mething else than the ledger must intervene
to do that. Why does not England repudiate Ireland, and insist on the
"Repeal," instead of prohibiting it under death-penalties? Ireland has
never been a paying speculation yet, nor is it like soon to be! Why does
not Middlesex repudiate Surrey, and Chelsea Kensington, and each county
and each parish, and in the end each individual set up for himself
and his cash-box, repudiating the other and his, because their mutual
interests have got into an irritating course? They must change the
course, seek till they discover a soothing one; that is the remedy, when
limbs of the same body come to irritate one another. Because the paltry
tatter of a garment, reticulated for you out of thrums and listings in
Downing Street, ties foot and hand together in an intolerable manner,
will you relieve yourself by cutting off the hand or the foot? You will
cut off the paltry tatter of a pretended body-coat, I think, and fling
that to the nettles; and imperatively require one that fits your size
better.

Miserabler theory than that of money on the ledger being the primary
rule for Empires, or for any higher entity than City owls and their
mice-catching, cannot well be propounded. And I would by no means advise
Felicissimus, ill at ease on his high-trotting and now justly impatient
Sleswicker, to let the poor horse in its desperation go in that
direction for a momentary solace. If by lumber-log Governors, by
Godfrey's cordial Constitutions or otherwise, be contrived to cut
off the Colonies or any real right the big British Empire has in her
Colonies, both he and the British Empire will bitterly repent it one
day! The Sleswicker, relieved in ledger for a moment, will find that
it is wounded in heart and honor forever; and the turning of its wild
forehoofs upon Felicissimus as he lies in the ditch combed off, is not
a thing I like to think of! Britain, whether it be known to Felicissimus
or not, has other tasks appointed her in God's Universe than the making
of money; and woe will betide her if she forget those other withal.
Tasks, colonial and domestic, which are of an eternally _divine_ nature,
and compared with which all money, and all that is procurable by money,
are in strict arithmetic an imponderable quantity, have been assigned
this Nation; and they also at last are coming upon her again, clamorous,
abstruse, inevitable, much to her bewilderment just now!

This poor Nation, painfully dark abo