The Litchfield County post. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1826-1829, 1827-02-16


pounds, or three thousand millions Of dollars,
as annual profit to the $4,000, if their pro
ducts were exchanged for the products OF
others operating without machines! The
steam engines of England, by which motion
is chiefly given to the machinery, are in them
selves, equal to the power Ofthree millions of
men. So says the Quarterly Review. That
there was, and is,some reality in these things.
we can readily explain. The taxes, excuses,
rates and tythes, at present payable in Great
Britain and Ireland, amount to about 70 mil
lions of pounds-say $40 millions of dollars a
year, or more than 100 dollars a year from
every adult male in the United Kingdom, pau
pers and princes, and gipsies and thieves, and
other unproductive and useless classes excep
ted Now, If the people Ofthe United States
were thus taxed, our revenue would amount
to about 200 millions of dollars year and
what mighty things could we not do with SO
much money! But the British people hare
Pa'd,and do pay at the rate above given. and
the ability to make such payments is in and
through the nufactures Of the nation, cum
ningly introduced or forcibly sent into other
countries for consumption. and thus the labor
Of one man in England is rendered equal to
that of 100 or $50 elsewhere. So Britain was
enabled to raise and expend nearly five hun
dred and fifty millions ofdoI;ars in year of
her greatest exertion, to preserve her snprem
| dcy Of scientific poscer, by purcAaring nations
like herds of hogs for slaughter! And, as
the acquisitions ofgo vernment pressed on sub
sistence, the British people executed ,heir in
genuity and industry to produce more goods
and consume less provisions, until the orhN-
airy Operatives" were compelled to labor 10
hours out of the "a, and live upon something
equal to halfa pint of meal per day, as stated
in Parliament by Mr.. Peel.
And why were these prodigious exertions
made ! 1t was common saying, and true
one, that Great Britain was lighting for her
existence - The "existence of what !" Did
any one really belve that Napoleon could
invade and subdue Britain! No-he himself
never believed it practicable until the existence
of the British system of taxation and supply
had been destl oyed, through the want of mar
kets for British Manufactures: and then, in
deed, might London have been added to the
capitals trumphantly entered by that won
derful man. The " existence of G. Britain
then less depended not on the want of ability
or will in the people to preserve the soil I'M
polluted by the hostile steps of foreigners, than
in persuading or forcing foreigners to purchase
and pay for British manufactures. Napoleon's
policy was to force the British people back
upon their own interior resources, and encour-
age or compel the Continental nations to
manufacture for themselves, or, at least, to
! dispense with the consumption of Br. goods
! and hence the g ant-exertions made to put
him dOwn--hence those measures which sum-
! moned the barbarous hordes that wandered
| over the black and bleak SUBMITS of Cauca-
sus, to ravage the plains Of"beautiful France"
restore the sceptre TO the imbecile Bonrbons,
in France as well as in Spain, and chain Ma
pOleOn himself to the rock of st. Helena to
perish. and give immortal nfamy to the Brit
ish government for performing the Office of
jaier to the "holy alliance" ofdespots against
the human kind.
The war that was carried on in Spain in
the name of Ferdinand, and by the famous
"Spanish patriots" as they were called, was
as much an English war as that which has
Just closed with the Burmese. The "patriots"
were the mere tools with which England wor
ked against Bonaparte, whose possession of
Spain had wholly destroyed the British trade
with that kindom. And it is surely within the
range of probability to believe, that the
Portuguese may now be used in the same
! way to operate against Spain, because the
latter is again as dependency of France,
consuming large quantities of French manu-
features. And France, in despite of her pre-
sent unwise government, by means of the
roads and canals and manufactures made or
established by Napoleon, is the most prOspe-
rous nation in Europe, and very rapidly in
terfering with British trade, through the APP
plication Of scientific power, and the more
moderate taxation and cheaper subsistence of
her people; and it is impossible that,th world
being at peace, Britain should Withstand the
competition of France and Germany, or any
other dcnsely populated country, using labor
saving machinery, because of the amount of
taxation and cost of subsistence in Britain,
which is twice or thrice as large as in France
or Germany, &c. and it is these which ulti
mately settled and established the selling vatue
of commodities.
A slight view of the effects of scientific
power, as set forth in the preceding remarks.
may startle some whose minds have not been
accustomed to consider such great amounts
but this will no more affect the reality of
them than the laugh of the ignorant and pre-
JUDGED interfered with the principles which
Fulton applied to navigation, and by which
the moral condition of the world has been
changed---art having rriumphed over nature
and space And Franklin had long before
been thought presumptuous fool. for suppo-
sing that the L" artillery of heaven might be
subjected to the government and direction of
maryland yet he arrested and confined that
tremendous agent the vivid lightning, in