many
bad chances of this world. Have we not seen the best rider braking his
neck? Have we not seen the most industrious man dying on the straw? Have
we not seen the poles, the italians crushed under the iron hand of
tyranny? And where is the ignorant of nations, who will say, that the
nations deserve their bad, or good existent position? To say so, it would
be as to maintain, there is no injustice in this world of tears; but, not
to see, or wishing not to see the faults of his own country, it is the
sign of a bad citizen, or of an ignoramus. You, noble victims of tyranny,
answer for me to like spoil children of fortune. Indeed, he who enjoys the
blessing of good laws, and laughs at, and scorns the noble sufferers, is
nothing else but like the impudent son of a monarch, who, while he sees
his subjects with straw in their mouth, dying by famine, asks them, why
they do not eat bread, and cheese. Swim in your luxuries as long as you
please; but do not taunt sufferers.

However, many nations are now awaked, and a good chance might turn, sooner
than many expect, all men into civilized beings; and then, the country of
man will be the whole earth. He who did not go farther than one hundred
miles from the place of his birth, knows but the first page of this large
book, the world: And he, who wishes to expel foreigners from his native
country, while he places the bushel over his light, does nothing but
imitate the chineses of Pekin. Could the greeks surpass the egyptians, had
these not opened the gates of civilization to the former? Could the romans
surpass the greeks, had the romans not learned from the egyptians and
greeks? And though the greater part of Blackstone's laws are not fit for
America, are they not the laws of Blackstone, but the laws of the
egyptians, greeks, and romans, interspersed with the feudal laws of Italy
and France, adapted to, and modified for the english soil?

Fearing not to be understood, I repeat here again. In writing against
uncharitable men, who use the bible improperly, in order to hinder the
progress of our race, I have still, and I hope I shall ever have the
greatest veneration, towards the benevolent ministers of Christ, and happy
christians, who see the daily loss which the heavenly moral of Jesus does
suffer, not from unbelievers; but from fanatics, and hypocrites: and
though the whole bible is not a book to be placed into the hands of the
innocent, he, or she acquainted with the world, if th