diture might be put back to one million and a half, viz.:

Navy L 500,000
Army 500,000
Expenses of Government 500,000
----------
L1,500,000

Even this sum is six times greater than the expenses of government are
in America, yet the civil internal government in England (I mean that
administered by means of quarter sessions, juries and assize, and which,
in fact, is nearly the whole, and performed by the nation), is
less expense upon the revenue, than the same species and portion of
government is in America.

It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like
animals, for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings,
a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in
stag-hunting, and that every nation paid a million a-year to a huntsman.
Man ought to have pride, or shame enough to blush at being thus imposed
upon, and when he feels his proper character he will. Upon all subjects
of this nature, there is often passing in the mind, a train of ideas he
has not yet accustomed himself to encourage and communicate. Restrained
by something that puts on the character of prudence, he acts the
hypocrite upon himself as well as to others. It is, however, curious
to observe how soon this spell can be dissolved. A single expression,
boldly conceived and uttered, will sometimes put a whole company into
their proper feelings: and whole nations are acted on in the same
manner.

As to the offices of which any civil government may be composed, it
matters but little by what names they are described. In the routine of
business, as before observed, whether a man be styled a president, a
king, an emperor, a senator, or anything else, it is impossible that any
service he can perform, can merit from a nation more than ten thousand
pounds a year; and as no man should be paid beyond his services, so
every man of a proper heart will not accept more. Public money ought to
be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honour. It is
not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labour and
poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not
a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that
mass.

Were it possible that the Congress of America could be so lost to their
duty, and to t