APPENDIX.
No. 4*
As there seems to be every reason to believe, that Adam Smith was nothimself serious, in respect to great part of the dogmas which he promul-gated ex cathedra, the solemn, and as it were naive simplicity, with whichhis countrymen have taken his crude fallacies and ludicrous non sequitursfor granted; and insisted upon endeavouring to reduce to practice what iseither obviously impracticable or hurtful in his doctrines on the subject offree trade, cannot fail to appear to most sane persons surprising and unac-countable in the highest degree. The only way in which to explain theprevalence of such an hallucination, is upon the hypothesis that the bareenunciation of the word “ free,” operates like a spell or charm upon theminds of the sapient inhabitants of these realms ; and that under its influ-ence, there is no species of vagary, however extravagant, unprincipled, ordetrimental to themselves and others, of which they may not be supposedguilty. Of this idiosyncracy, to use the words of the infallible Adam Smith himself, “ that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a states-man, or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuationof affairs, ”t has not failed to avail himself; and, accordingly, “ free trade ”has almost invariably been one of the baits held out in Britain , whenevera seat in “ a certain great house,” or a continuation of the sweets of powerand place have been the objects desiderated.
The reader may probably recollect that in the year 1840, the king ofNaples was forcibly concussed by the then government of Great Britain ,(alas, how misapplied w'as the adjective in the case in question,) into theabrogation of the treaty which he had entered into with the mercantilehouse of Taix, Aycard, & Co. of Marseilles . The following extracts, froma small brochure published at the time, under the title of a “ Review of