ore they have been busied in
forming systems and conjectures, while reason has been lost in a
labyrinth of words, and they never seem to have suspected on what
frivolous matters their minds were employed.

"And let it be well understood what rapid improvements, what
important discoveries, have been made, in a few years, by a few
countries, with our own at their head, which have at last
discovered the right method of using their faculties.

"May we not reasonably expect that a number of provinces possessed
of these advantages and quickened by mutual emulation, with only
the common progress of the human mind, should very considerably
enlarge the boundaries of science?

"The vast continent itself, over which they are gradually
spreading, may be considered as a treasure yet untouched of natural
productions that shall hereafter afford ample matter for commerce
and contemplation. And if we reflect what a stock of knowledge may
be accumulated by the constant progress of industry and
observation, fed with fresh supplies from the stores of nature,
assisted sometimes by those happy strokes of chance which mock all
the powers of invention, and sometimes by those superior characters
which arise occasionally to instruct and enlighten the world, it is
difficult even to imagine to what height of improvement their
discoveries may extend.

"_And perhaps they may make as considerable advances in the arts of
civil government and the conduct of life._ We have reason to be
proud, and even jealous, of our excellent constitution; but those
equitable principles on which it was formed, an equal
representation (the best discovery of political wisdom), and a just
and commodious distribution of power, which with us were the price
of civil wars, and the rewards of the virtues and sufferings of our
ancestors, descend to them as a natural inheritance, without toil
or pain.

"_But must they rest here, as in the utmost effort of human genius?
Can chance and time, the wisdom and the experience of public men,
suggest no new remedy aqainst the evils_ which vices and ambition
are perpetually apt to cause? May they not hope, without
presumption, to preserve a greater zeal for piety and public
devotion than we have alone? For sure it can hardly happen to them,
as it