The Sun.
London, England, 1806-02-12 00:00:00

'tfl'Ar'hs, had come to the. sublime reAolution of te-
nouncing all the benefit; of trade; and, oat of love
or respect for the French people, consented, to die
of hunger ? The English would, no doubt, have
enjoyed such a sacrifice, so far, as to have pri`kliited
some caricatures upon the occasion ; but certainly
neither the French; the. Spanish, nor the Portu-
guese Merchants, would have had any reason for ap-
proving of such a measure. •
The policy of States, which we see every day look-
ing upon consanguinity with perfea indifference,
never carries its cold-blooded austerity so far, -as to
ask the Merchant whether be mingles either friend,:
ship or enmity with his connexions in trade. The
Merchant buys of thtse -who have to sell, and who
sell the most to his advantage; and he sells to those
who wish to take his goods, and will give him the
best . price for them. If a merchant were to admit
of friendship in the course of his trade, and perse-
vere
in his attachment'to the oldeSt-of his connexions,
who once sold to him, but at- length had nothing
left to sell, he must, either suffer his capital to re-
main useless, or, if he were in want of a competency,
consent to perish by degrees ; and' all this as a most
enviable sacrifice to a tenderness in trade, with a full
claim, however, to such a splendid epitaph as the
Author of the Letter from. Frankfort is best qualified
to write. _ _ _ __ _

Now the situation of an individual,Merchant is
exactly the same- as that el a Commercial City,
which in this capacity, exclusive of the good of the
inhabitants, can have neither friendship nor enmity.
Upon this around the Hans Towns -were declared
neutral, and were of course considered as uo longer
possessing any political consequence.
But why is the purchase of English goods reeks
oned so high a crime on the part of (some or "all) the
Merchants of Hamburgh and Bremen, while their
buying of great quantities of French .wines has never
been censured? They willingly purchase every thing
of the French which is actually useful to them
thus, during the late short period of Peace, when
sugar and coffee Were to be bad at Betirdeaux., the
Hamburghers made large purchases, and congratu-
lated themselves upon the opportunity; not from a
principle of tenderness in trade, bin upon a much
better, and for. the French a more honourable foun-
dation,---because they were able to obtain from Bout--
deaux a much better commodity than from England:
and truly, it ,is not to be imputed as a crime either
to Bremen- or Hamburgh, that the French manufac-
tures no longer continue-to rival those of England.
Neither the alterations of fashions, nor modes of
thinking, are to be accused on this occasion ; but it
is the changes which, France herself has undergone
that has produced all these new dispositions in the
Commercial World. France has become a Military
Nation,::and thus, for the moment, has laid aside
her customary emulation in the fabrication of modes;
while the" English, in consequence of the recent in-
vention of a number of machines, have obtained the
advantage over
,France., England is also, conse-
quently, much richer. than France, from the results
of an extended commerce, which her Marine has
procured for her : and to all this, another weighty
,consideration may be added—that in England every
person cap employ a large.capital With confidence;
while in France the renienibrance of the disturbances
in the interior, as yet scarcely allayed, deter the capi-
talists, though, we believe, under a wrong idea, from
embarking in the establishment of manutaetories, arc.
The security of property is the very life. and soul
of tradeand commerce : where this fails, the (Abets
are sure to.fail. This is a truth which cannot be
rsiTeaM. We often ; and the Writer of the Frankfort
Letter would have done better, had he confined him-
self to similar fa&s,_ than in endeavouring to excite
the ill-will of the Conqueror of Austerlitz against
the harmless Hans Towns,' by clothing there in an
English uniform, mannfaEtured upon his shopboard
at Frankfort, and 'placing them in the ,same offen-
sive point of view, in respect to the commerce of
France, as the Vi6tor of Trafalgar.
After this kind of 'political, conjuration, we need
not wonder, that since the termination of the
brockade'ef the Elbe and the Weser, the Frankfort
Writer looks with Such an evil eye upon the pos-
session of Honover by the British, and other troops
in the pay of England, and the arrival of English,
"goods at Hamburgh and Bremen, which also
.ap-
pears to him as an inundation of the Continent Of
Germany. Did he bin use half his industry to
diScover the truth, he would knoW that the sale of
English goods was no more increased by raising the
blockade of the Elbe and the Weser, than dimi-
niShed before 'by; a contrary conduit. The intro-
diidion of English commodities, during that block-
ade, Was neither more nor less extensive than be-
fore ; and none but a.knave or a simpleton, residing
atTrankfert or Leipsie, could ever have thought of
asserting, " that, for sonic time past, there had been
sonic-What of a scarcity of English goods." The.
fad is, that the great profusion of English goods at
the German faits, and other places, tbr these three.
years past, in consequence of the re-opening- of the
Elbe and the Weser, was no greater than before
it "occurred ; nor was there; Olt' the other hand,'
any alteration in' the price of those commodities
while the. bleckade of both:: theiie rivers . con
tinned ; whereas, had the blockade of the Elbe
and the -Weser produced 'any of the effects com-
plained of by the. Frankfort writer, these Colllll9o* ,
dities must have risen considerably. He also in-
sinuates that our Hamburgh merchants, with their
gain soraide, though not so sordid as the pen and the
forehead of -this writer, being privy to the design
of blockading the EltiF;. speculated upon the 'rise
of several articles. Nod one, howeveits, but himself
could ever have,dretithed that English commodities
were the obje& of any such speculation ; because.
'Hamburgh; as to its local situation, possessed no-
thing in favour either of the entrance or the sale of
English goods. In faa, had all the ports been
stint up, from Lisbon to Dantzic, the distance from
the appointed place for entrance and sale would
have made little or no difference.
As to the richly laden ships daily arriving in our
ports, I would ask, whether their arrival at Ton-
ningen, or any other port, would not have been
equally as praciicable It is also easy to
.prove, that
the, blockade of the Elbe was of no' immediate
disservice, in,any respect, to English merchandise;
it was a circumstance that rather pointed out other
inlets to the Continent, by which it could be sup,
plied. Besides, this blockade was rather prejudi-
cial to Hambuigh and to Germany in general, as it
taught, the people of_Jhe Continent' to obtain what
they had been used to receive- by the way of Ham-