have long bewildered your fenfes, and hurried you with the ftream, into almoft inextricable difficulties. Your complaints indeed are grievous; buta wrong caufe is affigned for your misfortunes: a remedy, however, is fill within your reach-Determine to be virtuous! After having ftruggled through a long and hoftile probation, why, in the arms of peace, do you countebance the follies of your late competitors, and hurry yourfelves into the depths of luxury and diffipation, fo repugnant to your health, your happinefs, your honour! Defpife their vices, but emulate their virtuesThey hold forth to your view a moft ufeful example, and prove, to a certainty, the truth of my affertion that our foreign fiippery? Why then do not we, with all our might, difcourage this commerce with foreigners-the bane of our happiness! the poifon of our well-being! While we were a part of the Britifh empire, it was the intereft of that government, to divert our attention from every purit that could tend to raife in our minds a laudable emulation, excepting that of the cultivation of the land: this in them, no doubt, was then good policy, as it fecured to them only, the profits of our labour, on the conditions upon which they obliged us to exchange our produce for their manufactures. For what, then, did we wish to be independent, if not to fecure these profits to ourfelves, and turn the balance of trade in our favour? Our latter conduct, I think, has more than proved, that our views had no fuch motives, or elfe has more than proved, that virtue was wanting, or our ideas too contracted to reach be political exiftence refts wholly on ourfelves, and not on the fimiles of our enemies. If we choofe to be happy, to be fo is in our power; our internal refources are now fully fufficient, and, with a welltimed economy, fuperfluities would abound, and raife us to the level of the most exalted nations-Why call we fo loudly for commerce with foreigners!-It is, moft certainly, at prefent quite oppofite to our intereft -Does it not determine the balance mach against us, through every channel by which we purfue it ? What then must be the confequence? The terms upon which a country in its intercourfe with one long eftablifhed, infancy, muit carry on a commercial are not equal; fince produce and manufactures bear fo fmall a proportion alone, that muft vanish in an inftart, yond the prefent. No fooner were we declared an independent people, but we abandoned our patron, and offered our embraces to every rude invader. In our ports was foen difplayed every luxury of the caft, and our tables were fpread with profufion-Induftry fell a victim to diffipation and excefs, and vice foon trì umphed over virtue! Strange infatuation! horrid depravity! deftructive policy! thoughtlefs creatures, blind to our own intereft, and led away with bubbles big with emptiness to each other. It is the intereft of and leave us in the lurch! The caufe foreigners to furnish us with fathiof our own mifconduct we now want ons; but is it our intereft to follow to faddle upon others. We have inthem? Muft it not eradicate the fpi- dulged ourfelves in luxuries beyond rit of induftry, frugality, and economy, and hurry us into the oppo the reach of our abilities, and now want to be relieved of the confequent fte extremes, indolence, diffipation, inconveniencies thereof, by unheard and ruin? Does not every day's ex perience indifputably prove the in fficiency of our virtue to refift the bewitching temptation-I Vol. II. No. III. mean of of acts of injuftice. If the merchant was obnoxious to our welfare, why did we encourage him? Why did we bid him welcome, and court his B friendship? Why were we abforbed in thoughtlefs extravagance? Why had we not an eye on the future? If it was the merchant's policy, for a while, to bid high for our produce, and thereby to flatter our expectation. and lead us into errors, can we blame him? In fo doing, he only confulted his own intereft, without, perhaps meditating any perfon's ruin, which was doing no more than was every one's duty; and held forth a leffon to the planter. If the planter had been as mindful of his intereft, as the merchant, he would now feel eafy in his circumftances, and the merchant's accounts have been fettled. For the planter's errors, the merchant is not culpable-In offering us his wares, he did us no injury-To take them, was an act of our own, altogether voluntary; we cannot fay that any compulfion was used. Why then fo heavily complain of the merchant, and load him with cenfure for our own ftupidity? Let us be afhamed of our littleness! Let us for once determine to be honef! Let us dispofe of our property, and difcharge our obligations to the merchant, or think it no crime to acknowledge his indulgence; and henceforward, like wife determine to be frugal, induftrious, and virtuous: to live within the bounds of our income, be they ever fo contracted, and by thus reverfing our paft conduct, doubt not of being happy. If, initead of bewildering ourfelves in the idle dreams of commerce, after our independency was fully effected, we had rejected her fmiles, and wholly bent our thoughts on the encouragement of domeftic manufac tures, and the cultivation of the most ufeful arts and fciences, we fhould, no doubt, by this time, have been a rich, flourishing, and refpectable people; nay, by now adopting a fimilar policy, we could not fail of foon becoming fuch-What but frugality, industry, and emulation, can poffibly be wanting, to effect our profperity, and raife us to the fummit of human greatnefs? Have we not a productive foil, and almoft unlimited extent of country, abounding in the luxuries of nature, which, were our connexions with other nations to be for ever cut off, would fupply us with every neceffary! The luxuries of art, till they are the reward of our own labour, are highly pernicious, and deftructive to our welfare. Were we manufacturing people, nothing, according to what is generally underftood by the common acceptation of the word, would be a luxury; or have in its ufe, the fame pernicious tendency, as the use of foreign fuperfluities muft at prefent have with a us. In manufacturing countries the middle and lower claffes of people are chiefly employed, or concerned therein the promotion of luxury, excefs, and diffipation, therefore, is, in them, perhaps, good policy; at leaft national, as it takes only from the opulent and relieves the needy: but to encourage the ufe of foreign luxuries with us, woful experience, I should think, had fufficiently convinced us, would not be fo friendly; but, as the most rapacious peculator, would plunder without mercy, and deal out a general devaftation. Since, then, it cannot but be clear, to every thinking perfon, that commerce with foreigners, upon its prefent foundation, muft greatly militate against us; what remedies, for the growing evil, have we attempted? None, I think; or none adequate. To impofe high duties upon imports, in a country whofe coaft is as much exposed as ours, cannot poffibly long anfwer any good purpofe. It will never amount to a prohibition-It will not much leffen the confumption-it will only eneourage finuggling-rob the revenueand exact fomething more from the planter. If any thing is to be done by duties, ours thould be regula 2 ted by thofe of the neighbouring fates, or they will profit by our erTors. But no perceivable good is to be expected, from any conceivable mode of in poing duties; nor could any thing more falutary be expected, from an abfolute prohibition of the importation of foreign luxuries; for were they allowed to be made ufe of, after they were in the country, to get them there, would be attended with no difficulty. Is not our coaft entirely unguarded, and have not we two neighbouring ftates, whofe intereft it would then be to encourage fmuggling? or can we be weak enough to believe, that the virtue of the inhabitants of our fea coaft, and of the frontiers of Maryland and NorthCarolina, would long be proof gainst the proinifing temptation ? No; individuals, conveniently fituated for the encouragement of fuch illicit practices, would not long fail to fee, therein, their own advantage; and were the duties high enough to make it an object worth their while to fmuggle, or was the importation prohibited, which would amount to much the fame thing, we fhould, thereby, be fill amply fupplied, with thofe very luxuries, through almoft every channel by which we now get them, without either bringing any thing into the treasury, or affording any relief to the planter: nay the very officers of the cuftoms, and guardians of the public revenue, no doubt, would foon be corrupted, and be feen amongst the foremoft to encourage the abufe. In a prohibition of the ufe, only, then, can we promife ourselves fuccefs. They fhould be defroyed in the hands of the merchant, or wherever elfe they were found; or be in fome way fecured, till there might be a fuficiency to make it convenient to fend them to fome other market, there to be difpofed of for the benefit of the public and the informerthis, though it might not at once en tirely remove, would, no doubt, fufficiently check the growing evil, and infenfibly relieve us;-for, was the ufe of foreign luxuries prohibited, the importation would, in a good meafure, of courfe cease-the merchant once knowing his rifk in keeping them, would no longer think of importing them. I am not unaware, here, that fome will be ready enough to call the mode of proceeding I have juft now pointed out, an infufferable fretch of power, incompatible with the nature of a free government, and think it a hardship, that bounds fhall be fet to their extravagance, by any authority whatever. But knowing the laws, to act in defiance thereof, why fhould it not in every individual, be juft as criminal, and equally punifhable, as in fome, who for fmuggling, have loft cargo and veffel? No law, however rigid it may to fome at firit feem, that may, in its operation, have a general good effect, under any form of government whatever, can, with propriety, be fo called -for what were laws firft intended ? or why were fuch coercions ever found neceffary, if not to curb people's vices-to oblige them to be frugal, induftrious, and honeft--to live within the bounds of their income -to be virtuous and finally happy? The ideas, which we are too apt to entertain of power, are often more arbitrary than the power from whence they are formed. In the extravagance of thought, and the ungovernable heat of paffion, we hurry ourfelves into errors, and are apt to miftake thofe for infufferable itretches of which, upon a clofer, more deliberate, and impartial examinati power, on, we find to be only the most ne ceflary exertions. Power fhould always have energy, or it will foon degenerate into impotency, and at length be fupplanted by anarchy. Whether, let me afk, is a ftretch of power the more intolerable, to oblige people to be frugal while they are poffeffed of fomething; or after they have finished their wild career, and the meafure of their iniquities is pretty near full, to give their conduct the last faint colouring of honesty, and, to do the little justice left to their creditors, reduce them to beg gary? The first, we are fure, to the unthinking multitude, would feem moft oppreffive; but, if either of them are deferving of fo harth a name, I doubt not, but the few rationals would foon determine it to be the latter-but that neither of them are infufferable firetches, I imagine, will be readily allowed, and that we may venture to call them but neceffary exertions, in no wife derogatory to found policy. There perhaps may be fome few, whofe fortunes, for a while, might enable them to indulge themselves in the use of foreign luxuries, without much inconveniency; but even to thefe, or their pofterity, in the end, the ufe of them must be deftructive; and fuppofing it was not, does it im ply, that, in order to indulge thefe few, we fhould fport with the welfare of a multitude! Example, we know, has often a very good cf fect, and for this, people, in general, look up to their fuperiors, or those in better circumflances. If, then, the few pofieffed of ample fortunes, do not fet examples of frugality and cconomy, to thofe whofe fortunes are more contracted, what must be the confequence? Why, it is fufficiently clear, that the latter would follow the former, through every fpecies of vice, folly, and diffipation, till their condition was irretrevably defperate.. -One wealthy man in a neighbour hood, may be the ruin of many, by making thofe his companions, whofe fortunes will not admit of his extravagance-The truth of this, I doubt not, we have too often feen verified. AMICUS. Chesterfield, Firginia, June 7, 1787. From the moment in which I made the governments of my country the fubject of my fludy, they have been the object of my admiration. Excepting the vein of popularity that pervades them, and which evidently hath weakened the executive arm, perhaps they are perfect. Some objections, derived from falfe theories, are made to them--These I have attempted to remove. It hath been urged, that democratic forms required a tone of manners unattainable, and unprefervable in a fociety where commerce, luxury, and the arts, have difpofed the public mind to the gratifications of refinement. This propofition is difficultly oppofed. To diflodge it, it will be neceflary to take a new ground, and a new fcene of detail; for the antiquity of the idea hath given it a prefeription, fuperior to every thing but arguments drawn from a novel feries of political events. That the governments of the unit ed ftates would refolve into ariftocracies, is a pofition which I have attempted to oppofe. The extent of territory is another chjection made by fuch as theorife on the American democracies. The contemplation of thefe points produced the following sheets, which were written in 1784 and 1785, immediately after the publication of "Abbe Mably's remarks." How. ever humble their execution, the horety of the zeal, by which they were dictated, entitles them in fome degree to the indulgence of a patriotic mind. Under this impreffion, and confings that my country would feel gratiaed by every tribute of respect, however fmall, that fhould be offered tovey, I have taken the liberty of inferibing thefe enquiries to your excellency. I have the honour to be, your moit obedient Middle Temple, April, 1787. J. Abbe Mably. tention of all fpeculative minds. It is an object of fome importance to the caufe of liberty, all over the world, that they fhould be undertood. They prefent the moft finish ed political forms. On their practicability, and on the juftnefs with which they may have been adjufted to the purpofes of fociety, depends the problem, whether, under every 19-operation of moral, political, and phyfical caufes, a government can be irmed, unexceptionably free in form, and yet, in its adminiftration, durable and efficient. The fubject is highly interefting: and def rves a philofophical furvey of the opinions, theories, and fituations, which the contemplation will involve. Among the philofophers who have written upon this fubject, is the abbe Mably; a man no lefs diftinguished by the liberality of his principles, than by the acutenefs of his inveftigations. But even his mind, enlightened as it was by feience, and foltered by philofophy, was not equal to a juft difcernment of the governments on which he favoured the world with remarks. The fplendor of his claffical and hiftorical acquirements, but poorly compenfates the mifchiefs of their application. While it dazzled, it could not conduct him; and he will be found, on an examination of his remarks, to have wandered through fcenes of fancied fimilarity, unguided by that unerring principle of hiftory, which leads with fcientific certainty, from effects to caufes, through the medium of authenticated facts. He is learned, philofophical, and eloquent. His views of the political horizon are commanding: but learning, like blood, may increase the fever of mistake, philofophy contemplate through a faife medium, and eloquence lead to a victory of error. In his reafoning, he has adopted a takes. He compares certain events in hiftory, and certain inftitutions of the ancients, with the events of the American revolution, her laws, and governments. To appear learned, he feems almoft willing to be deceived. A man poffeffed of local information, from his education in the very scenes he would contemplate, is, though inferior in point of intellect and mental endowment, better qualified, perhips, for a task which demands lefs the labours of erudition, than the accuracy of obfervation. It was with a deference due to the name of Mably, that I perufed his remarks. But having feen the |