t, must be mild and free
before agriculture, trade, commerce, and manufactures can thrive under
it; and if these do not prosper in a State, it may extend its empire to
right and to left, and it will only carry poverty and desolation along
with it, without being itself permanently enriched. You seem to take for
granted, that because the French revenue amounts to so much at present
it must continue to keep up to that height. This, I conceive impossible,
unless the spirit of the government alters, which is not likely for many
years. How comes it that we are enabled to keep, by sea and land, so
many men in arms? Not by our foreign commerce, but by our domestic
ingenuity, by our home labour, which, with the aid of capital and the
mechanic arts and establishments, has enabled a few to produce so much
as will maintain themselves, and the hundreds of thousands of their
countrymen whom they support in arms. If our foreign trade were utterly
destroyed, I am told, that not more than one-sixth of our trade would
perish. The spirit of Buonaparte's government is, and must continue to
be, like that of the first conquerors of the New World who went raving
about for gold--gold! and for whose rapacious appetites the slow but
mighty and sure returns of any other produce could have no charms. I
cannot but think that generations must pass away before France, or any
of the countries under its thraldom, can attain those habits, and that
character, and those establishments which must be attained before it can
wield its population in a manner that will ensure our overthrow. This
(if we conduct the war upon principles of common sense) seems to me
impossible, while we continue at war; and should a peace take place
(which, however, I passionately deprecate), France will long be
compelled to pay tribute to us, on account of our being so far before
her in the race of genuine practical philosophy and true liberty. I mean
that the _mind_ of this country is so far before that of France, and
that _that_ mind has empowered the _hands_ of the country to raise so
much national wealth, that France must condescend to accept from us what
she will be unable herself to produce. Is it likely that any of our
manufacturing capitalists, in case of a peace, would trust themselves to
an arbitrary government like that of France, which, without a moment's
warning, might go to war with us and seize their persons and their
property; nay, if they should be so foolish as to