als
there, I have great esteem and friendship. And I must have had a
mind far below the duties of my station, to have felt either national
partialities or antipathies in conducting the affairs confided to me. My
affections were first for my own country, and then, generally, for all
mankind; and nothing but minds placing themselves above the passions, in
the functionaries of this country, could have preserved us from the
war to which their provocations have been constantly urging us. The
war interests in England include a numerous and wealthy part of their
population; and their influence is deemed worth courting by ministers
wishing to keep their places. Continually endangered by a powerful
opposition, they find it convenient to humor the popular passions at the
expense of the public good. The shipping interest, commercial interest,
and their janizaries of the navy, all fattening on war, will not be
neglected by ministers of ordinary minds. Their tenure of office is so
infirm that they dare not follow the dictates of wisdom, justice,
and the well calculated interests of their country. This vice, in the
English constitution, renders a dependance on that government very
unsafe. The feelings of their King, too, fundamentally averse to us,
have added another motive for unfriendliness in his ministers. This
obstacle to friendship, however, seems likely to be soon removed; and
I verily believe the successor will come in with fairer and wiser
dispositions towards us; perhaps on that event their conduct may be
changed. But what England is to become on the crush of her internal
structure, now seeming to be begun, I cannot foresee. Her monied
interest, created by her paper system, and now constituting a baseless
mass of wealth equal to that of the owners of the soil, must disappear
with that system, and the medium for paying great taxes thus failing,
her navy must be without support. That it shall be supported by
permitting her to claim dominion of the ocean, and to levy tribute
on every flag traversing that, as lately attempted and not yet
relinquished, every nation must contest, even _ad internecionem_. And
yet, that, retiring from this enormity, she should continue able to
take a fair share in the necessary equilibrium,of power on that element,
would be the desire of every nation.

I feel happy in withdrawing my mind from these anxieties, and resigning
myself, for the remnant of life, to the care and guardianship of others.
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