He made himself master of almost half the globe. The reign of
Napoleon was an earthquake which, for fifteen years, shook the
sea and the land, carrying down innumerable human lives in the
general cataclysm. But he sunk at last! He aspired to the very
heaven of heavens in his ambitions; and his conquests were the
wonder and terror of mankind. But he left France smaller, weaker,
poorer, and more debased and depraved than he found her.

Just eight hundred years ago last September, William the Norman
landed in Britain and commenced its subjugation. Since that
period, the history of Great Britain has not differed materially
from that of other European nations. As the sun is said never to
set on the British domain, so the thunder of its war-guns has
reverberated almost continually in some corner of the globe. To
trace her history, however rapidly, even had we time, could give
no pleasure to this audience, and would add nothing to my present
argument. It is sufficient to say that, with real estate almost
immeasurable, with personal property incalculable, with a wealth
of material resources of every conceivable description,
absolutely unknown and unknowable, she yet contrives to support
her costly establishment by a system of oppressive taxation
almost unparalleled in the annals of the human race. Some of you
must remember the graphic but not exaggerated description of
British taxation given by Sidney Smith in the _Edinburgh Review_.
It was almost fifty years ago; but no less revenue must be raised
in some way, still. He said:

We have taxes upon everything which enters into the mouth,
or covers the back, or is placed under the feet; taxes upon
everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell,
or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on
everything on earth, and in the waters under the earth;
taxes on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at
home; taxes on the raw material, taxes on every fresh value
added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauces
which pamper man's appetite, and the drugs that restore him
to health; taxes on the ermine which decorates the judge,
and on the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's
salt and the rich man'