partiality. "The Americans," they say, "are but little short of half
our number. To this number they have grown from a small body of
original settlers by a very rapid increase. The probability is that
they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they
will be double our number, and form a mighty empire, consisting of a
variety of States, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the
arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human
life. In that period will they be still bound to acknowledge that
supremacy over them which we now claim? Can there be any person who
will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a
vast continent holding all that is valuable to it at the discretion
of a handful of people on the other side of the Atlantic? But if at
that period this would be unreasonable, what makes it otherwise now?
Draw the line if you can. But there is still a greater difficulty."

Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, and
its legislature consists of a body of able and independent men, who
govern with wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be
reversed; when its excellent constitution of government will be
subverted; when, pressed by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to
draw to itself an increase of revenue from every distant province,
in order to ease its own burdens; when the influence of the crown,
strengthened by luxury and a universal profligacy of manners, will
have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of liberty, and
rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals; when a general
election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, and when
the Parliament, the grand council of the nation, and once the
faithful guardian of the State, and a terror to evil ministers, will
be degenerated into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal,
always ready to confirm any measures, and little more than a public