contribute to the prosperity and happiness of this nation." 2. Spain, our imports from which used to consist of wine, oil, wood, cochineal, indigo, fruit, iron, &c. Of these things a great part were used in the manufactured goods we exported, and to that extent they contributed to the employment of our people and the improvement of our lands. "But a very great part of our returns from Spain was money, for the overbalance of our manufactures sent thither; and this undoubtedly was so much added to the prosperity and happiness of this nation." 3. Italy, our exportations to which were made good to us by returns in oil, wine, thrown and raw silk, wrought silk, currants, paper, drugs, &c., and the rest in money. "This last," it is again observed, "is so much added to the happiness and prosperity of the nation; and so, indeed, are many of our other returns, since they are manufactured by our own people, and contribute so much to their maintenance." 4. Turkey, from which, indeed, it is admitted that we brought home little or no money, the full or very nearly the full value of our exports being paid in raw silk, grogram-yarn, cotton, wool, cotton-yarn, goats' hair, coffee, dyeing goods, drugs, &c. These, however, were all materials used in our manufactures, and things, therefore, which contributed to the employment and subsistence of our people. 5. Hamburg and other places in Germany, from which, although our returns were chiefly made in linen and linen-yarn, yet we also received a balance in money. 6. Holland, our exports to which "are," says the writer, "prodigious, whether we consider our woollen manufactures, the produce of our own country and our plantations, our East India, Turkey, and other goods." In return, we received from the Dutch some spices, linen, thread, paper, Rhenish wines, battery, madder, whale-fins, clapboard, wrought silks, &c.; but nearly three-fourths of the value of our exports were paid for in money, making, as has been already shown, what was called a balance in our favour of not much less than a million and a half sterling per annum. And many of the goods imported from Holland were also useful in our manufactures.[1]
- ↑ British Merchant, i. 22.
