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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

cautious, sagacious, and provident, to balance carefully its benefits against themanifold inconveniences which have too frequently accompanied them.

We find ourselves on this occasion again compelled to have recourse to quotethe example of that people, who must certainly excite the wonder of all whoare acquainted with their history; and, though in some they may create contempt,from the remainder they will, in spite of prejudice, on many accounts extortreverence. The empire of China, extending one thousand three hundred milesfrom north to south, and affording all those various productions which can pamperthe pride or appetite of man, saved the inhabitants the labour of exploring re-mote regions to feed either, and rendered them happily independent of all therest of the world. With countries whose limits were more contracted it wasotherwise; and avarice soon finding itself fed by the advantages it derivedwhile ministering to the remaining follies of mankind, took the earliest op-portunity of insinuating its poisonous tenets, of persuading the governing powersin every country where it was suffered to take root, that the existence, andprosperity of commerce, was essential to the welfare of every state placed byinature in the condition of fostering it, and even synonimous to the well-being ofthe state itself.

- To this insidious representation we may ascribe the prohibitory edicts issued,in the most remote ages, by the governing powers of various countries who foundthemselves possessed of sufficient force to overawe their less warlike, or less nu-merous neighbours. To the same source we may also trace the cause of thegreater part of those wars which, in different ages, have deluged the world withblood, in pursuit of a phantom, plausibly promising to be productive of imaginaryhappiness, while, in reality, it has ever proved itself the firm, the implacable foeto quiet, to public tranquillity, and to that purity of mind which mankind issupposed to have once possessed, but which, as we have already said, nothing somuch as itself has tended to deprave and destroy. Commerce, say its strenuousadvocates, has become indispensibly necessary in later ages, owing to the greatprogress of population, because when countries sent forth colonies of needy orenterprising adventurers into distant parts of the world, it was soon found thatsome articles not to be found in the new settlement, and to the use of whichthe emigrators had been accustomed, either in the way of luxury or utility, hadbeen left behind in the quarter from whence they came; and, on the other hand,that they found many productions peculiar to their second abode, which might be.extremely grateful and convenient to what was called, and to the present mo-ment