We, the people, ought to
be made sensible that it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which
are the laws of Nature, and consequently the laws of God, that we are to
place our hope of softening the Divine displeasure to remove any
calamity under which we suffer or which hangs over us.
So far as to the principles of general policy.
As to the state of things which is urged as a reason to deviate from
them, these are the circumstances of the harvest of 1794 and 1795. With
regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to the noblest grain, wheat,
it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively,--and in
quality, for the seven-and-twenty years during which I have been a
farmer, I never remember wheat to have been so good. The world were,
however, deceived in their speculations upon it,--the farmer as well as
the dealer. Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond anything I can
remember: for at one time of the year I sold my wheat at 14_l._ a load,
(I sold off all I had, as I thought this was a reasonable price,) when
at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell, I might have
got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain. I sold all that I had, as
I said, at a comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price,
compared with what I thought the general produce of the harvest; but
when I came to consider what my own _total_ was, I found that the
quantity had not answered my expectation.
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