3124. FRANCE, Commerce with.—[further continued].
The system of the United
States is to use neither prohibitions nor
premiums. Where a government finds itself
under the necessity of undertaking that regulation,
it would seem that it should conduct
it as an intelligent merchant would; that is
to say, invite customers to purchase by
facilitating their means of payment, and by
adapting goods to their taste. If this idea
be just, government here [France] has two
operations to attend to with respect to the
commerce of the United States: 1. to do
away, or to moderate, as much as possible,
the prohibitions and monopolies of their materials
for payment; 2. to encourage the institution
of the principal manufactures,
which the necessities or the habits of their
new customers call for.—
To Count de Montmorin. Washington ed. ii, 529.
(P.
1788)
