wn by immediate circulation.
Yet--were it not--what is it but a refined species of usury? a hoard
lodged beyond all reach of bankruptcy? a store for futurity? exempt from
the numerous losses and disappointments of those who mistake the
blessing of wealth to consist in its power of selfish appropriation?
Whoever bestows, whether promptly from impulse, or maturely from
principle, will alike be content with the recompence of doing good: but
in justice, in delicacy to the uncommon objects of this unexampled
contribution, we should suggest what cannot fail to pass in their own
minds, and anticipate what we cannot doubt will be the result of their
restored powers: that those who survive the anarchy by which they are
desolated, who live to see their country rescued from its present
despotic tyrants, will still be strangers to repose, even at the natal
home for which now every earthly sigh is heard, till, with their
restituted property, they have cleared their dignity of character from
every possible aspersion of calumny, and returned--not to their
benefactors--whose accounts, far more nobly, will be settled
elsewhere!----but to the poor of the kingdom at large, that bounty
which has sustained them in banishment and woe.
Who is there that can look forward without emotion to the period of
their recal and departure? With what blessings and what prayers will
their hearts overflow! "Farewell, they will cry, ye friends of the
unhappy! ye protectors of the houseless! ye generous rich, who thus
benignly have worked for us! Ye patient poor who thus unrepiningly have
seen us supported! Blest be your kingdom! Long live your virtuous
sovereign? Be heavenly peace your portion! and never may ye know the
sorrows of national divisions!"
Yet, to many it may appear, that where so much has been done, nothing
more can be required. This is rather a mistake from failure in reflexion
than in benevolence. To such, it is sufficient to ask, "Why gave ye at
all?"
The answer is obvious; to save a distressed herd of fellow-creatures
from want.
And are they less worth saving now, their helplessness, unhappily, being
the same? Was the novelty of their appearance and situation a plea more
forcible than acquaintance with their merits? than the view of their
harmless lives, their inoffensive manners, their patient resignation to
the evils of their lot?
But--_are we to give_, ye cry, _for ever_?
Ah! rather, and for more generously, reverse the
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