Were our nation, sir, like some of the inland kingdoms of the continent,
or the barbarous empire of Japan, without commerce, without alliances,
without taxes, and without competition with other nations; did we depend
only on the product of our own soil to support us, and the strength of
our own arms to defend us, without any intercourse with distant empire,
or any solicitude about foreign affairs, were the same measures
uniformly pursued, the government supported by the same revenues, and
administered with the same views, it might not be impracticable to
examine the conduct of affairs, both foreign and domestick, for twenty
years; because every year would afford only a transcript of the accounts
of the last.
But how different is the state of Britain, a nation whose traffick is
extended over the earth, whose revenues are every year different, or
differently applied, which is daily engaging in new treaties of
alliance, or forming new regulations of trade with almost every nation,
however distant, which has undertaken the arduous and intricate
employments of superintending the interests of all foreign empires, and
maintaining the equipoise of the French powers, which receives
ambassadors from all the neighbouring princes, and extends its regard to
the limits of the world.
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