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 pro- tective 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.