It is in the mode just described, that those countries which formerly
supplied Europe with manufactures, but which owed their power of doing
so not to any natural and permanent advantages, but to their more
advanced state of civilization as compared with other countries, have
lost their pre-eminence as other countries successively attained an
equal degree of civilization. Lombardy and Flanders, in the middle ages,
produced some descriptions of clothing and ornament for all Europe:
Holland, at a much later period, supplied ships, and almost all articles
which came in ships, to most other parts of the world. All these
countries have probably at this moment a much larger amount of capital
than ever they had, but having been undersold by other countries, they
have lost by far the greater part of the share which they had engrossed
to themselves of the benefit which the world derives from commerce; and
their capital yields to them in consequence a smaller proportional
return. We are aware that other causes have contributed to the same
effect, but we cannot doubt that this is a principal one.

As much as is really true of the great returns alleged to have been made
to capital during the last war, must have arisen from a similar cause.
Our exclusive command of the sea excluded from the market all by whom we
should have been undersold.

The adoption by France, Russia, the Netherlands, and the United States,
of a more severely restrictive commercial policy, subsequently to 1815,
has done great injury undoubtedly to those countries; for the duties
which they have established are intended to be, and really are, of the
class termed _protecting_; that is to say, such as force the production
of commodities by more costly processes at home, instead of suffering
them to be imported from abroad. But these duties, though chiefly
injurious to the countries imposing them, have also been highly