e two chief points of time when the English fame was in its
highest extent--I say, if its present greatness were to be duly weighed,
there is no comparison in its wealth, the number of its people, the
value of its lands, the greatness of the estates of its private
inhabitants; and, in consequence of all this, its real strength is
infinitely beyond whatever it was before, and if it were needful, I
could fill up this work with a very agreeable and useful inquiry into
the particulars.

But I content myself with turning it to the case in hand, for the truth
of fact is not to be disputed--I say, I turn it to the case in hand
thus: whence comes it to be so?--how is it produced? War has not done
it; no, nor so much as helped or assisted to it; it is not by any
martial exploits; we have made no conquests abroad, added no new
kingdoms to the British empire, reduced no neighbouring nations, or
extended the possession of our monarchs into the properties of others;
we have grained nothing by war and encroachment; we are butted and
bounded just where we were in Queen Elizabeth's time; the Dutch, the
Flemings, the French, are in view of us just as they were then. We have
subjected no new provinces or people to our government; and, with few or
no exceptions, we are almost for dominion where King Edward I. left us;
nay, we have lost all the dominions which our ancient kings for some
hundreds of years held in France--such as the rich and powerful
provinces of Normandy, Poictou, Gascoigne, Bretagne, and Acquitaine; and
instead of being enriched by war and victory, on the contrary we have
been torn in pieces by civil wars and rebellions, as well in Ireland as
in England, and that several times, to the ruin of our richest families,
and the slaughter of our nobility and gentry, nay, to the destruction
even of monarchy itself, and this many years at a time, as in the long
bloody wars between the houses of Lancaster and York, the many
rebellions of the Irish, as well in Queen Elizabeth's time, as in King
Charles I.'s time, and the fatal massacre, and almost extirpation of the
English name in that kingdom; and at last, the late rebellion in
England, in which the monarch fell a sacrifice to the fury of the
people, and monarchy itself gave way to tyranny and usurpation, for
almost twenty years.

These things prove abundantly that the rising greatness of the British
nation is not owing to war and conquests, to enlarging its dominion by
the swor