raised beyond the quantity required, saw no other remedy but to set instantly about rooting out the canes, and laying waste the fields, or, to use their own language, "a diminished culture of the Sugar Cane all over the West Indies." -(Review, vol. 13th, page 384, &c.) Their friend, Napoleon, could not have given an advice more conducive to his interests, or injurious to the interests of Great Britain.

PRICES CURRENT.-Nov. 28,-London, Jan. 5, 1819.

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