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the Cape of Good Hope, Goree, Sierra Leone, and forts on the coast of Guinea.

From these, they bring to Europe gold dust, ivory, gums, and drugs.

203. In America, the English provinces of Upper and Lower Canada and Nova Scotia, produce furs, corn, and fish. In the West Indies, England occupies Jamaica, Barbadoes, and many other islands. And in South America, Demarara, Berbice, Guiana, &c.; all which supply sugar, rum, cotton, coffee, spices, drugs, mahogany, sweet-meats, &c.

204. These luxuries serve at once to gratify ourselves; and as desirable mediums of exchange for the produce and manufactures of all other

countries.

We give them to Russia, for hemp, tar, and tallow:

To Sweden, for copper:

To Norway, for timber:

To Germany, for linen rags and smalts for paper:

To France, for wine and brandy:

To Portugal, for wine:

To Spain, for gold and silver, and fruit :
To Italy, for silk, rags, oil, and fruit:

And to Turkey, for silk, drugs, oil, and coffee. 205. This amazing intercourse, in time of peace, was carried on in about 24,000 vessels of all sizes, carrying three millions of tons burthen, and employing 200,000 seamen.

The trade and manufactures employ, besides, from four to five millions of the inhabitants of

Great Britain and Ireland; and serve also, to enrich all its inhabitants.

⚫ 206. Several branches of the foreign trade of England is carried on by subscription-companies; who divide the profits in half-yearly or yearly dividends.

These are the East India Company; which enjoys a monopoly of the trade to Asia:

The Bank of England; for bullion and pre

cious stones :

And the Hudson's Bay Company; which monopolizes the trade in furs from those countries. There are also the nearly extinct Turkey, Russia, African, and South-Sea Companies.

207. The inland or domestic trade of Great Britain and Ireland, is carried on by means of many thousand waggons and stage-coaches; by canals and rivers, which intersect every part of the two islands; and by many hundred coastingvessels, which carry the produce and manufactures of one place to another.

208. The chief ports are London, (equal in trade to all the others,) Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, Hull, Falmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Yarmouth, Lynn, Shields, Leith, Aberdeen, Whitehaven, Swansea, Dublin, Cork, and Waterford.

209. The chief manufacturing towns are Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Sheffield, for cutlery, and metallic wares.

Manchester, Stockport, Bolton, and Paisley, for calicoes and muslins.

Leeds and Norwich, for woollen cloths.

Nottingham and Leicester, for hosiery.
Belfast and Londonderry, for linens.
Wilton and Kidderminster, for carpets.
Newcastle and Worcester, for china, porcelain,
and glass.

210. The United States of America, under the advantages of a long peace, the possession of raw materials of every kind, numerous fine ports, and a free government, are rapidly advancing in the manufacturing system; have numerous ships at sea, and are carrying on an extensive trade with all parts of the world.

211. The trade of most other nations has been ruined by unwise governments, or by political revolutions. That of China, by its immense canals, is the greatest and most advantageous that is carried on in any country in Asia; but, the Chinese have no general foreign trade, except " with Japan.

212. The exports and imports of Great Britain have been nearly fifty millions each per annum. The worth of the various merchandize and manufactures in hand, is estimated at sixty millions: and the value of the shipping employed, at about, 25 millions.

213. The employments to which so vast a trade gives rise, are, as far as regards the ship, those of the ship-owner, the ship-builder, the coppersmith, the rope-maker, the biscuit-baker, the provision merchant, the ship-carpenter, the anchorsmith, the mathematical instrument-maker, and the slop-seller.

214. In regard to the cargo of ships, there are

the merchant, the ship-broker, the factor, the manufacturer, the packer, and the lighterman.

Among merchants, there are Spanish merchants, Turkey merchants, Italian merchants, Russia merchants, Hamburgh merchants, West India merchants, American merchants, Brazil merchants, and African merchants.

XI. The Art of Navigation.

215. That must be allowed to be a most useful as well as an extraordinary art, which enables men to conduct great ships with precision, across vast seas many thousand miles wide, in which they often sail for months together, without seeing any land to guide them in their course.

216. Anciently, and indeed till within the last 400 years, ships seldom ventured out of sight of land; and if they did, it was by mere accident that they ever regained the shore: such were the disadvantages of the Egyptian, Phoenician, Carthagenian, Roman and Grecian commerce.

217. About the beginning however of the 14th century, a new era was produced in this most noble and useful of all the arts, by the discovery, or perhaps more properly, the application of the properties of the Load Stone. This substance is a species of iron ore, or ferruginated stone, which is found generally in iron mines, and of various forms, sizes and colours, and has not only the property of attracting Iron and Steel, but the more extraordinary one of pointing always towards the

north pole of the earth, and in that state it is called a natural magnet. It has also the property of imparting its virtue to a bar of Iron or Steel, which is then called the artificial magnet or magnetic needle, and which being properly balanced and fitted up, forms the mariner's compass. With this instrument, the navigator can now always shape his course with correctness and safety, over all the oceans of the earth.

Obs. Considerable controversy and uncertainty has subsisted in relation to the discovery of the Load Stone and mariner's compass, and various nations have contended for the honor of it. Some learned writers assert, that it was known to the Chinese above a thousand years before the Christian æra. It is certain that the Load Stone was known to the ancients before the time of Plato and Aristotle, as its properties are referred to in their works. But it appears, that they were only acquainted with its capacity of attracting and repelling iron, and not at all with its polarity or always pointing towards the pole of the earth. Among the moderns, this discovery has been claimed by the Neapolitans, the Venetians, and the French. It has been generally ascribed to the first of these, the (Neapolitans) but however, this may be, it was not until about the 14th century, that the mariner's compass as it is now constructed, was adopted into general use, and which has since been greatly improved under the denomination of the Azimuth Compass.

218. As the compass enabled him to keep an account of the course of his voyage out, so it was not difficult to retrace the same course back by referring to his journal. If a man in the dark, go 50 steps to the right, 20 straight on, and 30 to the left; he will easily return to the place whence he set out, if he take 30 steps to the right, 20 straight on, and 50 to the left.