If, then, the real state of this nation is such as I have described,
(and I am only apprehensive that you may think I have taken too much
pains to exclude all doubt on this question,)--if no class is lessened
in its numbers, or in its stock, or in its conveniences, or even its
luxuries,--if they build as many habitations, and as elegant and as
commodious as ever, and furnish them with every chargeable decoration
and every prodigality of ingenious invention that can be thought of by
those who even incumber their necessities with superfluous
accommodation,--if they are as numerously attended,--if their equipages
are as splendid,--if they regale at table with as much or more variety
of plenty than ever,--if they are clad in as expensive and changeful a
diversity, according to their tastes and modes,--if they are not
deterred from the pleasures of the field by the charges which government
has wisely turned from the culture to the sports of the field,--if the
theatres are as rich and as well filled, and greater and at a higher
price than ever,--and (what is more important than all) if it is plain,
from the treasures which are spread over the soil or confided to the
winds and the seas, that there are as many who are indulgent to their
propensities of parsimony as others to their voluptuous desires, and
that the pecuniary capital grows instead of diminishing,--on what ground
are we authorized to say that a nation gambolling in an ocean of
superfluity is undone by want? With what face can we pretend that they
who have not denied any one gratification to any one appetite have a
right to plead poverty in order to famish their virtues and to put their
duties on short allowance? that they are to take the law from an
imperious enemy, and can contribute no longer to the honor of their
king, to the support of the independence of their country, to the
salvation of that Europe which, if it falls, must crush them with its
gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under
their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of
Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of
their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and
creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition
and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have
never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their
annual accumulation than all the well-husbanded capital that enabled
their ancestors, by long and doubtful and obstinate conflicts, to
defend and liberate and vindicate the civilized world? But I do not
accuse the people of England.
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