Alexandria Gazette

We maintain, then, that the complaint which the Southern merchants make of the loss of the foreign commerce is unreasonable, because they will not adopt the only means by which they can secure it—superior thrift and economy. They and they only are to blame, if there is any blame about it. Not that we believe there is—very far from it. All we mean to affirm is, that if they really wish to regain the carrying trade which they appear to regard as so great an object, they have only to adopt a new scale of expense! to deny themselves every indulgence, to live as the sailors of the North live, to give up the expensive attendance or support of servants, and to abandon the profitable cultivation by those servants of the cotton plant, and they will soon cover every sea with their canvass. Those and those only will have the command of the ocean who will go over it the cheapest. Let that maxim stand, and it will dispense the merchants of Carolina from the necessity of publishing any more reports, as well as save them from the disgusting appearance of fermenting sectional prejudices by exciting in their portion of country the jealousy of the prosperity of others.—Boston Courier.