tle time showed him the same sort of man as his
predecessors had been. Instead of profiting by those errors which had
accumulated a burthen of taxes unparalleled in the world, he sought,
I might almost say, he advertised for enemies, and provoked means to
increase taxation. Aiming at something, he knew not what, he ransacked
Europe and India for adventures, and abandoning the fair pretensions he
began with, he became the knight-errant of modern times.

It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away. It is more so to
see one's-self deceived. Mr. Pitt had merited nothing, but he promised
much. He gave symptoms of a mind superior to the meanness and corruption
of courts. His apparent candour encouraged expectations; and the public
confidence, stunned, wearied, and confounded by a chaos of parties,
revived and attached itself to him. But mistaking, as he has done, the
disgust of the nation against the coalition, for merit in himself,
he has rushed into measures which a man less supported would not have
presumed to act.

All this seems to show that change of ministers amounts to nothing.
One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and
extravagance are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect
lies in the system. The foundation and the superstructure of the
government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks into
court government, and ever will.

I return, as I promised, to the subject of the national debt, that
offspring of the Dutch-Anglo revolution, and its handmaid the Hanover
succession.

But it is now too late to enquire how it began. Those to whom it is
due have advanced the money; and whether it was well or ill spent, or
pocketed, is not their crime. It is, however, easy to see, that as
the nation proceeds in contemplating the nature and principles of
government, and to understand taxes, and make comparisons between those
of America, France, and England, it will be next to impossible to keep
it in the same torpid state it has hitherto been. Some reform must,
from the necessity of the case, soon begin. It is not whether these
principles press with little or much force in the present moment. They
are out. They are abroad in the world, and no force can stop them. Like
a secret told, they are beyond recall; and he must be blind indeed that
does not see that a change is already beginning.

Nine millions of dead taxes is a serious thing; and this not only for
bad, bu