Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/195

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( 185 )

¬to sink her beneath it. — It is in adversity only, that nations, like individuals, can be estimated; like ships, you can know nothing of them in a harbour ; you must try them in the storm, and prove them by the weather that they make. — England, I am sure, — (but it is a romance so to speak of her, as in a state she can never be brought to) — England would begin by a grand systematic benevolence to the distressed — but her wisdom would inform her that this humane deliverance would be only ruin to her people, if not immediately followed up by a system which would enable them to support themsejves ; and, remembering the efforts she had made for other nations, which were comparatively unbur- thened, she would regulate all her concerns with them upon a just scale, and by well-considered imposts, until she could cherish all her children in her own bosom, by making her fertile soil repay protected cultivation, neither mocking the husbandman by the ruinous vibrations of markets, nor distressing the poor by prices beyond their reach. — When property was thus ¬put ¬