576 LAISSEZ FAIRE
however, only able to take full advantage of these great
spportunities for a few months; the quantity of English
00ds exported was enormously increased for a time, especially
in trade with the United States and Brazil. But the stimulus
given to production was not altogether wholesome; the
expansion was so rapid that business men had attempted to
strain their credit to the utmost in order to engage in vast
speculations, and there was a very serious revulsion when the
war broke out again in 1803.
English The final crisis had now arrived in the great struggle
prosperity tetween France and England for predominance in the world.
ly founded, T¢ geemed possible that the nineteenth century might reverse
the story of the eighteenth, and that a rejuvenated France
might assert a new power against her ancient rival, not only
in Europe but in India and the West Indies. There was a
general impression that English prosperity rested on very
secure foundations, and that these might be completely
undermined ; this opinion gave rise to much anxiety in
England, while sanguine expectations of successful rivalry
were cherished in France. The economic relations of the two
sountries had been completely reversed since the Restoration
period; after the Peace of Versailles, France had been 1n
constant danger of being flooded by English goods, and French
manufacturers demanded the strenuous enforcement of protective
 legislation in the interest of native industriesl. The

A.D. 1776
—1850.

for
American
markets.

of riches gradually disappeared.” Playtair, Inquiry into the permanent Causes
of the Decline and Fall of wealthy and powerful Nations, 66. His whole
account of the decline of Holland is interesting. Her one important manufacture,
:hat of linen, was weighted by the pressure of taxation in competing with other
countries, and the increasing use of cotton must surely have affected the demand
for the higher-priced fabric. The Dutch carrying trade, which had revived during
the War of Independence, was fatally injured when Holland was forced to side
against England in the Revolutionary War, and the blows she then received were
anticipations of the complete destruction of her greatness which ensued, when she
was drawn by Napoleon into the Continental System. It is not uninteresting to
notice that these causes of the eventual fall of Holland were noted by Cary, whose
somments on Dutch trade are instructive. Writing in 1695 be says, * The Trade
»f the Dutch consists rather in Buying and Selling than Manufactures, most of
‘heir Profits arising from that and the Freights they make of their Ships. ***
Such 8 Commerce to England would be of little Advantage no more than jobbing
for guineas, this Nation would no way advance its Wealth thereby, whose Profits
lepend on our Product and Manufactures.” Essay on the State of England in
-elation to its Trade (1695), pp. 123, 124.
1 Mr Welsford points out the influence of these conditions in bringing about the
Reien of Terror. Strength of Nations, 188.