Trade will increase trade, and money will beget money, and the trading world shall need no more to want work for their hands, but will rather want hands for their work. This door of the seas, and the key of the universe, with any thing of a reasonable management, will of course enable its proprietors to give laws to both oceans, and to become the arbitrators of the commercial world, without being liable to the fatigues, expenses, and dangers, or contracting the guilt and blood, of Alexander and Cæsar. In our empires that have been any thing universal, the conquerors have been obliged to seek out and court their conquests from afar; but the universal force and influence of this attractive magnet, is such as can much more effectually bring empire home to its proprietors’ doors.
William Paterson.