We have, it is true, some visible results that are of a more positive character.  We have that which some people call a great advantage—­the National Debt—­a debt which is now so large that the most prudent, the most economical, and the most honest have given up all hope, not of its being paid off, but of its being diminished in amount.  We have, too, taxes which have been during many years so onerous that there have been times when the patient beast of burden threatened to revolt, so onerous that it has been utterly impossible to levy them with any kind of honest equality, according to the means of the people to pay them.  We have that, moreover, which is a standing wonder to all foreigners who consider our condition, an amount of apparently immovable pauperism, which to strangers is wholly irreconcilable with the fact that we, as a nation, produce more of what should make us all comfortable than is produced by any other nation of similar numbers on the face of the globe.  Let us likewise remember that during the period of those great and so-called glorious contests on the continent of Europe, every description of home reform was not only delayed, but actually crushed out of the minds of the great bulk of the people.  There can be no doubt whatever that in 1793 England was about to realize political changes and reforms, such as did not appear again until 1830; and during the period of that war, which now almost all men agree to have been wholly unnecessary, we were passing through a period which may be described as the dark age of English politics; when there was no more freedom to write or speak or politically to act, than there is now in the most despotic country of Europe.

But it may be asked, did nobody gain?  If Europe is no better, and the people of England have been so much worse, who has benefited by the new system of foreign policy?  What has been the fate of those who were enthroned at the Revolution, and whose supremacy has been for so long a period undisputed among us?  Mr. Kinglake, the author of an interesting book on Eastern Travel, describing the habits of some acquaintances that he made in the Sahara deserts, says, that the jackals of the desert follow their prey in families like the place-hunters of Europe.  I will reverse, if you like, the comparison, and say that the great territorial families of England, which were enthroned at the Revolution, have followed their prey like the jackals of the desert.  Do you not observe, at a glance, that, from the time of William III, by reason of the foreign policy which I denounce, wars have been multiplied, taxes increased, loans made, and the sums of money which every year the Government has to expend augmented, and that so the patronage at the disposal of Ministers must have increased also, and the families who were enthroned and made powerful in the legislation and administration of the country must have had the first pull at, and the largest profit out of, that patronage?  There is no actuary in existence who can calculate how much of the wealth, of the Strength, of the supremacy of the territorial families of England has been derived from an unholy participation in the fruits of the industry of the people, which have been wrested from them by every device of taxation, and squandered in every conceivable crime of which a Government could possibly be guilty.