5i40 GovERNMEi^T, Laws, [Part It. 



bears an English name 1 But, thoughts of more impor- 

 tance ought to fill his mind. He ought to contrast the 

 ease, the happiness, the absence of crime which prevail 

 here with the incessant anxieties, the miseries and mur- 

 derous works in England. In his search after causes he 

 will find them no where but in the government: and, as 

 to an established church, if he find no sound argument 

 to prove it to be an evil ; at the verj least he must con- 

 clude, that it is not a good: and, of course, that property 

 to the amount of five millions a-year is very unjustly as 

 well as unwisely bestowed on its clergy. 



437. Nor, let it be said, that the people here are of 

 a better natural disposition than the people of England 

 are. How can it be ? They are, the far greater part of 

 them, the immediate descendants of Englishmen, Irish- 

 men, and Scotsmen. Nay, in the citi/ of New York it 

 is supposed, that full half of the labour is performed by 

 natives of Ireland, while men of that Island make a 

 great figure in trade, at the bar, and in all the various 

 pursuits of life. They have their Romish Chapels there 

 in great brilliancy ; and they enjoy " Catholic Eman- 

 " cipation" withoutany petitioning or any wrangling. In 

 short, blindfold an Englishman and convey him to New 

 York, unbind his eyes, and he will think himself in an 

 English city. The same sort of streets ; shops pre- 

 cisely the same ; the same beautiful and modest women 

 crowding in and out of them ; the same play-houses ; 

 the same men, same dress, same language : he will miss 

 b}' day only the nobility and the beggars, and by night 

 only the street-walkers and pickpockets. These are to 

 be found only where there is an established clergy, up- 

 held by what is called the state, and which word means, 

 in England, the Boroughmongers. 



438. Away, then, my friends, with all cant about the 

 church, and the church being in danger. If the church, 

 that is to say, the tithes, were completely abolished ; if 

 they, and all the immense property of the church, were 

 taken and applied to public use, there would not be a 

 sermon or a prayer the less. Not only the Bible but 

 the very Prayer-book is in use here as much as in Eng- 

 land, and, I believe, a great deal more. Why give the 

 fire miUiotis a year then, to Parsons and their wives and 



