If France undertakes solely the competition against them,
she must do it at equal expence. The trade is too poor to support
itself. The 85 ships necessary to supply even her present
consumption, bountied as the English are, will require a sacrifice of
1,285,200 livres a year, to maintain 3,570 seamen, and that a part of
the year only. And if she will push it to 12,000 men in competition
with England, she must sacrifice, as they do, 4. or 5. millions a
year. The same number of men might, with the same bounty, be kept in
as constant employ carrying stone from Bayonne to Cherburg, or coal
from Newcastle to Havre, in which navigations they would be always at
hand, and become as good seamen. The English consider among their
best sailors those employed in carrying coal from Newcastle to
London. France cannot expect to raise her fishery, even to the
supply of her own consumption, in one year or in several years. Is
it not better then, by keeping her ports open to the U. S. to enable
them to aid in maintaining the field against the common adversary,
till she shall be in condition to take it herself, and to supply her
own wants? Otherwise her supplies must aliment that very force which
is keeping her under. On our part, we can never be dangerous
competitors to France.
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