5040. MANUFACTURES, Navigation vs.—
Some jealousy of this spirit of manufacture
seems excited among commercial men.
It would have been as just when we first
began to make our own plows and hoes.
They have certainly lost the profit of bringing
these from a foreign country. * * *
I do not think it fair in the shipowners to say
we ought not to make our own axes, nails,
&c., here, that they may have the benefit of
carrying the iron to Europe, and bringing
back the axes, nails, &c. Our agriculture
will still afford surplus produce enough to
employ a due proportion of navigation.—
To David Humphreys. Washington ed. v, 415.
Ford ed., ix, 226.
(W.
1809)
