I beheld, in various magnificent erections, the germs
of innumerable associations, gratifying to the vice of national pride;
but affording little pleasure to one whose prejudices of principle,
and habits of thinking, have taught him to estimate all human labours
by their influence on the happiness of the sentient creatures to whom
the earth is a common inheritance. There was #the British
Admiralty#--the just pride of a people's defence against foreign
invaders--but less worthy of admiration, if ever used as an instrument
of ambition, or as a means of gratifying base passions. There was the
#British War-Office#, of which a Briton can say little, who doubts the
policy of the colonial system, who feels a conviction that "Britain's
best bulwarks are her wooden walls," and who thinks that the sword
should never be wielded but by citizen soldiers, nor ever be used till
the constable's staff has been exerted in vain. And there was #the
British Treasury#, the talisman of whose power has destroyed the
efficacy of title-deeds, and converted the land and houses of the
empire into paper-money and stock-debts, for the purpose of carrying
on wars and performing deeds, which impartial history will justly
characterize, when alas! the truth will be useless to the suffering
victims!

Just at this moment I beheld several bands of armed men, disguised in
showy liveries, drawn up in array to exercise themselves for combat.
But, having no taste for such mistakes of power, and being in no
degree deluded by the gloss of their clothes, the glitter of their
murderous weapons, or the abuse of celestial harmony in the skill of
their musicians, I silently invoked the energies of truth to remove
from the understandings of men, that cloud which permits such
illusions to be successful. No legitimate power, like that of the
government of England, founded on such bases as Magna Charta, the laws
of Edward the First, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, and
the Act of Settlement, can, for its lawful purposes, ever stand in
need, in a properly educated community, of the support of a single man
armed with a murderous weapon.

These piles of buildings, ranged in a semi-circular form, are imposing
on, the eye from their magnitude, and on the imagination from their
fame. I paused to enjoy their perspective; but, is not senseless
#WAR#, I exclaimed, even now ravaging or disturbing the four quarters
of the world, and is it not from this scite that it re