Commerce is an affair of climate;—and the Sun, the disseminator of light and heat is its regulating power. These gifts of his are dispensed in various degrees of duration and intensity, according to the various positions of the countries of the globe. This is a law of nature. In like manner soil and production are suited to each other, and to the position or climate which they occupy upon the earth. This also is a law of nature.

“God Almighty first planted a garden;” and the first pursuit of an infant people is Agriculture. Until that period arrives, when, owing to the improvements in agriculture, a portion of the people is able to cultivate sufficient for the consumption of the whole, so long must the inhabitants of any country continue to be purely agricultural; and so long must they remain satisfied with the products of their own soil. But when population increases, and labour becomes redundant, adventure commences, and Commerce begins to occupy a portion of their attention; then they seek the variety of productions which is found in other countries. They exchange their own abundant and familiar articles for the novelties of another land. This Barter was originally and practically Free Trade, in its earliest and simplest form. It supposed and developed not only the obvious advantage arising from a mere exchange of commodities, but the latent advantage resulting from the profitable employment of the (otherwise useless) surplus home production, in procuring the surplus of foreign production.