e--the
National Debt--a debt which is now so large that the most prudent, the
most economical, and the most honest have given up all hope, not of
its being paid off, but of its being diminished in amount. We have,
too, taxes which have been during many years so onerous that there
have been times when the patient beast of burden threatened to revolt,
so onerous that it has been utterly impossible to levy them with any
kind of honest equality, according to the means of the people to
pay them. We have that, moreover, which is a standing wonder to
all foreigners who consider our condition, an amount of apparently
immovable pauperism, which to strangers is wholly irreconcilable with
the fact that we, as a nation, produce more of what should make us all
comfortable than is produced by any other nation of similar numbers on
the face of the globe. Let us likewise remember that during the period
of those great and so-called glorious contests on the continent of
Europe, every description of home reform was not only delayed, but
actually crushed out of the minds of the great bulk of the people.
There can be no doubt whatever that in 1793 England was about to
realize political changes and reforms, such as did not appear again
until 1830; and during the period of that war, which now almost all
men agree to have been wholly unnecessary, we were passing through a
period which may be described as the dark age of English politics;
when there was no more freedom to write or speak or politically to
act, than there is now in the most despotic country of Europe.

But it may be asked, did nobody gain? If Europe is no better, and the
people of England have been so much worse, who has benefited by the
new system of foreign policy? What has been the fate of those who were
enthroned at the Revolution, and whose supremacy has been for so
long a period undisputed among us? Mr. Kinglake, the author of an
interesting book on Eastern Travel, describing the habits of some
acquaintances that he made in the Sahara deserts, says, that the
jackals of the desert follow their prey in families like the
place-hunters of Europe. I will reverse, if you like, the comparison,
and say that the great territorial families of England, which were
enthroned at the Revolution, have followed their prey like the jackals
of the desert. Do you not observe, at a glance, that, from the time of
William III, by reason of the foreign policy which I denounce, wars
have been mult