lence, and America, intoxicated by the grant, would have slumbered
in her fetters.

But this method of studying the progress of the passions, in order to
ascertain the probable conduct of mankind, is a philosophy in politics
which those who preside at St. James's have no conception of. They know
no other influence than corruption and reckon all their probabilities
from precedent. A new case is to them a new world, and while they are
seeking for a parallel they get lost. The talents of Lord Mansfield can
be estimated at best no higher than those of a sophist. He understands
the subtleties but not the elegance of nature; and by continually
viewing mankind through the cold medium of the law, never thinks of
penetrating into the warmer region of the mind. As for Lord North, it
is his happiness to have in him more philosophy than sentiment, for he
bears flogging like a top, and sleeps the better for it. His punishment
becomes his support, for while he suffers the lash for his sins,
he keeps himself up by twirling about. In politics, he is a good
arithmetician, and in every thing else nothing at all.

There is one circumstance which comes so much within Lord North's
province as a financier, that I am surprised it should escape him,
which is, the different abilities of the two countries in supporting the
expense; for, strange as it may seem, England is not a match for America
in this particular. By a curious kind of revolution in accounts, the
people of England seem to mistake their poverty for their riches; that
is, they reckon their national debt as a part of their national wealth.
They make the same kind of error which a man would do, who after
mortgaging his estate, should add the money borrowed, to the full value
of the estate, in order to count up his worth, and in this case he would
conceive that he got rich by running into debt. Just thus it is with
England. The government owed at the beginning of this war one hundred
and thirty-five millions sterling, and though the individuals to whom it
was due had a right to reckon their shares as so much private property,
yet to the nation collectively it was so much poverty. There are as
effectual limits to public debts as to private ones, for when once the
money borrowed is so great as to require the whole yearly revenue to
discharge the interest thereon, there is an end to further borrowing;
in the same manner as when the interest of a man's debts amounts to
the yearly income