Present State of American Industry and Trade.

The panic of 1833 34, was merely an accidental and temporary interruption, produced not by the course of trade, but by the course of politics, and business presently resumed its vigorous and onward progress. Its expansion within the last two years, has been astonishing. With the exception of some parts of the Southern States, a new spirit of enterprise and industry seems to have pervaded every corner of the Union. It has been felt in every village; and some considerable cities have been almost wholly built up within that period. New canals, railroads, and other similar enterprises, have been every where undertaken. The government have sold more public lands within these two years, than in the whole period beside, since the adoption of the Constitution; and large tracts of these lands, are being rapidly brought into cultivation. Some wild and visionary speculations have no doubt entrapped the ignorant and unwary; but a large proportion of the new undertakings, seem to be of a solid and substantial nature, and certain to prove profitable in the end, if not to the projectors, at least to those who will come into their places.

To understand the cause and origin of this state of things, it is necessary to look backwards.

The commercial history of the United States, since the adoption of the federal constitution, may be divided into four periods. From 1792 to 1808, the commerce and agriculture of the country, enjoyed the artificial stimulus of an European war, and the profits both of merchants and farmers, were very great. From 1808 to 1818, the foreign trade was greatly obstructed and reduced; but this was in a considerable measure made up for, by the artificial stimulus given to domestic manufactures by the embargo, the non-intercourse, the war, and the double duties, and by the home market for agricultural produce thus created; to which should be added the expenditure by the government of upwards of one hundred millions in the prosecution of the war, and the delusive excitement and apparent prosperity produced towards the end of this period by a depreciating currency. From 1819 to 1831 was a period of comparative lethargy, during which the United States and the trading world in general, were gradually adapting themselves, not without some occasional spasms, produced by the struggling impatience of the merchants, to the vast