In order further to show the prevailing sentiment of the English government, I would refer to a report of a select committee of the House of Commons, at the head of which was the Vice-President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Wallace), in July, 1820. "The time," say that committee, "when monopolies could be successfully supported, or would be patiently endured, either in respect to subjects against subjects, or particular countries against the rest of the world, seems to have passed away. Commerce, to continue undisturbed and secure, must be, as it was intended to be, a source of reciprocal amity between nations, and an interchange of productions to promote the industry, the wealth, and the happiness of mankind." In moving for the re-appointment of the committee in February, 1823, the same gentleman said: "We must also get rid of that feeling of appropriation which exhibited itself in a disposition to produce every thing necessary for our own consumption, and to render ourselves independent of the world. No notion could be more absurd or mischievous; it led, even in peace, to an animosity and rancor greater than existed in time of war. Undoubtedly there would be great prejudices to combat, both in this country and elsewhere, in the attempt to remove the difficulties which are most obnoxious. It would be impossible to forget the attention which was in some respects due to the present system of protections, although that attention ought certainly not to be carried beyond the absolute necessity of the case." And in a second report of the committee, drawn by the same gentleman, in that part of it which proposes a diminution of duties on timber from the North of Europe, and the policy of giving a legislative preference to the importation of such timber in the log, and a discouragement of the importation of deals, it is stated that the committee reject this policy, because, among other reasons, "it is founded on a principle of exclusion, which they are most averse to see brought into operation, in any _new instance_, without the warrant of some evident and great political expediency." And on many subsequent occasions the same gentleman has taken occasion to observe, that he differed from those who thought that manufactures could not nourish without restrictions on trade; that old prejudices of that sort were dying away, and that more liberal and just sentiments were taking their place.