LETTER VIII.

1

OF all national powers, that which is chiefly

derived from commercial resources, seems to be the most precarious. It depends too much on extraneous support. It must be exercised not only with great wisdom, but also with great virtue; that is, it must be beneficial to others, as well as profitable to the people possessing it, or it cannot be permanent. Our Creator never made individuals or nations, to be kind to themselves only. When attended with eminent success, it is apt to generate a spirit of pride, dissipation, insolence, rashness, rapaciousness, and cruelty. The eagerness for wealth, increases with amassment. It rages. It is a pes, tilence. Altered nations preserve scarcely a resemblance of themselves. Hardly a feature of their promising youth, remains in their debauched manhood. They, who were worthily diligent and decently frugal, become wickedly active and impudently avaricious: and, they who nobly defended their own liberty, deem it glorious to destroy the liberty of others. With them, justice is a restraint : benevolence a weakness. To use an expression

of Thucydides "Nothing is thought dishonorable that is pleasing, nothing iniquitous, that is gainful."

LET us. bestow our attention for a moment, on Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Holland. Each of these states, by the force of commerce, has been predominant over considerable tracts of the world; and to each of them might many nations say, with the old Roman" By our wretchedness thou art. great." Thus commerce calculated by its nature to be an instrument for increasing the felicity of mankind, (o) has in many instances become a Scourge.

Ir a conclusion may be drawn from a multitude of events delivered down to us by unprejudiced historians, the monitory result is—that the conduct just mentioned will be found ultimately to produce consequences, directly the reverse of the purposes intended by the short-sighted perpetrators -and that where nations raise themselves, by proudly trampling upon others, although they may by bravery and management obtain the most conspicuous eminence, yet, by the immutable law of our nature that forbids the existence of happiness without virtue, the causes of declension constantly intermingle with their criminal successes——— 2 C

VOL. II.

"Grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength"

and at the period when their destroying glory reaches its greatest height, then precisely are they near to their fall.†'

EACH of the republics lately mentioned was deeply guilty. Could the murdered and the miserable, the victims of their crimes, rise from their beds of death, and move in silent procession before our eyes, we recollecting the delicacies, the virtues, the tender affections, the generous sensations, that in their persons had been violated and

How strictly conformable are such events to the divine denunciations in so many parts of the scriptures, against national insolence and tyranny, of which the following texts may serve for examples.

"Thus saith the LORD GOD- -behold I am against thee and will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy city waste, and thou shalt be desolate; and thou shall know that I am the LORD. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed blood by the force of the sword because thou hast said, these nations and these countries shall be mine, and we will possess them therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy, which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken-saying they are laid desolate, they are given us to consume--I have heard them--when the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

EZEKIEL 35.

If there be any way of obtaining a perpetuity of national prosperity, it must be by a conformity of conduct to the impartial benevolence of the Father of all

mankind.

racked into the utmost exacerbation of human woes- --though conscious to ourselves that their sufferings were passed, how would our brains burn with anguish, if floods of tears should not relieve us ?

FOR what were these crimes committed? For no better purposes than

"To drink from gems and sleep on Tyrian dyes."

I HAD proceeded thus far in these letters, when the late advices from Italy came to my knowledge. How the actions there may influence the councils at Vienna and London, is uncertain. My fervent desire is, that united with other considerations they may speedily produce a peace that will assure lasting tranquillity and a large abundance of benefits to Europe, and to all parts of the world that have any kind of connection with of her pow.

ers.

any

THERE is not a nation upon earth, whose welfare would not give me pleasure: and, as I wish, that the observations now offered to my fellow-citizens, may not be impeached, at a period so momentous to my country as the present, by a charge of prejudice in favor of France, or of enmity to Great-Britain, I trust, that by the candid I shall

be pardoned, if with anticipation I answer to such a charge.

Ir to believe that the French are engaged in a just war-that their success in it will be favorable to the interests of liberty-that they are as brave, generous, and humane a people as any we know and to wish that there may be a perpetual and most intimate friendship between them and these states, is to be prejudiced-I am prejudiced.

IF to wish that Charles Fox* may be the minister in Great-Britain, and that she may never be con

*This man's character, with some spots, as it is said, and not small ones upon it, is most resplendent. For comprehension of mind, distinction of points, selection of opportunities, grandeur of design, and generosity of thought, he is so far elevated above his opponents, that their inferiority must be manifest to any dispassionate observer. Well might a great historian say of him that

"he was a man of honor"--and that--" In the conduct of a party, he approved himself competent to the conduct of an empire." Happy would it have been for Britain, happy for millions, and among them for the royal family in France, if this enlightened and benevolent statesman had presided over the affairs of his country for the last seven years. It is in eloquence he may have equals, but what equals, has he in excellencies of heart?

In his tour of Switzerland, September, 1788, says the historian in another place, "he gave me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel, and even to envy the happiness of my situation; while I admired the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character, with the softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from malevolence, vanity, or falsehood."