Thomas Paine

In all my publications, where the matter would admit, I have been an advocate for commerce, because I am a friend to its effects.

It is a pacific system, operating to cordialise mankind, by rendering nations, as well as individuals, useful to each other.

When the ability in any nation to buy is destroyed, it equally involves the seller.

Could the government of England destroy the commerce of all other nations, she would most effectually ruin her own.

Every kind of destruction or embarrassment serves to lessen the quantity, and it matters but little in what part of the commercial world the reduction begins.

If they are poor she cannot be rich, and her condition, be what it may, is an index of the height of the commercial tide in other nations.

Though the principle of all commerce is the same, the domestic, in a national view, is the part the most beneficial; because the whole of the advantages, an both sides, rests within the nation; whereas, in foreign commerce, it is only a…

To a few individuals it may be beneficial, merely because it is commerce; but to the nation it is a loss.

It is only by each nation reforming its own, that the whole can be improved, and the full benefit of reformation enjoyed.

But it is with revolutions as with commerce, the advantages increase by their becoming general, and double to either what each would receive alone.

Whether the fruits of his labours shall be enjoyed by himself or consumed by the profligacy of governments?

As one of the Houses of the English Parliament is, in a great measure, made up of elections from these corporations; and as it is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain, its vices are but a continuation of the vices…