but I am quite certain that, if
it be a fault, it is one into which few have fallen. The policy of the
Romans in the time of the republic, seems to have been prospective.
Some of the Dutch also, and of the Venetians, used the telescope. But
in monarchies the prince, not the people, is consulted by the minister
of the day; and what pleases the weakest supersedes what is approved
by the wisest.

_Shipley._ We have had great statesmen: Burleigh, Cromwell,
Marlborough, Somers: and whatever may have been in the eyes of a
moralist the vices of Walpole, none ever understood more perfectly, or
pursued more steadily, the direct and palpable interests of the
country. Since his administration, our affairs have never been managed
by men of business; and it was more than could have been expected
that, in our war against the French in Canada, the appointment fell on
an able commander.

_Franklin._ Such an anomaly is unlikely to recur. You have in the
English Parliament (I speak of both Houses) only two great men; only
two considerate and clear-sighted politicians; Chatham and Burke.
Three or four can say clever things; several have sonorous voices;
many vibrate sharp comminations from the embrasures of portentously
slit sleeves; and there are those to be found who deliver their
oracles out of wigs as worshipful as the curls of Jupiter, however
they may be grumbled at by the flour-mills they have laid under such
heavy contribution; yet nearly all of all parties want alike the
sagacity to discover that in striking America you shake Europe; that
kings will come out of the war either to be victims or to be despots;
and that within a quarter of a century they will be hunted down like
vermin by the most servile nations, or slain in their palaces by their
own courtiers. In a peace of twenty years you might have paid off the
greater part of your National Debt, indeed as much of it as it would
be expedient to discharge, and you would have left your old enemy
France labouring and writhing under the intolerable and increasing
weight of hers. This is the only way in which you can ever quite
subdue her; and in this you subdue her without a blow, without a
menace, and without a wrong. As matters now stand, you are calling her
from attending to the corruptions of her court, and inviting her from
bankruptcy to glory.

_Shipley._ I see not how bankruptcy can be averted by the expenditure
of war.

_Franklin._ It cannot. But war and glory are th