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acutely for itself, and it is difficult to be a righteous judge in our own cause. — This prejudice may even extend to cases where there can be no approach to self-interest, and it may perhaps most powerfully affect my own judgment at this moment, when I am discussing the policy of another world. — The first object of retrenchment after the general peace you have described, ought undoubtedly, to some extent or other, to be the reduction of your naval and military forces; because their services are no longer necessary for your safety; but they may again be necessary, and the utmost skill and caution are therefore required to preserve their fabric and constitution, when you diminish their extent. — The condition also of many who have so nobly served you, is a subject I almost weep to think on. — It should be remembered, that those brave men have been for years together in most perilous and unwholesome stations; that their pay could not be sufficient to support them, and in many cases their families also, — left behind them, oppressed with
