nothing more than the old and, as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its subjects into submission.  But remember, when you have completed your system of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds in her ordinary course; that discontent will increase with misery; and that there are critical moments in the fortune of all states when they who are too weak to contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete your ruin.  Spoliatis arma supersunt. [Footnote:  34]

The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art.  We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates.  The language in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition; your speech would betray you. [Footnote:  35] An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.

I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their republican religion as their free descent; or to substitute the Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the Church of England as an improvement.  The mode of inquisition and dragooning is going out of fashion in the Old World, and I should not confide much to their efficacy in the New.  The education of the Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with their religion.  You cannot persuade them to burn their books of curious science; to banish their lawyers from their courts of laws; or to quench the lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those persons who are best read in their privileges.  It would be no less impracticable to think of wholly annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit.  The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be far more chargeable to us, not quite so effectual, and perhaps in the end full as difficult to be kept in obedience.  With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the Southern Colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to reduce it by declaring a general enfranchisement of their slaves.  This object has had its advocates and panegyrists; yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it.  Slaves are often much attached to their masters.  A general wild offer of liberty would not always be accepted.  History furnishes few instances of it.  It is sometimes as hard to persuade slaves [Footnote:  36] to be free, as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we should have both these pleasing tasks on our hands at once.  But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that the American master may enfranchise too, and arm servile hands in defence of freedom?—­a measure to which other people have had recourse more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation of their affairs.