er
method has been yet discovered, nor do I expect that any will be started
not attended with greater difficulties.

In all political questions, questions too extensive to be fully
comprehended by speculative reason, experience is the guide which a wise
man will follow with the least distrust, and it is no trivial
recommendation of the present method, that it has been so long pursued
without any formidable inconvenience or loud complaints.

Hardships, even when real, are alleviated by long custom; we bear any
present uneasiness with less regret, as we less remember the time in
which we were more happy: at least, by long acquaintance with any
grievance we gain this advantage, that we know it in its whole extent,
that it cannot be aggravated by our imagination, and that there is no
room for suspecting that any misery is yet behind more heavy than that
which we have already borne.

Such is the present state of the practice now recommended to this
assembly, a practice to which the innkeepers have long submitted, and
found it at least tolerable, to which they knew themselves exposed when
they took out a license for the exercise of that profession, and which
they consider as a tax upon them, to be balanced against the advantages
which they expect from their employment.

This tax cannot be denied at present to be burdensome in a very uncommon
degree, but this weight has not been of long continuance, and it may be
reasonably hoped that it will now be made every day lighter. It is,
indeed, true, that no unnecessary impositions ought to be laid upon the
nation even for a day; and if any gentleman can propose a method by
which this may be taken off or alleviated, I shall readily comply with
his proposal, and concur in the establishment of new regulations.

With regard to barracks, I cannot deny that they are justly names of
terrour to a free nation, that they tend to make an army seem part of
our constitution, and may contribute to infuse into the soldiers a
disregard of their fellow-subjects, and an indifference about the
liberties of their country; but I cannot discover any connexion between
a provision for the support of soldiers in publick-houses, in a state of
constant familiarity with their countrymen, and the erection of
barracks, by which they will be, perhaps for ever, separated from them,
nor can discover any thing in the method of supporting them now
recommended that does not tend rather to the promotion of mutual