transporting goods and grain across the Atlantic? At least, the
consequence would be an extension of trade, and employment equal
to the amount of food which would, in such case, be brought from
America; and the limit to this quantity will be found only when
the wants of Englishmen are supplied, and their ability to pay
exhausted. The ability of America to supply any required
quantity of food has already been shown. There lie the broad
lands, ready for cultivation as soon as there shall be a demand
for the produce. And if seventeen millions of people, sent
chiefly from England, or descended from those who have been
sent, are not sufficient to raise the requisite quantity of
provisions demanded of them by those who remain in the parent
country, then let more be sent, for the land lies equally open
to the people of all nations.

"Then, as to the ability of Englishmen to pay for all they want,
let us ask, what those who produce the food, or those who bring
it, can want in exchange that England cannot furnish? Gold, it
is said.[A] But for what do they want gold but to purchase other
supplies than food? and as they would then have the means to
pay, England would be the very country which, of all others,
could supply them to advantage. Whatever was wanted which her
own artizans do not produce themselves, they could still supply.
Englishmen would not at all be confined to a direct sale or
exchange of their goods with the wheat grower, but can give him
the merchandize of India and China, and the fruits of the
tropics, for which English manufactures would pay. If the idle
mills and idle laborers of England could at once be set at work
to produce food for the people, new activity would be imparted
to trade in every part of the world--from India to the frozen
regions of Greenland and Labrador. But, on the other hand, how
is it possible for England to extend her foreign trade while the
present restrictions continue? Even with such a country as
India, reduced under British sway, it cannot be done except by
diminishing the commerce with other countries to the same
extent. England cannot, in her present condition, greatly
increase her consumption of such merchandize as India can
furnish, or dispose of such merchandize abroad, to any great
extent, for the reasons already given.

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