date

1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against
1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against Misrule. Preliminary Explanations

Ch. Bashaws Inducements ?.2. Extra-regarding

On the other hand, not only coal and chalk, but even clay and sand, may be, and

in every well cultivated country actually have been and continue to be extracted

with considerable profit. Witness the clay extracted for porcelain and other

pottery.

In England in particular, coal, a substance which from the vegetable has by

lapse of time past into the mineral kingdom, has in England for centuries past

constituted the foundation of vast opulence to numerous families: opulence, in

masses superior to any that are to be found in Tripoli, of whatsoever materials

composed.

As to stones called precious and the metals called by way of distinction

precious, although they are capable of existing in such quantities and under

such circumstances as not to pay for the labour of extraction, yet they are also

capable of existing, and accordingly have been known /found/ to exist, in such

proportions and under such circumstances as to afford a greater rate of profit

than any other ingredients in the composition of the earth's interior. Hence it

is that by men in general, and in particular by men armed with power, they have

been in all times and in all places, regarded with peculiar avidity.

Accordingly, mines in which gold has been found, and mines in which silver has

been found, have in many, perhaps most countries, been by law and practice in

whose soever land, and by whomsoever discovered, declared sacred to the use of

the sovereign: too valuable to be capable of passing into any subject

hand. In
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  • Title: [1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against]
    Description: 1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against Misrule. Ch. Bashaws Inducements 2.

    Extra-regarding

    2. Now as to the interior of the earth. Say in the English phrase the bowels of

    it: meaning in general whatever masses of matter lie within the surface down to

    which vegetation extends.

    Extensive portions of the matter of the earth considered in this point of view

    are called mines. Such portions as are regarded as consisting of earth concreted

    into a stoney hardness, and not containing metallic substances in any porportion

    worth regarding are in English distinguished by a particular name, quarries: and

    so in other languages.

    When separated from other substances, the several different subjects of the

    mineral kingdom as it is called exhibit differences in value upon a scale of

    prodigious length - witness, at the one end of it diamonds and other glittering

    stones deriving value from their splendor combined with their rarity: at the

    other end, clay, sand, lime and coal. Not, however, from the value of the

    species of the matter when obtained separately is the value of the mine that

    affords it to be estimated, but to that circumstance combined with the quantity

    and quality of the labour employed in effecting the separation, and conveying

    the matter in its separate state to the several places where it is put to use.

    Taking all these circumstances into consideration, the working of a diamond mine

    or of a gold mine may instead of the most lucrative of all mining concerns, be a

    losing one, and such in many instances it actually has been. Witness, for

    example, Brazil; as may be seen in Mr. Mawe's interesting travels in that

    interesting country. On
  • Title: [1822 Novr 15 Tripoli. Securities against]
    Description: 1822 Novr 15 Tripoli. Securities against Misrule Preliminary Explanations Ch.

    Bashaws Inducement ?.2. Extra-regarding

    Difference as to security between Mahometan and the worst Frank governments.

    So far as regards hope of encrease nothing can be more intimate than the

    connection between the interest of the Sovereign and that of his subjects taken

    in the aggregate, no one object more strictly dependent on another than is his

    opulence upon their opulence.

    In the existing state of things under the existing form of government, the

    Sovereign has at all times extracted from his subjects as much as was capable of

    being extracted from them: in this state of things all ulterior encrease to him

    without encrease to them being hopeless, remains as the only source of hope in

    regard to encrease to him such encrease whatsoever it may be, as may be derived

    from a correspondent encrease to them.

    But under the existing form of government any considerable encrease of wealth to

    them is impossible: all such encrease is altogether dependent on a sense - a

    general sense of security: this dependence will be explained presently. /in the

    first /next/ place./ But under the existing form of government such general

    sense of security is impossible: this impossibility will be explained in the

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  • Title: [1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities agst.]
    Description: 1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities agst. Misrule. Preliminary Explanations Ch.

    Bashaws Inducements

    In general, before the peculiar precious substance can be found in any very

    considerable quantity, it becomes necessary to penetrate to a depth where

    vegetation ends. Here and there however exceptions to this rule have been found:

    gold in particular has, in large quantities, been obtained by extracting and

    sifting the earth found at the bottom of shallow rivers.

    As to silver, in the mixed masses in which it is contained, it has been found in

    a great variety of proportions: in some instances, in a proportion so large that

    every other metal mixed with it has in the course of the extraction been driven

    away and sacrificed to it: in other instances, it has been as it were drowned in

    the less precious metal: and the less precious metal has been sold at a price no

    higher than what would have been asked for it, had no silver been combined with

    it. In particular, this in many instances has been the case with lead in

    England.

    In the case of a mine in which silver is thus found in combination with a metal

    inferior in separate value, unfortunate may be the condition of the proprietor,

    who has expended a capital in the extraction of it. Sooner or later, enters the

    agent of the sovereign and says - this mine is a sacred one: sacrilegious the

    subject hands that have employed themselves in the working of it: there must be

    no more such sacrilege. as