f those earnings, which should be applied to their
own subsistence and comfort. Apart from all reflections of morality and
philosophy, it is a melancholy fact that more than one-fourth of the
labour of mankind is annually consumed by this barbarous system. What
has served to continue this evil, is the pecuniary advantage which
all the governments of Europe have found in keeping up this state of
uncivilisation. It affords to them pretences for power, and revenue,
for which there would be neither occasion nor apology, if the circle
of civilisation were rendered complete. Civil government alone, or the
government of laws, is not productive of pretences for many taxes; it
operates at home, directly under the eye of the country, and precludes
the possibility of much imposition. But when the scene is laid in
the uncivilised contention of governments, the field of pretences is
enlarged, and the country, being no longer a judge, is open to every
imposition, which governments please to act. Not a thirtieth, scarcely
a fortieth, part of the taxes which are raised in England are either
occasioned by, or applied to, the purpose of civil government. It is
not difficult to see, that the whole which the actual government does
in this respect, is to enact laws, and that the country administers
and executes them, at its own expense, by means of magistrates, juries,
sessions, and assize, over and above the taxes which it pays. In this
view of the case, we have two distinct characters of government; the one
the civil government, or the government of laws, which operates at home,
the other the court or cabinet government, which operates abroad, on the
rude plan of uncivilised life; the one attended with little charge, the
other with boundless extravagance; and so distinct are the two, that if
the latter were to sink, as it were, by a sudden opening of the earth,
and totally disappear, the former would not be deranged. It would still
proceed, because it is the common interest of the nation that it should,
and all the means are in practice. Revolutions, then, have for their
object a change in the moral condition of governments, and with this
change the burthen of public taxes will lessen, and civilisation will be
left to the enjoyment of that abundance, of which it is now deprived.
In contemplating the whole of this subject, I extend my views into the
department of commerce. In all my publications, where the matter would
admit, I have been an