merce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has
been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by
varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and
civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall
see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life!" If
this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require
all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of
enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see
it! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the
prospect, and cloud the setting of his day!

Excuse me, Sir, if, turning from such thoughts, I resume this
comparative view once more. You have seen it on a large scale; look at
it on a small one. I will point out to your attention a particular
instance of it in the single province of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704,
that province called for 11,459_l._ in value of your commodities,
native and foreign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772! Why,
nearly fifty times as much; for in that year the export to Pennsylvania
was 507,909_l._, nearly equal to the export to all the colonies
together in the first period.

I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details;
because generalities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and
raise the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of the
commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is
unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view of its
commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail
the imports, I could show how many enjoyments they procure which deceive
the burden of life, how many materials which invigorate the springs of
national industry and extend and animate every part of our foreign and
domestic commerce. This would be a curious subject indeed,--but I must
prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so vast and various.

I pass, therefore, to the colonies in another point of view,--their
agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides
feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of
grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in
value. Of their last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much
more. At the beginning of the century some of these