Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

ANTI-DUELLIST

FROM THE SAME.

On the inseparable connection of the agricultural and commercial interests

NOTHING can be more stupid than it would be for the body of farmers to endeavour to cramp and discourage navigation and commerce, or for the body of merchants to despise agriculture; because the interests of these two classes of people are intimately and inseparably connected. Agriculture is the basis of commerce, and commerce cherishes agriculture. But for the merchant, the farmer would have no market for the surplusage of his produce, and without a market, he would have no encouragement to exert himself vigorously and extensively in the line of his business.

The United States are skirted and intersected by an immense extent of navigable waters; and their inhabitants are amphibious animals accustomed both to the land and to the watery element. The farmer furnishes means of business to the merchant and navigator, and these take off of the hands of the farmer the surpluses of his produce, which they convey to distant climes: and from thence they bring back to the farmer, at a reasonable rate of purchase, a variety of pleasant and convenient articles, that the present state of society has rendered necessary. Thus there is between them a constant reciprocity of benefits.

Countries upon whose skirts and into whose bosom few or no ships unfurl their sails, impose on the tiller of the ground the hard and double necessity of selling extremely cheap and purchasing extremely dear.