Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/42

32 discern; lest some ancient sage should rise from his grave, and answer, "You moderns are duped by arts more obviously fraudulent, than those which deceived us. The agency of the Gods was less discernable, than the effects of paper and patronage. We could not see, that the temporal and eternal pains and pleasures, threatened and promised by our aristocracy, could not be inflicted or bestowed by it: you see throughout Europe the effects of your aristocracy. Without your light, oracles were necessary to deceive us ; with the help of printing, and two detections, you are deceived by aristocracy in a third form, although it pretends neither to the divinity nor heroism claimed by its two first forms. And under these disadvantages, the impositions of our aristocracy were restrained within narrower bounds than those of yours. Did any aristocracy of the first age, extend its annual spoliation from one to thirty -five millions of pounds sterling, in less than a century ?" Whenever one fraud is detected, ambition and avarice have hitherto invented another. The aristocracy of the second age, being weakened in England, by the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, Henry the seventh seized the opportunity of breaking its power. The four succeeding kings, (excluding Edward) uncontrolled by the remaining aristocracy, though more warlike and wealthy than the present; or by the degree of knowledge, virtue and wealth among the people; were so completely despotic, as to be even able to modify religion, according to the suggestions of their amours, their bigotry, or their minions. The barons were conquered, and knowledge, virtue and wealth, had not been sufficiently dispersed to create the sovereignty in public opinion. So that during these four reigns, society remained in an anomalous state, between the suppression of an aristocracy, and the acquisition of knowledge, virtue and wealth by the people, from printing and commerce. Charles the first lost his life, because he either did not mark the progress of this acquisition, or had not liberality enough