It makes a difference, from the present state of things, of
five hundred guineas on a vessel of three hundred and fifty tons. If,
as the newspapers have told us, France has renewed her _Arret_ of
1789, laying a duty of seven livres a hundred on all tobacco brought in
foreign bottoms (even our own), and should extend it to rice and other
commodities, we are done, as navigators, to that country also. In fact,
I apprehend that those two great nations will think it their interest
not to permit us to be navigators. France had thought otherwise, and had
shown an equal desire to encourage our navigation as her own, while
she hoped its weight would at least not be thrown into the scale of
her enemies. She sees now that that is not to be relied on, and
will probably use her own means, and those of the nations under her
influence, to exclude us from the ocean. How far it may lessen our
happiness to be rendered merely agricultural, how far that state is more
friendly to principles of virtue and liberty, are questions yet to be
solved. Kosciusko has been disappointed by the sudden peace between
France and Austria. A ray of hope seemed to gleam on his mind for a
moment, that the extension of the revolutionary spirit through Italy and
Germany, might so have occupied the remnants of monarchy there, as that
his country might have risen again.
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