Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/650

638 conquests. The conquest is made, their leaders are enriched, and the soldiers live in poverty and die in hospitals. And so the people of England have been led to make laws in favour of parties of interest, and to experience the fate of soldiers.

Mr. Adams considers the existing English government, not as a confederation of parties of interest, but as a kind of national confederation, inclosing every individual within its pale, marshalled into three orders. But having exhibited it in a theory to which he allows perfection, he goes over the world in search of its practical existence, exclaiming, "lo it is not here, lo it is not there, but it would have appeared both here and there, had the balances been properly adjusted." To me this government seems to consist of a confederation of parties of interest, excluding the majority of the nation. Such as the church of England, the paper stock party, the East India company, the military party, the pensioned and sinecure party, and the ins and outs, once called whigs and tories; each struggling for self interest and self government, but all, creeping forth like caterpillars from the legal nests in which they have been hatched, to feed upon the fruits of the nation. Most of these combinations are republicks, convinced that they are their own best friends, whilst they prescribe monarchy to nations, pretending that national association is its own enemy. The last doctrine is preached to transfer to themselves the property of others. But they prefer republican principles to secure it.

The form of the English parliament was originally fashioned by feudal principles; to give money to the king was its chief duty; and he could garble election to effect his ends. The modes by which its pristine end was effected. are changed, but the end is the same. The king has found rotten borough and septennial representation, with a close union between the crown and the herd of parties of interest, a better system for raising money upon the nation, than even his feudal privilege or power of bestowing or