will to the memory and bearing the name of our preceptor continue, in some measure, to do what he has ever done encourage the minds of ingenuous youth in the acquisition of useful knowledge and the pursuit of pure fame. Lastly, sir, as we assemble under the influence of an association which unites us all, however otherwise disconnected, in one kind feeling; as we meet together for the first and the last time in life, many of us to take a last farewell of our revered preceptor, it has seemed meet that we should break the noontide bread together, and invite him also to meet us at the social board, there to pass the last hour that we shall ever all pass together on earth, in the interchange of kind feeling with each other and with him. There, sir, whether we pledge his health in the rosy or the limpid cup, the dews of Castalia I am sure will sweeten its brim, and the balm of good fellowship give a flavor to the draught. The occasion will there also be taken of offering to our respected teacher a slight but permanent token of respect, of a domestic character, which will preserve at the fireside of his family, in aftertimes, the recollection of this day's transactions. Here, sir, I might with prudence pause; but emotions crowd upon my mind, which I find it equally difficult to suppress and to utter. I have read of an individual who was released from the Bastile after a confinement of more than thirty years. He sought for his family and the friends of his youth, and they were gone. The house in which he had lived had passed into the possession of strangers, and he desired to go back to the prison in which he had so long been immured. I can catch a glimpse of his feelings, as I wander about these scenes, familiar to me in boyhood, and which I have but once or twice revisited, and that long ago, in the interval of more than thirty years since I was a pupil at the Academy. It was my good fortune to pass here but a portion of the year before I entered college; but I can truly say that even in that short time I contracted a debt of gratitude, which I have felt throughout my life. I return to these endeared scenes with mingled emotion. I find them changed; dwelling-places are no more on the same spots; old edifices have disappeared; new ones, both public and private, have been erected. Some of the respected heads of society whom I knew, though as a child, are gone. The seats in the Academy-room are otherwise arranged than formerly, and even there the places that once knew me know me no more. Where the objects themselves are unaltered, the changed eye and the changed mind see them differently. The streets seem narrower and shorter, the distances less considerable; this play-ground before us, which I remember as most spacious, seems sadly contracted. But all, sir, is not changed, either in appearance or reality. The countenance of our revered preceptor has undergone no change to my eye. It still expresses that suaviter in modo mentioned by the gentleman last up, (Rev. Professor Ware, Jun.,) with nothing of the sternness of the other principle. It is thus I remember it; it was always sunshine to me. Nature, in the larger features of the landscape, is unchanged; the river still flows, the woods yield their shade as pleasantly as they did thirty years ago, doubly grateful for the contrast they afford to the dusty walks of active life; for the solace they yield in an escape, however brief, from its burdens and cares. As I stood in the hall of the Academy, last evening, and saw from its windows the river winding through the valley, and the gentle slope rising from its opposite bank, and caught the cool breeze that was scattering freshness after the sultry summer's day, I could feel the poetry of Gray, on revisiting, in a like manner, the scenes of his schoolboy days— "Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood strayed, I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss below, As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, My weary soul they seem to soothe, To breathe a second spring." ACCUMULATION, PROPERTY, CAPITAL, CREDIT.* In compliance with your request, gentlemen, I appear before you this evening, to take a part in the observance of the eighteenth anniversary of the Mercantile Library Association. This meritorious institution was founded for the purpose of promoting mental improvement among the young men of the city engaged in commercial pursuits. Its objects were, to form a library, well furnished with books best adapted to their use; to lay the foundation of scientific collections; to make provision for occasional or stated courses of instructive lectures; and to furnish opportunity for exercises in literary composition and debate. It would be superfluous to offer any labored commendation of an institution of this description. It needs only to be named, in a commercial community, to be regarded with favor. It has already been approved by its good fruits, in the experience of many who have enjoyed its advantages; and has received the most favorable notice from distinguished gentlemen, who, on former anniversaries, have performed the duty which, on the present occasion, has devolved upon me. Supposing, then, that the usefulness of such an institution. is a point too well established to need illustration, I have thought we should pass our time more profitably this evening, by devoting our attention to the discussion of a few of the elementary topics connected with commerce, in reference to which there are some prevailing errors, and on which it is impor * An Address delivered before the Mercantile Library Association, at the Odeon, in Boston, 13th September, 1838. tant to form correct judgments. These topics are, accumulation, property, capital, and credit; the simple enunciation of which, as the heads of my address, will satisfy this most respectable audience that, without aiming at display, it is my object to assist those before whom I have the honor to appear, in forming right notions on important practical questions. I may also add, that the views presented in a single discourse, on topics so extensive and important, must necessarily be of the most general character. I. Some attempts have been made, of late years, to institute a comparison between what have been called the producing and the accumulating classes, to the disadvantage of the latter. This view I regard as entirely erroneous. Accumulation is as necessary to further production, as production is to accumulation; and especially is accumulation the basis of commerce. If every man produced, from day to day, just so much as was needed for the day's consumption, there would, of course, be nothing to exchange; in other words, there would be no commerce. Such a state of things implies the absence of all civilization. Some degree of accumulation was the dictate of the earliest necessity; the instinctive struggle of man, to protect himself from the elements and from want. He soon found, — such is the exuberance of Nature, such the activity of her productive powers, and such the rapid development of human skill, that a vast deal more might be accumulated than was needed for bare subsistence. - This, however, alone, did not create commerce. If all men accumulated equally, and accumulated the same things, there would still be no exchanges. But it soon appeared, in the progress of social man, that no two individuals had precisely the same tastes, powers, and skill. One excelled in one pursuit, one in another. One was more expert as a huntsman, another as a fisherman; and all found that, by making a business of some one occupation, they attained a higher degree of excellence than was practicable while each one endeavored to do every thing for himself. With this discovery commerce began. The Indian who has made two bows, or dressed two bear-skins, exchanges one of them for a bun dle of dried fish, or a pair of snow-shoes. These exchanges between individuals extend to communities. The tribes on the sea-shore exchange the products of their fishing for the game or the horses of the plains and hills. Each barters what it has in excess for that which it cannot itself so well produce, and which its neighbors possess in abundance. As individuals differ in their capacities, countries differ in soil and climate; and this difference leads to an infinite variety of fabrics and productions, artificial and natural. Commerce perceives this diversity, and organizes a boundless system of exchanges, the object of which is, to supply the greatest possible amount of want and desire, and to effect the widest possible diffusion of useful and convenient products. The extent to which this exchange of products is carried, in highly civilized countries, is truly wonderful. There are probably few individuals in this assembly, who took their morning's meal this day, without the use of articles brought from almost every part of the world. The table on which it was served may have been made from a tree which grew on the Spanish Main, or one of the West India Islands, and covered with a table-cloth from St Petersburg or Archangel. The tea was from China; the coffee perhaps from Java; the sugar from Cuba or Louisiana; the spoons from Mexico, Peru, or Chili; the cups and saucers from England or France. Each of these articles was purchased by an exchange of other products, the growth of our own or foreign countries, collected and distributed by a succession of voyages, often to the farthest corners of the globe. Without cultivating a rood of ground, we taste the richest fruits of every soil. Without stirring from our fireside, we collect on our tables the growth of every region. In the midst of winter, we are served with fruits that ripened in a tropical sun; and struggling monsters are dragged from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to lighten our dwellings. As all commerce rests upon accumulation, so the accumulation of every individual is made by the exchanges of commerce to benefit every other. Until he exchanges it, it is of no actual value to him. The tiller of a hundred fields can |