eal patriotism. He that
raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for
disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he
knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his
followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.

A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten
parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation,
transmitted by our ancestors; he knows that futurity is not in his
power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.

Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
mandates of his constituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and
the inconstancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the
opinion of his constituents shall be taken. Popular instructions are,
commonly, the work, not of the wise and steady, but the violent and
rash; meetings held for directing representatives are seldom attended
but by the idle and the dissolute; and he is not without suspicion, that
of his constituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may
often be the wiser.

He considers himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to
preserve his constituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only
from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.

The common marks of patriotism having been examined, and shown to be
such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly misapply, it cannot be
improper to consider, whether there are not some characteristical modes
of speaking or acting, which may prove a man to be not a patriot.

In this inquiry, perhaps, clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer
persuasion attained; for it is, commonly, easier to know what is wrong
than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should
pursue.

As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which
every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to
hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes
great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who
desires the publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by
aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little
importance.

It may, therefore, be safely pronounced, that those men are no patriots,
who, when the national honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and
the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to