es filled with merchandise, and the produce of the
country has a ready market, and an advantageous price. Gold and silver,
that for a while seemed to have retreated again within the bowels of
the earth, have once more risen into circulation, and every day adds new
strength to trade, commerce and agriculture. In a pamphlet, written
by Sir John Dalrymple, and dispersed in America in the year 1775, he
asserted that two twenty-gun ships, nay, says he, tenders of those
ships, stationed between Albermarle sound and Chesapeake bay, would shut
up the trade of America for 600 miles. How little did Sir John Dalrymple
know of the abilities of America!

While under the government of Britain, the trade of this country was
loaded with restrictions. It was only a few foreign ports which we were
allowed to sail to. Now it is otherwise; and allowing that the quantity
of trade is but half what it was before the war, the case must show the
vast advantage of an open trade, because the present quantity under her
restrictions could not support itself; from which I infer, that if half
the quantity without the restrictions can bear itself up nearly, if not
quite, as well as the whole when subject to them, how prosperous must
the condition of America be when the whole shall return open with all
the world. By the trade I do not mean the employment of a merchant only,
but the whole interest and business of the country taken collectively.

It is not so much my intention, by this publication, to propose
particular plans for raising money, as it is to show the necessity and
the advantages to be derived from it. My principal design is to form the
disposition of the people to the measures which I am fully persuaded it
is their interest and duty to adopt, and which need no other force to
accomplish them than the force of being felt. But as every hint may
be useful, I shall throw out a sketch, and leave others to make such
improvements upon it as to them may appear reasonable.

The annual sum wanted is two millions, and the average rate in which it
falls, is thirteen shillings and fourpence per head.

Suppose, then, that we raise half the sum and sixty thousand pounds
over. The average rate thereof will be seven shillings per head.

In this case we shall have half the supply that we want, and an annual
fund of sixty thousand pounds whereon to borrow the other million;
because sixty thousand pounds is the interest of a million at six per
cent.; and i