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if mankind be dear to you, seek not that easy, and accursed fame which is gathered in the work of revolutions, and deem it better to be for ever unknown, than to found a momentary name upon the basis of anarchy, and irreligion.

There is a wearisome, and sickly affectation of feeling unfavourable to the love of our country; there are men, by whom the people are spoken of in terms of the warmest compassion, to whom government conveys no other notion than that of a vast con

spiracy against human happiness, and in whose minds the different orders of society are considered to be in a state of essential hostility against each other. A poor man is necessarily an oppressed man, and a rich man necessarily a tyrant; and the day of political salvation is looked for, when the valleys are to be exalted, and the hills laid low, the crooked rendered straight, and the rough places plain.

If such be commonly the errors of the young, the faults of those more conversant with the world are, I am afraid, of a less

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favourable complexion. Whatever virtues may increase with age, the virtue of patriotism is not amongst the number. It is in truth a matter of some wonder, that so many men of irreproachable honesty, in private life, should be SO totally devoid of public virtue; not only devoid of it in practice, but in theory. Every sneer against the duties we owe to the public is received with complacency, and considered as proceeding from a thorough knowledge of life, and mankind; and to talk seriously of the love of our country, is political artifice, or youthful declamation. Nor are these public sins at all infamous in the eyes of the world; men of undoubted guilt move in the same circles they moved before, and with increased consideration, if their crimes be upon a large scale, and they have bartered morality for a dignified price: Decided, and immediate infamy follows treason to individual trust. When one man suffers from fraud, and injustice, every honest heart is up in arms. Is dishonesty less dishonesty because the number of the sufferers is increased, and the evil subdivided amongst a whole coun

try? The limits of private fraud are narrow, and its effect of no long duration : Public dishonesty may entail misery upon a whole people, and the unborn infant may suffer for the laxity, and corruption of preceding times. Has our Saviour given us such strict rules for our conduct to each other, and left us to the free exercise of every bad, and licentious passion when we sin only against the public? Is it against narrow, and partial crimes that he has threatened the wrath of God, and has he flung open the doors of Heaven to magnificent villany, and boundless pollution? He who sins against the public, has no true religion of God; he has no honour, which is the religion of the world; he abstains from crimes against individuals, because he knows that loss of reputation is loss of interest, and gives loose to his baseness when profit invites, and impunity permits; if he lived in worse times, when the standard of morals was still lower, he would defraud his neighbour, he would forfeit his word; his pretended virtues are maxims of convenience; he has no guardian conscience, no protecting principle; there waves not in his breast

that flaming sword which turns every way to drive off that which is evil, and to guard the tree of life; he does not feel that he is as accountable to God, in every public as in every private transaction of his life; that he is bound to perform those duties which may affect the country at large, with the same delicate, and inflexible justice which he would exhibit, on ordinary occasions, and not to be base, because he can be base with impunity; that he ought to probe to the quick, every, the least motive to public fraud, and to public corruption, even though the wrong should be divided, and subdivided amongst millions, and millions of people; he remembers not that they only can enter into the holy tabernacle of God, who have clean hands, and a pure heart.

There is a crime committed against the country, in times of its adversity, which is certainly of the most sordid, and selfish nature; that men who derive not only protection, but opulence, from a country in the days of its prosperity, should, upon any appearance of alarm, be

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ever ready to retire with person, and property to other countries, is a principle subversive of all political union whatsöver. What nation could exist for a moment, if, in the day of danger, and war, when the kingdoms were gathered together against her, she saw her treasures dispersed, and her children fled? Are we not all linked together by language, by birth, by habits, by opinions, by virtues, for worse, for better, for glory, for shame, for peace, for war, for plenty, for want? Will you shudder to interweave your destiny with the destiny of your country? Can you possibly think of your own security when your land is weary, and fainting because of her great afflictions? And when all whom you know, and love can die, and suffer, would you alone live, and rejoice? If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning: If I do not remember thee in the time of my trouble, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

It is sometimes good to be content with doing little; the great, and splendid. occasions in which a man can benefit his

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