"_Profit and loss due, to sundries_, $200,000, _for final and total
loss of cargo._"

In the meantime the custom-house inscribed $200,000 upon its list of
_exportations_, and as there can of course be nothing to balance this
entry on the list of _importations_, it hence follows that our
enlightened members of Congress must see in this wreck _a clear
profit_ to the United States of $200,000.

We may draw hence yet another conclusion, viz.: that according to the
Balance of Trade theory, the United States has an exceedingly simple
manner of constantly doubling her capital. It is only necessary, to
accomplish this, that she should, after entering into the custom-house
her articles for exportation, cause them to be thrown into the sea. By
this course, her exportations can speedily be made to equal her
capital; importations will be nothing, and our gain will be, all which
the ocean will have swallowed up.

You are joking, the protectionists will reply. You know that it is
impossible that we should utter such absurdities. Nevertheless, I
answer, you do utter them, and what is more, you give them life, you
exercise them practically upon your fellow-citizens, as much, at
least, as is in your power to do.

But lest even Mr. T's books may not be deemed of sufficient weight to
counterbalance the convictions of the Horace Greeley school of
prohibition, I shall proceed to furnish a table exhibiting various
classes of commercial transactions, embracing most of the classes
usually effected by importing and exporting houses, all of which may
result in undoubted profits to the parties engaged in them, and to the