449% = Trader Political on revenue laws. 134 
smuggler has gained in the preceding month: If such 
riches were permanent, they would no doubt encou- 
‘rage a man to marry, and when he was married he 
would expend part of his fortune in giving to his 
“offspring an education suited to their situation in 
society. But with him-it is quite the reverse. He 
Jays not up the money he has, as -an insurance a- 
gainst future lofses ; he is a prince to-day, and a 
beggar to-morrow ; he has no encouragement to 
settle in a fixed habitation, nor to rear a family of 
young children to be an honour to him, His mind 
is so corrupted by repeated acts .of @iffonour, the 
unavoidable consequence of his employment, that he 
has little relith for the honourable er respectable so- 
ciety of his neighbourhood. Swindlers and despera= 
does form the companions of his table; and the bagnio 
is the seat of his pleasures. If such a man marries, 
he renders his family miserable ; his wife is often 
a woman habituated to the society of the dregs: of 
the people ; and his children are educated in such 
a manner as to become vagrants, and propagators of 
difhonesty and corruption. exh 
There are many, 1 am aware, who will consider 
411 this as being merely speculative ; but I beg of 
them not to be rah. ‘The links that bind society 
are of a very delicate nature ; and on looking with 
attention into history, ot into the world around us,, 
we fhall often find that the welfare of nations de-; 
pends on circumstances apparently but very trifling ; 
and had such circumstances been attended to with 
due caution, the Popes. had’ never reigned in Rome, 
‘VOL. Xi s + 
