kind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
What are the chief sources of expense in every Government? What has occasioned that enormous accumulation of debts with which several of the European nations are oppressed? The answer plainly is, wars and rebellions; the support of those institutions, which are necessary to guard the body politic, against these two most mortal diseases of society. The expenses arising from those institutions which are relative to the mere domestic police of a State; to the support of its Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments, with their different appendages; and to the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, (which will comprehend almost all the objects of State expenditure,) are insignificant, in comparison with those which relate to the National defence.
In the kingdom of Great Britain, where all the ostentatious apparatus of Monarchy is to be provided for, not above a fifteenth part of the annual income of the nation is appropriated to the class of expenses last mentioned: the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the payment of the interest of debts, contracted for carrying on the wars in which that country has been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets and armies. If, on the one hand, it should be observed, that the expenses incurred in the prosecution of the ambitious enterprises and vainglorious pursuits of a Monarchy, are not a proper standard by which to judge of those which might be necessary in a Republic; it ought, on the other hand, to be remarked, that there should be as great a dispro-
