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plied, and your warehouses for manufactures and natural productions were almost hourly emptied and replenished; high prices and prompt payments were considered as symbols of the most permanent prosperity, and the just pride of national glory confirmed the delusion:—well may it be called delusion! because the traffic which you imagined had enriched you was carried on with your own capitals, and every article purchased was paid for with your own money. Individual sellers were, no doubt, often more than compensated for their proportions of what all of you were to discharge, but the community of course became poor in the proportion of the amount expended, since the amount expended was their own. When peace therefore came, which had been so long and so anxiously looked for, markets of every description and the prices of all commodities became comparatively nothing, whilst the people were bent to the earth by the interest of the money borrowed to pay for the goods which had been sold. Your great purchaser was, no doubt, most liberal and
