city. And if in our
own history there is any one circumstance to which, under God, are to be
attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue, and sober
settlement of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that, while the
landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other
countries, has at all times been in close connection and union with the
other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously allowed
to lead and direct and moderate all the rest. I cannot, therefore, but
see with singular gratification, that, during a war which has been
eminently made for the destruction of the lauded proprietors, as well as
of priests and kings, as much has been done by public works for the
permanent benefit of their stake in this country as in all the rest of
the current century, which now touches to its close. Perhaps after this
it may not be necessary to refer to private observation; but I am
satisfied that in general the rents of lands have been considerably
increased: they are increased very considerably, indeed, if I may draw
any conclusion from my own little property of that kind. I am not
ignorant, however, where our public burdens are most galling. But all of
this class will consider who they are that are principally menaced,--how
little the men of their description in other countries, where this
revolutionary fury has but touched, have been found equal to their own
protection,--how tardy and unprovided and full of anguish is their
flight, chained down as they are by every tie to the soil,--how
helpless they are, above all other men, in exile, in poverty, in need,
in all the varieties of wretchedness; and then let them well weigh what
are the burdens to which they ought not to submit for their own
salvation.

Many of the authorities which I have already adduced, or to which I have
referred, may convey a competent notion of some of our principal
manufactures. Their general state will be clear from that of our
external and internal commerce, through which they circulate, and of
which they are at once the cause and effect. But the communication of
the several parts of the kingdom with each other and with foreign
countries has always been regarded as one of the most certain tests to
evince the prosperous or adverse state of our trade in all its branches.
Recourse has usually been had to the revenue of the Post-Office with
this view. I shall include the product of the tax which was laid in the
last wa