DESCRIPTION OF a MOULD-BOARD. 3:1 



peace among themfelves, and adls of violence and injury 

 are as rare in their focieties as in nations which keep the 

 fword of the law in perpetual adivity. Public reproach, 

 a refufal of common offices, interdidtioTi of the commerce 

 and comforts of fociety are found as efFedtual as the 

 coarfer inftrument of force. Nations, like thefe indivi- 

 duals, ftand towards each other only in the relations of 

 natural right. Might they not, like them, be pea'^eably 

 punifhed for violence and wrong ? Wonderful has been 

 the progrefs of human improvement in other lines. Let 

 us hope then that that law of nature which makes a virtu- 

 ous conduct produce benefit, and vice lofs, to the agent in 

 the long run, which has fandlioned the common principle 

 that honefty is the beft policy, will in time influence the 

 proceedings of nations as well as of individuals ; and that 

 we fhall at length be fenfible that war is an inftrument 

 entirely inefficient towards redreffing wrong ; that it mul- 

 tiplies inftead of indemnifying lofles. Had the money 

 which has been fpent in the prefent war been employed in 

 making roads and condudting canals of navigation and ir- 

 rigation through the country, not a hovel in the remoteft 

 corner of the Highlands of Scotland, or mountains of 

 Auvergne, would have been without a boat at its door, a 

 rill of water in every field, and a road to its market town. 

 Had the money we have loft by the lawlefs depredations 

 of all the belligerent powers been employed in the fame 

 way, what communications would have been opened of 

 roads and waters ! Yet were we to go to war for redrefs, 

 inftead of redrefs, we fhould plunge deeper into lofs, and 

 tiifable ourfelves for half a century more from attaining 

 the fame end. A war would coft us more than would 

 cut through the ifthmus of Darien; and that of Suez 

 might have been opened with what a fingle year has feen 

 thrown away on the rock of Gibraltar. Thefe truths are 

 ■palpable, and muft in the progrefs of time have their in- 

 U u flue nee 



