4. Since the termination of the American war, Britain has been placed in
circumstances favourable to her commerce: the human mind cannot long be
depressed; there is an elasticity about it which prevents this. Perhaps it
is rather disposed to rebound, in proportion to the degree and time of its
restraint. It is certain, however, that the exhaustion produced by the
American war speedily gave place to wonderful activity in our manufactures
and commerce; and that, at the commencement of the first French
revolutionary war, they had both taken wonderful and rapid strides. The
circumstances, indeed, of such a country as Britain, and such a people as
the British, must be essentially changed,--changed to a degree, and in a
manner, which we can hardly suppose to be brought about by any natural
causes,--before its real wealth can be annihilated, or even greatly or
permanently diminished. The climate and the soil, and all the improvements
and ameliorations which agriculture has produced on the soil, must remain:
the knowledge and skill, and real capital of the inhabitants, are beyond
the reach of any destroying cause: interest must always operate and apply
this knowledge and skill, unless we can suppose, what seems as unlikely to
happen as the change of our climate and soil, the annihilation of our
knowledge and skill, or that interest should cease to be the stimulating
cause of industry; unless we can suppose that political and civil freedom
should be rooted out, and individual property no longer secure.
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