ABSTRACT
From some cause or other, not necessary to be inquired, the manufacturers, merchants and traders of England were, at the period referred to in the last chapter, plunged into great financial embarrassment. About this time the theory of free trade was earnestly enforced by extensive circulation of the arguments of Hume, Smith, Ricards, and other political economists in Great Britain, who gave to it the influence of their eminent abilities. There is no special reference here to the United States, but it is evident that Mr. Huskisson intended to include every country from which competition could possibly come. His controlling idea was that, as against it, from any part of the world, Great Britain was prepared, by reason of the cheapness of her cotton goods, for which she was indebted to the low rates of wages paid by her manufacturers.
