deceiving than theory--your doctrine? your system? your principle? But
you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for
principles, you declare that there are no such things in political
economy. We will say, then, your practice; your practice without
theory, and without principle.

"We are subjected to the intolerable competition of a FOREIGN RIVAL,
who enjoys, it would seem, such superior facilities for the production
of light, that he is enabled to _inundate_ our _national market_ at so
exceedingly reduced a price, that, the moment he makes his appearance,
he draws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of
American industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly
reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other
than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have
every reason to believe that he has been excited to this course by our
perfidious cousins, the Britishers. (Good diplomacy this, for the
present time!) In this belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all
his transactions with their befogged island, he is much more moderate
and careful than with us.

"Our petition is, that it would please your Honorable Body to pass a
law whereby shall be directed the shutting up of all windows, dormers,
sky-lights, shutters, curtains--in a word, all openings, holes,
chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is used to
penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the profitable
manufactures which we flatter ourselves we have been enabled to bestow
upon the country; which country cannot, therefore, without
ingratitude, leave us now to struggle unprotected through so unequal a
contest.