Whatever may be the form of a government, its spirit, at least, must be mild and free before agriculture, trade, commerce, and manufactures can thrive under it; and if these do not prosper in a State, it may extend its empire to right and to left, and it will only carry poverty and desolation along with it, without being itself permanently enriched.

You seem to take for granted, that because the French revenue amounts to so much at present it must continue to keep up to that height.

This, I conceive impossible, unless the spirit of the government alters, which is not likely for many years.

How comes it that we are enabled to keep, by sea and land, so many men in arms?
Not by our foreign commerce, but by our domestic ingenuity, by our home labour, which, with the aid of capital and the mechanic arts and establishments, has enabled a few to produce so much as will maintain themselves, and the hundreds of thousands of their countrymen whom they support in arms.

If our foreign trade were utterly destroyed, I am told, that not more than one-sixth of our trade would perish.