Manufactures-Agricultural Resources of Maryland.

to the rivers, from an elevation generally amounting to about 600 feet, within a distance around Baltimore comprised in a radius of twenty-five miles. It has been calculated that within ten miles of the city there is water-power sufficient for near half a million of spindles, a large portion of which is still unapplied to any kind of manufacture.

If water is abundant, coal and iron are not less so. Our Cumberland region is known throughout the world as producing the best evaporative material," in its semi-bituminous coal, hitherto discovered; and the capitalists of the North are eagerly grasping those mines which must control so much labor and navigation. Hard by these mines, iron is stacked up in mountains, awaiting the development of time and industry; while, by railway and the Susquehanna Canal, anthracite coal is brought from a region which Pennsylvania has been slack in opening. Now, who does not know what powerful elements of England's wealth her coal and iron have been; but there are multitudes who do not know, that, from the abandoned furnaces of old Revolutionary days in our state-whose ruins may still be traced, -that very England was supplied, to some extent, with "pig iron which was in high repute!"

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along our Maryland water courses were the centres and marts of the American tobacco trade. At one time the leaf itself was our precious currency; and when commerce introduced paper as a circulating medium, it was still the familiar engraving of this leaf that authenticated "a note" to the people. In spite of all competition, accordingly, we have hitherto been enabled to maintain our commercial supremacy in this article; and, as our road and its western continuations penetrate farther and farther the heart of those new lands which are favorable to its planting, we mean, by the facilities afforded, and the concentration of operations, to consolidate the monopoly in this seaboard market. Heavy articles, like flour and tobacco, designed for export, seek the swiftest, nearest, and cheapest conveyance to the sea; and Baltimore must, therefore, continue to maintain its high commercial character in those productions, as well as provisions generally, by the facilities it will ever afford to the best producers.

Such, gentlemen, were some of the elements of our own domestic trade, within our neighborhood, even before the entire opening of our great internal improvement; yet, I should not forget to enumerate among our home wealth, the products of our bay,-its fisheries and its Nor are our agricultural resources to luxurious oysters,-demanded in such be forgotten. The census of 1850 dis- quantities at the West as to absorb a plays a teeming list of our productions. large transportation tonnage, and to lay Flour, corn, tobacco, and stock, raised so the foundation of distinguished private abundantly on our fertile levels, long ago fortunes. Nor should I neglect to menconstituted Baltimore one of the best tion our industrial establishments, our provision markets of the Union. The machine shops, our ship-building, our facility of selling here, has caused the luxurious stores, filled with every article West and adjacent South to select our of comfort, elegance, taste, or necessity, market, even at a time when wagons all pledged to respond to your wants and horses performed the work of cars and steam. The consequence has been that the British West Indies are now almost exclusively supplied with provisions by our merchants, and that a trade is daily augmenting with the continent of Europe, with free-trade England, with the Spanish Main and islands, and with both coasts of North and South America.

But grain and provisions do not alone absorb the great bulk of our commerce. Our traditionary staple is the favorite luxury-tobacco. Long before Revolutionary times,-long, even, before our city opened and developed a trade with the West-Baltimore and the towns

as readily and cheaply as the dealers of any other market in the country.

I have spoken somewhat at large of our domestic trade; let me now briefly advert to our foreign. When a domestic trade concentrates at a depot on tidewater, foreign trade must follow as a natural consequence. Accordingly, Baltimore, except in seasons of great disas ter or war, has never been without a liberal commerce. England is largely a purchaser of our provisions and luxuries. Germany and France nearly monopolize our tobacco; and, carrying the article on better terms in their own vessels, they send them hither laden with emigrants who are to fill up the unoccupied lands.

of the South and West, and to supply a large portion of necessary labor. Thus, indirectly, we are important agents in promoting the welfare of mankind in both hemispheres.

Nor have we only the ability to sell and send abroad what you send us, and, in return, to supply you with the necessaries and luxuries you may require but we may, also, offer you the prospects of profitable intercourse with a city which is financially sound-ready to give every just facility-prompt to sustain the relations of honorable commerce-averse to chicanery and craft -free from the mania of speculation in property or stock-and sustained by ample capital and banks of unblemished repute.

all sections-thus demonstrating its advantageous position for domestic commerce-we trust you have also seen just cause to rely on our foreign trade, augmented in proportion to our sanguine anticipations of your favor.

Our commercial intercourse is, moreover, extensive with the West Indies The tie of the West to us is unquesand the Southern Continent; with the tionably natural, historical and actual; British possessions of North America, our productions are alike, and we have and with our own Eastern Atlantic both sought to develop and dispose of coast, whence a large trade has been them. The South, too,-our old colonial opened in goods sent hither to be sold on ally,-has a deep concern in our welfare, commission. which is evident in the history of our state-the characteristic habits and tastes of our people, and the nature of a large portion of our agriculture. Why should not the South garrison our bul wark state with the irresistible element of commercial supremacy? We have a mutual stake in the security of our labor. We think it would be impugning the intelligence of that South of which we regard ourselves an integral part-to address it argument in support of Baltimore as a great common mart of production and trade near the north. All its staple will find a ready sale in our We have heard it urged against us city. Sugar, rice and an increased supthat Baltimore is not a seaport! But ply of cotton will always be demanded this is a quibbling fallacy. A seaport is through Baltimore for our trade with the not made alone by the horizon of the West, Northwest and North, as well as for ocean. Baltimore on tide-water is with- our exports and our domestic consump in ten or twelve hours steaming of the tion. In return, we are ready to furnish, sea, and is all the safer for lying in the speedily, cheaply and faithfully, all embracing protection of her magnificent your personal necessaries and luxuries, bay, where her trade and the trade that as well as the supplies for your plantamay be entrusted to her, will be more tions. From our own wants, we know secure as our unaided citizens proved and justly sympathize with yours.in the last war-than on the exposed We are disposed-not in a sectional margin of an ocean. The great cities of spirit-not with a desire to weaken the nations are not necessarily placed on a Union-to join you in freeing the Amerisea-board. It was not the mere sea fa- can mind from that unmanly subservicility that made them opulent, before ence-that colonial obedience,-which the days of steam. Their accessibility is so rapidly making us dependent on to and from the ocean-is the important the North. The northern capitals feel thing. Great cities should, like Balti- the danger of this fact, for they do all more, rather be placed near the com- they can to encourage the absorbing mercial centres of productive countries, metropolitan sentiment, and to fix the where the various avails of labor and climate can most conveniently meet for exchange. Paris, London, Vienna, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, are not on the sea, though all are great capitals, great centres of trade, and conduct their business chiefly by sea, while one of them is the financial centre of the continent of Europe.

Gentlemen, as we have shown you why we think both Nature and Art have made Baltimore the natural point of trade for

vassalage of the South and West by that commercial lien of extravagance and debt which may ruin sections as it has often ruined individuals. Steam and electricity are rapidly consolidating us; yet New-York and Boston ignore the existence of any commercial capitals but themselves, while their presses diffuse information as to their own allurements alone, and rarely mention a rival city save to disparage its worth and exalt their own.

Baltimore the Great Central Mart of Foreign Trade.

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well as among the isles of Japan, new vents for American trade and its results. Why, then, should we hesitate to adopt this central port and those modern vehicles for our trade which are unmistakably indicated by the spirit of the age; and why should we not boldly demand for them the cordial cherishing of our government?

But these matters are not to be judged when it is no prophecy to say, that formerely by feeling and sentiment. We eign commerce, as well as war, will be are addressing men alive to their inter- driven exclusively by steam. In South ests, but who know no interests that con- America, the Amazon and the tributaflict with honor. We have opened our ries of the La Plata are to give us a views, and expressed our welcome brief- trade scarcely inferior to that which was ly, but with honest cordiality. We be- developed by the emancipation of the lieve that Baltimore, as the mart for the Spanish possessions on our continent. best coal used in the propulsion of ocean An extensive colonial commerce alsteamers, and lying on the sea-like Ches- ready exists from this port with Africa; apeake, will soon, with your counte- and the enlightened head of our navy nance, build up a steam fleet to carry has dispatched an officer to explore the the commerce which our combined adjacent coasts and their commercial farming, planting, and manufacturing advantages. With the empire of Brazil interests will supply or demand. Al- and the Argentine Confederation, our ready, a regular steamer plies between intercourse is of long and valuable Baltimore and Charleston, and the in- standing. In India, too, the discoverer creased trade she has begotten demands is abroad, seeking, on the continent, as the speedy launching of another. Savannah, Mobile and the Texan ports have shown anxiety to confirm a direct trade with us. If it shall be assured, we have capitalists among us who will not shrink from the discreet enterprise. This will ensure regular southern ocean lines to the South; and will fringe our coast with our own steamers, from the Chesapeake to the remotest borders of our ter- Gentlemen, we do not churlishly ask ritory. It is a well known fact that pre- you to come to us to trade alone, and vious to 1817, cotton, though not a sta- then to take your profit and depart. We ple of Maryland, entered largely into desire to give no spendthrift promises, the commerce and consumption of Balti- but we intend, as opportunities are premore. If the British possessions in the sented, to make our city a place worthy West Indies can be supplied with pro- of your sojourning. We have now little visions from the Baltimore market, in but personal hospitality to offer you; yet return for their colonial produce, why there is a spirit abroad that is disposed cannot the South pursue the same to make Baltimore a great capital, every course? Does not our whole southern way worthy of its site and of the intercountry-whose correspondence and course we solicit. We intend that you productions furnish probably one-half of the postage on foreign mail intercourse by steam-feel the neglect of government, when it remembers that, with the exception of the Isabel, hardly a dollar has been given from the national treasury to build or maintain a southern steamer? Why should not a regular line, carrying the mail, depart from this great central mart, and coasting the whole south, supply its people, swiftly and surely, not only with news, but personal transportation?

Wider markets, too, are rapidly opening to the world's competition. Men are impatient of sails, and the day will come

shall be fittingly entertained. In time, Baltimore will have more luxurious surroundings to greet, attract and amuse the stranger. We know that the honesty and energy of the merchant or mechanic are often aided, successfully, by the charms and instruction with which art, science and taste invest a capital. These gratifying and discreet allurements shall not be wanting to make you pleasantly comfortable during your temporary residence among us; but, at all times, you will receive that home welcome in our dwellings for which Baltimore has not, we hope, been unjustly praised.

ART. VI.-THE FISCAL HISTORY OF TEXAS.

STATEMENT OF REVENUES, DEBTS AND CURRENCY, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION IN 1834, To 1852, WITH REMARKS ON AMERICAN DEbts.

[It was the editor's wish to have prepared the article reviewing Mr. Gouge's took himself, but press of engagements compelled him to leave it to another, who has furnished the following. Should others be disposed to discuss the subject briefly in the pages of the Review, they are extended now, as in the past, for that purpose.}

Of the general tone of the book, some judgment may be formed from the following passage in the introduction:

THIS work contains an interesting principles, and principles may be as account of the various modes in which strikingly illustrated in the small comthe debt of Texas was created during the munities of Rhode Island, Delaware or existence of the Republic, and a full ex- Texas, as in the larger ones of Newplanation of the legislation of the State of York, Massachusetts or Virginia." Texas on that subject since she has become a member of the Union. The historian has not only presented all the facts bearing on the debts of Texas in the order of their occurrence in a very clear and striking manner, but has made his narrative a vehicle for enforcing sound doctrines on subjects of the highest importance to the public at all times -such as the nature of state securities, the obligation imposed by public debt, together with numerous questions concerning currency and finance, which are far more clearly and forcibly illustrated by the progress and result of the measures explained in the history, than could be done by any didactic statements. The book is, in fact, a book of political philosophy, in which the conduct of Texas is taken as the theme, and the true principles of currency and finance thereby illustrated, for the most part, by "the rule of opposites."

Some have wondered that Mr. Gouge, having determined to write a volume, great part of the contents of which should be of general interest, should have selected for his subject what compelled him to give a local title to his book. But we do not wonder at it. Looking round among the states, he found no one the fiscal history of which afforded so many examples for illustrating the true principle of currency and finance, "by the rule of opposites," as did that of Texas, and he chose that accordingly. As he justly observes, “History is of importance only as it illustrates

It was written by W. M. Gouge, author of "A Short History of Paper-money and Banking in the United States." Philadelphia: Lippencott, Grambo & Co. 8vo., pp. 331. In 1848 or 1849. there appeared in the pages of the Review an article which discussed the debt of Texas with great minute

ness.

"The paper-money disease is hereditary with us Americans. If it is subdued in one form, it breaks out in another. To the old provincial paper-money, succeeded state paper-money and continental money. Then, brought almost to death's door by the violence of our complaint, we searched for a remedy, and thought we had found one in that provision of the United States Constitution which declares that, 'no state shall emit bills of credit.' The disease, however, soon made its appearance with new vigor; the states evading the principles of the Constitution by establishing corporations to do that which they have not power to do themselves.

"Do the banks suspend specie pay. ments? This only increases the amount issuers. The corporations of cities and of paper issues and the number of paper towns, turnpike companies, bridge companies, rail-road companies, and individuals in all the private walks of life, immediately commence the issue of notes for dollars and the fractional parts of dollars. A new term is not then introduced into the language, but a new application is made of an old term, and shin-plasters' mean in America, what shin-plasters' mean nowhere else.

want money? Instead of borrowing gold "Does the United States government banks, or resorts to the issue of treasury and silver, it borrows paper from the notes, and makes them receivable for duties. In the only very important war we have had since the war of Independence, it kept on with the issue of these notes till they were depreciated far be

Paper Money-Mr. Gouge's Views of Public Debt.

low par; and the contrivances resorted of the whole concern. to in the times of Van Buren and Polk embrace it. We re-establish the systo throw into circulation treasury notes tem by coercing a return to specie paybearing no interest, or only nominal in- ments-a measure which inflicts twice terest, show that even these statesmen, as much evil on the community as would from whose professed principles better be produced by gradually winding up things might be looked for, are them- the suspended institutions. We will do selves deeply infected with the heredi- any thing, we will suffer any thing, tary disease of the nation. If such slight rather than give up our paper money. fiscal embarrassments as were felt in the times of Polk and Van Buren could induce them to sanction or connive at the issue of treasury notes bearing no interest, or only nominal interest, there is every reason to believe that, in a period of real exigency, they would have resorted to the issue of treasury notes of such small denominations as would have driven gold and silver out of circulation.