were almost as many competitors as provinces; and all abetted by the greatest, the most ambitious, and most enterprising power in Europe.  No place safe from treason; no, not the bosoms on which the most amiable prince that ever lived reposed his head; not his mistresses; not even his queen.  As to the finances, they had scarce an existence, but as a matter of plunder to the managers, and of grants to insatiable and ungrateful courtiers.

How can our author have the heart to describe this as any sort of parallel to our situation?  To be sure, an April shower has some resemblance to a waterspout; for they are both wet:  and there is some likeness between a summer evening’s breeze and a hurricane; they are both wind:  but who can compare our disturbances, our situation, or our finances, to those of France in the time of Henry?  Great Britain is indeed at this time wearied, but not broken, with the efforts of a victorious foreign war; not sufficiently relieved by an inadequate peace, but somewhat benefited by that peace, and infinitely by the consequences of that war.  The powers of Europe awed by our victories, and lying in ruins upon every side of us.  Burdened indeed we are with debt, but abounding with resources.  We have a trade, not perhaps equal to our wishes, but more than ever we possessed.  In effect, no pretender to the crown; nor nutriment for such desperate and destructive factions as have formerly shaken this kingdom.

As to our finances, the author trifles with us.  When Sully came to those of France, in what order was any part of the financial system? or what system was there at all?  There is no man in office who must not be sensible that ours is, without the act of any parading minister, the most regular and orderly system perhaps that was ever known; the best secured against all frauds in the collection, and all misapplication in the expenditure of public money.

I admit that, in this flourishing state of things, there are appearances enough to excite uneasiness and apprehension.  I admit there is a cankerworm in the rose: 

             Medio de fonte leporum
    Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.

This is nothing else than a spirit of disconnection, of distrust, and of treachery among public men.  It is no accidental evil, nor has its effect been trusted to the usual frailty of nature; the distemper has been inoculated.  The author is sensible of it, and we lament it together.  This distemper is alone sufficient to take away considerably from the benefits of our constitution and situation, and perhaps to render their continuance precarious.  If these evil dispositions should spread much farther, they must end in our destruction; for nothing can save a people destitute of public and private faith.  However, the author, for the present state of things, has extended the charge by much too widely; as men are but too apt to take the measure of all mankind from their own particular acquaintance.  Barren