Yet what analogy is there between an exchange and an _invasion_? What
resemblance can possibly be established between a vessel of war, which
comes to pour fire, shot, and devastation into our cities, and a
merchant ship, which comes to offer to barter with us freely,
voluntarily, commodity for commodity?
As much may be said of the word _inundation_. This word is generally
taken in bad part, because _inundations_ often ravage fields and
crops. If, however, they deposit upon the soil a greater value than
that which they take from it; as is the case in the inundations of the
Nile, we might bless and deify them as the Egyptians do. Well! before
declaiming against the inundation of foreign produces, before
opposing to them restraining and costly obstacles, let us inquire if
they are the inundations which ravage or those which fertilize? What
should we think of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of building, at great
expense, dams across the Nile for the purpose of extending its field
of inundation, he should expend his money in digging for it a deeper
bed, so that Egypt should not be defiled by this _foreign_ slime,
brought down from the Mountains of the Moon? We exhibit precisely the
same amount of reason, when we wish, by the expenditure of millions,
to preserve our country--From what? The advantages with which Nature
has endowed other climates.
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