pport the governments afterwards for one eighth of what Britain would
levy on us, and could I find a miser whose heart never felt the emotion
of a spark of principle, even that man, uninfluenced by every love but
the love of money, and capable of no attachment but to his interest,
would and must, from the frugality which governs him, contribute to the
defence of the country, or he ceases to be a miser and becomes an idiot.
But when we take in with it every thing that can ornament mankind; when
the line of our interest becomes the line of our happiness; when all
that can cheer and animate the heart, when a sense of honor, fame,
character, at home and abroad, are interwoven not only with the security
but the increase of property, there exists not a man in America, unless
he be an hired emissary, who does not see that his good is connected
with keeping up a sufficient defence.

I do not imagine that an instance can be produced in the world, of a
country putting herself to such an amazing charge to conquer and enslave
another, as Britain has done. The sum is too great for her to think of
with any tolerable degree of temper; and when we consider the burden
she sustains, as well as the disposition she has shown, it would be the
height of folly in us to suppose that she would not reimburse herself by
the most rapid means, had she America once more within her power. With
such an oppression of expense, what would an empty conquest be to her!
What relief under such circumstances could she derive from a victory
without a prize? It was money, it was revenue she first went to war for,
and nothing but that would satisfy her. It is not the nature of avarice
to be satisfied with any thing else. Every passion that acts upon
mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary
and fluctuating; they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a
fixed, uniform passion. It neither abates of its vigor nor changes its
object; and the reason why it does not, is founded in the nature of
things, for wealth has not a rival where avarice is a ruling passion.
One beauty may excel another, and extinguish from the mind of man the
pictured remembrance of a former one: but wealth is the phoenix of
avarice, and therefore it cannot seek a new object, because there is not
another in the world.

I now pass on to show the value of the present taxes, and compare them
with the annual expense; but this I shall preface with a few explanatory