ABSTRACT
In a great trading community it is of high importance that the principles of Commerce should be well understood. It is desirable that every man should see how commerce promotes the interests of nations, and should he acquainted with the general principles that ought to guide legislation concerning it. No principle of political economy seems to be more incontestably true than this—that the resources of a nation will be the most rapidly developed, and its prosperity built upon the surest basis, under an entire absence of interference on the part of government with its commerce or industry. Now that the principles of commerce are well understood, it may be thought useless to spend time in exposing so gross an error as, that a nation could continue for any length of time to carry on a losing trade.
