And  as  everybody  knows  that  agriculture  is  the  basis  of  all
our  prosperity,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  the  impover-
ishment of  our  farmers  would  send  a  shock  through  all  the
avenues  of  business.
England  could  never  have  been  content  at  the  infliction
upon  her  interests  of  the  injury  which  free  trade  would
produce  in  this  country,  upon  all  these  classes  of  people,
and,  through  them,  upon  the  whole  body  of  the  people.
She  is  far  too  sagacious  to  submit  to  any  condition  of  affairs
which  tends,  in  any  degree,  to  reduce  her  to  inferiority.
