Britain independent of commerce; or proofs, deduced from an
investigation into the true cause of the wealth of nations, that our
riches, prosperity, and power are derived from sources inherent in
ourselves, and would not be affected, even though our commerce were
annihilated. By Wm. Spence.[522] 4th edition, 1808, 8vo.
A patriotic paradox, being in alleviation of the Commerce panic which the
measures of Napoleon I.--who _felt_ our Commerce, while Mr. Spence only
_saw_ it--had awakened. In this very month (August, 1866), the Pres. Brit.
Assoc. has applied a similar salve to the coal panic; it is fit that
science, which rubbed the sore, should find a plaster. We ought to have an
iron panic and a timber panic; and {232} a solemn embassy to the Americans,
to beg them not to whittle, would be desirable. There was a gold panic
beginning, before the new fields were discovered. For myself, I am the
unknown and unpitied victim of a chronic gutta-percha panic: I never could
get on without it; to me, gutta percha and Rowland Hill are the great
discoveries of our day; and not unconnected either, gutta percha being to
the submarine post what Rowland Hill is to the superterrene. I should be
sorry to lose cow-choke--I gave up trying to spell it many years ago--but
if gutta percha go, I go too. I think, that perhaps when, five hundred
years hence, the people say to the Brit. Assoc. (if it then exist) "Pray
gentlemen, is it not time for the coal to be exhausted?" they will be
answered out of Moliere (who will certainly then exist): "_Cela etait
autrefois ainsi, mais nous avons change tout cela._"[523] A great many
people think that if the coal be used up, it will be announced some
unexpected morning by all the yards being shut up and written notice
outside, "Coal all gone!" just like the "Please, ma'am, there ain't no more
sugar," with which the maid servant damps her mistress just at
breakfast-time. But these persons should be informed that there is every
reason to think that there will be time, as the city gentleman said, to
_venienti_ the _occurrite morbo_.[524]