e
formed, by stating that it has cost the labours of twenty thousand men
for a year, or of one thousand for twenty years, than that above a
million sterling has at different times been expended upon the
building and furniture. Yet, it is said that it forms but the eastern
wing of a palace, which the architects of this Prince have projected,
and that half the south side of Pall-Mall and considerable tracts of
the Park will be appropriated to complete their plans, if approved by
their royal patron. I am aware, that the love of shew in princes, and
persons in authority, is often justified by the alledged necessity of
imposing on the vulgar; but I doubt whether any species of imposition
really produces the effect which the pomp of power is so willing to
ascribe to it, as an excuse for its own indulgences. Nor ought it ever
to be forgotten, that no tinsel of gaudy trappings, no architectural
arrangements of stone or wood, no bands of liveried slaves, (however
glossed in various hues, or disguised by various names,) can sustain
the glory of any power which despises public opinion, forgets the
compact between all power and the people, violates the faith of public
treaties, and measures its moral obligations, not by the sense of
justice, but by considerations of expediency and self-interest! On
this important, though almost exhausted, topic, it should be known by
all Princes who covet true glory, that #Washington the Great# hired no
armed men to sustain his power, that his habits were in all things
those of a private citizen, and that he kept but one coach, merely for
occasions of state--his personal virtues being his body-guards--the
justice of his measures constituting the strength of his
government,--the renown of his past deeds enshrining him with more
splendour than could be conferred by the orders of all the courts in
Europe--his unquestionable love of public liberty endearing him to the
people over whom he presided--and the pure flame of his patriotism
causing him to appear in their eyes as a being more than mortal!
Britain might envy America her #Washington#, if she could not herself
boast of #an Alfred#, worthy also of being called #the Great#--a
sovereign who voluntarily conceded liberty to his people, and founded
it on bases which all the inglorious artifices of his successors have
been unable to undermine--but, alas! such men, like Epic poets, seem
destined to succeed but once in a thousand years!

On the left hand