The same policy has shut up furnaces and mills in all parts of New England, and driven capital into the building of ships; and now low freights, and low prices generally make all equally unprofitable. The total earnings of shipping, notwithstanding the great increase, and the California accident, are less than for many years past. The cotton crop of the South is only a little larger than in 1840, notwithstanding the great increase of Southern population; the money product of the entire crop is far less than in that year. Had the South adopted the true economical policy of bringing the plough, the loom and the anvil side by side, of causing the products of the soil to be wrought up and consumed upon the soil, the home consumption would have been double of what it is, and the vast increase of population would have had an equal increase of wealth. to us, and still further depress our far mers. The free trade principles of the compromise bill "vindicated" by the crash of 1841-2, again being "vindicated" by a similar state of things coming fast upon us. "The great difficulty with most of these professional political economists is, that they have no practical knowledge. They have they have by slow degrees arrived at the point studied so many politico-economical books, that at which all men of real "common sense" begin, i. e. that all trade ought to be free. The latter see, however, that the great and important trade is between man and his neighbor man, and that the small trade is that between far distant men. They see that everywhere men desire to have blacksmiths and shoemakers, cotton and woolen-cloth makers, and iron makers, in their neighborhood, and that the more nearly they can be brought to them the greater is the facility of obtaining shoes for horses and men, and cloth and iron. They see this desire developing itself on all occasions in a constant effort to bring the loom and the consumed at home, and with a small pro-almost perpetual ruin following the effort, beanvil to the side of the plough, and they see spective crop, the price of cotton ought, under a just protection, to have risen enormously; but the rise is at present very trifling, notwithstanding all that has conspired to produce a rise. If 200,000 more bales of cotton are now Of sixteen rolling mills for the manufacture of railroad iron, only four are now busy, and these to complete orders given before the tariff of 1846 came into operation. A great many furnaces and factories in the North are stopped. Among the smaller manufacturers a great depression exists, in consequence of inability among the mass of population to consume the usual amount; low wages, low interests, low prices, capital and labor alike unemployed, is the present condition of things. cause of changes of policy abroad, that could not have been anticipated, still less guarded against. Seeing all this, they have arrived at the conciusion that there must exist disturbing causes preventing the possibility of the establishment of universal freedom, but that it may be obtained through the means of effectual protection to the great and really important trade between men and their neighbor men; and they are confirmed in that belief by the fact that those manufacturers which have most required protection are now those which least require it. They see that in the desire for freeing the country from the colonial system which prevented the establishment of manufactures, may be found the most important of the causes of our Revolution, and that from that time to the present, the most eminent men-our Washingtons and Jeffersons, and Jacksons-have seen and felt the necessity for bringing the manufacturer to take his place by the side of the agriculturist.' In place of feeding the paupers of Europe,' said President Jackson, Cloth and iron we are importing in large let us feed our own,' - yet he was fully aware that under natural circumstances freequantities; the food and products of other dom of trade among all men, the near and the agricultural countries, wrought up on on distant, would be the most profitable of all. other soils, and paid for in evidences of He, however, had practical knowledge, of debt! which these men are totally destitute. They are political economists to the point of repeating, parrot-like, the words 'free-trade,' but beyond that their knowledge does not extend."— Plough, Loom and Anvil. Our exports to a large extent are stocks! evidences of debt, to the amount of nine millions or more! The people idle, and foreign paupers and laborers working for us. Farmers and workmen out of employment, go to the West, to raise more food; and capital goes into railroads to bring it "Among the blunders of this class of men is that which results from the omission of all attention to that most important element in every politico-economical calculation, called time. At the end of the first month of his new tariff, the late Secretary set himself to calculating its effects, whereas every man of any practical knowledge knows well that considerable time must elapse before the effects of any such measure begin to be felt. Prosperity does not come or go with the passage of a law, but with its practical operation. The passage of the tariff of 1842 did not remedy the difficulties under which the country labored, but it enabled men to construct mills and furnaces, by aid of which a state of prosperity was restored. The man who is driven from the mines to seek the West, continues for a year to be a consumer of food and a customer (though on a smaller scale than he before had been) to the farmer, but in the second year he ceases to be a customer and begins to be a rival. The hundred thousand people that have been driven to the West, this year will not be felt as producers until next year, and then and scarcely till then-it will be that the farmers of the Union will feel the evil effects of the abolition of the tariff of 1842. All these things are obvious to men of plain common sense, but they have studied few politico-economical books, and they have no theories to maintain in opposition to the common sense of the nation for a hundred years past. They feel under no obligation to teach their neighbors that they have been talking prose all their lives, nor to lisp free trade without understanding it, as do so many of the great men of our day. 66 The existing tariff-the great measure that was to emancipate labor and capital from the grinding oppression of 1842-the measure that was to raise wages, and that has so far depressed them that laborers find increased difficulty in obtaining food, fuel, or clothingthe measure that was to raise the value of capital, and that has so far depressed it that men gladly purchase stocks yielding little more than five per cent., because of the impossibility of employing capital to advantage; that great measure, we say, went into operation nominally in December, 1846. Practically, it was almost altogether inoperative. The great railroad speculation of Europe had produced a vast demand for laborers and for iron, and both were high in price. Well-paid laborers consumed largely of food and cloth, while the potato-rot produced a vast demand for food for Ireland, and thus all things were unnaturally high, and as the new tariff was altogether an ad valorum one, it followed that duties were high, and sufficiently protective. The railroad speculation broke down, and the demand for labor ceased, and therewith there was a cessation of the demand for cloth and iron, and the makers of cloth and iron were forced to work at diminished wages, and the prices of cloth and iron fell, and then for the first time, at the close of about a year and a half from the first of December, 1846, did the tariff of 1846 come into practical operation." Plough, Loom, and Anvil. So far our author, without inquiry as to the correctness of the statistics given by the correspondent of the Union. We reserve for a succeeding number a farther examination of the article, and a fuller development of our author's argument to show that the cotton planters have been greatly injured, and by no means benefitted by the actions of low tariffs. The greatest physical prosperity of this country will have been attained, when the entire wants of its people are supplied by their own industry. When in every State or separate region of the Union, there shall be manufactures established suitable to that region, and fully equal to the supply of its wants; and when the joint surplus products of all shall be poured through the great channels of commerce, the projected Pacific Railroad, and the ports of the Atlantic, toward every part of the habitable globe. Such a condition of things can be brought about only by the pursuit of that system of policy which was established by the Republican party. ANDERPORT RECORDS-NO. I. REGINALD, SON OF ANTHONY. CHAPTER I. Ar the head of tide-water on Gavin Run, a considerable creek which five miles lower enters one of the finest of our southern rivers, stands Anderport. Besides its age, many considerations make it deserving of note. Its founders, less restricted in means than most of the early colonists, erected its buildings in a manner so lavish of material, and so substantial and massive, that a modern builder would call them proof against the wear of time. The town, however, has had to resist a destroyer which its first settlers did not anticipate, nor could have guarded against-that ravager, at once insidious and ruthless-neglect. Tall brick houses frown grimly upon grass-grown streets, which were laid out for the leading thoroughfares of an enterprising and populous mart. The traveller, who in a score of miles has not passed half that number of habitations, rubs his eyes to find himself suddenly in what seems the heart of a city. Yet, wearied as he is with the wilderness through which his journey has led him, his mind meets little relief in the unlooked-for termination. Indeed, nothing in the surrounding prospect, cheerless though it be -not the hills covered with hen-grass, that ashen garb of sterility; nor the scrubby clusters of old field pines, creeping upon the dispirited husbandman; nor the wide, unenclosed forests, plundered of their younger growth and retaining only the huge patriarchs, which may defy the axe, but are sinking helpless beneath the reiterated strokes of the elements; nor even that sluggish, dismal stream, spread over a reedy marsh, and bordered by moors of broom-sedge and dense thickets of alder and brambles-not all together can give the beholders such an intense feeling of desolation, as that gloomy as VOL. IV. NO. III. NEW SERIES. semblage of almost forsaken dwellings. Abundant signs of poverty are visible, but they are not found in the usual abodes of rural wretchedness, tottering, low-browed hovels. All is brick-brick. Man seems here to have put forth his strength at the start, and done his best; but at the same instant that we perceive this, we perceive also that his labor has been vanity. One has no occasion to go to Tadmor, nor to Baalbek, to experience the painful pleasure of watching how desperately the poor relics of human toil and skill may struggle for existence with an engulfing desert. If Anderport present the scene less grandly than the ruined cities of the East, it has one element of impressiveness which they lack. This dingy little town, with its air of antiquity, its dilapidated roofs and crumbling walls, is not found in the Old World, where sights of decay are to be expected, but in flourishing vi gorous, lusty America. There is something striking, too, in its diminutive size. We cannot come upon it without being reminded of one of those pitiable dwarfs who carry the heavy weather-beaten features of full-grown manhood upon the small and feeble limbs of a child. The decline of Anderport is easily accounted for. At the time of its settlement, and for some years afterward, Gavin Run was navigable to vessels of several hundred tons burden. Now, it hardly affords unobstructed passage at low tide for the fisherman's skiff. Concurrent causes might be enumerated, such as the character of the population, and the existence of more fortunate rivals; but I am not writing a history. The intelligence of those who gave it its name, is vindicated by the statement that it was once a port; and its present condition is sufficiently described, when the fact is added that it is a port no longer. Most of the houses, as has been men16 tioned, line the streets, and are constructed in the style usual in cities. There are some, however, on the heights in the outskirts of the town, which have much more architectural character. These formed in fact the mansions of the original owners of the settlement. One of them, which attracts attention by its white, rough-cast front, was built by Wriothesly Ander, from whom the town received its name. To him succeeded Reginald his son, a profligate scamp, who, tradition tells us, had the credit of breaking the heart of an amiable wife. Then came Edward, and next to Edward, who died without issue, his brother Charles James, of neither of whom is anything memorable related. Anthony followed, whose wife died a year after their marriage, leaving an infant son Reginald. A single companion attended him; an elderly man, quite bald but for the scanty gray locks which hung at the back of his head, yet with a full bright eye, and a brow unmarked by a wrinkle. Altogether, Mr. Simon Rennoe, of a figure compact and rotund, but not corpulent, a composed demeanor, great suavity of address, and a countenance ever wearing a benignant smile, was one of those persons who excite, in all with whom they associate, equal respect and confidence. He saw in his young friend much more than was visible to others. Under a cold and sluggish temperament, he knew there lurked qualities which rendered their possessor capable of the highest things. The direction, however, which these energetic elements would take was yet uncertain. Consequently, Mr. Rennoe, who was a philosopher in his way, regarded Reginald not only with affection, but with a deep interest. This friendship was not, perhaps, unaccompanied by a degree of jealousy, for Rennoe was certainly anxious to prevent the youth from forming any new attachment. In this respect, he was for several weeks completely gratified. The society of the gentlemen of the neighborhood, polished, frank, and companionable as they were, had little attraction for the student; and with his reserve and bashfulness, he found still less to please him in the ladies whom he met. The occasional sarcasms of Rennoe on the frivolous, trifle-loving sex, were evidently listened to without displeasure. Sometimes Reginald expressed his own thoughts. "I cannot conceive," he observed one evening, on their return from a visit, "how it is that man, who is fitted to entertain such lofty aspirations, can bring himself to feel attachment for a creature whom nature has made incapable of thinking." Anthony Ander, a man of morose, melancholy temperament, took little interest in the growth and education of his heir. The child grew to boyhood with no society but that of servants, and of old musty volumes found in the neglected apartment which had sometimes been used as a library. In his sixteenth year he was sent by his father, who seemed to have had some prejudice against the English universities, to one of the European continental colleges. Anthony himself was shortly after taken sick in London, and died there. The estate went into the hands of executors, and Reginald who had no ties of blood nor friendship to draw him to Anderport, passed five full years at the college without making a single visit to America. It was just a week after the attainment of his majority that he set out for the home from which he had so long been estranged. The people at Anderport, who had looked forward to his arrival as an epoch, found little to prepossess them in his first appearance. He was below the ordinary stature, ungraceful in person, and remarkable for the homeliness of his features. Thin locks of carroty hair dangled over his low forehead and completed the ugliness of an exterior which was not relieved by the slightest attention to neatness of attire. Nor were there any obvious indications of intellect to redeem so much that who seek power, not merely for its rewas repulsive; indeed, his eye had a va-sults, but, like the strong man using his cant, hazy look, which many characterized strength, from delight in the effort"at once as stolid and doltish. The student, without waiting for the "It is easily accounted for," returned Rennoe; "such men as we saw yonder are well fitted to be governed by such influence." "True!" ejaculated Reginald. "Whilst those,' Rennoe continued, "who possess great faculties-who are made to be the master-spirits of the earth conclusion of the sentence, murmured, half | right dashed with unslackened speed along unconsciously, "They must not let their minds become any body else's property the man who knows how to avoid obeying may soon learn the way to rule." The sentiment uttered was not exactly that which Rennoe desired to provoke, yet he did not choose to open a discussion. Some days after, Reginald went alone to return the call of Mr. Chesley, a planter, whose mansion was some six or seven miles distant. He was ushered by the servant into a parlor, the only occupant of which, at the moment, was a young lady whom he had never before seen-Matilda Chesley, eldest daughter of the planter. She received him with great ease and politeness; and as he found her reading when he entered, his heart at once softened more than it had ever before done in the presence of woman. Availing himself of a pause in the dialogue, he glanced at the open volume. It was poetry the Seasons and he no longer made any exception from his sweeping contempt of the daughters of Eve. 66 Do you like Thomson ?" Matilda inquired, noticing the direction of his eyes. No; he's a pompous, second-hand affair, with much more sound than sense." The lady's countenance was expressive of some surprise, but at that instant the door opened. The new comer, also a visitor, was Laurence Seymour, a fine looking young man, who was met with a very cordial greeting. Miss Chesley of course Miss Chesley of course introduced him to Reginald Ander. As the three were taking their seats, a smile played on Seymour's lips, and he darted a glance of peculiar meaning at the young lady. Reginald took note of both smile and glance. Immediately all the torpid energies of his soul were aroused. That almost imperceptible expression of disdain, which sprang involuntarily to the handsome face of Seymour, and which vanished the moment after, had durable consequen ces. Reginald, satisfied with making a brief visit, soon returned home. Seymour remained, and in the course of the afternoon persuaded Matilda that it was a delightful day for a horseback ride. The saddled steeds were quickly brought to the door, and they galloped gaily down the noble avenue in front, then turning to the the road, and afterwards through by-way and over moor, till at last they drew rein on a lofty eminence which jutted into the vale, and commanded a prospect of its whole extent, both downward and up. In the one direction the eye swept over Anderport and followed the Gavin, until it was lost from sight in the lake-like river. Towards the southwest the view was more contracted, but the very objects that limited it had their own peculiar beautyrocky hillsides, curtained with vines and shrubbery, and, directly in front, a bold precipice down which the little stream was joyously bounding. They gazed long and silently at the lovely landscape. When they turned away, the soft influence of the scene accompanied them, and no disposition was felt by either to resume the wild haste which had brought them thither. Their panting horses walked slowly down, not unwilling after such a race to snuff at leisure the balmy air of the evening. Seymour talked of his native England; he described a vale not less beautiful than that of the Gavin; he told how the hill which they had just left, reminded him of the site of his father's stately castle; then he painted the park, with its oaks that gave shade when the Tudors reigned; and lastly, he sighed as he referred to the feelings with which he, a younger brother out of a numerous household, had left those dearly cherished scenes to seek his fortune in the forests of the Western World. Matilda listened with rapt attention-why should she not? Encouraged by the expression of interest which beamed from her beautiful countenance, he went on to say that notwithstanding all which the Atlantic divided him from, he yet felt that there was room in his heart for the hope of a happiness exceeding any that all broad England could furnish. He looked full towards her as he spoke, but her eyes were now bent downward, and he could not catch their expression. It was clear, however, that she was much absorbed in what he was saying, for her horse happening to stumble, the rein was held so carelessly that it fell from her grasp, and was drawn quite out of reach. He seized it promptly and restored it to the fair horse-woman, but her hand trembled as it touched his. A great deal more was uttered on the |