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