GOVERNMENT, LAWS, 



of a tax. The taxes or duties, on goods imported, yield a great 

 sum of money ; and, owing to the persons employed in the 

 collection being appointed for their integrity and ability, and not 

 on account of their connection with any set of bribing and corrupt 

 Boroughmongers, the whole of the money thus collected is fairly 

 applied to the public use, and is amply sufficient for all the pur 

 poses of government. The army, if it can be so called, costs but 

 a mere trifle. It consists of a few men, who are absolutely 

 necessary to keep forts from crumbling down, and guns from 

 rotting with rust. The navy is an object of care, and its support 

 and increase a cause of considerable expence. But the govern 

 ment, relying on the good sense and valour of a people, who must 

 hate or disregard themselves before they can hate or disregard 

 that which so manifestly promotes their own happiness, has no 

 need to expend much on any species of warlike preparations. 

 The government could not stand a week, if it were hated by the 

 people ; nor, indeed, ought it to stand an hour. It has the hearts 

 of the people with it, and, therefore, it need expend nothing in 

 blood-money, or in secret services of any kind. . Hence the cheap 

 ness of this government ; hence the small amount of the taxes ; 

 hence the ease and happiness of the People. 



425. Great as the distance between you and me is, my old 

 neighbours, I very often think of you ; and especially when I 

 buy salt, which our neighbour Warner used to sell us for igs. a 

 bushel, and which I buy here for 2s. 6d. This salt is made, you 

 know, down somewhere by Hambel. This very salt ; when 

 brought here from England, has all the charges of freight, in 

 surance, wharfage, storage, to pay. It pays besides, one third of 

 its value in duty to the American Government before it be landed 

 here. Then, you will observe, there is the profit of the American 

 Salt Merchant, and then that of the shop-keeper who sells me the 

 salt. And, after all this, I buy that very Hampshire salt for as. 6d. 

 a bushel, English measure. What a government, then, must 

 that of the Boroughmongers be ! The salt is a gift of God. It 

 is thrown on the shore. And yet, these tyrants will not suffer 

 us to use it, until we have paid them 155. a bushel for liberty to use 

 it. They will not suffer us to use the salt, which God has sent 

 us, until we have given them 155. a bushel for them to bestow on 

 themselves, on their families and dependents, in the payment 

 of the interest of the Debt, which they have contracted, and in 

 paying those, whom they hire to shoot at us. Yes ; England is a 

 fine country ; it is a glorious country ; it contains an ingenious, 

 industrious, a brave and warm-hearted people ; but, it is now 

 disgraced and enslaved : it is trodden down by these tyrants ; 

 and we must free it. We cannot, and we will not die their slaves. 



426. Salt is not the only one of the English articles that we buy 

 cheaper here than in England. Glass, for instance, we buy for 

 half the price that you buy it. The reason is, that you are com 

 pelled to pay a heavy tax, which is not paid by us for that same 



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