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nations, and absolutely essential to their common safety. Are we then dispensed from it with an enemy? To imagine that between two nations at War, every duty ceases, every tie of humanity is broken, would be an error equally gross and destructive. Men although reduced to the necessity of taking up arms for their own defence, and in support of their rights, do not therefore cease to be men. They are still subject to the same laws of nature, otherwise there would be no laws of War. Even he who wages an unjust War against us, is still a man; we still owe him whatever that quality requires of us. Those duties, the exercise of which is not necessarily suspended by the conflict, subsist in full force; they are obligatory on us, both with respect to the enemy, and to the rest of mankind. Now the obligation of keeping faith is, so far from ceasing in time of War, that it becomes then more necessary than ever."

Such are the words, and much more might be quoted to the same purpose, from this excellent and worthy writer.

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If these maxims have been, as you represent, violated or contemned, it has been

by those people, with whom you think it unchristian that we should wage, even a defensive War.

But are there no evils incident to a state of Peace and prosperity, as well as to one of War and difficulty?

Are Peace, Wealth and their consequences, the parents of virtue, religion, public spirit, order, decency, and of the other valuable qualities that truly adorn the character? I fear experience will scarcely justify this assertion. At what time was vice more prevalent than in the year 1792, after a Peace of about ten years duration, when the 3 per cent. Stocks, were nearly at par, and when money was plenty to a degree unexampled, from the increase of commerce, and other circumstances, of what is generally termed national prosperity? But in the midst of this flattering course of events, the nation was never, I think, in greater danger.

The spirit of enterprise

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and of swindling, had risen to such a height, as to hazard the national credit altogether: Men were induced to despise honest industry, as a slow and mean way of acquisition of fortune, and to indulge visionary schemes of ambition, which promised that the fruits of should be reaped in the same number of days. Schemes of the most extravagant kind were given out, without either assurance or probability that they could succeed: Men of no capital themselves, found credit for many hundred thousand pounds, and had the presumption to circulate notes for such immense sums, when there was no fundamental or original property to guarantee the payment.

I saw a plan myself for additional buildings to the city of Bristol, all one undertaking, which was of larger extent than the whole city of Bath, and this to be executed by people, most of whom were, at that time, deeply involved. Land was purchased for these random undertakings, at four times its true price. Paper money, supported for a time, this visionary fabrick, but

but when doubts began to be entertained respecting its stability, it soon betrayed its weakness.

The same spirit pervaded the whole country. The infatuation of the South Sea year seemed revived and extended over a larger portion of the island. Doubt and distrust seized all minds, and the consequences might have produced the worst effects on the commercial interests of the country, had not the Government, by a most prudent and well-timed measure stept in, and offered its present support to those who could insure the repayment of the sums advanced, which contributed to abate the alarm, and even rendered their interposition, except in a few instances comparatively, unnecessary,

The corruption which this swindling spirit occasioned, extended itself deeply into private life. Men regulated their expences not by what they could afford to spend, but by what they wished others to believe of the state of their circumstances. Men once

conscious that they had dissipated their own property, and were living on that of others, would have little inducement to practice economy, which in such large concerns, could make but a small addition to the dividend on a bankruptcy.

Avarice on a large scale, or the desire of becoming rich on a sudden, had corrupted the minds of the people, and the nation was running fast into the same state in which the people of Rome are described by Sallust: "Avaritia fidem, probitatem, cœterasque bonas artes subvertit, pro his superbiam, crudelitatem, deos negligere, omnia venalia habere edocuit. Ea, quasi venenis malis imbuta corpus animumque virilem effeminat, semper infinita, insatiabilis est, neque copia, neque inopia minuitur.”

At this period, when corruption was so rapidly hurrying us on to ruin, the War took place, and by introducing a salutary degree of distress, broke up the visionary system, and restored men to a better conception and estimation of their situation.

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