t that we lie down in peace and sleep in safety; that we
can follow our farms or stores or other occupations, in prosperous
tranquillity; and that these inestimable blessings are procured to us
by the taxes that we pay. In this view, our taxes are properly our
insurance money; they are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict
policy, are the best money we can lay out.

It was my intention to offer some remarks on the impost law of five per
cent. recommended by Congress, and to be established as a fund for the
payment of the loan-office certificates, and other debts of the United
States; but I have already extended my piece beyond my intention. And
as this fund will make our system of finance complete, and is strictly
just, and consequently requires nothing but honesty to do it, there
needs but little to be said upon it.

COMMON SENSE.

PHILADELPHIA, March 5, 1782.

THE CRISIS. XI. ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEWS.

SINCE the arrival of two, if not three packets in quick succession, at
New York, from England, a variety of unconnected news has circulated
through the country, and afforded as great a variety of speculation.

That something is the matter in the cabinet and councils of our enemies,
on the other side of the water, is certain--that they have run their
length of madness, and are under the necessity of changing their
measures may easily be seen into; but to what this change of measures
may amount, or how far it may correspond with our interest, happiness
and duty, is yet uncertain; and from what we have hitherto experienced,
we have too much reason to suspect them in every thing. I do not address
this publication so much to the people of America as to the British
ministry, whoever they may be, for if it is their intention to promote
any kind of negotiation, it is proper they should know beforehand, that
the United States have as much honor as bravery; and that they are no
more to be seduced from their alliance than their allegiance; that their
line of politics is formed and not dependent, like that of their enemy,
on chance and accident. On our part, in order to know, at any time, what
the British government will do, we have only to find out what they ought
not to do, and this last will be their conduct. Forever changing and
forever wrong; too distant from America to improve in circumstances, and
too unwise to foresee them; scheming without principle, and