3. A Table, showing the AMOUNT OF AN Annuity of $1 per annum, improved at Compound Interest, at the end of each year from 1 to 32.

4. A Table, showing the PRESENT Value of an ANNUITY of $1 per annum, to continue for any given number of years from 1 to 21, reckoning Compound Interest.

TO COMPUTE INTEREST AND ANNUITIES BY THE FOREGOING TABLES.

Rule.-Multiply the sum for which you wish to know the amount, or present worth, by the number found under the rate per cent, and opposite the given years. Point off agreeably to the rules of decimals, and the product will denote the number sought in dollars, pounds, francs, &c., with their decimal parts.

Example. What will be the amount, at the end of 10 years, of an annuity, rent, or salary of $500, payable at the end of each year, if improved at compound interest at 6 per cent per annum ?

Amount of an annuity of $1 for 10 years, at 6 per cent, by Tab. 3,.... 13.180795 Multiply by annuity,...

Amount,

BEET-ROOT SUGAR TRADE OF FRANCE.

500

$6590.397500

In France, says the London Journal of Commerce, in 1837, there were 542 beet-root sugar manufactories in operation, and 39 in construction. It has been recently stated in the public journals, that the states composing the German Customs' Union possessed, in 1838, eighty-seven factories in operation, and sixty-six in construction. The production of the beet-sugar factories averages about 200,000 lbs. each, so that we may reckon for the 203 factories known to exist in other parts of the continent besides France, 40,600,000 lbs. of sugar, making the total annual production of beet sugar in Europe about 150,000,000 lbs. It remains to be observed, that in Austria and Italy the business has been commenced with great zeal. The sugar manufactured in France has invariably increased from year to year, unless it has fallen off in 1838-9, of which we have not yet the returns.

Recently the duties on sugar imported from the French colonies have been reduced, so that the protection of the beet sugar in France, which used to be about 44 cents, is now inconsiderable.

BEET PAPER.

The value of this vegetable has hardly begun to be known. We find from English journals just received, that the pulp of the beet is worth for paper making just five times its value as an article of food. A Mr. Ryan has obtained a patent in England for making paper of beet-roots after the juice is extracted and crystalized into sugar. The manufacturers have commenced with the coarsest kinds of paper and pasteboard, and have not yet attempted any fine writing-paper. But, thus far, their success is complete. Good printing-paper is produced out of what remains after the saccharine matter is expressed, and they have no doubt that the same almost worthless pulp will soon furnish the finest writing-paper.

If it be true that Europe alone manufactures every year the immense amount of 150,000,000 lbs. of beet sugar, there can be no want of material to experiment upon to an indefinite extent.

FEATHERS.

The Augsburg Gazette mentions that at the late fair of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, feathers fell two thirds in price, and it is known that this fair regulates the price of that article all through Germany. It is remarkable that whilst Great Britain and France are inundating Germany with metallic pens, the latter country exports a considerable quantity of goose quills to those two countries.

BANKRUPTCIES IN PARIS IN 1840.

The following is the official list of bankruptcies in Paris and the Department of the Seine, during the past year, together with the amount of assets and debts:

TO OUR READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

THE BOOK TRADE.-Owing to the pressure of commercial matters we have unavoid. ably, in this number, omitted the department devoted to the "book trade." We design hereafter to present in this department a comprehensive view of all prominent new books, in order to furnish our readers general information respecting the most popular current literature of the day. The manufacture and trade in books form no inconsiderable part of the mercantile interest of the United States, and it would seem to fall within the province of this journal, to exhibit every important topic included within that large branch of commercial enterprise.

We have on hand a number of articles, several of which will appear in the May number, or at our earliest convenience. Among them are:

1. "British Navigation Act," by Rev. Charles W. Upham.

2. "Imprisonment for Debt," by Charles F. Daniels, Esq.

3. "Remarks on Free Trade," (a reply to the article of S. G. Arnold, Esq., in the March number of this Magazine,) by Horace Greely, Esq.

4. " The Mississippi Scheme," by Francis Wharton, Esq.

5. "The Merchants of the Time of Queen Elizabeth," by Thomas W. Tucker, Esq. American Manufactures,” by James H. Lanman, Esq.

6.

66

7. "The Theory of Banking," by a Merchant of Boston, &c.

We would also here state that we have several other papers now on hand which are under consideration. The plan that we had marked out for the exhibition of important commercial topics, that have been in this country heretofore too much neglected, we are able to say has been sustained by an intelligent portion of the community—an encouragement which will lead us to pursue the same course with renewed energy and additional aids.

DONATIONS TO THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. The Board of Directors of the Mercantile Library Association of New York take pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of donations

Of Books-From Edward Hodges, J. F. Entz, Robert L. Smith, Jasper Corning, John H. Redfield, John Johnston, J. T. Rockwood, Abraham Bell, Wm. S. S. Russell, Hon. A. Van Santvoord, John Loines, Hon. G. C. Verplanck, Thos. D. Lowther, Chas. Francis Adams, A. Slidell Mackenzie, Dr. Rupersberg, R. Nelson Eagle, Albert Brisbane.

HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1841.

ART. I.-BRITISH NAVIGATION ACT.

Ir may safely be affirmed that no political community ever reached the height of prosperity and power to which the states of Holland were elevated during the period included between the reformation of Luther and the latter half of the seventeenth century. The agitation of theological discussions, caused by the reformation, and which prevailed nowhere more extensively than in Holland, did not fail to produce its natural results, in awakening the intellectual principle, and diffusing a spirit of energy and progress throughout the whole community. These effects were shown, not only in the noble and splendid instances of particular characters, like those of Barnevelt and Grotius, Arminius and De Witt, but in the improvement of the entire mass of the population. The stimulating influence pervaded the wide-spread surface of society, and reached the lowest and most remote conditions of life; and with the elevation of the people in education and intelligence, there was, of course, a corresponding and equal advancement in their social relations, civil and commercial institutions, and worldly circumstances generally.

Indeed, the moral, intellectual, and economical condition of the states of Holland during the earlier part of the seventeenth century, is one of the most wonderful and instructive objects which the history of modern times presents. It excited the admiration and astonishment, the envy and the fears of all the contemporary nations.

It is at once a conclusive and melancholy proof of the perversion of history from the subjects which pre-eminently claim its notice, that while volumes upon volumes have been filled with the miserable and oft-repeated details of wars and battles which produced no other effect than to degrade and distress mankind, and to change the persons who have tyrannized over them, the great essential elements which determine the rise and fall of states, and contribute to the promotion or to the hindrance of human welfare and social prosperity and happiness, have been neglected as beneath the notice of historians. What a dishonor it is to English history, that, while the most finished forms of style, and the highest attributes of genius, have been devoted to the narration of the successions of the dy

nasty, from Saxons to Normans, from Plantagenets to Tudors, and from Stuarts to Guelphs, of intestine and partisan struggles between York and Lancaster, royalists and republicans, tories and whigs, and of barbarian and barbarizing conflicts of mere brute force, under the name of battles by sea and land, scarcely the slightest notice has been taken of an event which alone decided the fate, not only of England, but in all probability of humanity itself! We mean the establishment of the system of commercial policy contained in the Navigation Act, passed by the rump parliament on the 9th of October, 1651.

The leading historians hardly do more than allude to it. Whitelock, in his minute memorials of the events of the times, and among the details which he presents of the daily proceedings of parliament, of which he was a prominent member, seems merely to have happened not to forget to mention it under its date-"an act passed for the increase of shipping, and encouragement of the navigation of this nation"-in a great folio volume of more than 700 pages; this is the only notice he takes of it. Godwin, who has written, in most respects, the best history of the events of the period of the commonwealth, treats it very briefly; and what is the most extraordinary of all, it does not seem to have arrested, to any degree of interest or particularity, the attention of writers on political economy, or legislative statesmen of our own day and country.

In bringing this subject forward and presenting it, in considerable extent and detail, we feel confident that all whose attention may be called to it will be of opinion that scarcely any can be selected more worthy of the examination, the curiosity, and the reflection of a community, whose prosperity and welfare are dependent upon a system of commerce and trade in which the elements of foreign and domestic traffic are inseparably commingled, and which can only be sustained by industry, economy, and intelligence pervading the whole mass of the people. In order to explain the circumstances that led to the contriving and enacting of the British Navigation Act, it will be necessary to give a somewhat particular account of the condition and progress of the states of Holland, previous to its passage.

Sir William Temple, who had resided as British ambassador for some time in Holland not long after the commencement of the operation of the Navigation Act, and who was superseded in that eminent diplomatic station by Sir George Downing, gives the following description of the state of the country:

""Tis evident to those who have read the most, and travelled farthest, that no country can be found, either in this present age, or upon record of any story, where so vast a trade has been managed as in the narrow compass of the few maritime provinces of this commonwealth; nay, it is generally esteemed that they have more shipping belongs to them than there does to all the rest of Europe. Yet they have no native commodities towards the building or rigging of the smallest vessel; their flax, hemp, pitch, wood, and iron, coming all from abroad, as wool does for clothing their men, and corn for feeding them. Nor do I know any thing properly of their own growth that is considerable, either for their own necessary use, or for traffick with their neighbors, besides butter, cheese, and earthen wares. For havens, they have not any good upon their whole coast; the best are Helversluys, which has no trade at all, and Flussinge, which has little in comparison of other towns in Holland; but