ed the reading of French newspapers.]

[Footnote 24: It is scarcely possible to touch on any subject, that will not
suggest an allusion to some corruption in governments. The simile of
"fortifications," unfortunately involves with it a circumstance, which
is directly in point with the matter above alluded to.]

Among the numerous instances of abuse which have been acted or protected
by governments, ancient or modern, there is not a greater than that of
quartering a man and his heirs upon the public, to be maintained at its
expense.

Humanity dictates a provision for the poor; but by what right, moral or
political, does any government assume to say, that the person called
the Duke of Richmond, shall be maintained by the public? Yet, if
common report is true, not a beggar in London can purchase his wretched
pittance of coal, without paying towards the civil list of the Duke of
Richmond. Were the whole produce of this imposition but a shilling a
year, the iniquitous principle would be still the same; but when it
amounts, as it is said to do, to no less than twenty thousand pounds per
annum, the enormity is too serious to be permitted to remain. This is
one of the effects of monarchy and aristocracy.

In stating this case I am led by no personal dislike. Though I think
it mean in any man to live upon the public, the vice originates in the
government; and so general is it become, that whether the parties are in
the ministry or in the opposition, it makes no difference: they are sure
of the guarantee of each other.]

[Footnote 25: In America the increase of commerce is greater in proportion than in
England. It is, at this time, at least one half more than at any period
prior to the revolution. The greatest number of vessels cleared out
of the port of Philadelphia, before the commencement of the war, was
between eight and nine hundred. In the year 1788, the number was upwards
of twelve hundred. As the State of Pennsylvania is estimated at an
eighth part of the United States in population, the whole number of
vessels must now be nearly ten thousand.]

[Footnote 26: When I saw Mr. Pitt's mode of estimating the balance of trade, in
one of his parliamentary speeches, he appeared to me to know nothing
of the nature and interest of commerce; and no man has more wantonly
tortured it than himself. During a period of peace it has been havocked
with the calamities of war. Three times has it been thrown into
stagnation, and the ves