314 political progrefs of Britain. Oct. iCi- 



and the extension of trade, are tire principal pleas that have 

 ever been urged for going to war ; pleas that, if they are 

 admitted, will be sufficient to perpetuate wars till there be 

 scarcely an individual of the human race existing on the 

 globe. Can national glory ever be augmented by acts of 

 rapine, bloodfhed, and injustice ? yet it is actions of this 

 kind which have been cried up, as constituting national- 

 glory, from the days of Cyrus to those of George in. The 

 fcalance of power I what is it but a bubble to amuse the mul- 

 titude, — a pretext for exalting the favourite nation of the' 

 day, which we must pull down the next ? Within this cen- 

 tury Britain has expended her blood and treasure succef- 

 sively to exalt and to abase almost every power in Etl- 

 rope ; and so it ever must be, while this Quixote doctrine 

 prevails. Heaven alone can set bounds to the power of em- 

 pires, which cannot be overcome ; and nothing else ever 

 will do it effectually, till mankind (hall be endowed with 

 a greater degree of foreknowledge, honesty, and steadlnefs,' 

 than they ever yet have pofsefsed. As to wars for the ex- 

 tension of trade, of all the absurdities that ever marked' 

 the ravings of the human mind, that is doubtlefs the most 

 remarkable : — it amounts to this, — to make other nations 

 purchase your goods to a greater extent you must enhance 

 the price of these goods ; — to make a customer buy 

 them in greater quantities, you must render those purcha- 

 sers poorer than they otherwise would have been. The 

 public are indeed amused by a grand display of treaties 

 and restraints, by which this ti-ade is to be forced, by in- 

 niquitous stipulations, to run in their favours : as if every 

 man of common sense did not know, that it would be 

 equally wise to attempt to make the sea flow upwards on 

 the side of a hill, as to continue in any nation a briflt de- 

 mand for goods that are dearer or worse in quality than 

 those of neighbouring countries. 



