m me to entertain it. And yet,
gentlemen, I prize the lot I have drawn, nor would I exchange it with
any of yours, seeing it is in my eye so much greater than the rest.
Ambition, which I own myself possessed of, teaches me this; ambition,
which makes me covet praise, assures me that I shall enjoy a much larger
proportion of it than can fall within your power either to deserve or
obtain. I am then superior to you all, when I am able to do more good,
and when I execute that power. What the father is to the son, the
guardian to the orphan, or the patron to his client, that am I to you.
You are my children, to whom I will be a father, a guardian, and a
patron. Not one evening in my long reign (for so it is to be) will
I repose myself to rest without the glorious, the heart-warming
consideration, that thousands that night owe their sweetest rest to me.
What a delicious fortune is it to him whose strongest appetite is doing
good, to have every day the opportunity and the power of satisfying it!
If such a man hath ambition, how happy is it for him to be seated so on
high, that every act blazes abroad, and attracts to him praises tainted
with neither sarcasm nor adulation, but such as the nicest and most
delicate mind may relish! Thus, therefore, while you derive your good
from me, I am your superior. If to my strict distribution of justice
you owe the safety of your property from domestic enemies; if by my
vigilance and valor you are protected from foreign foes; if by my
encouragement of genuine industry, every science, every art which can
embellish or sweeten life, is produced and flourishes among you; will
any of you be so insensible or ungrateful as to deny praise and respect
to him by whose care and conduct you enjoy these blessings? I wonder not
at the censure which so frequently falls on those in my station; but I
wonder that those in my station so frequently deserve it. What strange
perverseness of nature! What wanton delight in mischief must taint his
composition, who prefers dangers, difficulty, and disgrace, by doing
evil, to safety, ease, and honor, by doing good! who refuses happiness
in the other world, and heaven in this, for misery there and hell here!
But, be assured, my intentions are different. I shall always endeavor
the ease, the happiness, and the glory of my people, being confident
that, by so doing, I take the most certain method of procuring them
all to myself."--He then struck directly into the road of g