It is necessary for the interests of truth, for the interests also of both countries, that the popular mind, the mind of the public men of Spain also, should be disabused in respect of two important errors.  The first is, that an enormous balance of trade against Spain, that is, of British exports, licit and illicit too, compared with imports from Spain—­results annually in favour of this country, from the present state of our commercial exchanges with her.  The second is, the greatly exaggerated notion of the transcendant amount of the illicit trade carried on with Spain in British commodities, cottons more especially.  In correction of the latter misconception, we have shown that the amount of British cotton introduced by contraband cannot exceed, nor equal,

L.780,640
Instead, as asserted by Senor Marliani, of 1,683,268

And, in correction of the first error relative to the balance of trade, we have established the feet by calculations of approximate fidelity—­for exactitude is out of the question and unattainable with the materials to be worked up—­that an excess of values, that is, of exports, results to Spain upon such balance as against imports, licit and illicit, to the extent per annum of 550,000

It is therefore Great Britain, and not Spain, which is entitled to demand that this adverse balance be redressed, and which would stand justified in retaliating the restrictions and prohibitions on Spanish products, with which, so unjustly, Spain now visits those of Great Britain.  Far from us be the advocacy of a policy so harsh—­we will add, so unwise; but at least let our disinterested friendship and moderation be appreciated, and provoke, in reason meet, their appropriate consideration.

The more formidable, because far more extensive and facile abuses, arising out of the unparalleled contraband traffic of which Spain is, and long has been, the theatre, and the attempted repression of which requires the constant employment of entire armies of regular troops, are elsewhere to be found in action and guarded against; they concern a neighbour nearer than Great Britain.  According to an official report made to his Government by Don Mateo Durou, the active and intelligent consul for Spain at Bordeaux, and the materials for which were extracted from the customhouse returns of France, the trade betwixt France and Spain is thus stated, but necessarily abridged:—­

         &nb
sp;                                     Francs.
1840.—­Total exports from France into Spain, 104,679,141
1840.—­Total imports into France from Spain, 42,684,761
          
                                   -----------
Deficit against Spain, 61,994,380

France, therefore, exported nearly two and a half times as much as she imported from Spain; a result greatly the reverse of that established in the trade of Spain with Great Britain.  In these exports from France, cotton manufactures figure for a total of