of body, an attempt towards a compulsory equality in all circumstances, and an exact practical definition of the supreme rights in every case, is the most dangerous and chimerical of all enterprises.  The old building stands well enough, though part Gothic, part Grecian, and part Chinese, until an attempt is made to square it into uniformity.  Then it may come down upon our heads altogether, in much uniformity of ruin; and great will be the fall thereof.  Some people, instead of inclining to debate the matter, only feel a sort of nausea, when they are told, that “protection calls for supply,” and that “all the parts ought to contribute to the support of the whole.”  Strange argument for great and grave deliberation!  As if the same end may not, and must not, be compassed, according to its circumstances, by a great diversity of ways.  Thus, in Great Britain, some of our establishments are apt for the support of credit.  They stand therefore upon a principle of their own, distinct from, and in some respects contrary to, the relation between prince and subject.  It is a new species of contract superinduced upon the old contract of the state.  The idea of power must as much as possible be banished from it; for power and credit are things adverse, incompatible; Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur.  Such establishments are our great moneyed companies.  To tax them would be critical and dangerous, and contradictory to the very purpose of their institution; which is credit, and cannot therefore be taxation.  But the nation, when it gave up that power, did not give up the advantage; but supposed, and with reason, that government was overpaid in credit, for what it seemed to lose in authority.  In such a case to talk of the rights of sovereignty is quite idle.  Other establishments supply other modes of public contribution.  Our trading companies, as well as individual importers, are a fit subject of revenue by customs.  Some establishments pay us by a monopoly of their consumption and their produce.  This, nominally no tax, in reality comprehends all taxes.  Such establishments are our colonies.  To tax them would be as erroneous in policy, as rigorous in equity.  Ireland supplies us by furnishing troops in war; and by bearing part of our foreign establishment in peace.  She aids us at all times by the money that her absentees spend amongst us; which is no small part of the rental of that kingdom.  Thus Ireland contributes her part.  Some objects bear port-duties.  Some are fitter for an inland excise.  The mode varies, the object is the same.  To strain these from their old and inveterate leanings, might impair the old benefit, and not answer the end of the new project.  Among all the great men of antiquity, Procrustes shall never be my hero of legislation; with his iron bed, the allegory of his government, and the type of some modern policy, by which the long limb was to be cut short, and the short tortured into length.  Such was the state-bed of uniformity!  He would, I conceive, be a very indifferent farmer, who complained that his sheep did not plough, or his horses yield him wool, though it would be an idea full of equality.  They may think this right in rustic economy, who think it available in the politic: