Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/273

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antiquity said: "There is in maritime States a corruption and instability of morals, for they import not only merchandise but morals, so that nothing can remain entire in the institutions of their country." The only quarrel, Mr. Drummond added, he had with the Free-traders was with respect to Adam Smith, that they never would read beyond one page of him. And yet, it was by men actuated by similarly interested motives, that the House was now guided. The manufacturer sent out to Africa for cotton; he employed African labourers in its cultivation; he brought it home in an American ship; he spun it into yarn by his machinery, and then sent it in a French vessel to be exchanged for French cloth or silks, or other articles of French manufacture. So that the whole process might be perfected without the employment of a single English labourer. The poet exclaimed:—

"Lives there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
This is my own, my native land?"

Yes! at Manchester there were a thousand such. Not content with bringing accusations against the English sailors, not content with slighting the opinions of their officers, they now said this country had a superstitious reverence for the navy. He would not deny that they might have had such a feeling, for there was a time when they had a national faith; there was a time when they venerated, worshipped even, the statesman who guided safely the destinies of the country; when they reverenced the magistrates who presided over the administration of their laws;