please you, that foreign nations should inundate us with useful
produce of every description, and ask nothing in return; that our
importations should be _infinite_, and our exportations _nothing_.
Imagine all this, and still I defy you to prove that we will be the
poorer in consequence.




CHAPTER VII.

A PETITION.


Petition from the Manufacturers of Candles, Wax-Lights, Lamps,
Chandeliers, Reflectors, Snuffers, Extinguishers; and from the
Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Petroleum, Kerosene, Alcohol, and
generally of every thing used for lights.

"_To the Honorable the Senators and Representatives of the United
States in Congress assembled._

"GENTLEMEN:--You are in the right way: you reject abstract
theories; abundance, cheapness, concerns you little. You are entirely
occupied with the interest of the producer, whom you are anxious to
free from foreign competition. In a word, you wish to secure the
_national market_ to _national labor_.

"We come now to offer you an admirable opportunity for the application
of your--what shall we say? your theory? no, nothing is more